THE WOMEN OF KAFR BIR’AM by Amanda Makhoul
“If you told people you are from Israel, [they] automatically believe you are Jewish, and when you correct them and say you are Arabic they believe you are a Moslem.” The identity of Palestinians within Israel is often misunderstood. Furthermore, there is a lack of research on Palestinians that could serve to inform and correct stereotypes and preconceptions about Palestinians. This issue extends further when addressing Palestinian women. Even more so with Palestinian Christian women.
Beshara Doumani states, “our knowledge of Palestinian history is highly uneven, and the intersecting points of research present us with an almost surreal portrait.”[1] This knowledge of Palestinian history is further limited when it comes to research on Palestinian Christians. Following the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, hundreds of Palestinian villages were evacuated. Yet, since this time, Palestinian history has been largely disregarded and ignored by the international community, even as conflict after conflict emerged in the Middle East in the decades following 1948. Deanna Womack comments, “scholarship on Middle Eastern Christian women is particularly sparse”.[2] Even sparser, then, is the scholarship on Palestinian Christian women. Yet women are often the ones who, within the family, maintain the sense of history and culture. This is not a trend lost upon the Palestinian culture. Therefore, women could benefit by being given the space to speak on their views and experiences with their history and culture.
In my research, I will focus on the interviews of Palestinian Christian women from a Palestinian village called Kafr Bir’am. In these interviews, I have attempted to see how these women view religious tensions and Arab/Palestinian women’s roles and how, given their history and family history with Kafr Bir’am and their displacement, these factors may have influenced one another. My original research question was, How do Palestinian women descended from the village of Kafr Bir’am perceive themselves in terms of religion, and what circumstances may have had an impact on these perceptions? Throughout the course of this paper, I will discuss how this played out in the interviews by addressing these women’s identity, common challenges of being an Arab woman, how they view their village of Kafr Bir’am, and their take on religious tensions between Christians and Muslims in the Middle East as well as the West.
Kafr Bir’am was chosen as a case study for this research due to its rich history of interactions with both Muslims and Jews throughout the centuries and its almost exclusively Maronite Christian population at time of expulsion in 1948. These dynamics serve as rich grounds to observe the development of women from Kafr Bir’am. The women interviewed in this study were selected because they were identified as either being born in Bir’am or being a part of a family that descended from Kafr Bir’am. Women who are currently residing in Israel or North America were focused upon in this study in order to discern the impact that both the Israeli culture and North American culture may have had upon these women and their views of religious tensions and the challenges of being a woman. This research included 9 interviews[3], ranging in age from 27 to 77. This small sample of women from Bir’am is likely not representative of all women descending from Kafr Bir’am. However, these interviews are quite telling of the struggles of being a Palestinian Christian women descended from a village to which return is not permissible, and the issues of identity and religious conflict that these women face.
Identity in Flux
Identity is an integral part of how people from every background define themselves. The same is true for those deriving from the Middle East. However, the task of identifying oneself becomes increasingly convoluted when a group no longer has a geographic location that they can point to as their own. This is what has happened in the case of millions of Palestinians, who were expelled from their homes and were forced to move to other villages and cities inside the State of Israel, the Palestinian territories, surrounding countries such as Jordan and Lebanon, and all across the globe. The word “Palestinian” now has a negative connotation for so many. This includes those that identify with that name as well as those who could not describe where Palestine would be located if it were a state today. Given that the word “Palestinian” is very loaded in today’s political context and alliances, it is important to delve into how Palestinians would identify themselves and how that may vary depending on their geographical and religious background. This research must also account for women, who are an integral part of passing on identities within family units. Therefore, women from Kafr Bir’am that were interviewed were asked to identify their ethnic origin and their religion.
When asked to identify their ethnic origin, the answers provided were quite diverse. Answers included “Palestinian who lives in Israel”, “Israeli Arab”, “Arabic”, “Christian Arab”, and “Middle Eastern”. These answers seem to indicate that there is a level of uncertainty of how these women should or can identify themselves. None of them simply answered “Palestinian”, perhaps due to the fact that so many of them have Israeli citizenship and reside within Israel. The variety of answers given to this question might be indicative of confusion as to what their identity is after the displacement of their families from Kafr Bir’am. The women of Kafr Bir’am and their families have Israeli citizenship and enjoy privileges that their counterparts in the territories do not have. Therefore, their feelings toward the State of Israel may also be more accepting. Also, an urge to conform to the society around them, particularly in Jewish-majority cities in Israel, might have caused these women to include Israel in their identity.
