All Roads Lead to Jerusalem Read online

  PRAISE FOR

  ALL ROADS LEAD TO JERUSALEM

  Jenny Jones’ yearlong journey with her three children to the West Bank to bond with her husband’s Palestinian family may seem like a strange place to find personal peace given the strife of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. She takes many risks as a Muslim woman in search of answers to the difficult issues faced by the Palestinians. On return to Oregon she realizes her increased courage and self-confidence and hopes to return one day to Safa.

  ∼REV. EDWARD HARTWELL, RETIRED EPISCOPAL PRIEST AND A FOUNDING MEMBER IF THE “INTERFAITH COMMUNITY FOR PALESTINIAN RIGHTS”

  An exceptional and unique way to write about Palestine-Israel. Through her stories, Jennifer catches the attention of readers untraditionally interested in our region of the world.

  ∼OMAR HARAMY, SABEEL ECUMENICAL LIBERATION THEOLOGY CENTER

  If you want to read a book about personal hope, forgiveness, and the spirit of freedom this is the one.

  A woman of integrity Jones is candid about her American privilege, small town naiveté, convictions of faith, and cultural submission. Her desire to give her children an expanded identity as Palestinian leads her to live with her in-laws for over a year in a West Bank village where new found personal freedom unfolds; she takes risks and makes decisions that are life and death as she traverses the Occupied Territories and Israel. Such risk-taking becomes a metaphor for her experience as a woman traversing religion and culture, individuality and family, belonging and freedom. She discovers there is a difference between religion and culture to the detriment of women, and thus to a whole religious community,, become merged.

  Jones stirs in us the sometimes uncomfortable thoughts and perspectives born of our own beliefs and culture as we encounter the stranger in foreign lands. She challenges us to think and act beyond our need for safety and belonging especially when it compromises our integrity or dehumanizes other human beings.

  For anyone who wants to get a glimpse into the tragedy of occupation here it is through the eyes of an American Muslim about one family’s fight to preserve its religion, culture, role of women, protect its children, and survive. Jones portrays the effects of fear on herself and her family as they deal with the abuse, and often imprisonment of their men and young boys, by Israeli soldiers.

  Jones exposes the horror and violations of Israeli occupation on the mind, body, and spirit of the Palestinian people; the acts that dehumanize another person reducing their worth and value, and erode the collective integrity of a people’s way of life and culture.

  Written with honesty and character Jones demonstrates, born of the evolution we witness in her, that we as finite human beings are always in motion, our daily choices no matter how messy, difficult or complex, contribute to the transformation of our lives into who we are at this moment and who we will become in the future. She discovers that belonging and freedom are fluid transcending location, culture, suffering and politics.

  Through it all she finds hope for herself and her family as she discovers that her place, her belonging, isn’t about one location and one set of people but about the bonds forged of the heart, forgiveness, and understanding.

  ∼REV MONICA E. STYRON, FRIENDS OF SABEEL-NORTH AMERICA, AND TEACHING ELDER IN THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, U.S.A.

  All Roads Lead To

  Jerusalem

  All Roads Lead To

  Jerusalem

  An American Muslim Mom’s Search for Meaning in the Holy Land

  JENNIFER LYNN JONES

  Copyright © 2014 by Jennifer Jones

  FIRST EDITION

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data on File

  For inquiries about volume orders, please contact:

  TitleTown Publishing, LLC

  PO Box 12093

  Green Bay, WI 54307-12093

  920-737-8051

  Published in the United States by TitleTown Publishing

  www.titletowpublishing.com

  Distributed by Midpoint Trade Books

  www.midpointtrade.com

  Printed in the United States of America

  Interior design by Jane Perini, Thunder Mountain Design

  Cover Design by Michael Short

  To my children,

  Ibrahim, Amani and Karim,

  who learned to be brave before their time…

  Contents

  Introduction

  PART ONE: Beginnings

  Chapter 1: So There Was This Rabbi

  Chapter 2: In the Closet

  Chapter 3: Leaping In

  Chapter 4: Tranquil Unease

  Chapter 5: Gold, White Satin, and Scent of Skunk

  Chapter 6: The Culture of Marriage

  PART TWO: Destination: The Holy Land

  Chapter 7: Home in Safa

  Chapter 8: The Princess in Her Castle

  Chapter 9: Woman’s Work

  Chapter 10: Angels in the Holy Land

  Chapter 11: Solomon’s Playground

  Chapter 12: What Would Solomon Do?

