Guest post from my daughter 2: The Jerusalem syndrome and other weird encounters

I was out in the Old City today selling photographs. I made myself a little vending tray...ok, I made it out of various items, but it looks surprisingly cool and, um, real? The whole place is full of tourists this time of year, and I only went out for an hour of lunch break.

Wandering round, the Christian tourists were the most generous (maybe I should go and sell things at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre - "Excuse me sister, would you like this photograph of a byzantine church, or perhaps a woolly hat to go over that wimple, it is getting cold now...") although I got asked by a random Japanese woman if she could take a photo of me. I obviously look like part of the scenery...

I seem to have a knack for finding/befriending all manner of strange people quite by accident. The Old City of Jerusalem is like an irresistible magnet for the more eccentric of us. I love it.

The other week I met a large bald man with a scraggy beard, New Rocks(those big leather punk boots you find in Camden) and pierced ears,  who calls himself 'Viking'. He was juggling in the main square, and he turned out to be English. His father was a rabbi, so he turned punk as an act of rebellion, did all kinds of strange things and then for some reason ended up going back to Judaism and now lives in Israel.

Amongst other things, he was the head bouncer at a London club, and got to personally kick out Val Kilmer, and call Leonardo Di Caprio a stuck up ****.

A man who looked like him was shot in Tel Aviv, and his room mate identified the body as him. His parents were informed...only to be rung up the next day by him saying "Mum, don't panic...." And then he got to go round to his flat and greet his room-mate with "Cor, you look like you've seen a ghost mate!"

Talking of crazy, the week before last I went round to Rav B's house for Shabbat with B. For those of you not in the know, Rav B is the head of B's yeshiva and has a reputation for being a little crazy.

Most heads of yeshivas tell their boys not to talk to girls (we get given the 'don't talk to boys' talk too), so this is not an entirely routine thing, especially as we were going there together.

Basically, I was coming to be 'approved' of! I know a few of you have been wanting to hear what went on, think that I am insane, and that this is all very funny, and some of you even rang me up when you heard about it  I'm afraid I will have to disappoint you. On Friday night we were there with about 30 others and we were at the other end of the table, so we didn't get to talk to Rav B really.

I also came to 'lunch' the next day (It was a 8am -weird, it was shabbes luch food, kugel, cholent etc but as if it was breakfast) when there were about 50 yeshiva boys, Rav B and a guest rabbi, the guest's wife and me. I felt just a little out of place - and

then, he gave a talk on guess what - the laws concerning the first year of marriage.

The rabbis' wives scarpered downstairs, leaving me the lone female. It was very awkward and yet painfully funny, but yet again he didn't really say much to us.

Much better was going to another of B's rabbis for the third meal where there were only a few of us, and we actually got to talk - mainly on the subject of Poland and Chassidut (a spiritual and emotive branch of Judaism).

At the points when I wasn't in and out of rabbinical houses, I wandered

around the Old City. At this time of year it's very beautiful, but also very full of tourists. I'd had to tell my friend on Friday morning that I wouldn't be able to make it to go to the Medieval Re-enactment Society with her. Apparently they meet every Friday in Jerusalem.

So I stomped around trying to imagine the kind of things they'd do. Crusader style? Would they all just be Saracens, or would they try to do European style jousting and suchlike in front of the Western Wall? The mind boggles.

It was with this in mind that I was looking out over the Kotel (western

wall) plaza, idly watching three rather confused and lost looking Muslim women in burkas trying to wander intp the men's section, then realising and going over to the women's section, only to have several small children see them, scream and run away when a camera crew turned up. This happens fairly often here, and thank goodness I wasn't in the line of shot. I could tell they were English. There's something about English people (real English people, not second generation immigrant types like me) that sticks out a mile, so I told the guy in charge that it was a shame, he'd just missed something interesting, and told him about the women in the burkas.

It turned out he was from Channel Four, and was filming a documentary on the three major world religions - they'd been at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre earlier that day, and so I got in a plug for the archaeological dig and explained all about it, saying it was a shame he couldn't come and see what we were doing, that it was really interesting.

And then it was Rosh Hashana, the new year.

The Jewish New Year is generally a time for deep reflection and also repentance- it is at this time of year that we are judged, and written then sealed for the next year - who will live and who will die, etc etc (Just listen to 'Who By Fire' by Leonard Cohen).

