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JERUSALEM-NEIGHBORHOOD Jul-13-2006 (730 words) With photos. xxxi
Palestinian family finds life is good in Jewish neighborhood
By Judith Sudilovsky
Catholic News Service
JERUSALEM (CNS) -- Youseph Majlaton jovially shook hands and patted the shoulder of a friend after Sunday Mass at St. James Church in East Jerusalem's Beit Hanina neighborhood.
He climbed into his car, made a U-turn at the makeshift Israeli checkpoint a block away from the church, then headed east to his fourth-floor apartment in the adjacent Jewish neighborhood of Pisgat Ze'ev.
The Majlaton family moved to Pisgat Ze'ev from the Arab Beit Hanina area in 2002, after two Palestinian terrorists were found hiding in their neighborhood.
"I was afraid for my sons. I didn't want them to be exposed to that," said Majlaton, 47. "I told the priest we would be living in Pisgat Ze'ev and he said, 'Tell me how it goes.' Now he is sending Catholics to visit me to see how I live. There are no problems with the neighbors. I know that there are good people from the Palestinians and from the Israelis who want to live together. The fanatics are only about 5 percent" of the population, Majlaton said, as he sat in his living room sipping tea.
He said the apartment's former Jewish owners had no qualms about selling to him, a Palestinian, and he has cordial relations with his neighbors.
While all his Jewish neighbors have a mezuza -- a small case enclosing a handwritten prayer on a special scroll that Jews must place on the door frame of their homes, the Majlatons have placed a small wooden cross on the door frame.
The Majlaton family was at the forefront of a trend by mostly Christian Palestinians from the nearby Beit Hanina and A-Ram neighborhoods who moved into apartments in Pisgat Ze'ev to escape the hardship of the Israeli separation barrier and checkpoints that divide parts of Jerusalem and separate other sections from the West Bank. As Palestinians with Jerusalem identity cards, they can live anywhere in the city -- including the Jewish parts if they can find housing.
Until recently, most Palestinians kept to Arab East Jerusalem, but with travel getting harder and more complicated, families like the Majlatons have sought out Jewish areas that allow them easy access to their Palestinian friends, family and workplaces while at the same time saving them the daily confrontation with Israeli roadblocks and checkpoints.
"Now I have a (Palestinian) friend in almost every building (nearby). At the beginning of the street there are five, and here in front of us there are two," Majlaton said, noting that all the land Pisgat Ze'ev is built on used to be Palestinian territory.
Soon many of his friends living in Beit Hanina will be cut off from the rest of Jerusalem by the Israeli security barrier, he said, and for those friends still living in A-Ram, just outside Jerusalem, it can take up to two hours to get to Mass because of the checkpoint, although their homes are only a few miles from the church.
"We made the right choice," Majlaton said. "Everyone knows me here. Even at the post office they don't ask for my ID" when picking up a package, he said.
His wife, Ghada Majlaton, 47, said at first she was afraid to move to the Jewish area.
"We are Arabs even if we are Christians. I was afraid for the children, how they would manage," she said. But in the end she adjusted, planting a small balcony garden with mint for their tea and decorating to their Palestinian tastes.
She said she actually feels more comfortable decorating her house at Christmas than when they lived in A-Ram, where they lived before moving to Beit Hanina. A-Ram is closer to Ramallah, West Bank, and few Christians live there.
Living just a few blocks from the church club in Pisgat Ze'ev, their sons have never lacked visits from their friends, and the boys often gathered on the rooftop balcony to socialize. Occasionally police would stop their friends in the street to check their IDs.
The two older sons, Adeeb, 21, and Fadi, 19, are in college in the United States, and the youngest, 17-year-old Izat, will join them next year when he finishes high school.
"It is a step that everybody should start taking, thinking about living together," said Youseph Majlaton. "I want to believe (we can be) neighbors -- and good neighbors."
END
Copyright (c) 2006 Catholic News Service/USCCB. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed.
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