The women interviewed, all with family backgrounds of Maronite Christianity, the main type of Christianity practiced in Bir’am as of 1948, identified themselves and their families simply as “Christian”, with one exception, who categorized herself and her family as “Catholic”. It is notable that none described themselves or their families as being Maronite. Instead, they provided more broad answers despite the various Christian denominations within the Middle East. For the reasons of this survey, they did not feel the need to identify which denomination of Christianity they identified with. Factors such as intermixing and intermarriage between Christians of different denominational backgrounds or an attempt to bring together rather than separate Christian populations in the Middle East may play into their responses. The one respondent that answered “Catholic” rather than simply “Christian” has lived in Canada her entire life. Therefore, her response may be indicative of the split between Catholicism and other Christian denominations in the West and how they tend to identify themselves as more distinct from one another.
“Common Challenges” for Arab Women
“On many occasions you have to explain yourself and the stereotype that they have toward Arabic people in general and Arabic women in particular.” As Hana Shoukry, a descendant of Kafr Bir’am, suggests, women, as much as men, are impacted by the current circumstance of Palestinian Christians. They are often overlooked by others who may not even aware of the existence of Palestinians, or more broadly, Arab, Christians. This setting results in a notion about Arabs and Arabic women, in which Arab Christians are often lumped into a mold with others’ preconceived notions about Arab Muslim women. It seems that this misunderstanding of Palestinian Christian women in itself is a common obstacle that these women work to overcome regularly. However, the not particularly well-known existence of Palestinian Christians is far from the only challenge these women confront. In addition to correcting stereotypes, there is also a need for the women of Kafr Bir’am to keep up with the changing world and the culture of the place in which they reside, while fighting to maintain their own culture simultaneously.
Elham Birakh, comments that a challenge of being an Arab woman is “keeping up with the modern age while maintaining customs and traditions within the family.” Elham grew up in Haifa her whole life and still resides there. She also has family that lives in Jish, just a few kilometers from Kafr Bir’am. Elham, an Israeli citizen, suggests the need to balance keeping up with her life in a Jewish state while, as she said, maintaining her own family’s traditions. Sozy Hleef also indicated a shift in perceptions upon moving within Israel from Jish to Nazareth when she married. In Nazareth, she found that “many of the beliefs and the ways people live” varied from Jish. This sort of balancing act is not only limited to Israel.
Rosemary Makhoul, who grew up in Canada her entire life, sees challenge in balancing “families with traditional practices and values meanwhile residing in Canada and wanting to fit in with society.” In Rosemary’s case, she indicates a contrast that occurs between acceptance in Western society and her family’s traditional values and the challenge of trying to fit into both molds. As hard as it is to maintain traditions and customs within a family, the existence of family nearby helps to aid the process of adjusting and balancing a new culture and environment. Moreover, there is an indication of progress, not only for these women in adapting to their new places of residence, but also in the educational attainment of Bir’am women.
“I was born in a small village in a family that cherishes education. My dad always supported our education, so I chose what I wanted to learn and where I wanted to learn without any problems.” Rima Maron, at 43 years old, is one of the younger interviewees of this research. She indicates that she has been able to make her own choices in regards to her education and has had the support of her father. This freedom that Rima was given in regards to her education have seemed to benefit her outlook on what she can do as an Arab woman. However, despite her efforts, Rima does not feel totally accepted in her town of Jish. “The issue was that I felt like an outsider because I wasn’t originally from here. Even after 60 years and even more [of my family living here] I still have that feeling.” Women of Bir’am have indeed made efforts to assimilate into their new environments. This has been in part accomplished through attaining a supportive community and education. Yet, their ancestry is still from Kafr Bir’am. And in some cases, it is difficult for them to be accepted the same as others, if only for this reason. This sense of being an outsider lends itself to examining these women’s thoughts and experiences in regards to religious conflict between Christians and Muslims in the towns and cities in which they have lived. Furthermore, analysis can occur to study how the history and community of Kafr Bir’am might have contributed to these views.
