ABSTRACT
Hassan Bek Mosque, a prominent feature among the high-rise buildings of Tel Aviv, is the meeting point for a tour with 20 participants, facilitated by Zochrot, an organisation promoting awareness of and accountability for al-Nakba (Figure 13.1, left, Stop 1). Our tour is led by Umar al-Ghubari, a second generation Internally Displaced Palestinian (IDP) who coordinates Zochrot’s Return Space and Tours programmes. Umar explains that the Mosque was once the communal heart of Jaffa’s (Yaffa’s) coastal Manshiya neighbourhood and is amongst its only remnants, escaping the fate of the surrounding area destroyed during the 1948 Israel-Arab War or in subsequent demolitions. Umar highlights how, today, by preserving a few token traces such as the Mosque, Israel denies the systematic process of eliminating Palestinian homelands: ‘Israelis reside amongst and within such Palestinian traces and ruins… some are unaware of this, some openly discuss it, whilst others raise questions about it; they do not connect these ruins with the Israeli crimes.’ In the next two hours, we walk around and unpack the meanings of traces to reconstruct a local traumatic history. Through this walk, Umar enacts a co-performative testimonial exchange in collaboration with audience members and a chronically traumatized place. Left: Map of central features in Umar's tour, August 2018, 2.85 km, 3 hours 18 minutes, 29 degrees C. Right: Map of central features in Yusuf's tour, August 2019, 1.62 km, 2 hours 10 minutes, 34 degrees C. Artwork credit: Michal Huss (2023). Two sets of maps features start and end point of Umar and Yusuf tours with tagged pictures of different places along the routes. https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9781003371533/df7baf63-ba67-42a9-8c7b-06fbffc260da/content/fig13_1.tif" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/>
