John Fischer The Catch

Today’s Catch borrows from an article yesterday in the Los Angeles Times titled, “Lessons of love from my Palestinian Refugee parents,” written by Ghassan Bisharat, a Palestinian American who is a retired assistant professor of political science at Cal State Los Angeles and a former high school social science teacher.

In it he talks about how he and his family when he was growing up were displaced by the advancing Israeli army in 1948 that destroyed their town of Ma’Alool and drove them to seek a new home in nearby Nazareth where his father was able to set up his cobbler business in a small shop he rented there. His father would remind him to take note of the people who would pass by in the marketplace: Arabs, Jews, Christians and Muslims. “I was not blind to the second-class nature of my existence in Nazareth,” he writes, “but my parents made sure to lead by example.”

One of those examples was how his father would tell him to help the elderly women carry their groceries from the nearby market to their homes or the bus stop that would take them home. He dutifully obeyed until his father told him to do the same for and elderly Jewish woman. At that he protested over why he should help someone whose people had destroyed their village and displaced them. His father’s answer? “You do not know, and neither do I, what her reasons for being here in Palestine are. But helping elderly women is in our blood, and you will go and ask her if she needs your assistance.” So he did, and each time he did, the woman would call to him from the bus window saying “Thank you,” in Hebrew, and he would respond, “Thank you,” in Arabic.

And then there was the cold December evening when a screech of tires arrested the attention of his mother and she asked him to go see what was going on. He came back and reported that an Israeli jeep with a bunch of soldiers was at the top of the street. “How many soldiers are in the jeep?” his mother asked. “Four or six,” he replied. He writes that his mother then went into the kitchen and came back minutes later with a tray holding six cups of steaming hot tea that she wanted him to take to the soldiers. He furiously refused. “Those soldiers destroyed our village.” Ghassan writes that he has never forgotten her response. “I am a mother, and I know that the mothers of those soldiers are wondering if their sons and daughters are having something warm to drink on such a freezing night. That is what all mothers think about all over the world: the well-being of their children. Take these teacups to them right now.”

The writer revealed that it was a lesson taught but not learned until later in his life, because, regretfully, he never took the tea to those soldiers. He dumped it in the street and returned the empty cups to his mother admitting it was the first time he lied to his mother.

Now he gets it. Speaking of his parents, he writes, “It took me all that time to realize they held more wisdom than any book I read on my way to my PhD. . . . Lifetimes of unlearned lessons leave us seeing cycles of hate and violence once again. All I can do now is hold my grandchildren close and try to pass along what my parents taught me a long time ago.”

Valuable lessons indeed that apply to all of the conflicts we are facing today in this country and the world over. Treating all people with dignity is something we must do when we realize that we are all made in the image of God.