Broken Bridge by Lynne Reid Banks is about a fourteen-year-old boy named Glen who had come with his cousin, Nili, to visit Israel. Instead of the wonderful time she envisioned Glen would have, as she had in London when she met with her Uncle Noah and Cousin Glen, Glen is murdered by an Arab within hours of their arrival in Israel. As the story unfolds, the family is already divided. There was Noah's first wife and children. Then, there was his sister and her family, and his parents who all live in Israel. In addition, Noah and his second wife and children were living in Canada. They are divided in their feelings about Israel and the expansion of Israel's borders during the Six-Day War in June 1967. Israel's borders were by conquering land from the Arabs. In the years to follow, Jews and Arabs fought. Whenever the Arabs attacked, the Jews fought back in self-defense to protect Israel's borders. Glen had never been to Israel before, but because of what he had heard and read about in the news, about all the fighting, his vision of Israelis was that they were all Barbarians who did nothing but kill. Nili, on the other hand, felt kinship ties to Israel and its people.
When the news of an Arab attacking an Israeli was broadcast on television, Nat and Miriam, Noah's parents, argued the merits of having expanded Israel's borders in 1967. Nat felt expanding Israel's borders caused problems with Israeli troops retaliating against Israeli demonstrators, but Miriam disagreed. She felt Israeli troops had to defend Israel at all cost. Nili was questioned by police a few days later about Glen's murder, but she refused to identify one of the culprits named Mustapha in a police line- up. Even though Mustapha and his nephew, Feisal, were the assailants, Nili refused to identify Mustapha among the various photos because she believed he had saved her life. Feisal needed to complete a loyalty test in order to belong to the Palestinian resistance. His task was to kill the first Jew who came close to the alley he and his uncle hid in. The first Jew was Glenn. Feisal was crazed with killing and wanted to kill Nili but Mustapha insisted Nili be left unharmed. Yonatan, Noah's son from his first marriage with Donna, had been in the army, fighting Arabs who were shooting and throwing rocks at him and the rest of the Israeli troops. Nimrod, Nili's brother, had heard nothing but bad things about Arabs. Yocheved, Nili's aunt, had contempt for Arabs. Israelis were often killed by Arabs and Yocheved immediately accused an Arab of having committed the murder even before it was confirmed whom the assailant was. An Arab village was located near Yocheved's home. She felt Israel's borders were rightfully expanded. The neighborhood Yocheved lived in was originally occupied by Jordan. Lesley did not feel that expanding Israel's borders was right. Valerie, Noah's second wife, came to Israel with their eight-year-old daughter to meet with Noah and his family and for Glen's burial. Valerie shared Glen's sentiments about Israel and it residents being barbaric. Like the police officers that interviewed Nili, some of her relatives felt Mustapha never saved Nili's life. All they could focus on was the fact that Glen was murdered. In fact, Nimrod was so angry with Nili for refusing to identify Mustapha as the culprit that he refused to speak to Nili for awhile. Nili's other relatives, such as her mother, Lesley, Shalom, Yocheved's son, and Lev, Nimrod's friend, remained neutral in their opinions regarding Nili's decision. They supported her in whatever Nili decided to do. Lesley did not realize one of the killers of Glenn was the Arabic man she had met some twenty-five years ago. At that time, both of them were teenagers. He was a vendor, selling nuts, and she often bought them from him. Despite Mustapha's contempt for Jews, he still talked to her from time to time back then, but they never became close friends. If Lesley felt Mustapha should have been re-arrested, she did not show it because she wanted to be supportive of Nili. Shalom on the other hand, was torn. On the one hand, he understood Israel's right to defend its borders, yet he felt Arabs did not deserve to be shot at or be accused of crimes if they were innocent. After all, he had a coworker and friend named Ali who invited him to his house for dinner. They also did favors for each other. Meanwhile, Lev, Nimrod's friend who had just immigrated from Russia, had not heard anything good or bad about Arabs, therefore, he was not influenced by majority or minority opinion about Nili's decision. In the end, Ali was drunk and trusted his friend Shalom with confidential information. Shalom relayed Ali's story to the authorities. It was about a person hiding in the next-door house acting strange and being the possible murderer. Although Shalom did not want to break Ali's trust, he wanted the mystery solved. He did not want to be accused of treason. He also did not want to carry the guilt of having not told authorities what he knew, especially if the possible person Ali had spoke about might commit another murder. In addition, it was his way of doing what Nili was supposed to have done; that was to identify and convict Mustapha. Feisal, who had been living in house to house was captured, and Mustapha was killed by a land mine while trying to cross over the Jordan River to his old village on the West Bank.