  Chapter 13: Tribal Life, Ta’mre Style

  Chapter 14: Take the Heat

  PART THREE: Small Battles on the Road

  Chapter 15: Off-Limits

  Chapter 16: Troubled Waters

  Chapter 17: Car Trouble

  Chapter 18: Sister Wives

  Chapter 19: A Safa Thanksgiving

  Chapter 20: Shifting Normal

  Chapter 21: This Land is Your Land…This Land is My Land…

  Chapter 22: Where Angels are Forbidden to Tread

  PART IV: All Roads To War

  Chapter 23: Beautiful Day for a War

  Chapter 24: The Sky is Falling

  Chapter 25: Tamar

  Chapter 26: It’s All About Who You Know

  Chapter 27: Pretty Birds

  Chapter 28: Murder in Bat Ayin

  Chapter 29: Escape

  Chapter 30: Safety in Numbers

  PART V: The Road to Jerusalem

  Chapter 31: Pressing On

  Chapter 32: Happy to Help

  Chapter 33: Temple Mount Waqf

  Chapter 34: Dog Days

  Chapter 35: The Haunt of Jackals

  Afterword: At Home in Seattle

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgments

  Recommended Reading

  About the Author

  Introduction

  At thirty-six, I lived a comfortable, Martha Stewart-inspired life in a pish-posh suburban Seattle neighborhood with my husband, Ahmad, and my three kids, Ibrahim (twelve), Amani (nine), and Karim (two). I had a family I loved, lots of (housewife) friends and a respected reputation in the local Islamic community. I tried to appreciate my life; I really did. Then one day at my nine-year-old daughter, Amani’s, Taekwondo class, it all came crashing down.

  Tall for her age, slim and quick-witted, Amani turned to me with a cheeky thumbs-up sign after pummeling her latest opponent—then helped him off the mat. In that instant I saw her natural confidence, self-worth and her unapologetic right to her place in the world. I couldn’t help but remember that I used to feel just like her. But somewhere along the line, I lost my way and became a meek, Muslim version of my grandmother—make the dinner, put it on the table and clean it up afterward.

  Once upon a time, and believe me when I say it felt like some time ago, I thought of myself as an “empowered Muslim woman” (hey, they do exist). I certainly was not the shrinking, people-pleas
ing shadow that many expect a “good” Muslim woman to be. No, I believed I’d actually combined a life of deep faith and personal satisfaction. In fact, I even wrote a book embraced across the Muslim world that advised other women like me on how to become one of the illusive Yetis I thought I was: a true Muslim feminist.

  I received many letters from readers, some even telling me that they were inspired by my book to embark on new paths of their own. They said they had thrown off the yoke of cultural expectation, sexism and conformity that weighs on many Muslim women. I should have been pleased with that, and in some ways I suppose I was. Still, I couldn’t get away from a gnawing feeling that I was, in fact, a fraud. After all, precious little of my own “great advice” had managed to stick to me.

  Part

  One

  Beginnings

  CHAPTER 1

  So There Was This Rabbi…

  It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

  - ARISTOTLE

  Tall, blonde, wearing at least eight gold rings and given to tight, pencil-skirted business suits, Amy was honestly the last person I expected to convert—but there she was, standing at the microphone held by the Imam next to the grille separating us from the men. I remembered when Ahmad told me she thought I was weird for covering my hair, and that I “might as well be bald.” Well, tonight she stood in my prayer gown with her blonde hair covered, just like mine.

  La ‘ilāha ‘illallāh, Muammad rasūlu-llāh. “I bear witness that there is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his Messenger.” She said these words in front of the whole mosque.

