We had been told about a house in Ramla, a small town west of Jerusalem, that was called Open House. The house had been owned by a Palestinian family prior to the war in 1948 at which time they were driven out by Israeli forces along with thousands of other Palestinians who lost their homes.
Years later, the son of the Palestinian man who had built the house in 1936 returned to his home where he was greeted by a young Israeli Jewish girl named Dalia who gave them a tour of the house.
After Dalia’s parents died, she dedicated the house as a place of education and reconciliation. Today, a kindergarten of mixed Arab and Jewish children is run in the Open House.
[The history and moving story of Open House is told in The Lemon Tree: An Arab, a Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East by Sandy Tolan.]
Kacey had contacted the resident director, whose name was Ofer, and asked if she could come interview him.
Ofer was very open to being interviewed and told us that if we could come that evening there would be a houseful of people, both Arab and Jewish Israelis, that she could interview.
They were having a going away party that night for a group of Dutch people who had raised money to come and do some needed repairs on the house. They were leaving to return to Holland that night.
We caught an 8:00 p.m. bus to Ramla from the central bus station in Jerusalem. The journey took about 40 minutes. Most of the other passengers on the bus were young military personnel. At first, it’s a bit frightful to be around so many young people with automatic machine guns. But after a while, you get used to it and don’t really think about it much anymore. After a while, you just get used to seeing Israeli soldiers with machine guns all over the place and stop noticing it any longer. It just becomes the norm.
Open House is a meager brick home. The going away party for the Dutch group was out back on the patio. We sat and talked and ate while the girls played on the small playground equipment.
Kacey got several good interviews with people there before we had to go catch the return bus to Jerusalem.
A couple days later, she met with and interviewed Dalia at our hotel here in Jerusalem.