It is also meant to be a happy time because we can repent of our sins etc, and hope for the next year to be a good one. Because of this there is a tradition of eating apple dipped in honey to symbolise a sweet new year. Some families also put honey on their challah. Others put honey on everything, give you sweet foods, leaving you with sticky fingers and a strange notion that you can fly,and that buzzing really

isn't such a bad mode of communication (added to this, my shower wash is made with honey, so I really was covered in the stuff).

I was with my cousins in Shiloh this year, as I was last year. They're a wonderful family and I love going there, and the place itself is stunning.

On Rosh Hashanah, there's a ceremony called Tashlich. Jews traditionally go to a body of water such as the ocean, a stream or a river to pray and throw in breadcrumbs. This symbolizes throwing away one's sins which the fish devour.

Taschlich means we do have to find water to cast crumbs into. This isn't so simple in Israel. Back home in London we'd just wander down to the local brook and meet up with everyone else come to do the same routine.

When in Shiloh, we climb down the mountain, along the valley and up to the local Arab well.

Also staying in Shiloh were two American girls in their first year here. Talking to one, she said:

"So, there a lot of Arab villages around here, right?"

"Pretty much, the whole place is surrounded"

"I wanna go walk to one of them - do you think I can go walk into one of the Arab villages? I wanna, like, talk to them"

(*THINKS*: - about what?! Brotherly love and how you're not a bad American Jew, you're really a good person and you like them - you just think of them as 'interesting', patronising mumble mumble mumble....)

"Hmm, not sure that's such a good idea. Tensions are high, especially

'round here, plus it's the start of Ramadan and Rosh Hashana, this couldn'tbe a worse time"

"I still really wanna go to one, just, y'know?"

Naturally, they were delighted when we went to the Arab well. This year wasn't as scary as last year - there were fewer of the villagers gathered on the hill top, and they didn't shout as much or try to storm down. There were three army vehicles surrounding us as the men danced in circles and a few soldiers sat on the bonnets with binoculars. As we turned to leave, the Americans hung back, obviously wanting to stick around, but then eventually realised that the soldiers weren't exactly going to let them stay – they followed on behind us.

Shiloh is also the site of the Mishkan, the place we had before the first Temple was built. Its ruins are still there, as are many other interesting archaeological remains (Byzantine church stuff with beautiful mosaic, old Roman buildings, etc etc) and so we all went out to it on the afternoon of the second day.

I've been several times so I know all about it now, plus random things about ancient architecture you just pick up if those kind of things interest you. I ended up acting as a tour guide for the American girls, explaining about what the Roman buildings were doing there, then getting on to explaining about the Temple. This meant I had to explain about the Temple Mount now and the mosques, Dome of the Rock etc. They knew nothing about Islam at all. I therefore tried to give them a quick summary, then discovered they knew practically nothing about Judaism either.

"Wait, wait, Abraham, who was his son? Ok, wait, so Joseph was the son of Jacob - who were his brothers? Whoa, he had a lot of brothers, ok, no, you're gonna have to go through the whole family tree for me again"

For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, really, don't feel bad. The shocking thing, was that these girls were here to learn, but they were born into religious families, and had been given very expensive private Jewish education at a strictly orthodox Jewish High School on New Jersey. What a waste of money. These are the basic kind of things they teach you when you're about 7 (or probably younger), so I was tour guide and crash course in major world religions, including their own to them.

Please don't take this as American bashing - there was a reason I mostly had American friends last Year…

We are just coming up to Yom Kippur, the 25 hour fast day when we are all 'sealed' as opposed to 'written' for the next year. For all of those who're doing it, fast well and may you be sealed in the book of life.

And as the Editor, I add my wishes for you all to be sealed in the book of life, and sealed also for a happy life, love, peace, harmony, health and prosperity. It is usual for those of us who are observant to ask forgiveness of all those we have upset or offended in any way. I gladly do that. Usually those doing it say-- if I have, it was not intentional. I go with that. But even if it was intentional, I ask your forgiveness too.

Judy

Comments

[David Hirsh]

Don't you think there is something unpleasant and aggressive about going to an Arab village, uninvited, knowing that you weren't welcome, with the protection of three armoured cars and a bunch of soldiers and performing a Jewish ritual that culminates in throwing stuff into somebody else's well?

Why do that? Why not go to Hyarkon and do it there?

