A Quarter in Half Time: Arab Souls, Jewish Eyes

By David Rabeeya

A Quarter in Half Time:
Arab Soul, Jewish Eyes

This book is a triology which includes a novel, poetry and essays written
by an Arab-Jew (Sephardic). The novel specifically addresses the cultural and
physological conflicts of a teenaged Arab-Jew in an alienated
Ashkenazic-European Israeli environment. The poetry section includes three
parts: the Zionist Movement in Israel, love and universal themes. This
section, written with experience and the insight that comes with maturity,
emphasizes the deep-rooted birth culture that exists in each individual. The
third section is a potpourri of material for both enjoyment and intellectual
stimulation.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 11, 2001
• ISBN: 9781477179109

David Rabeeya

David Rabeeya was born in Baghdad, Iraq, in 1938 of Jewish parents. He immigrated to Israel at 14 and received his BA and MA degrees there. He received his Ph.D. in Arabic from Dropsie University in Pennsylvania. The author of 21 books, he centers his writings on the Jewish and Arab cultures and conflicts in the Middle East. He has taught for 44 years both in Israel and America. He also lectures extensively on Islam, Judaism, the Arab-Jewish conflict and the history of Jews in Arab lands. Dr. Rabeeya has taught Hebrew and Biblical text for 30 years at Bryn Mawr College. In 1997 he was ordained a rabbi.

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Copyright © 2001 by David Rabeeya.

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Contents

Part I:

Lost And Found: A Journey Through The Abyss

Acknowledgement

Part One

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Part Two

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Part Three

Chapter I

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Part II:

Focal Points

Acknowledgement

Introduction

I. Exile In Zion

In Zionist Tents

Baal’s Bordellos

Real Illusions

Declaration Of An Ashkenazic Teacher

The Sephardic Jew: Then And Now

Sephardi In Ashkenaz

My Longest Journey

My Daring

Palestine’s Final Days

2. Love! Oh Love!

Arlene

I Longed For Her

In The Spring Of My Life

She Asked Me

She Revitalized Me

Diana

To My Dream

Isabelle

3. Gulliver And Me

Life And Then Again Reality

Two Lives

Moment Laden Seconds

A Moment And Eternity

My Spirit

The Reader Of Poetry In Modern Times

Existence In The Twenty-First Century

American Woman

Bedouin Past And Present

Part III:

Articles Of Faith

Acknowledgement

II. Universal Horizon

III. Letters To The Editor

This trilogy begins with the story of Salman, an Arab-Jewish boy expelled from his homeland, crushed at every turn by his new alien culture, and who ultimately redeems his humanity. The second book contains selected poems about cultural clashes, love, and the human experience. The third book contains articles focusing on the Middle East, Jewish traditions and reflections on the human circumstance.

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Part I:

Lost and Found: A Journey Through the Abyss

A Novel

Dr. David Rabeeya

Dedicated to my dear daughter Naomi, the joy of my life, who is proud of both her Sephardic and Ashkenazic traditions. I am confident that she will respect her father’s experience and culture and convey the human message to future generations.

Also dedicated to Arlene, with love, respect and appreciation. Having both lived in different religions and cultural milieus, we both discovered the common humanity in all people.

Acknowledgement

I wish to thank my dear friend Arlene Shenkus for her invaluable assistance in preparing this novel for publication. Her inspiration, support, suggestions, and technical expertise enabled me to complete this literary work. I also want to thank Oliva Cardona for her continued support, for preparing the manuscript, and for designing the cover. Finally, I wish to thank, from the bottom of my heart, my wonderful daughter Naomi Abigail for giving my life meaning and continuity as I emerged through the abyss.

