From the Rear View Window

Michael Yaakovson

5/2010

In March of 2010 I got a letter in my mailbox that arrived from Jordan. The letter was written by Ayman Hammoudeh, son of refugees of the village of Beit Dajan, near Yafo. Hammoudeh has been working the last few days on writing and editing a book which is the first of its kind, which presents the story of the village with the help of interviews that he conducted with dozens of refugees from the village. The letter was sent to me following a series of photographs from my blog that mention the remains of other villages that were destroyed in the Nakba.

In the letter Hammoudeh outlined the topic of the book and I couldn’t understand the reason that he sent it to me but the topic attracted my attention very much and I found here an opportunity that I never had to have an unmediated connection with those who were here and are here no longer. Without hesitating for a second I wrote back immediately and put to him the question about whether he ever visited the village and photographed what was left. To my surprise, I was answered that not a single person from the village or their children visited the village since 1948. Following this, I asked Hammoudeh if he would agree that I go and visit his village and document what is left—and he was happy about the suggestion and looked forward to my visit.

I was mindful so as not to wait too long to visit because I reasoned that Hammoudeh is eager to see his village and it has been four days since his first letter. I visited the remains of the village on Friday morning. Today in the place of Beit Dajan there lies the Israeli town of Beit Dagan—which preserves the name of the village that as destroyed, while the village itself may very well have preserved the name of the Hebrew village that lay here 2,000 years ago. I was sure that I would not find a thing but not only did I find many remnants, I also found whole houses—and Israeli families are now living in them, mainly representing the margins of Israeli society.

It has been a whole decade since I have started looking for these villages with the awareness of what took place there and what secrets these remnants are hiding --- secrets which I insist on exposing and telling myself. In that decade I succeeded in locating the villages, in reading the place in order to answer the questions about where the center of the village was, where were the public buildings and whether they survived, and in general to recognize buildings from that time. Beit Dajan was one of the first villages that were erased by Israel, but despite that the destruction was stopped at some point with the aim of settling new immigrants that were themselves refugees, mainly those that came to Israel from Arab countries. The center of the village that was located on a small hill was totally erased and in its place there is today a public park, but on its margins there are dozens of remnants of residential buildings where the residents of Beit Dajan, who are now spread all over the world, lived. Most of the houses are destroyed or sealed, but in some, as I’ve stated, families are residing.
Immediately on my return to my apartment I sent Hammoudeh the pictures curious to know what will be his response and whether any refugee from the village will recognize his house. The most magnificent of the houses that survived in their entirety was recognized for instance by one of the refugees of the village as the house of Mustafa Al Sheikh Al Dajaani, one of the heads of the 90 families that resided in the village. Little by little the memories of the village residents surfaced, but this time they were more tangible than ever thanks to the pictures that for the first time landed before their eyes, more than 60 years after they saw their village for the last time.

These are the dry facts, but together with them there is something in my own personal experience in this case that was different than the rest of my visits to different villages. This time there was a direct connection and discourse between me and the descendants of the same people that lived there, those that lived there and are no longer there – and now I am here, but am I alone? An agent with a camera? A messenger? Reporter? A pair of eyes operated by remote control? From the rear view window of my camera I perceive the village and send all those refugees photographs of the houses from which they were expelled. This is how Beit Dajan gets to Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Australia, the United Arab Emirates, Qataar, Syria, Lybia, Canada, Norweigia, the US, and yes also to Gaza, Nablus and Ramallah. It really surprised me that until today Ayman Hammoudeh who carries an American passport and dedicates such great effort to return and live Beit Dajan through writing—never bothering to visit the object of his dreams. The question really bothered me: why do they avoid returning and visiting the village that they so long for? Are they apprehensive about a visit that is not a permanent return? Are they afraid of destroying the dream of a paradise that they stitched together and to find a destroyed village around which was built a wretched Israeli village which is falling apart no less than the historical ruins? To find a village surrounded by noisy and polluted highways and a swamp in the shape of a mountain of garbage that covers the nearby village of Khiriya and does not exactly improve the quality of the environment…

This is the situation where I as an Israeli am situated in the center of what was once Beit Dajan, alone, so it seems, in my awareness of what took place here beside the ruins, while within the range of the camera and on the other side the village descendants living and dead, we are all here in this moment in the center of a village both alive and dead.