Can't you see that this kind of behaviour might well be interpreted as aggressive and triumphalist? Apart from the politics of the situation - it is just plain rude.

[Judy]

David-- try thinking about your comment with the words "Welsh speaking" substituted for "Arab".
There are certainly Welsh nationalists who feel English buyers of cottages in their localities have no rights to be there.

Why should anyone have to be invited to go to any village? Or is it that Jews are only welcome when invited? Does it count as aggressive to be going to a well to perform a religious ritual?

Dropping token amounts of breadcrumbs into a well as part of the ritual is usefully described as "throwing stuff into somebody else's well"? Isn't the well a public water source?

On Rosh Hashana, the distance between Shiloh and Hayarkon would not be walkable.

However, as my daughter was there and I wasn't, I'll invite her to comment.

[David Hirsh]

What kind of a God is it that you believe in that thinks its a terrible crime to jump in your car and drive half an hour to Tel Aviv on Rosh Hashana, yet who thinks its fine to walk into an Arab village - with three armoured cars and a bunch of soldiers?

Why aren't these soldiers at home with their families on Rosh Hashana? Why are they forced to drive their armoured cars on Rosh Hashana? Its because you think that the symbolic humiliation (not to mention the real humiliation) of an Arab village is more important than having a pious, thoughtful and joyful Rosh Hashana.

And its not the same as Wales, is it? Welsh nationalists, if they claim that the English are occupying their land and making their lives miserable are being rather silly. On the other hand, Palestinian nationalists, who claim that the Israelis are occupying their land and making their lives miserable are being anything but silly.

Its true that I don't know if we are talking about an Arab village in the West Bank or in Israel. But in this context it doesn't make a huge difference.

And even Sharon agrees that there is an occupation going on. Surely you're not going to deny that? Surely you're not going to say that Israel should annexe the West Bank? And occupations are not nice. They have to be carried out with violence. Thats why they're called occupations.

Do you think that England is conducting a violent and humiliating occupation of Wales?

[Judy]

I said I would ask my daughter to comment on David's first comments here. It's interesting that the information she wrote for me shows up his prejudiced assumptions about what was going on, namely that the Jews were out to humiliate the Arabs, and that the soldiers were there to help them do it. It's also interesting that, no doubt unconsciously, he buys into the age old anti-semitic stereotype of Jews being out to poison wells.

Readers can make up their own mind about what was going on from the information she supplied. Here it is:

I can see how it can be seen as being aggressive, despite the fact that I know it isn't at all and that the intentions around it are good. I'm sure that's what the Arab villagers think.

However, the fact is, we don't just barge into their village and use the equivalent of the village pump in the middle of the town surrounded by soldiers who keep the Arabs at bay by pointing guns at them.

The well is halfway up the side of valley on a dirt road and the villages are on the hills around - both Jewish and Arab.

It's roughly equidistant between them all, it just happens to be used by the Arabs.

We can't travel somewhere else to do it because we're religious and therefore cannot travel on festivals, which would rather defeat the whole purpose of the ritual itself.

We also do not throw in whole lumps and loaves of bread like a lot of people do in England - what's scattered there is only barely more than the amount of dust that gets blown in over the same time period as the cars drive by (everything around is white from the dust that is kicked up from cars).

The well itself is also not respected by the Arabs who use it, as they also dump their rubbish right next to it, which stinks to high heaven, and thank god they have it lined with concrete of they'd all get sick, which they'd probably blame us for.

Anything we do is interpreted as being aggressive anyway. They don't like us any more for staying in the yishuv (Jewish settlement) itself. The soldiers are there for our protection(it's needed), but even if they weren't there we couldn't help but have soldiers with us because there is a Hesder Yeshiva (Talmudic studies college for serving soldiers) in Shilo so a lot of the guys are in the army in any case.

However, this is hardly an excuse. I do wonder if they drink from the well for several days after we've been there.

Tashlich is the ritual that got Jews persecuted and hunted down for 'poisoning the wells', and it has always been problematic while living amongst non-Jews. This is b'di eved (not ideal, but the best we can do) situation - if we had somewhere to perform tashlich nearer to or in the yishuv we would.

[Judy]

I found David's second set of comments so personally and religiously offensive that I don't feel I want to answer them directly, other than to note the contempt and hatred they show for Judaism and orthodox Jewish observance.