Kafr Bir’am Women and Global Religious Conflict
Age is an important item to consider when looking at the women’s view on religious tensions. Most of the women interviewed for this study are in their 40s and 50s. They have finished their schooling, have been married and started families of their own. Their views on religious tensions at this point are likely fixed and were shaped by their own experiences with individuals of other religions earlier in their lives. At this point, it would be hard for these women to reconsider their stances on other religions. However, education can play a role in changing these perceptions, both at a younger and older age.
“Perhaps the single most striking measure of change in the lives of women in Palestine has been the enormous increase in educational level over the last half-century.”[4] Most of the women interviewed had obtained a Bachelor’s degree, an accomplishment of which their grandmothers could likely not boast. In this way, they have been given access to learning about more of the world than what they have been exposed to by their families and larger communities. This increase in educational attainment can allow for greater tolerance of religious differences. In this study, that point seems to be supported. Women interviewed who had obtained a Bachelor’s degree or higher indicated a more tolerant view of Muslims than those who had not completed this level of education. Those who currently live in a place in which they reported to coexist peacefully with Muslims also seemed to view Muslims in a more accepting manner. This was the case for Antoinette Obead, who did not go to university but now lives in a village in Israel with a substantial Muslim population. “Honestly, these [tensions] are not an issue in our country, Christians and Muslims live together….there is no difference between Christians and Muslims.” This in part ties in with the migration and post-migration experiences of these women and their families after their expulsion from Kafr Bir’am.
The migration experiences of those expelled from Kafr Bir’am may have contributed to how these women view religious tensions. Families settled in towns and cities in Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, and elsewhere. Their experiences and subsequent migrations within the Middle East and abroad and the interactions with those of other religions likely contributed to their religious views. These new environments could have either positively or negatively influenced their views towards Muslims. Younger generations that are growing up in these new environments may also have a different approach to this diversity.
“The tension [between Christians and Muslims in the West] is real and sad. They don’t trust each other. [In the Middle East] many Christians who live in majority Muslim countries have been protected under previous rulers. However, in the past few years, after the invasion of Iraq by the U.S., Christians have been killed and many forced to leave their homes and become refugees. The future for Christians in the Middle East is uncertain under current conditions.” Hana Shoukry sees religious tensions as problematic both in the West and in the Middle East. However, she does not indicate in her comment concern for the Muslim populations in either place, instead focusing on her own group, Christians, and how they have been affected in recent years. This emphasis on self-interest is prevalent in the answers of many women interviewed. Yet, consideration for the other, in this case, Muslims, could prove to be beneficial in working towards reducing religious tensions. “Ever since the horrible attack on the United States, 9/11, I have noticed that the tone has become revengeful and violent. I have not yet heard a single word of forgiveness or of reconciliation. There has not been a single initiative, a single response that could have restored dignity to the poor.”[5]
Reverend Ibrahim Ayad commented on the importance of Christians in the Holy Land. “The Christian presence in the land of Christ and of the first Christians is as vitally important to Christians as it is to the other denominations present. The point is this, a Christian presence in the Holy Land means a Palestinian presence in the Holy Land. Here the interests of the Christians and the interest of world peace coincide, since peace is impossible without guarantees to the natural rights of the Palestinians living in the Holy Land, the land of their fathers’ generations before them.”[6] An Israeli soldier echoes Ayad’s comments that there are concessions that need to be made in order to establish peace in the Holy Land. “Everyone I know wants peace, and to get real peace Israel will have to give up all the occupied Arab territories, and let those Palestinians who want to return to their land.”[7]
Imagining Bir’am
“[Bir’am is] my land and my ancestors’ paradise that I would love to return to because it carries the past and the memories of my parents who lived there long ago.” This idea that Elham Birakh mentioned of paradise and nostalgia echo the feelings of many Bir’am women. Unfortunately, the circumstances surrounding the expulsion of villagers from Bir’am has thus far not allowed for the residents to return.
