Emanuel Synagogue - Tell June 2018 5778

leading down to the sea. Naomi
could even visualize the goat that
Sadeh had kept tethered to a tree in
defiance of then new Israeli laws.
His room was just as he had left it in
1952 – a modest bed and wooden
desk, books and photographs,
many of him in action against
the Egyptians, a collection of
military maps and guns, swords
and daggers amassed during his
military exploits – all as you would
expect of one of the founders
of the Israel Defense Forces.
That had been a wonderful
afternoon, Naomi thought,
remembering how they had
earlier visited Tamar, lingering
over tea and luxuriating in
the stunning surrounds.
Tamar had been most hospitable,
and the large garden around her
Arab limestone villa overlooking the
azure sea far below was exquisite,
the hilly lawn carpeted with the
purple and yellow wildflowers so
typical of the Mediterranean coast.
Shaded by pine trees and cooled
by sea breezes, the stone slabs and
fountains taken, as Naomi noted,
“from the recent excavations
in Ashkelon”, had glistened in
the sunny Friday stillness.
“A most ideal place to live,” she
would later pronounce. Indeed,
situated south of Old Jaffa, Ajami
– the neighborhood where Tamar
resided – had been founded as
a small, wealthy, upper middleclass
residential settlement by
Maronite Christians in the late
19th century under Ottoman rule.
Since the establishment of the Israeli
State, however, the roughly 4000
Arabs who had remained in and
around Jaffa were now concentrated
in Ajami, where many buildings
had been demolished. Meanwhile,
Tamar’s family had been among the
thousands who had settled in homes
vacated by the 70,000 or so Arabs
who had fled or been displaced.
Ultimately, Ajami would
rapidly deteriorate to become a
cramped and dilapidated home
to the destitute, both Jewish
and Arabic … facts that Sabraturned-outsider
Naomi seemed
blissfully unaware of during her
visit on that day in 1957.
This story is from ‘Unlocking the
Past: Stories from My Mother’s
Diary’ – a new book by Shira
Sebban. It is available on Amazon
as an e-book or as a paperback
from the publisher’s online
Australian store: mazopub.com
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