This is indeed ironic from someone who is currently being advertised by Engage as one of the UK's leading fighters against anti-semitism, and a leading spokesman for the Engage organization.

My daughter's response was very uncharacteristic, as she's usually noted for her diplomacy. But clearly, what he said raised some sarcasm-fuelled indignation:

The soldiers are most definitely there because I think that the symbolic humiliation of an Arab village is more important than having a pious, thoughtful and joyful Rosh Hashana. What stupid vicious religious nuts we are.

Of course, all our rituals are really hollow and empty, therefore we only do them to pretend really.

We can sacrifice the more archaic practices and anything else we don't like really in order to do other equally meaningless ones instead.

It makes a very good excuse for making political statements and engaging in the pleasant pasttime of gesture politics.

The problem with being a non religious Jew is it's very easy to forget why the hell anyone does any of it. If you're going to drive to Tel Aviv, why do it to go throw stuff in a bit of water? Why not just relax, watch some TV then go out to a club later? How would you propose that we have a pious, thoughtful and joyous Rosh Hashana? Why not just have a bank holiday instead?

Apologies, but I happen to actually adhere to the rules the religion I associate myself with lays down. It asks us to do ridiculous things like that.

It's not a standard practice, it's what has arisen due to the positioning of the well near Shilo.

Religion also makes people fast for a month solid, make pilgrimage to Mecca, and keep Hallal. I doubt you would be as ready to ask practicing Muslims to transgress their religion, but since you are Jewish you feel totally justified in telling us that in effect we're a load of insensitive triumphalist bastards.

Most of the people in Tel Aviv have never met a 'settler' because they just don't come into contact with them, mainly due to the fact that we have totally different lifestyles and means of prioritising. Israel is deeply split along religious/secular lines, a divide that increases.

In any case, I would consider it extrememly unwise to bring England into the debate as regards occupations, as a symbol or no, without coughing violently over Kashmir, Cyprus, Ireland, and many others including, hmm, Israel.

[David Hirsh]

But you still didn't answer my question. Why is it better to take three armoured cars to an Arab well than to take your own car to Tel Aviv?

It is not the prohibition on driving on Rosh Hashana, is it? Because if it was then one ordinary car would be better than three armoured cars, wouldn't it?

So there must be another reason.

And you say that your belief is that the Arab villagers do understand your ritual as aggressive.

So if this is how your ritual is understood by your neighbours, why are you so keen to perform it? so keen, indeed, that you would rather drive three armoured cars than one ordinary car on Rosh Hashana? Can't you find another way of performing the ritual? One that is not considered aggressive? Everyone else does, don't they?

The truth is that you are asserting your rights as settlers, isn't it? This is not to do with religion but with the public display of religion. And this particular display symbolises your occupation of the land.

And you do feel like occupiers, don't you? It was you that first used the term "Arab village" to describe the place where the well is situated. What is your long term plan for peace? How do you think it might be possible to co-exist with your neighbours?

I wonder if you consider that the people in Tel Aviv who have never met a settler are as antisemitic as you seem to think I am? They, after all, were the ones that insisted that your brothers and sisters from Gaza should be ethnically cleansed, weren't they?

[Linda Grant]

Perhaps next year you might write a a polite letter to the mayor or other head man of the village, explaining the nature of the ritual and naming a day and time at which you would like to come. You might receive a less agressive reception.

While I was reporting on a paratroopers base near Nablus, one of the young soldiers told me he had been on an army intensive Arabic course, and was able to diffuse tensions. He was invited to the house of the mayor, took his shoes off, drank tea with him, they discussed the children throwing stones at cars on the road, which was inviting a more violent response from the settlers. The mayor agreed he would talk to the young boys. They shook hands.

I think it's what's known as treating other people as human beings equal to yourself and with dignity and respect.

[David Hirsh]

"The well is halfway up the side of a valley on a dirt road and the villages are on the hills around - both Jewish and Arab."

"It's roughly equidistant between them all, it just happens to be used by the Arabs."

And I wonder from which *well* do you draw your water in these hot and dusty hills?

Do you really think that in the West Bank anything to do with water "just happens"?

Why are you pretending to be naive? Why not be open about your project of settling the land and struggling over each hilltop and each drop of water? What are you ashamed of? You know what is going on. Everyone else knows what is going on.