“On July 31, 1951, the [Israeli] Court recognized the right of the villagers – not refugees but Israeli citizens – to their land and their right to return to it; the military authorities had no legal right to prevent the villagers from going back.”[8] However, the villagers of Kafr Bir’am did not get a chance to return to their land. On December 24, 1951, the Israeli army bombed and destroyed the village and forbade the villagers to return to rebuild it.[9] Today, the village is deemed an Israeli National Park. None of Kafr Bir’am’s residents were ever permitted to live in the village again. The only remaining structures from Bir’am, the church and the bell tower, are still used as Bir’am residents come to the Maronite Church for services on the weekends and on holidays and even return to bury their family members on the land.
The people of Kafr Bir’am have not given up on their land to this day and continue to vie for the opportunity to return. In the meantime, they keep the memory of their village alive through nostalgic stories of the village and, for those who live nearby, by visiting the village to attend church, celebrating holidays, and burying deceased family there. Rima Maron is lucky enough to be able to visit Bir’am regularly. “I live in Jish which is a 15 minute car drive from Bir’am. I visit there every week, we pray there every Saturday. I was married in the village’s church, and all of my sweet moments in my life were in Bir’am. And I believe that most ex-Bir’am residents feel the same way I do. And I’m very lucky to be living really close to it, but my heart aches because I live so close to it but not actually in it.” This mix of nostalgia and heartache for not being able to live in Bir’am anymore is a sentiment echoed by many women of Bir’am. Thus, it is no wonder that the women of Bir’am maintain strong feelings of attachment to their village.
Several women, even though they never lived in Bir’am, expressed a desire to return to live there. Hana Shoukry said, “I still think of Kafr Bir’am as my hometown… I have a strong sense of belonging to Bir’am. Both my parents are buried in Bir’am. I grew up learning [about] and loving Bir’am. It’s my village in my homeland… I still believe that someday myself and family and friends will return and unite in Bir’am.” Zoya Isawi, who currently lives in Haifa, Israel, stated, “Yes I will go back. This is my family land and my dad [is] buried there.” In her comment, Zoya attributes her identity to Kafr Bir’am through her familial attachments to the land. Bir’am, for Zoya, points to her ancestry and a place in which her family, as well as herself, belongs. Likewise, Sozy Hleef commented, “I think of all the simple and modest comforts of love and nostalgia. I would [return] because I feel belonging [there].”
Lucia Gantous, now 77 years old, who lived in Kafr Bir’am until she was about 10 years old, currently residing in Coral Springs, Florida, would love to return to Bir’am. “I would love to be able to go back and live there. It is my hometown. I still feel that I belong there [and] would like to go back and live there in the house where I grew up with my siblings and my childhood memories.”
However, some women commented that they would like to visit but not stay in Kafr Bir’am permanently. Suzan Ghantous, whose parents lived in Bir’am, commented, “I would love to go back for a month or two every year, but would not go back permanently.” Most other women commented that they would readily return to Bir’am if given the opportunity, even if they had never lived there themselves. Suzan, however, offers a different perspective, perhaps indicative of the realities of what returning to Bir’am would entail. None of the women surveyed commented on the difficulties they or their families faced when living in Bir’am prior to their expulsion in 1948. Factors such as economic and educational opportunities in the village before 1948 were largely left unconsidered.
Conclusion
These interviews by the women of Kafr Bir’am yielded a variety of responses that provided some clues as to how women descended from Kafr Bir’am perceive themselves, in terms of ethnic and religious identity, the challenges of being an Arab woman, and how their perceive themselves and others in regards to religious tensions between Christians and Muslims, both in the Middle East and the West. The women interviewed for this research, while not necessarily representative of all women from Kafr Bir’am, suggest, in the many responses these women provided as their ethnic origin, that ethnic identity is still a largely undefined entity for them. Although this is only 9 interviews, these responses from the women of Kafr Bir’am is very telling of how these women are identifying themselves.
