but the understanding of true Self-Interest,
the development of genuine Self-Esteem,
and the application of Self-Determination

MY DESIRE TODAY
December 9, evening – December 10, morning, Thursday

My desire is - that Cornelia may visit me on Christmas,
with her son!
in order to heal the past with the father of her son!
and in order to find re-creation in Judaea's Desert!
and thus - the first step towards her live's vocation!

Cornelia came often to the Succah, and in 1995 (?) even as a team-worker.
Since then I hadn't seen her, and only in Oct. 2009, she found my website.
Having read my "Desire" on Dec. 10, she booked a flight for her and Ben,
the son, whose father is an Israeli, and whom she calls "Benedict Chorin".
"Ben-Chorin" in the Haggadah of Pesach means "being free from slavery"
and - in the plural 'Bene-Chorin' - appears also in my Partnership-Hymn.
[When searching for the term, I came across the most interesting story of Avital Ben-Chorin,
whose husband and son were meaningful to me in 1960-61, like other persons in the story!]

2009_12_29

The coincidences began with a driver, Arianna Levi, from Egged-Tours
with whom I hitchhiked, when returning from Shoham to Arad, 6 days before Cornelia's arrival.
Arianna let me off at the Beersheva bus-station, which is in the neighborhood of her office.
Hearing that I would again go north to Shoham 5 days later, she invited me to travel with her.
5 days later, on our way north, she asked:
"Didn't you say that you're awaiting a guest from Germany tomorrow?
I, too, have to be at the airport in connection with a group of Israeli and German pupils."

We discovered, that Cornelia and her son and that group would arrive about the same time.
So on December 25, 14:45, Arianna fetched me from Shoham and we drove to the airport.
It was Christmas time and the crowds of people waiting for uncountable planes were disturbing.
While waiting, I met two of Arianna's people: Yoav Mal'akhi [= angel], the tour-guide for the group,
whom we tried to contact later, since he said, they would be at the Dead Sea, one of Cornelia's aims,
and Malka, the woman who was the voluntary connector of the group in the name of a Beersheva school.
The Israelis had been guests in German families, and now the Germans would be guests in Israeli families.
Malka told me, how these exchanges work - how they are learning from mistakes etc.
"The Angel", as Cornelia and I began to call him, said, when Cornelia shook his hands,
"I still find it difficult to hear German words!..."

This - indirect - encounter with the project of bringing together German and Israeli pupils (a project of many schools in Israel & Germany), was the moment of birth for Cornelia's vision, but she did not yet voice or even know it then. Hadn't she and her brother brought Germans to Israel, the land of the Jews, back then in 1991? But that was only the first step - in one direction only - towards a      m u t u a l     e x c h a n g e an exchange for the sake of exemplary reconciliation between people and peoples who feel victimized by each other, yes , a    t r i a n g u l a r   exchange between Germans and Israeli Jews and Israeli Bedouins. Why Bedouins? Because of their inherent "trans-nationality" they are the best suited people to mediate between Jews and Palestinians on the one hand and Germans and Jews on the other hand.

Cornelia before flying back to Germany, with Arianna who had brought her and her son from Beersheva to the airport

At first there was great stress which started with the realization that we couldn't rent a car,
and that even taxis were not easily available (Christmas High Season....).
I shall skip all the technical and emotional problems and begin with a certain point in time:
the next day, Shabbat, about 1 PM , in a taxi from Shoham, shortly before we reached Arad.
I said: "Look, Cornelia, now you are at home! At home in the Desert!"
"Yes, I feel that!"
"And by the way, if that Shamanic neighbor told you, that you were a Bedouin in a former life,
my intuition is, that you were a man then, not a woman."
"Oh yes! that's what she told me! that I was a man!"
We found other signs, which proved that claim...

When we reached my home at Arad, there were still 3 hours left before darkness.
"Let's go into the desert", I suggested, and added: "Do you want to see Bedouins?"
The latter I said in a low voice, for I myself was not at all interested in what I suggested.
I have become tired of struggling with communication, and not only with regard to the language:
My superhuman investment in knowing Arabic (I once calculated, that I studied it for 2 years 9 hours a day),
does not help me to understand the Bedouin kids, nor do they understand ME....
But Cornelia reacted with such enthusiasm, that one hour later,
by walking and hitchhiking with one of the sons of Ali,
[see that family's compound on top of the page "Breakthrough"....]
who, like his brother Musa, had evicted me in April 2004,
we reached the wadi below the compound of Samira and Yahia,
which is also the background of this sculpture [photographed in 2005]...

When Cornelia and her son Ben-Chorin walked up,
the sun stood directly above "my Bedouin family"
and I had to take the photo against the sun....

Above: Samira's and Yahia's compound

Cornelia and Ben-Chorin are walking directly into the sun~~~ towards their destiny? Easier to photograph was the opposite direction: Har Qannaim - the Zealots' Mountain

The "click" between "my family" and Cornelia was such,
that she and her son were invited to stay overnight.
(Of course, Samira very much wished me to stay too,
in order to make communication easier...
but I trusted everyone, that they would manage,
and I believed that only if I wasn't intermediating,
could the bond between them become direct!)





We decided, that Yahia, who did not have any job at hand,
would be our paid taxi-driver to the Salt Sea the next day.

"Did you know, that over there there is a "Tamila", a hidden water-hole,
from which in the past we dug up water for our camels?"
said Yahia.
"Really? How come, I never heard of that?
In never saw a Tamila in Israel's desert!
in Sinai I researched this phenomenon,
hoping,
that the first "Rihlah" could be erected near a Tamila!"

So we stopped and went to see the wet spot in the wadi.

I took photos so as to recognize the spot, if I would want to find it in the future. Water in the Desert - my big theme!.... Here, from the edge of Yahia's pickup, the road can be seen, the road from Arad to the Salt Sea.

Shalom , Renata,

See this and the following pages about Nuri AL-Okbi and the Araqib (or Aqarib) predicament,

which is - of course - just one example of the policy towards the Bedouin in the Negev.

It's due to Nuri's never-ending struggle, that you are involved in this too, now in 2012.

During "Partnership" he was in the Partnership Committee (1977-1980),

though he never really understood my approach of
"turning people and peoples on whom I am dependent , into partners."

You may remember the conditions for any partnership:
common interest, mutual trust and equality in self-esteem.

And since my own approach has not yet been proven anywhere,

yes the very concept seems to be alive only in my own mind , memory and intention,

I could not win Nuri over to this concept, not in 1977 and not in 2002, when we met again.

I'm sending this post to Ya'acov Hayat, Modi'in

- I don't know if you ever met my wheelchair peer.

We are setting up a Hebrew website,

as partners with a German software engineer, Daniel, 29,

who settled in Arad, close to my house.

It is a chance to check those 3 conditions all over again.

Right now Ya'acov and I are having a dispute,

if it ever can be right, that we "push" and "pressure",

as is said in your message:

"We need to keep the pressure up"...