  Takbir! shouts the Imam. “Witness!”

  AllahuAkbar! “God is Great!”

  Three times the men below chorus, rumbling up through the floor as if claps of thunder. Amy is a Muslim now, just like me. God help her.

  Actually, it wasn’t Islam that was hard. It was just hard being around those other Muslims. You know, the native-born kind who thought they were so much better than converts like me. And I was not bitter. There was no chip on my shoulder. None.

  I converted to Islam quite a few years before that night in the mosque with Amy, and I held onto each of those years as a level I was holding above newbies like her. In fact, by the time she converted in the mid-nineties, I’d already been a Muslim for close to eight years and the wife of a Palestinian for four. I liked to think myself an expert in the presentation of female holiness, signified primarily by dress and a fast, obsessive study of Arab homemaking.

  I also worked hard on Palestinian cooking, the Arabic language (at least enough to be able to understand what was being said about me), and even the cultural Arabic mannerisms, the lack of which, made me seem—well—a shiksa. After all, in our world, small nuances seemed important enough to tip the earth on its axis, and things like the proper timing of the tea service, the tone and volume of one’s voice in mixed company, even the style, wrap, and color of the scarf on my head—it all seemed to have so much meaning.

  Are you good enough?

  Of course, my husband, Ahmad, would love to take the credit for my religion in certain circles. Islam is open to new members, and although its missionaries may lack the sophistication and savvy of other religious groups, most Muslims take tremendous pride in their growing convert pool; all the more if the convert is somehow famous, beautiful, or white.

  It’s all over the internet—lists of “famous Muslim converts” and You-Tube videos of scarf-covered co-eds who grew up Presbyterian, Baptist, or Jewish but later embraced Islam. In fact, Islam is the fastest-growing religion in the world, and its population is expected to double worldwide to 2.2 billion by the year 2030. Regardless of whether the growth is due to conversion or population increases, Muslims are extremely proud of this fact, particularly those of us who live in the West. After all, there’s just something about being a quasi-hated minority that makes things like keeping score seem important—and that’s where I think Ahmad’s pride comes in. It’s a boost to the old husbandly ego to walk into a Western mosque with a convert on his arm (well, not literally on the arm; men and women don’t touch in the mosque).

  Still, most people in our mosque know my conversion story by now, and as much as he’d like to, Ahmad can’t take the credit (or the blame). That’s an honor that goes to the rabbi.

  Rabbi Bruce was cute for an older guy, and my freshman English teacher, Mrs. West, had an obvious crush on him. Maybe it was mutual, because she’d somehow managed to drag him into our backwoods Oregon farming town to give a talk on Abraham’s monotheism as a supplement to James Michener’s The Source. It was Rabbi Bruce who introduced me to Islam and, as he put it, to that religion and Judaism’s “pure monotheism,” a topic that was right up my alley

  I was a religious kid. That was unusual only because my family really wasn’t. Like many North American families, we were nominally Christian, celebrating Easter and Christmas. However, we didn’t go to church or even claim a particular denomination. Still, I remember being very serious about my bedtime prayers, obsessively requesting blessings for each family member in turn and always wrapping up by asking God to “say hi to Jesus, ” of whom I’d become fond mainly through Christmas cartoon specials—holla’ to the donkey. I assumed that I was a Christian because Christianity was the only religion I knew. It was only when I became old enough to be aware of “the Trinity,” or the doctrine that defines God as three divine entities, that I began to doubt.

  By all rights, I was a little young to doubt anything. At fourteen, I was marginally into “normal” teenage things: drinking, boys, music. However, religions became my chief interest, and I even briefly joined a group then known as “the Rajneeshees.” This was a controversial group whose members were best known for meditation, wearing only shades of red, having lots of sex, and taking over the small Oregon town of Antelope. As it turned out, my attraction to that group had more to do with a couple of cute twin boys my age who were adherents, rather than a real connection to Rajneesh’s amorphous doctrine. So when the group was eventually driven out of the state and back to India, I was ripe to take in the Rabbi’s message—and that message was a revelation.

