Only those with lofty souls and iron wills can defy tradition. My Palestinian journalist friend is one of those. Despite the catastrophe she suffered in her country when it was stolen from her by the Zionists under the guise of religion, my friend soared to the pinnacle of humanity; she made friends with non-Zionist Jews who support Palestinian rights and publicly reject Israel’s baseless assertions. She did not see Jews as her enemies just because they were Jews, for she did not believe the religious differences should be the yardstick for relationships.
I was extremely impressed by my friend’s position.
For we (Muslims) in our various countries are raised to believe that the most important benchmark for loving and/or hating someone is religion. Muslims are taught to love only Muslims and to hate – or at least despise – all others. Similarly, Christians amongst us are taught to love only their co-religionists and hate or despise all others.
But my friend succeeded in confronting this tradition. When she was studying in London she met a fellow student who was Jewish. After bickering at first, they eventually became friends. It was the first time that this Jewish student had met a Palestinian counterpart.
After completing his post-graduate studies, he decided to stay in Britain because of Israel’s racist policies; he is now a renowned professor at a British university and is still friends with my Palestinian friend.
Later, and at a conference held in London to support the Palestinians, my friend met a Jewish lady in her eighties, who was almost the same age as her mother, and a relationship between them blossomed. The Jewish lady was a gifted pianist besides being an enlightened intellectual and an industrious political activist.
The octogenarian Jewish pianist began writing to my Palestinian friend on a weekly basis, telling her of the latest books she had read, how she and her family had fled their native Austria (when the Nazis took over the country) to Britain, and how she used to receive threatening letters from Zionists every time she wrote in The Guardian in support of the Palestinians and denouncing Israel’s racism.
The relationship eventually became so strong that my Palestinian friend began to refer to her elderly friend as her “Jewish mother.” She subsequently arranged a meeting in her flat between her Palestinian mother and her newfound “Jewish mother.” I was lucky enough to attend part of that historic meeting.
My friend later told me of her hope eventually to make a documentary in which the two “mothers” each told their stories, and through these stories told part of the Palestinian tragedy. But fate intervened when the “Jewish mother” passed away.
My friend was devastated when she heard of the death of that superb human being. As she told me, she felt the loss of a strong source of support. The letters stopped arriving, but my friend cultivated a friendship with the daughter of the deceased pianist, a violin teacher.
But she was not only a violin teacher and a lover of music – a trait she inherited from her late mother; she was also a fierce fighter against racism just as her mother was before her.
A few days ago, however, my Palestinian friend was shocked to hear of the untimely death – from cancer – of the music teacher, who had continued teaching and confronting racism until the final week of her life.
The intense grief and sense of loss she felt made my Palestinian journalist friend unable to write about her “Jewish mother” or her daughter. The tree of friendship that had grown over the years was cruelly cut down.
But my friend did not dissuade me from writing about them.
May God have mercy on their souls.
