Afterward, he thanked me over and over. We walked out together, then he made his way back to Silwan and I headed to my apartment in West Jerusalem’s Kiriat Moshe neighborhood.
I was overwhelmed with a feeling of relief. I spent the long bus ride thinking about the strong feelings of compassion I experienced for another human being in trouble, a human being who happened to be an Arab. Didn’t Hashem create all of us in His image? Are we not commanded to put out a fire on Shabbat for a non-Jew for “darchei shalom” – for the ways of peace? It seems we are supposed to care about keeping peace with our neighbors. Do we consider if they, or others in their community, care about making peace with us?
This happened over twenty years ago, and the political situation has changed. However, I thought then, as I like to think now, that each and every Arab is not necessarily our personal enemy, and that possibly Hashem engineered Abu Nabil’s mishap to engender a little extra good will toward the Jewish people.
About two years after that incident I got married and moved south to Beersheba. I did not see Abu Nabil for several years. Eventually my husband and I moved back to Jerusalem. One day I boarded the bus outside our apartment in Givat Shaul, near the entrance to Jerusalem, six or seven months pregnant and looking for an empty seat. As I scanned the bus I saw Abu Nabil standing in the aisle holding onto a strap and talking in Arabic to another man.
“Abu Nabil!” I called out. He looked at me and broke into a wide grin and waved. I pointed at my abdomen. He gave me a hearty “thumbs up.” He got off at the next stop and we smiled and waved good-bye.
I have not seen Abu Nabil since, and especially because I live outside of Jerusalem, it’s unlikely I’ll run into him again any time soon. The Arabs in Abu Nabil’s neighborhood, Silwan, have been more hostile since Operation Protective Edge, unlike the Arabs in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Beit Tsafafa, where a large sign was posted during the war that read “We refuse to be enemies.”
If, perchance, I were to run into Abu Nabil again, I hope he would still remember me, and our trip to Hadassah. I hope the good will we exchanged on that day would still be there, and that he, too, would refuse to be an enemy.