PART ONE

Chapter One

He thought of China as a vast territory populated with pinheads who moved cautiously and with extreme delicacy. Incas, in his imagination, lived in tiny Latin squares. And Babylonia? In Baghdad, he had learned that Babylonia was only a field of ruins at the edge of the Euphrates. Babylonia, the Cradle of Civilization, as the historians call it, lay approximately thirty-five kilometers south of Baghdad. Salman Azuri, a Jewish child from Baghdad, had seen—more than once—the hakham (his teacher), confused and at the same time mangling the Hebrew language roots in Genesis. As we all know, in midrashic (exposition) terms anything goes. At various times, Baghdad has been called names like Mesopotamia, Aran-nahary-im, Bab-ile, Bab-ilani, Bbil-din-turki, Aki, and Shunaki, and all of these names were carved in clay and mortar. In the visions of Salman’s youth, Baghdad was all of these towns simultaneously.

Salman Azuri learned from his hakham, Lewy Dan-Gur, that Babru is Iran and that in Iran people speak Farsi. Farsi consists, according to him, of scribbles in the Arabic script. It is impossible to read and impossible to understand. The word Indo-European did not mean anything to Salman, even though the hakham spoke it with great reverence. Salman’s father, Abdallah, and mother, Tefahah, told him that the Garden of Eden could be reached simply by traveling a short distance from his home in Quanbar-Ali. Quanbar-Ali? It was a Jewish neighborhood in the Baghdad of 1948, near the renowned El-Rashid Street, named after Harun-El-Rashid who was a caliph in the Abassid land, Iraq, in Muslim history. The Garden of Eden? Certainly! Just take the bus South from downtown Baghdad. Without a doubt the famous garden would be waiting there.

Salman was fearful and fascinated by the idea of the biblical scene in the suburbs of Baghdad. Was it just another oriental legend? Did the rivers Gihon and Pishon from Genesis really flow there? Did the Tigris and Euphrates irrigate all corners of the Garden? Salman decided that the biblical picture had remained frozen there: the serpent and the fruit, the trees of the jungle, the magnitude of the Almighty, which appeared like a shimmering moon set in the heart of heaven, shining on every spot.

Egyptian documents from the Eighteenth Dynasty already mentioned Babylonia, which they called Barbar, hand-in-hand with Asshur. Asshur and Syria? Past and present. Is it not Syria that now in 1948 sends an army to Palestine to liberate the land from the Zionists?

In 1948, because of Iraqi censorship, Abdallah began to use Jeremiah’s code word Sheshah instead of the actual name Bavel. Abdallah knew most of the Scriptures from memory. Shehah is Babylonia and Babylonia is Baghdad, or something close to it. When the Babylonians exiled the Jews in 586 BCE, a prophet by the name of Jeremiah lived with them. In Jeremiah 25:26 and 451:41 a place called Sheshah is mentioned. Abdalla, familiar with the Jewish tradition, recognized that he needed only to reverse the letters of the Hebrew alphabet in order to acknowledge the parallel between aleph and tav, bet and shin, khaf and lamed. Sheshah was Bavel, Babylonia was Baghdad. In his letters to his brother in Teheran, Salman’s father hinted with biblical allusions at troubles that befell the sons of the Ever (Hebrews) in Sheshah and the difficulties they had in remaining sheshahites and how the war in the Land of the Kodesh (holiness) worked hardship on the children of Moses. This naïve attitude that biblical references did not talk to the Iraqi censor was probably the foundation of Abdallah’s achievements and failures in life. Who knows? Our sages have always said it’s enough for the wise to pick up everything from one hint, while donkeys need much kicking.

Like his father, Salman assumed that he was one of the descendants of the Jewish exiles and that the Muslims were the descendants of Ishmael, the conqueror. The Christians, in his opinion, were the offspring of the Greek oppressor Antiochus Epihanes, and somehow everything historical was settled in an orderly fashion in Salman’s mind.

Tefahah, during her visit to the Baghdadi Museum of Archaeology, noticed the cuneiform script. It enchanted her. She decided that this was the form of the alphabet at the time of Moses, our prophet, may he rest in peace.

