The man on the roof

As the springtime tranquility of Passover was shattered by a suicide bomber in Tel Aviv, and the nation braced for another round of violence, my thoughts turned to a wintry morning a few months back. The prime minister lay in a coma. Jewish settlers were rioting in Hebron. The Hamas was running hard for political office, with pollsters predicting they'd come in second.

I was working in my cozy study in the German Colony when Lizzie, my German shepherd, began barking hysterically. I went to the front door—no one there. A few minutes later, the doorbell rang, a man, an Arab, a worker, carrying a green mesh plastic basket. He had been here before.

Through the peephole I recognized him as a man to whom I had given five or maybe 10 shekels several weeks earlier. He was unshaven, short, poorly clad. My dog snarled as I opened the door, strained as I gripped her collar. Ein avodah, I said: no work. I knew the man would be asking to do odd jobs, gardening, cleaning dead leaves from the gutters along the roof. He went into the same routine as last time, please, can't you find it in your heart? I am al hapanim, he said, in Hebrew.

Finished. Ruined. Literally, down on my face, a gesture of defeat and submission, also, as it happens, of Muslim prayer.

I should add that my house, before 1948, belonged to Arabs. To whom, I have no idea. I assume they were well-off Christians. I also like to imagine that they were not driven into some dreadful refugee camp, but rather left of their free will and relocated happily, they should live and be well, to Santiago, Chile, where they have made a fortune in banking and real estate—and that they are afraid of flying.

My heart goes out to them, it really does, and I do feel somewhat guilty, sometimes, about living in an old Arab house, of which there are many nice ones in my neighborhood and those nearby, where today folks like me, including many American immigrants, reside. Not that if they came knocking I would have to give them my house, or even invite them in. And in a sense, the whole country is an Old Arab House, isn't it—am I supposed to feel guilty about that? It's also an Old Jewish House, very old. I apologize to no one. Jews were booted out of everywhere for 2,000 years, and worse. Without a Jewish state, no Jew can feel secure. I believe that.

Nevertheless, I felt guilty, as always, and, of course, felt sorry for this poor man. So I said, regah, just a minute, and closed and locked the door, and found some coins, and went back and opened the door, reaching for Lizzie to accompany me, just in case. But Lizzie was stretched out on the carpet, yawning. I gave him the money. He nodded his thanks and went away, and I went back to my laptop.

Five minutes later, the doorbell rang again. This time, an old man and a young boy, right out of a Robert Capa photograph. Grizzled, white knitted cap, hoe over his shoulder, holding hands with a wide-eyed kid. Obviously the other guy's father and son. This time I figured, I already gave. They caught me peeking through a window. Ein avodah, I said, not opening the door. They held out their hands. I turned away. I saw them looking around as they left, measuring with their eyes my house, the garden, the windows on the second floor. I thought, no, I'd better give them something—but I let them go.

The Old Arab and his grandson shuffled slowly through the garden. I felt terrible as I thought about how terrible it must be, to be reduced to begging door to door. Maybe, I thought for a moment, the Old Arab used to live in this neighborhood. Some years back I was working on a documentary, and we interviewed an elderly Palestinian who walked us down Emek Refaim Street pointing out the buildings once owned by his family and other Arabs. He had lived in the Greek Colony, two minutes' walk from my own house, and was one of the lucky ones.

One day in 1948, he told us, when he was 19, his parents told him to pack one bag and hurry, the Jewish army was coming. So he threw in some clothes and favorite books, and took, he said, one last look from the balcony—this seemed out of an Italian movie—where he had spent so many hours, staring into the garden of the Greek Social Club across the street, watching the people dance.

The old man's family relocated to the eastern part of the city, which between 1948 and 1967 was part of Jordan. They lived in a nice part of town, the man went into the antiques business, his son studied medicine in America and now worked in the Israeli health-care system. We stood in front of his elegant former house and filmed him under the balcony. He pointed to nearby houses and told us where their owners were now: Bethlehem, Lebanon, Ecuador.

Suddenly a modest car pulled up and a tall, slender Israeli with a gray beard got out and headed toward the front door. I intercepted him and said: "This man used to live in your house—would you like to meet him?" (This was not on camera; we were not Michael Moore guerrillas.) And the thin man with the beard, disappointingly, not surprisingly, said no. I would like to think I would do otherwise, but I'm not sure I would.

But mine wasn't their house, it couldn't possibly be. And it was a different Greek Colony story, actually, that came forcefully to mind as I watched the Old Arab and his grandson go, and didn't open the door and give them money.

Some years back, a short, stocky Palestinian carrying a thick wooden stick rang the bell one day and asked for work cleaning the gutters. Winter was near and my gutters did need cleaning. We settled on a price. It was way too high, I thought, but cleaning gutters takes time, and the man is working hard for his bread, so I'll pay it (and feel less guilty).

Nimble as a cat, he hopped up to the roof, did a fine job, even repaired a few roof tiles. Came back a year later, and I told him no thanks. He was insistent, aggressive. His family needed food. I said okay, but got a much better price. Again he did the work. The following fall, I turned him away, and he left with a scowl.

A while later, a year, maybe two, there was an awful story in the papers, a woman in the Greek Colony murdered by a Palestinian laborer whom she had hired as a gardener, and befriended, but no longer needed. He was angry, and demanded money, and brutally killed her. Turned out it was the same guy, the man on my roof.
Which is why, on that wintry day, I said no. I didn't want anyone to come back for more. To establish a precedent. To get too close to me. To hurt me in my house. My house. But now, in this spring holiday season of Exodus and Independence, I have begun again to open the door to hungry strangers, to find some coins, and fragments of hope, even as the bombs explode.

Stuart Schoffman is a columnist for JUF News and an associate editor of The Jerusalem Report.