From left to right: Deborah Brown, Anthony Ashworth-Steen, Palestinian business student Mahhoud and Dr. Yosef Mendelsohn at the Shaked checkpoint.
Involved in informal education in British Jewish communities and with British youth in Israel, Deborah Brown and Anthony Ashworth-Steen have visited Givat Haviva on numerous occasions either as tour participants or tour leaders – but had never had the opportunity to visit the Dotan Valley in the northern section of the West Bank.
The two former members of the Habonim-Dror movement in the UK were recently in Israel in order to coordinate activities for British gap-year students in the Galilee and with a few days for themselves at the end of the seminar before returning to London, visited International Department staff member Lydia Aisenberg at her kibbutz.
Anthony, who is originally from Glasgow and Deborah, formerly from Manchester, were invited to join Lydia for a tour of the Wadi Ara, Emek Dotan and Shaked settlement bloc areas together with Dr. Yosef Mendelsohn, a doctor and university lecturer visiting from Chicago and the brother of Intensive Arabic Semester studies program educator, Dr. David Mendelsohn.
The first stop along the way was the town of Harish – one of the Seven Stars of Sharon created in the late 1980s. A vantage point allowed the trio to look across the State of Israel and the Mediterranean and a few paces later, to be standing over a magnificent view of the former border between Israel and the then Jordanian annexed Dotan Valley in the West Bank – as well as see the security fence wending its way between the undulating hills and mountain range in the near distance.
A stop at the charcoal making ‘business’ of a number of families from Yabed allowed through a checkpoint daily in order to tend their burning stacks of wood and then on to East Barta’a where in recent times a welcoming archway has been constructed.
Left: Standing in front of where Palestinian areas making charcoal in the Dotan Valley and right: the new archway entrance to East Barta’a under the Palestinian Authority, a designated post-Oslo Area B.
Standing on the Green Line in the valley between West and East Barta’a
In the village of Barta’a, Anthony, Deborah and Yosef met with Palestinian businessman and perfume maker Allam Abu Abead and chatted to other locals in the vicinity.
“I did a similar tour this time last year and really wanted to do it again in order to have a clearer picture – and I see I am going to need some more explaining in order to truly understand all of this,” Yosef told Lydia Aisenberg at the end of the tour.
In an email from the UK upon returning home, Deborah set out her questions – after which apologizing for having so many but that they had been “filled with enthusiasm and many more questions. We have been collating all of the information and hoping to begin to research the topics we touched on,” she wrote.
That is just fine with us and we look forward to the next opportunity to meet, discuss and go out and hear directly from more Jewish and Arab people whose daily lives are so intertwined in the region.
Photos & Text: Lydia Aisenberg
September, 2010