Salman was like a swaying pendulum in a Jewish historical clock. He could not control the time. He was just a pendulum, which is only a tool moved by the central mechanism of a ticking clock. Thousands of years ago, even before Abraham our father, the Sumerians were writing documents concerning their temples and their merchandise. Thousands of years ago, even before Jacob, the Akkadians were signing covenants in both the holy and secular realms. They already had a sophisticated culture with literature and museums, scribes and structured administration, priests, astrologers and astronomers—and all of this before the era of Isaac! Wow! Ya-Allah!!!

Abdallah had, in his lifetime, witnessed three regimes in Iraq. The Ottoman-Turks had been there for hundreds of years with their complicated bureaucracy. The British came to proclaim, ‘Holy, Holy, Holy’ to their Empire, and Iraqi-Arabs were in control now. Abdallah read ancient history without realizing its length, width or depth. He was a busy man. First came the Greeks who saw the wanderers of ancient Iraq, and they wrote about them. Then came the famous Herodotus who wrote about Iraq as a country of culture and civilization call Asshur in his tongue. It was with good reason that Salman’s mother had once told him that the ancient Greeks considered Babylonia one of the Seven Wonders of the World. Is it possible, wondered Salman, that the Torah was not included among the Seven Wonders? How was it possible, Salman asked himself, that they weren’t so impressed by the Holy Book? Was it possible that the rich, fruitful Babylonia with its idols and gods, constituted the core of civilization, while Mt. Sinai was only a neglected corner in an isolated desert? Why was it that the Deodorus Sekolus, Astarbon, and Kartyous Ropos with their Greek and Latin background continued to sing songs of praise to pagan Babylonia? Salman’s father, although only a bourgeois in the Iraqi economy of the nineteen forties, was a proud Jew. Like the great majority of the Sephardim (Arab-Jews), he considered monotheism to be the only wonder on earth.

Gory stories and nightmares pertaining to the slaughter of Jews in the streets of Baghdad in 1941 (this massacre is called Farhud in Turkish) were put aside in one of the many hidden corners of the Iraqi mind. Jews and Arabs? A complicated, time-consuming topic, Salman reflected. One can find anything in this subject: blood and love, war and peace, exploitations and friendship, cooperation and competition, myth and reality, eschatology and genesis, we and they, they and we, deep feelings, frustrations and anger. No matter which way you turn the coin it always has two sides. Maybe three.

Jewish Salman was 10 years old when he first stood before the ruins of Babylonia. It was during a class trip under the auspices of the Alliance Français (K.Y.H.—Kol Yisrael Haverim). Salman’s history teacher lectured at the ruins. As a matter of fact, Monsieur Moshi was also a teacher of Bible, mathematics and French, a jack-of-all-trades in education! This is the way it is.

Boys! (No girls in the class). The ruins of Babylonia –See them! Look at them! Observe them! They are widespread and scattered! Look at the giant triangle. Nine square kilometers. Can you believe it? This was a city. This was the Mother of mankind. Look at the Euphrates to the west. This is Tel-al-Qaser. This is Tel-Amran-ibn-Ali. Here is the al-Sahen (the Court). Here is the center of the site. Wonderful, isn’t it? Here men, women, elders and children, like you and me lived and prospered. Pay attention! Notice this remnant of the wall. Here and there you can see clear signs of burning.

Interesting, isn’t it, how they connected all quarters of the city? Simple you say? Not so simple and not so easy to do. They constructed a bridge more than one hundred meters in length. How, you ask? So let me tell you. They linked boat to boat, boat to boat, boat to boat. Any questions, boys? Any questions?

When do we eat? Can we eat the sandwiches? I am tired and thirsty? Can we go home now? asked Salman.

M. Moshi was a master of French mannerisms, dapper and delicate, with a flower in the lapel of his brown coat. He was short, elegant, and brown skinned. He ignored Salman’s questions, looked… and continued…In modern times the Germans were in Tel-Babel. The fortified palace of Nebuchadnezzar II who is buried here. Here was the Gate of Ishtar. Look at the roaring lion carved into the stone. Splendid, isn’t it? Absorb the meaning of this mythological image, half bull and half human. Here is a fascinating picture of the sun, one of their gods. Here are more lions carved into granite and basalt. How grand is the picture of the poisoned serpent! Here, before your very eyes, you see the remains of bricks, which were baked in red-hot ovens. Indeed, it is highly likely that, right here, stood the Tower of Babel from the Holy Torah. Here is the image of Marduk, the god. Here is the river again and again. Here is the Gate of EL. Salman! Can you tell us what the Torah says about this huge Tower of Babel?

