Between a Wall and a Hard Place / August 17, 2015 by Sophie Schor

We were walking in the corridors of no-man’s land in the Northern corner of Jerusalem municipality at the edge where the Neve Ya'akov settlement ends and the grey concrete wall that separates Jerusalem from where the West Bank begins. Our professor pointed towards a flat concrete court that was overgrown with brush and prickly plants and mentioned, “Arabs and Jews used to play football there. But that was before they built the wall…”

We were standing in the corner of Neve Ya’akov, a neighborhood that is often classified as just a suburb of Jerusalem, which lies across the green line and hugs the curve of the separation barrier. The distinguishing characteristic between the houses on the left and the houses on the right were striking. One side was clearly Jewish, Jerusalem stones turned yellow with time, white water-boilers speckling the rooftops. The apartments on the right were Arab, bright new stories built up to house more families, black water-boilers dotted their roofs.

The Old City / August 12, 2015 by Sophie Schor

Even after over a year of living here, I find myself wandering around the Old City of Jerusalem with eyes wide open, absorbing all the sites and sounds and smells of this contested and beating heart of Jerusalem. My feet find their way over the familiar stones and roads, but with the curiosity and knowledge that there will always be corners of this walled-in area that I'll never see and never know.

I've designed a tour of the Old City for the friends who come visit; it is mainly organized around food and my favorite corners.

The illusion of insecurity? Or the delusion of security? / July 20, 2015 by Sophie Schor

"It's fine until it's not fine." This sentence has been echoing in my head for a long time now. Especially when it comes to walking through neighborhoods I'm "not supposed" to be in, or villages I'm "not supposed" to see, or people I'm "not supposed" to meet.

Riding home on the bus last week, our entire way was detoured as the road was blocked. Stones had been thrown at the light rail station by Palestinians in the neighborhood Shuafat, police were looking for the people who had done it. But that moment of seeing the red tape across the lampposts and the flashing lights, my heart was in my throat wondering what had happened. How bad? To whom?

Walls / July 13, 2015 by Sophie Schor

Welcome back to Israel and Palestine, where the coffee is strong and the conflict is never ending.

Police sitting in the shade of their umbrella overlooking Isawiyya.

April 28, 2015

Yesterday, an 18 year old was shot in the stomach by the IDF in Jenin. He died this morning due to complications. He is the third Palestinian to be killed by Israeli forces in recent days; a 17 year old was killed in East Jerusalem on Saturday for allegedly running at Israeli police "wielding a knife," at a checkpoint, and another Palestinian man was shot dead in Hebron on Sunday after he tried stabbing an Israeli soldier.

A-Tur, a Palestinian neighborhood of East Jerusalem, and the home of the 17 year old who was killed at the checkpoint, was put under curfew. There have been sporadic clashes there since the shooting on Saturday, his funeral was last night.

Last night 2 more people were arrested in Isawiyya, the Palestinian neighborhood of East Jerusalem that sits opposite my classrooms at university. The entire place was barricaded with concrete blocks. This morning as I walked to class I noticed the police had not only roped off the area at the top of the hill, but they had propped up an umbrella to sit under to stay cool.

Temperatures are also hitting a crazy and sudden high—we went from pleasant spring directly into summer with no easing into it. Tomorrow is supposed to be over 90 degrees (30C)—a hamsin, desert heat storm, is landing on our doorstep.

I can’t help but remember a conversation I had with my roommate. It was November, and it was raining in Jerusalem. It was the first rain of the season; the streets were flooding and it was torrential downpour for days. I had never seen that much constant rain before.

October and November had been particularly tense times in Jerusalem. There were almost daily outbursts in the Old City over policies to limit access to al-Aqsa mosque. There were several intentional accidents where people were run over and killed by cars. There were reports of random stabbings at train stations and bus stops. There was a brutal attack on a synagogue. The city was rippling with tension.

My roommate and I were on our way to university and walking through the puddles, pretending as if the umbrella we had was actually preventing water from falling on our heads.

“I like it when it rains,” she remarked off-handedly. “The attacks stop.”

And stop they did—at least in our comfortable disillusionment in the Jewish side of Western Jerusalem. Things quieted down, people were lulled again into a false sense of calm.

Here comes the warm weather again, and clashes and protests against the occupation are rising to the surface again. I can’t help but think about a scientific study I heard of that showed the relationship between high temperatures and violence. Solomon Hsiang published a resounding study in 2013 that analyzed the relation between hot weather and conflict. “For every standard deviation of change,” explains The Scientist magazine, “levels of interpersonal violence, such as domestic violence or rape, rise by some 4 percent, while the frequency of intergroup conflict, from riots to civil wars, rise by 14 percent.” The hotter it is, the more likely violence is.

And here we are. In the middle of a hamsin. The beginning of summer breaking out. I can’t help but hold my breath.

There are two important demonstrations happening tomorrow, organized by the activists of Free Jerusalem including a protest against the collective punishment in A-Tur. They will meet at 8:30 at the entrance to Mt. Scopus Campus of Hebrew University. http://goo.gl/B7CgmV

And there is another march to show solidarity with Gaza youth against the siege, tomorrow at 7:30 p.m. in front of the Prime Minister's house. http://goo.gl/eVJPLs

Things are heating up here.

*See: Hsiang, Solomon M., Marshall Burke, and Edward, Miguel. 2013. "Quantifying the Influence of Climate on Human Conflict." Science, 10.1126/science.1235367.

http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/36822/title/Climate-Change-and-Violence/