  “Islam,” he said, “and Judaism are the world’s only true monotheistic religions. In fact,” he continued, “if you keep in mind the Trinity, Christianity could be considered a polytheistic faith.”

  It was the first time that I’d ever heard anyone compare Islam to Judaism and Christianity, pointing out that Islam shared many of the same Bible stories and most of the same prophets, as well as its being a monotheistic religion that might be related to the God I understood and prayed to every night. And since Rabbi Bruce went on to point out that “one doesn’t really convert to Judaism without considerable difficulty,” I gleaned that Islam was a pretty close alternative.

  It was a surprising message—indeed, one that I suspect shocked Mrs. West and many of my religious Christian classmates, particularly my in-class nemesis, Amy “born-again” Rogers, who never missed an opportunity to point out that I “wasn’t saved” and was headed to Hell. Whatever his motives, Rabbi Bruce gave me more than enough reasons to head to the library to find myself a Quran after class.

  CHAPTER 2

  In the Closet

  All growth is a leap in the dark, a spontaneous unpremeditated act without the benefit of experience.

  - HENRY MILLER

  If Ahmad liked taking the credit in Muslim circles from those who assumed I converted out of love for him, he didn’t do it in general public. It isn’t much fun to be a conspicuous Muslim in North America, particularly after 9-11, and it wasn’t long afterward that Ahmad began to refuse to be seen with me in public when I was wearing either black scarves or abayas—the familiar voluminous black outer garments that many Muslim women wear, particularly in the Gulf countries. He was convinced (perhaps rightfully so), that people would think he’d forced me to wear Islamic dress.

  As for me, I liked my scarf, usually. And I loved my c
omfy abayas, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t sometimes uncomfortable, too. Still, I had to fight a hard battle to embrace Islam alone, only a couple of months after Rabbi Bruce’s visit. Given the fact that I was probably the only Muslim in the entire town, it wasn’t an easy transition.

  To say my typical American parents were alarmed at my choice was an understatement (odd, given that the Rajneesh crowd was well known in Oregon for taking over a small town, stockpiling Uzi submachine guns, and developing a burgeoning bio-terrorism program—and they never seemed bothered much by them). Still, I suppose they were comforted by the notion that my red clothes and mala, the beaded necklace holding a Lucite-framed picture of guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, would only last as long as this latest adolescent crush. Becoming a Muslim, though, was something they couldn’t understand, especially since my enchantment wasn’t linked to any clear outside influence. To them, Islam was a horrible foreign choice that they supported about as much as an old-school Pentecostal family would embrace their newly outed gay son.

  It wasn’t long before my parents put a stop to my “nonsense,” and confiscated my Quran, prayer rug (which I bought during a family trip to Disney World), and scarf, boxing them up and hiding them in the attic until I was “old enough to move out.” Still, I held onto my new faith, praying—literally—in the closet or in the back yard with a beach towel on my head. Clearly, it would take a lot more than a little social discomfort for me to give up any vestige of my religion, and if it made Ahmad uncomfortable—so be it.

  I was already a Muslim by the time I met Ahmad at a Future Farmers of America convention. Thrilled that it was a year that the convention would take place at Oregon State University—where they had an actual mosque—I saw it as a chance to finally meet someone “like me.” Until that point, I hadn’t yet met any other Muslims, and since it was well before the age of the Internet, I was forced to learn my new faith solely through the books available at our small-town library. Although it turned out that I was too shy do anything more than walk around the outside of the local mosque, when I got there I met a skinny Palestinian engineering student in the University dorms where we were staying. It turned out that, despite his rather amazing grip on 1980s-style splendor (gold necklace, flip-flops, a mustache, and playing the newest strains of Air Supply on a portable cassette recorder), he nonetheless made a significant impression on me. After all, he was the first Muslim I met, and I saw him as a shining personification of the stars on the spangled short-shorts he wore. Soon we were writing snail-mail and professing our undying love to each other. Oh, and I was all of 15 years old.