A Wall of Light - Edeet Ravel [71]
23. “Hallah” is a biblical word (see Ezekiel 43:27), meaning “onwards” or “further”; it may originate from the interjection HA-LA-AH. In Arabic, the highly idiomatic Yallah, which probably evolved from Ya-Allah (O God), has by coincidence (?) a similar meaning: “let’s go,” “get a move on,” “hurry up.” Modern Hebrew has adopted the Arabic idiom and expanded its usage.
24. Tiger, Tiger Burning Bright by Paul Burlin (1886–1969).
25. Landscape with Garage Lights by Stuart Davis (1894–1964).
26. Guerrillas by Joseph Hirsch (1910–1981).
27.
28. Dori is unfamiliar with the Hebrew for “prophet” (ha-navi) and confuses it with the word for “grapes” (anavim).
29. In 1961 an unusually cold and rainy winter led to shortages of vegetable crops.
30. In Modern Hebrew, the word zona is equivalent to “whore” (in biblical Hebrew the word is closer in nuance to “harlot”). According to Hebrew’s usual gender markers, the masculine of zona would be zoneh; the masculine form, however, does not exist.
31. Camp Bilu’im, a Young Judea camp for older teenagers, was named after the small Zionist movement BILU (a Hebrew acronym based on Isaiah 2:5—House of Jacob, let us go) which was founded in Russia in 1882 in response to a wave of pogroms. In colloquial Modern Hebrew bilu’im refers to enjoyable activities (derived from Job 21:13). The homonymic overlap is coincidental.
32. Dori’s account is translated from Hebrew. Since Hebrew has fewer words than English, one term often serves many purposes, and words which seem advanced for a young child (unfortunately, symbol, longing) are everyday words in Hebrew. When Dori switches to English, the text is printed in an alternative font.
33. For the banned rendition, see www.youtube.com/watch?v= d43h6tJlgUY.
34. Dimitri, just back from reserve duty, recalls:
I first heard about Petra when the army sent me to guard an archaeological expedition, but I didn’t think of going there until I heard about Meir’s trip. We considered Meir a demigod, we followed his every thought; if Meir could go, why couldn’t we?
The trip to Petra was only one of the plans floating around back then. For example, there was a plan to go to Mecca. They wanted me to join, but it was cancelled for a thousand reasons. We decided to go to Petra. We wanted to know what people are like there. Nabataean sand. Castles. It aroused our curiosity. And also the danger, to prove something about ourselves—the fighters of the 890 [Paratroopers Brigade]. Our military service wasn’t dangerous enough, it wasn’t life-threatening.
I met Dror, may he rest in peace, in the army. He was a guy with ambition. A good friend. Loyal. One of those healthy, well-built types, walked tall. Back then there were no jeeps. Patrols went out on foot for days, weeks, months. One day we were patrolling in the Judean desert, in the evening, and we sat next to the Cave of Horror [where Jews are believed to have taken refuge in the war against the Romans in 133–135 CE], we lit a bonfire, drank coffee, and Meir told us about Petra.
Later, when Dror and I were patrolling together in Jenin, we began to talk about the Red Rock again. On the way back we had to submit a report to the Northern Command. As it happened, there was a 1:1000-scale map lying around. Dror and I nicked it, and we began planning our trip.
I don’t remember exactly when we left, but it was around Passover 1956. I didn’t know who had gone before us, but I did know we were following in the tracks of a man and a woman.
We went out at dusk and walked all night. We came across a Bedouin tent and we bypassed it. In the morning we got to Petra. When we saw it, our eyes widened. We’d heard about it but