Today the group traveled to Lyd (Arabic)/Lod (Hebrew) and Jaffa (Yaffa) by the Mediterranean Sea coast. 

The purpose of today’s visit was to explore Apartheid conditions in Israel and experience some musical art as a form of preserving identity and resisting oppression.

We met first with Fida Shehade, a Palestinian feminist activist from Lydd/Lod she was a city council member there during the pogroms against Palestinians in May 2021 when she also was threatened and by the mayor. Fida accompanied us on the tour bus first to some older structures in the city including a very old mosque beside a church. Israel has a law that states anything older than the year 1700 should be protected and preserved — but this is not applied consistently. Fida showed us the poster on a wall highlighting the case of a young Palestinian man that was killed by a Jewish man during a night of attacks on Palestinians during the Israeli assault on Gaza. She said there was no arrests made even though there were witnesses. Six people were charged in the pogroms but the names are withheld from the public  

Fida showed us an old khan, or caravanserai.  It has been left standing. Within a stone’s throw is a new street at a higher elevation. when Fida was on the city council there was a plan to build this road over the remains of a Turkish bath. She had asked them to make the area into a historic site park but the council did not agree  but fortunately the agreeed to build the road at a higher level to preserve the ruins of the old bath house.

Back on the bus, Fida directed the driver to take us through a couple of neighborhoods, where the apartheid situation was detailed. This takes the form of vastly unequal money is being spent on the two community/Jews and Palestinian Arabs. In some areas there is no water or electricity service for the Palestinians.

For lunch we went for appetizers and shawarma at a local restaurant  

Our next stop stop was at a private school classroom where we met with Taner Nafar, a founder of the first Palestinian hip hop band. 

Following this brief encounter we had a few hours of free time. Some of us elected to head to the area of our dinner restaurant while others strolled to the beach and though the old city of Yaffa. We were reminded that at about this date in 1948, thousands of Palestinians were forced by Jewish militias to flee the city of Jaffa, destined for Beirut where they would become refugees with no right of return. We had a great dinner at Abu Nassar, and then went to the green space behind the Peres Peace and Innovation center. Two leaders of Zochrot spoke to us there about their work in promoting awareness of the Nakba.