So defend it openly instead of taking us for fools.

[Judy]

Linda and David-- I wonder who the "you" is that you think you are addressing? Neither I nor my 19 year old student daughter are settlers. We are both Londoners.
You both seem to be making assumptions which are driven by your own rage, self-righteousness and personal prejudices , which are driven by demonologies about settlers and the occupation, without making any attempt to find out what you are talking about.

[Linda Grant]

In my case I was talking about the 'you' who made the visit to the well. I have spent quite a bit of time among Gaza settlers, have written about them and in no way think they they are demons. However when asked clear, straightforward questions about how there might be peace between the two peoples, I have found no answers.

'If they will stop the terror . . .'

Yes, and if they do stop the terror, then what? What happens next?

'Well, we can live here as their neighbours.'

What country will your neighbours be citizens of?

'Why do they have to have citizenship?'

This is evasion, as evasive as comparing the Palestinians to the Welsh, who vote in British General Elections, are citizens of the same state and hold the same passports.

Do you honestly think they would be pleased when people come and conduct a religious ceremony from another faith, accompanied by the army, without asking permission?

I do know what I'm talking about; I have been there. I have sat for hours in the houses of settlers and listened with sympathy to their worries about their future. They are human. But the Palestinians are human too and deserve to be treated as human beings.

[Judy]

Linda-- I think your agenda prevents you from being able to see anything other than through the lens of your political perspectives and priorities. You seem to think that a people of one faith can justifiably be in situations where they are entitled to have their permission asked when another faith group uses a common facility ... you also assume that the Palestinians concerned were not being treated as human beings etc etc. The fact of your visits, discussions seems to me less relevant than the power these assumptions have in forming your views.

You do not appear to consider the significance of the fact that the soldiers might have been there to prevent the Jews at the well from being shot out of hand. I realise that people like Tom Paulin think that would be a perfectly reasonable response to the visit. Maybe at some level you agree with him.

You may regard the comparison with the situation of the Welsh as an evasion. I personally do not. There are militant Welsh (and Irish) nationalists who are totally unimpressed by nominally equal citizenship and passports, regard the English as occupiers and usurpers, who should be fought by all possible means.

It may be that we do agree on the present lack of easy answers to the situation on the West Bank, or on its wider place in the long-standing Israeli-Palestinian/wider Arab nations conflict. Or perhaps we do not.

[Linda Grant]

"You do not appear to consider the significance of the fact that the soldiers might have been there to prevent the Jews at the well from being shot out of hand."

I am perefectly aware that that is why the soldiers are there.

"I realise that people like Tom Paulin think that would be a perfectly reasonable response to the visit. Maybe at some level you agree with him."

I am going to have to ask you to withdraw this remark and apologise.

[Judy]

Dear Linda

I don't propose to withdraw or apologise for suggesting it could be possible that on some level (including an unconscious one) you could agree with the sentiment that settlers deserve it if they get shot-- in this case for not having asked permission for visiting a well which is a public facility. It is clear that you would not have expected Arab visitors from anywhere to need to ask such permission.

Until I raised the issue of the soldiers being there to protect the Jews from being shot out of hand, your posts seemed to me to suggest the Jews and the soldiers were there to outrage the Palestinians, who you discussed as if they had the right of agreement or refusal to others using a well near their village. Your posts suggested that Jews who have lived in that area for many years have never thought of explaining their ritual or what it is about, and that such explanations would have been enough to deter any threats of aggression.

If you look at the history of individual Palestinian terrorist murders of Jews particularly in the occupied territories but also in green-line Israel, I believe you will find little or no evidence that the shootings take place for any other reason than that the perpetrators believe that Jews have no right to be living in or even visiting the occupied territories. In some cases, the shootings take place because the perpetrators believe that Jews have no right to a Jewish state, and that the existing "zionist entity" needs to be brought to an end as soon as possible. And even if the Jews in the story had displayed all the rudeness for which Israelis are supposed to be famous, that would hardly be a reason for them to be shot or even threatened with shooting.

It was certainly not my intention to offend you, and I'm sorry if you are offended. But I think the way you have written about this issue has a definite subtext of regarding the Jews in the account as being responsible for whatever threats of shooting they faced. Threats which you did not acknowledge were there in the first place.