Even though this book was published back in 19942, the war between Israeli troops and Palestinians continue to this day. Likewise, the same issues are debated among Jews and Arabs in the Diaspora. As Micaiah ben Malachi and I were reading this book together, we thought of the same issues outlined in the book, and how it rang home in our personal lives. In 1994, Micaiah was attacked by Black separatist gang members in broad daylight on a street corner in a metropolitan city as he was heading back home from a video rental store. A Muslim man came out of his store and rescued Micaiah, bringing him into the store until the police arrived. Eleven years had passed since then. Micaiah and I had moved from a large town into a quiet, small community. One of our neighbors told us about a store that sold tobacco products much cheaper than the other stores in town. Micaiah and I decided to shop at that store. Upon walking into the store, Micaiah and the clerk who greeted us froze. Naturally, I thought something was terribly wrong only to learn the man Micaiah had been telling me about was the same man running the new store our neighbor referred us to. I became elated and thanked the man for saving Micaiah's life. I did not care that he was an Arab or that he was a Muslim. The fact that he had saved my future husband's life was all that mattered. If the man had not rescued Micaiah, then I would have never met him. Three and a half years have passed and the two of us tried to build a relationship with the Muslim man and his family. His family showed us much warmth and acceptance as people who were strangers as they were in town. We learned over time the family was Israeli Arabs who lived in Jerusalem. Some of his family lives in the United States while others remain in Jerusalem. Still, the fact that he was an Arab and a Muslim did not bother Micaiah or I. The man's generosity and kind personality was foremost in our minds. In the first year of the re-established relationship, I vouched for his children's character at our local public library so that they could get a library card because the clerk viewed them with suspicion and contempt. We also hired his son to help us with work in our yard, we ate meals with him and his family at the store and in our house, and one of his older sons confided to us some things about the family background. However, when Hezullah attacked Israel on July 25, 2006 and war broke out between Hezbullah and Israeli troops, our relationship with the Israeli Arab man became more distant. Despite our efforts not to make the battle an issue, the Arab man remained aloof and mistrusted us. He was still kind to us, but he would not say much whenever we asked him how his relatives in Jerusalem were fairing. All he would say was, "It is very bad." That following school year, an altercation took place at our local high school in which one of the man's sons was accused of attacking a White student for no reason. Upon investigating the situation, police stated the Arabic boy was "out of control" and "he was like an animal". The Arabic boy was defending himself as any street fighter would. It was evident the White student was the instigator. However, none of the White students or teachers defended the Arabic boy. The boy was arrested and had to appear in court. We gave the man legal advice in preparation for the court hearing. No matter how hard we tried to connect with the Arab man through our actions and assurances our religious differences and views about Israel vs. Palestinians was not an issue in our relationship with him, he was still determined to maintain the separation between Micaiah and I as Jews, and he and his family as Muslim Arabs. Needless to say, Micaiah and I were deeply hurt. We felt he and his family were the only ones in this small town we could be close friends with. Micaiah and I stopped at the man's store for a visit while out on our Shabbat walk. The man was gone, but two of his sons were there. We talked and ate. Our conversation was fun and lots of jokes, and other part serious. We learned their father has always hated Jews. The children, on the other hand, had wanted to maintain a friendship relationship with us. We were told we were different from all the other Jews they had encountered when they lived in Israel. Since that meeting, most of the man's children have gone back to Israel. Two of them did return earlier this year and opened a new store. We have seen them in passing, but the closeness we had with the family seem to be no more.
Our relationship with his children was similar to Shalom and Ali's. We were surprised when one of his sons pulled up in his car across the street from us a month ago to greet us. I was so overjoyed I almost ran through traffic just to hug him. Unfortunately, he did not have much time to talk, and I feared being hurt again if he was made to go back to Israel by his father. When Shalom addressed his dilemma in the book, Micaiah and I could not help but think about our relationship with the Arab man and his family. If we suspected or knew that one of his sons had killed another Jew, would we turn the son in, or would we just turn our back simply because we knew the son and saw the good qualities he had before he became a murderer? For me, my decision to turn him in would have nothing to do with whether he was a Jew, Christian, or Muslim. It would be difficult because I knew him before he murdered somebody, but the fact that he committed murder would be enough for me to turn him in. Micaiah differs with me, though. If he gave is word to keep information confidential, it would remain so regardless of the situation. Micaiah would advice the murder to turn himself in rather than break an oath.
Makedah bat Leah.
Broken Bridge by Lynne Reid Banks; Copyright 1994; Published by Morrow Junior books, New York.