Salman giggled and joked around with his classmates. Ignoring M. Moshi’s question altogether, he casually replied, Oh my teacher, why do we have to study about things that have already happened. Tomorrow we have an exam in algebra, don’t we? So, Allah, may he be blessed, confused and mingled their tongues. So we have seventy languages, so what? Felix needs to go to the bathroom!

M. Moshi murmured something in the Arabic dialect of the Baghdadi Jews, scolding Salman, For shame! You should be ashamed of yourself! One who does not study the past will be annihilated by the present. The future belongs to those who study the past. His face was red.

M. Moshi continued, Now, back to Babylonia. What did we study in class about Hammurabi? The famous laws of Hammurabi? God forbid a thousand times! Woe to the Jew who claims that the Holy Torah was influenced by the laws of foreign kings! God is our king! Even the palaces of the city of Mari do not belong in our Holy Writings. We, the Jews, are angry and upset at Sennacherib, the king who took us into exile, as did Sargon and Asarhadon! No! We are not proud of these ruins. Even Alexander of Macedonia was not western at all, he was Macedonian, an Oriental. Remember this for the future! It is understood that only Cyrus, may he rest in peace, loved our nation, Israel. Can you imagine, children, that a non-Jew could be so good to the Jews! It is almost impossible to believe! But let me conclude by saying that our God is the king of the king of kings, the king of all kings. But Cyrus is also all right.

Slightly embarrassed, M. Moshi stood for a short moment because he had found himself praising with eloquent language a man who had died thousands of years ago. But his embarrassment was quickly swallowed in the ruins.

"Imagine this matter for yourselves, children. Only yesterday! Only in the twelfth–century Jews stood here by the ruins of Nebuhadnezzar’s palace. Rabbi Benjamin Toledo was as stunned and astonished by the sight as we are, children! He wrote about his visit with prophetic style. Almost! God Almighty! How numerous are your deeds O Lord!!!

One day later, the class read in Genesis again, about the Tower of Babel. M. Moshi asked with profound seriousness, What do I learn from the story of this cursed tower?

The main point of the story, my teacher, is how the human race was scattered to the Four Corners of the world, according to races, nations and languages. This is the reason, my teacher, that today we have Muslims, Jews and Christians. This is the way I understand it. It is a story about a wicked generation and that’s about it. Oh yes! The rest is only interpretation, Salman volunteered.

And how do we explain that the Jewish tradition did not stress the physical tower? asked M. Moshi.

Because we’re not interested in the temple of the pagan Marduk. All we Jews care is that the tower is related to the flood. The Torah wants to say that Allah is able and willing to destroy the arrogance of man, Felix answered.

M. Moshi went on with his investigation and clarification.

Marduk overcame Tiamat. So what? Babylonia, in my opinion, a city of idol worshippers, just collapsed, and this is the message. The Babylonians, who worshipped stars and planets, became fine dust, like the dust of the tower after its disintegration. So what is the lesson?

"Good thought, Rahamim. Now, do you remember Abraham, our forefather, with the ax in his hand? Is it possible that Abraham destroyed the tower because God commanded him to do it? This is what we call culture, children. This is the spirit of Judaism. In the midst of pagan Babylonia and Canaan, the Jews said it was impossible to live without God! It was impossible without rules, laws and organizations. It was impossible! It was impossible without free will and free choice. It was impossible without Halakha (Jewish law). Hakham-Bashi Dangur, may he be blessed and glorified, just yesterday told me that every Jew has to remember two concepts, the concept of man and the concept of the universe and they are related, you see. Be proud to be a