VOX POPULI: A portrait of Palestine's neighborhoods before May 1948

Asahi Shimbun

15-05-2025

Palestinians gather during a march to commemorate Nakba Day, the "catastrophe" of their mass dispossession in the 1948 war surrounding Israel's creation, in Ramallah in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on May 14. REUTERS/Ali Sawafta
Once upon a time, it was an established Friday evening custom for young Arabs in the Old City of Jerusalem to visit the homes of their Jewish neighbors and light their lamps for them.
That was because during the Sabbath, which starts at sundown on Friday and ends at sundown on Saturday, devout Jews do not kindle or use fire in their dwellings.
On feast days, the neighbors gifted one another with sweets and breads. When it was time for a landlord to collect rent, they would be welcomed by their tenant with a convivial chat over a cup of coffee.
They practiced different faiths, but that didn't stop them from looking out for one another and just living their daily lives as fellow citizens.
And all that is what one gathers from 'O Jerusalem!' co-authored by American writer Larry Collins (1929-2005) and French author Dominique Lapierre (1931-2022).
This tour de force chronicles the birth of the state of Israel in 1948 based on testimonies by more than 2,000 people.
The authors note that the Arabs and Jews of Palestine were tied loosely to one another by 'poverty, the most natural of bonds.'
When did that change? An Arab youth named Nadi grabbed a gun, enraged by the Palestine Partition Plan. When he fired it in the dark of the night, a woman's voice told him to stop.
And an elderly resident of the Jewish home he used to visit every Friday shouted, 'Weren't we neighbors?'
For Palestinians, May 15 is Nakba Day. It commemorates the Palestinian Catastrophe of some 700,000 people being driven out of their homeland in the First Arab-Israeli War that followed the Israeli Declaration of Independence.
Looking back at history, everyone realizes that, in the beginning, there was no hatred.
What tore neighbors apart and for what purpose? How long must the people of Gaza continue to suffer? Thinking of them, I bite my lip.
—The Asahi Shimbun, May 15
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Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.