Lew Shaw’s Blog from Haifa

Back in Haifa – December 2010

It has been a year since my last trip and it is great to be “home”.   I love the familiar, the family feeling, and certainly the weather.  I’m settled in a new place – a tired two-bedroom place in a great location called Kikar Hasafer,  right near the pub, the Duke.  I’m catching up on my humus and felafel, cafes, and winter warmth and sun.

Yesterday, I took a bus from downtown to the university.  Across from me sat three teenage boys, being teenagers, texting and talking.  I didn’t realize it until I started listening, but they were speaking Arabic.  In Haifa that is quite common and often difficult to distinguish Jewish vs. Arab youth.  A while into the trip a man turned to the boys and started talking in a very loud voice, “Don’t you have your own bus!”, etc.  The boys basically cowered a bit, returned to their cell phones and stopped talking.  Everyone else on the bus seemed embarrassed but no one intervened or spoke up.  I tried to make eye contact with the boys in an attempt at solidarity, but not sure they saw me.  Soon the shouting guy left the bus, still yelling.  The boys seemed bit uncomfortable for the rest of the trip.  To me it was a reminder of the confusion this “Jewish state” with a good sized Arab (second class) minority tries to make the best of it.