[Linda Grant]

Dear Judy

I have spent a great deal of time with the settlers, far more than I have spent with Palestinians. I have made this perfectly clear to you. You insist on making a series of outrageous, in one case libelous, assumptions about my opinions. ‘It is clear . . .’ Nothing is clear except in your imagination.

I have made a pragmatic suggestion on your blog about how this situation could be dealt with more sensitively, on future occasions.

You have stated that ‘on some level’ I support the murder of Israelis. There is no level whatsoever on which I support the murder of Israelis and I am going to have to ask you again to withdraw and apologise for this very serious and indeed libelous allegation

Yours sincerely

Linda Grant

[Norm]

Judy, You should withdraw the remark.

[TheLevantine]

“Don't you think there is something unpleasant and aggressive about going to an Arab village, uninvited, knowing that you weren't welcome, with the protection of three armoured cars and a bunch of soldiers and performing a Jewish ritual that culminates in throwing stuff into somebody else's well?”

Judy, I realize that the question asked by David could be taken (and was taken by you) out of context.

Let’s try to put it in the frame of “here and now"

If you were a Frenchwoman visiting a neighboring Italian village for the purpose of, say, putting some garlic on the statue of Madonna in the village square (which is an ancient French habit – for the purpose of the discussion)

And

If the Italian neighbors were perfectly aware of your habits

And

The close and warm neighborly relationships being what they are, cause these Italians to look with an indulging smile at your (a bit kooky, but excusable and harmless) behavior

Then, probably, David would not have asked the question quoted above.

But, knowing perfectly well that our neighbors are looking at us and at our habits in a totally different way, your response to the perfectly legitimate question David asked and to Linda Grant’s remarks, seems to me (an Israeli in this case) evasive, aggressive and showing that you rather prefer to disregard the reality than to cope with it.

[Jon Pike]

Perhaps you remember saying that my views were the same as the AUT boycotters, only 'slightly less gross.' (Thanks for the qualification)
So, perhaps you won't take my views terribly seriously on this matter. Nevertheless, you say that Linda's views are on a par with those of Paulin. This is false, and you should withdraw the remark.

[Norman Geras]

Some of the remarks below relate to things said on the later thread here:

http://adloyada.typepad.com/adloyada/2005/10/palestinians_re.html

"You state that I accused Linda Grant of sharing Tom Paulin's approval of shooting Israeli settlers. I did not do this."

Judy, this is playing with words in order to evade the point that what you said was completely unfounded, and therefore unjustified and giving offence.

You said: "I realise that people like Tom Paulin think that would be a perfectly reasonable response to the visit. Maybe at some level you [Linda] agree with him."

The "maybe" and the "at some level" don't cut it here, since the alternatives ("maybe not" and "at any level") are the truth of the matter, as Linda herself has made clear: "There is no level whatsoever on which I support the murder of Israelis..."

Why, in response to her statement which should have cleared things up, do you decline the simple, and the good, option that is before you - to withdraw what was possibly a hasty and thoughtless, certainly an unfair, remark? Instead you come back with this (the words you are now asking Jon to "take account of"):

"I don't propose to withdraw or apologise for suggesting it could be possible that on some level
(including an unconscious one) you could agree with the sentiment that settlers deserve it if they get shot..."

Those words are as discreditable as the original remark, and the strain of the formulation is the sign of it: "could be possible", "on some level", "including an unconscious one", "could agree",
"sentiment that". Words of indirection that seek to put some sort of distance between Linda Grant and the thought that "settlers deserve it if they get shot"... even while refusing straightforwardly to withdraw the
imputation of it to her.

I appeal to you, Judy, once more: please withdraw the remark.

[Anthony Julius]

The comment - the comparison - was unfair and offensive. I think it should be withdrawn.

[Israel Israeli]

Just to know that my son may be patrolling these areas, putting himself at risk, so that silly little girls trample through an Arab village to pollute a well is outrageous. The mere chutzpah of it all is truly beyond words. I'd like to see your child do the same thing in Brixton, or a predominantly Muslim neighborhood in London…

What a pathetic, sorry excuse for a Jew you are.

[Judy]

Israel Israeli-- you clearly have made some gross assumptions which, if you had read both the text and the comments would show you are not justified in making. Neither the girls nor anyone else "trampled through" or even entered an Arab village. Referring to what they did as "polluting a well" seems to me to be buying into classic anti-semitic stereotypes about Jews polluting wells.