In regards to religious tensions between Christians and Muslims, the responses of these women clearly recognized that relations between the two are still problematic. While women who live and are friends with Muslims in their hometown expressed less animosity and tension towards Muslims, women with higher levels of education (particularly the younger ones surveyed), in these surveys indicating they had a Bachelor’s degree or above, tended to exhibit more feelings of dissatisfaction towards these religious relations. They also appeared to have the capacity to think outside of their own upbringing and religion and to empathize with how others are being treated. This demonstrates that there could be an improvement for relations between Christians and Muslims through higher education. Several of these women indicated greater economic and educational opportunity provided to them than in previous decades. Perhaps through education, these women can more readily establish their ethnic and religious identities and work towards reconciliation in regards to religious tensions, both in the Middle East and perhaps advocating for improvement and change in how the West views these items as well. These interviews, quite telling of the variety of circumstances women of Kafr Bir’am face, could serve as a means by which religious tensions between Christians and Muslims can be improved and progress could be made for Palestinian Christian women in the Middle East and abroad.
Sources Cited
“An Israeli Prisoner Speaks Out.” Journal of Palestine Studies 3.4 (1974): 168-69. JSTOR. Web. 20 Nov. 2015.
Augustin, Ebba. Palestinian Women: Identity and Experience. London: Zed, 1993. Print.
Ayad, Ibrahim. Israel and the Christians. Beirut: PLO Foreign Information Dept., 1981. Print.
Chacour, Elias, and David Hazard. Blood Brothers. Grand Rapids, MI: Chosen, 1984. Print.
Chacour, Elias. Faith Beyond Despair: Building Hope in the Holy Land. London: Canterbury Norwich, 2008. Print.
Davis, Rochelle A. Palestinian Village Histories: Geographies of the Displaced. Stanford, CA: Stanford UP, 2011. Print.
Doumani, Beshara B. “Rediscovering Ottoman Palestine: Writing Palestinians into History.” Journal of Palestine Studies 21.2 (1992): 5-28. JSTOR. Web. 7 Dec. 2015.
Gorkin, Michael, and Rafiqa Othman. Three Mothers, Three Daughters: Palestinian Women’s Stories. Berkeley: University of California, 1996. Print.
“Iqrit and Kafr Bir’im.” Journal of Palestine Studies 2.1 (1972): 146-47. JSTOR. Web. 20 Nov. 2015.
Ryan, Joseph L. “Refugees within Israel: The Case of the Villagers of Kafr Bir’Im and Iqrit.” Journal of Palestine Studies 2.4 (1973): 55-81. JSTOR. Web. 20 Nov. 2015.
Womack, Deanna. “Syrian Protestants, American Missionaries, and the Arabic Press, ca. 1870-1915”. Princeton Theological Seminary, 2015. Print.
[1] Doumani, Beshara B. “Rediscovering Ottoman Palestine: Writing Palestinians into History.” Journal of Palestine Studies 21.2 (1992): 6. JSTOR. Web.
[2] Womack, Deanna. “Syrian Protestants, American Missionaries, and the Arabic Press, ca. 1870-1915”: 224. Princeton Theological Seminary, 2015. Print.
[3] Interviews were conducted in Arabic and English.
[4] Augustin, Ebba. Palestinian Women: Identity and Experience. London: Zed, 1993:2. Print.
[5] Chacour, Elias. Faith Beyond Despair: Building Hope in the Holy Land. London: Canterbury Norwich, 2008: 20. Print.
[6] Ayad, Ibrahim. Israel and the Christians. Beirut: PLO Foreign Information Dept., 1981. 28. Print.
[7] “An Israeli Prisoner Speaks Out.” Journal of Palestine Studies 3.4 (1974): 168. JSTOR. Web. 20 Nov. 2015.
[8] Ryan, Joseph L. “Refugees within Israel: The Case of the Villagers of Kafr Bir’Im and Iqrit.” Journal of Palestine Studies 2.4 (1973): 61. JSTOR. Web. 06 Dec. 2015.
[9] Ryan, Joseph L. “Refugees within Israel: The Case of the Villagers of Kafr Bir’Im and Iqrit.” Journal of Palestine Studies 2.4 (1973): 61. JSTOR. Web. 06 Dec. 2015.
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