AL-KHALIL (HEBRON): CPT Palestine May 2017 Newsletter–Old City Shop: Jewelry, Why do you keep going back? and more…

Old City Shop: Jewelry

Mospah follows in the footsteps of his father and grandfather. He has been making and selling jewelry in the same shop in the Old City souq for fifty years. 

Why does he do what he does, where he does? Because it’s a family tradition, part of his heritage. He has a strong sense of rootedness, from both his father, whom he reveres, and his grandfather. Mospah has ten children, seven daughters and three sons, and thirty-seven grandchildren. The entire family continues to live in Hebron.

A supplier brings him materials from Saudi Arabia: stones from Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Afghanistan plus materials sourced locally. Mospah then crafts these into a wide variety of jewelry: bracelets, necklaces, earrings, prayer beads. He also has a small line of low-cost costume jewelry responding to the demands of a range of customers.

Thirty years ago, business was thriving in the Old City souq. Not so today. Mospah often passes days at a time with no one buying. Business is difficult but a little better than after the second intifada. Read more…

CPT wishes all our Muslim supporters and friends a Happy Ramadan! 

A friend asked me that question before I left for Palestine where I work with CPT in Hebron. I told her it was because, from the first time in 1997, the Palestinian people had stolen my heart. I love being in this place with its people, their culture, the hills and the villages. 

After twenty years of coming here, I am now in my 80’s and have many memories – some things forgotten but reminded by friends. Read more… 

There is a group of boys from the Old City of Al Khalil/Hebron who congregate in the evenings at Bab al-Baladiyeh, the old municipality square, to kick around a soccer ball. There aren’t very many places to play in the Old City but this is one of them; a space only large enough to play a 3-touch game up against a wall, right opposite of the Israeli occupying forces military base. 

I had seen the boys playing several times as I walked through the Old City, but the day I finally found the courage to join in the game would forever change me and my understanding of the reality of living under occupation in Palestine. 

It happened quite suddenly as the news spread around town; soon every kid I passed on the street knew my name, a small crowd would gather in the square, and my non-existent Arabic vocabulary now included three words: she plays soccer. Read more…