Any child would be free to go into Brixton or any other Muslim neighbourhood in London. They face no danger on account of their ethnicity. Both my daughter and I frequently are in largely Muslim neighbourhoods in London. No-one would need to protect us from observing any Jewish ritual such as Tashlich in either Brixton or anywhere else in London.

We used to do Tashlich in an area of London which has a very high Muslim population.

I personally have frequently been involved in dialogue and shared education projects with Muslims and other ethnic minority groups and have never found these to be anything other than positive experiences.

I hope your son will be kept free from all danger. He does not face any danger on account of events which you think happened but didn't.

I'm sorry you find me so inadequate as a Jew. Luckily, the Almighty rather than you will make decisions on that. But I will not accept any further abusive remarks, so any more will be promptly deleted and referred to your ISP. And that applies to anyone else who might be considering making similar comments.

[David Hirsh]

Judy, I think you haven't yet addressed the centrally important points in this discussion.

1 Why is it better (in the eyes of "the almighty") to drive three armoured cars than one ordinary car on Rosh Hashannah?

2 Why should the soldiers (the ones who don't have a personal committment to doing Tashlich in an "Arab well" in the West Bank) not be able to spend Rosh Hashannah doing Tashlich with their own families? Why, if Israeli Israli's son has no political or religious committment to settling the West Bank, should he be obliged to risk his life protecting your daughter, who apparently does?

3 You say neither you nor your daughter are settlers. She says uses the word "we" when talking about the settlers.

4 You have said that you are not in favour of a Palestinian state. How then do you think that it will be possible to make a peace with the "Arabs" - on what basis? Do you support the occupation for security reasons? Or for religious reasons? Or because you think that the Israeli occupation saves the Palestinians from being ruled by the PA?

5 When LG said that she was in favour of the settlers sitting down and negotiating a way that Tashlich could be carried out next year with agreement, you reacted by accusing her of wanting the settlers killed. Professor Norman Geras, Dr Jon Pike and Anthony Julius, among others, said that in their judgment this did not follow. Why have you not withdrawn this unfounded allegation? You might think it is true, but you can give no reason or evidence. You can't libel someone just on the basis of a hunch, can you?

6 Don't you think it makes you look a bit daft, when you compound this allegation by alleging that I myself and also Israeli Israeli, are "in some sense" antisemites? You have said that we "buy into" the antisemitic libel that Jews go around poisoning wells. "Unconsciously", as though we hadn't thought of the connection ourselves. Well I have to say that I do not think that your daughter was trying to poison the well. I think that she was acting as part of an armed religious movement of settlers that is doing terrible damage to prospects of peace between Israel and Palestine and is making life extremely difficult and unpleasant and unfree for people who live in the "Arab Village".

7 You never replied to my question about how water resources are distributed in the West Bank. Your daughter implied that it was distributed by chance. I implied that Settlers have priority when it comes to running water supplies. What do you think?

[Judy]

David-- the wonderful thing about having my own blog is that I and not you get to determine the agenda.

You may have your idea of what are the important questions. I don't share them.

There were Jews there, some of whom were soldiers. Some of the soldiers are local residents, some are studying in a nearby yeshiva, some are not. I don't know any more than that, and I don't jump to conclusions determined by a political agenda like yours.

Which of the people there were "settlers" is not known to me. It seems to me that what was being described was a peaceful religious ceremony at a public well outside an Arab village, where the participants needed to be protected by armed guards from attack.

I don't agree with the demonization of people who can be labelled "settlers". Some people living in Jerusalem are living in houses inside the green line from which Arabs were driven in 1948. Some so-called settlers legitimately purchased land in the occupied territories (which themselves had been illegally seized and annexed by Jordan before they were in turn occupied by Israel in 1967.

You have grossly misrepresented what I said about Linda Grant. I refer you to my comments clarifying what I said. I will not make any further comments than that. I don't believe you have any legal expertise for making statements about libel, and since Engage has just got itself into hot water for making unwarranted statements about an academic at Tel Aviv University, a little caution about your statements might be in order.

You also make quite unwarranted statements about what my daughter said about water distribution, and I don't agree with your view of how water is distributed, since there are complex issues of Israel offering facilities which then get turned down by Palestinians etc and I have no intention of letting comments about what was a personal post about her experiences by my daughter becoming a ground for the grinding of your political axes.