PALESTINE Memories of 1948 - Photographs of Jerusalem | Page 23

The girl on the Jerusalem rooftops
Sohaila Soubhy Shishtawi, 90 years old
As a kid in the 1940s she used to roam with her friends
along the ramparts of the old city of Jerusalem. 1 That’s
where she was born, in a big beautiful house of white stone
that flushed pink with the sunrise and turned golden with
the setting sun.
Sohaila Soubhy Shishtawi was a mischievous little
girl and by the time she was a young teenager she was
already responsible for her numerous siblings. She could
do everything: she washed, sewed, cooked, went to fetch
the oil and gas, the water from the well and looked after
her brothers and sisters. She followed traditions and
beliefs, listening to the advice of her elders. But that is
not what makes her tick. What Sohaila likes, what brings
her to life, is to go out, to go off on an adventure, to escape
across the terraces and rooftops of her town from where
she can see the world from above. Using shortcuts known
only to the cats of Jerusalem, she can see everything, hear
everything, learn everything. The town gives up its secrets
to her, its songs and its prayers, its shadows and its light,
its costumes and its spices, its traders and its travellers;
everything that is missed by “normal” people, who walk in
the alleyways without seeing all these things.
For Sohaila, Jerusalem will always be her town, even
though she had to leave in it 1950. Since 1967 she has been
able to visit only by applying for a visa at the Israeli consu-
late. Her town, which today smells a little like desolation.
 I recently applied for a visa at the Israeli embassy
in Jordan to go and visit my nephew in Jerusalem, but
it was turned down. I do not understand; how could
an 89-year-old Palestinian woman, 1.4 metres tall and
weighing 38 kilos possibly pose a threat to Israel?! Last
year, when I had made the same application, they called
me in for an interview, and a well-dressed young man
who did not introduce himself began talking loudly, sus-
pecting me of lying. According to him, I was not going
only to Jerusalem, he had seen my photo on the Facebook
page of one of my great-nieces in Ramallah. When I left
his office I was thoughtful, wondering whether his ques-
tioning masked some sort of fear. Perhaps this young
man was scared that I might die in Jerusalem, 2 in which
case I would then be counted as yet another Palestinian
in my occupied town.
They know very well that I am from Jerusalem. It
is written on my birth certificate: I was born there in
1929, just like my father and grandfather. Try as they
might to prevent me from returning, I will always
be from Jerusalem. We were all born in our house in
Harat Al Sa’diyya, in the very heart of the old town, in
an alley that connects two of the main gates, Bab Al
‘Amoud and Bab Al Zahra. 3 It was – and still is – a big,
multi-storey house with seven big bedrooms.
My mother, Amina, was a woman of great beauty;
she was gentleness personified, with her long, straight
Sohaila
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