PALESTINE Memories of 1948 - Photographs of Jerusalem | Page 24

chestnut hair, her dark, silky eyes and her air of deter-
mination despite her small size. No one contradicted
her. She did not like jewellery but she wore a neck-
lace of transparent crystal that shone like diamonds.
She was a talented seamstress who could work taffeta,
satin and cotton with ease, bringing them to life as she
embroidered them with brightly coloured silk threads
in reds, purples, blues and gold: a whole tradition, of
which Palestinian women were the keepers. Each dress
carried a motif specific to a particular town.
Amina was a mother first and foremost: pregnant
every two years, she had had 11 children, all alive and
well, four boys and seven girls, all seven of whom she
sent to the Mamuniah school. One more baby and she
would have got the prize awarded by the British to
women who brought 12 babies into the world.
Raising so many children was a lot of work and she
needed help. So, at the age of 13, I took on the role of
“little mother” to my siblings, my eldest sister being
married, and I left school in 1942, at the end of primary
school. At the time, I raised no objection to this, I had
neither the time nor the choice to oppose the parental
decision, but today, I deeply regret not having been able
to continue my education.
I became responsible for daily tasks, washing clothes,
bathing the children, knitting jumpers in winter, sewing
shirts in summer. I was the one who prepared the bread
every day and took it to the baker in the next street to be
baked. I loved to prepare makloubah, a rice and auber-
gine dish mixed with cauliflower and seasoned with
cardamom, nutmeg and cinnamon. I also loved waraq
‘ainab, vine leaves stuffed with spiced meat and rice,
which had to be no larger than ones little finger, cooked
in fat called mendil. Everyone’s favourite dish, though,
was arnab mahshi, rabbit filled with stuffed vine leaves,
the meat for which was sautéed in sesame oil, sirej.
I lavished affection on my brothers and sisters,
would break up their fights and understood their wor-
ries, which led me to use the various remedies, amu-
lets and talismans that we kept carefully in our house.
Both my grandmother and my mother were convinced
of their efficacy, and so I used them too, especially
since tradition had it that they should be passed down
from mother to daughter.
I became familiar with one of these traditional tools,
a copper bowl known as tasset al rou’bah, the bowl of
fear, because we often used it when my brothers and
sisters showed signs of anxiety. In the evening, I would
22
Memories of 1948
fill it with water, then would let it stand all night next
to a window. All the liquid had to be drunk before sun-
rise for the fears to go away. To protect the children, I
learned that one had to soak a necklace of stone beads
in hot water for several hours, then wash the children
with this water, which was supposed to turn away the
evil eye. For common illnesses, there was always a rem-
edy. Wrapping heated salt in a cloth and applying it
to the stomach would relieve pain and nausea. Stom-
ach ache could be alleviated by simply applying warm
bread dough brushed with olive oil. For women who
were having difficulty conceiving there was the plant
murr batarikh (Commiphora myrrha) which, mixed
with a half-cooked egg, had to be swallowed in one go.
Our daily lives were influenced by many beliefs that
today would be considered superstition. Back then,
no one made fun of them, quite the opposite. I would
never allow crows or owls to land on our balcony, they
had to be scared off to prevent bad luck. And an upright
broomstick meant a poor household: it had to be laid
down in the hopes of a life of abundance.
My paternal grandmother, my sitti, passed on all
these ancestral “recipes” to us, which she had learned
when she was a young girl. She also told us about the
traditions of the diverse communities in Jerusalem so
that we should learn to respect them. For example,
when we Muslims passed the funeral procession of a
Jew – the body was placed on a bier and carried to
the cemetery at shoulder height by four men – we had
to be careful not to pass under the body, because the
family of the deceased was convinced that that would
bring it bad luck. Equally, when an “Arab” inadvert-
ently passed under the stretcher, he had to be asked
if he would kindly pass back underneath in the other
direction, in return for a token payment. A few rascals
realized that if they passed under the body as it was
being lifted, they could earn a little money, which
was probably why bodies started being carried at knee
height instead!
One evening, by the light of an old oil lamp, my
sitti told me about the Moroccan women in the Jewish
quarter of Mea Shearim, outside the old town, whom
she visited from time to time even though they fright-
ened her. Many of the townspeople had called on their
services at one time or another, because they were said
to know the secrets of Black Magic. Restoring peace
in a household or casting a spell on a neighbour were
some of their specialities. They would also go to people’s