ROOTS IN THE HOLY LAND JUDEA PEARL GEORGE BISHARAT 5 16 2008
Roots in the Holy Land
Judea Pearl recounts his family’s emigration from Poland to Palestine in 1924 to rebuild an ancient city. George E. Bisharat tells of his Palestinian grandfather’s hospitality before his West Jerusalem home was expropriated by Israel in 1948.
Los Angeles Times. May 16, 2008
Judea Pearl: What Israel means to me
I was born in Tel Aviv in 1936 and, quite naturally, my feelings toward Israel are suffused with the love, pride, memories, music and aromas that nourish and sustain all natives of any country. As the years pass, I discover that these same feelings toward
Israel are echoed by people everywhere, including many who have never set foot in that country. My family's love affair with Israel began in 1924, when my grandfather, a textile merchant and devout Hasidic Jew from the town of Ostrowietz, Poland, decided to realize his life dream and emigrate to the land of the Bible.
Family lore has it that my grandfather was assaulted one day by a Polish peasant wielding an iron bar and shouting, "Dirty Jew!" My grandfather crawled home, wiped his blood and announced to his wife and four children, "Start packing; we are going home!" In the weeks that followed, he sold all his possessions and, along with 25 other families, bought a piece of sandy land about four miles northeast of Jaffa. That land was near an Arab village called Ibn Abrak, which was described by the newspaper Haaretz in July 1924 as
"a few mud-walled huts surrounded by a few scattered trees."
The Arab real estate broker in Jaffa probably had no idea why a group of seemingly educated Jews, some with business experience, would pay so dearly for a piece of arid land situated far from any water source, which even the hardy residents of Ibn Abrak found to be uninhabitable. But the 26 Hasidic families knew exactly what they were buying. Ibn Abrak was the site of the ancient city of Bnai Brak, well known in the biblical and rabbinic days, the town where the Mishnaic scholar Rabbi Akiva made
Judea Pearl recounts his family’s emigration from Poland to Palestine in 1924 to rebuild an ancient city. George E. Bisharat tells of his Palestinian grandfather’s hospitality before his West Jerusalem home was expropriated by Israel in 1948.
Los Angeles Times. May 16, 2008
Judea Pearl: What Israel means to me
I was born in Tel Aviv in 1936 and, quite naturally, my feelings toward Israel are suffused with the love, pride, memories, music and aromas that nourish and sustain all natives of any country. As the years pass, I discover that these same feelings toward
Israel are echoed by people everywhere, including many who have never set foot in that country. My family's love affair with Israel began in 1924, when my grandfather, a textile merchant and devout Hasidic Jew from the town of Ostrowietz, Poland, decided to realize his life dream and emigrate to the land of the Bible.
Family lore has it that my grandfather was assaulted one day by a Polish peasant wielding an iron bar and shouting, "Dirty Jew!" My grandfather crawled home, wiped his blood and announced to his wife and four children, "Start packing; we are going home!" In the weeks that followed, he sold all his possessions and, along with 25 other families, bought a piece of sandy land about four miles northeast of Jaffa. That land was near an Arab village called Ibn Abrak, which was described by the newspaper Haaretz in July 1924 as
"a few mud-walled huts surrounded by a few scattered trees."
The Arab real estate broker in Jaffa probably had no idea why a group of seemingly educated Jews, some with business experience, would pay so dearly for a piece of arid land situated far from any water source, which even the hardy residents of Ibn Abrak found to be uninhabitable. But the 26 Hasidic families knew exactly what they were buying. Ibn Abrak was the site of the ancient city of Bnai Brak, well known in the biblical and rabbinic days, the town where the Mishnaic scholar Rabbi Akiva made