{"id":1452,"date":"2006-06-01T13:50:14","date_gmt":"2006-06-01T17:50:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/wordpress\/?p=1452"},"modified":"2006-06-01T13:50:14","modified_gmt":"2006-06-01T17:50:14","slug":"the-man-on-the-mountaintop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/?p=1452","title":{"rendered":"The man on the mountaintop"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Deb Reich<\/a><\/p>\n

A man is standing on a mountaintop, alone.
\nAnd he is screaming, screaming to the sky,
\ninto the wind, screaming at the sun,
\nat the clouds, in the rain, also at night,
\nby moonlight, by starlight, screaming.<\/p>\n

If you could hear him, you would hear this:
\n?I am a man, I am a citizen of the state,
\nI was born here, my father was born here,
\nmy children were born here, I love this
\nland, I will never leave it, this is
\nmy home, I want to have a decent life,
\nI want to be equal, I can help build this land,
\nI must build a future for my children;
\nwhere are my rights, no one will listen,
\nthe state does not want me, no one cares,
\nam I not a citizen here, why does no one
\nhear me??<\/p>\n

I hear him screaming, I am distraught,
\nin his screams I hear echoes of familiar
\nagonies, agonies of my people, his pain is
\nmy own, I am impelled to respond, I must
\ndo something, I cannot turn my back,
\nI hear him in the wind, screaming,
\nalso at night, and at sunrise, I hear him.
\n
\nWhat can I do, I am only one, I must
\nturn to you for help, we must do something
\nabout this man?s screaming,
\nhis pain is real, we know about pain,
\nand is he not a citizen of the state?<\/p>\n

So I say to you, please, listen, do you not
\nhear this man screaming, what shall we do?<\/p>\n

But you answer me:
\n?No, why should we do anything,
\nhe has his rights, pay no attention,
\nand besides, he is screaming in Arabic,
\nwe don?t understand him, we speak
\nHebrew, we are Jews, this is the Jewish State,
\nenemies of the state speak Arabic, they plot
\nagainst us, perhaps he is an enemy of the state,
\nand besides, you speak English, who are you
\nto make such a request of us, forget it,
\nyou must be new here, you know nothing
\nabout it, you are misinformed, go away.? <\/p>\n

Still I insist, but wait, wait please, listen —
\nhe is screaming now, he is still screaming,
\nI will try to translate for you, there must be
\nsomething in what he says, otherwise why
\nwould he still be screaming, do you not hear
\nthe pain in his voice?<\/p>\n

–then you invoke the Holocaust, Zionism, and
\nthe PLO, and with your unholy trinity you try
\nto silence me and to silence him.<\/p>\n

Here I hesitate, I am loathe to go on
\nwith this, but find I have no choice:
\nnow I must say to you, if this man?s screaming
\ndoes not move you, then the six million
\n(including, please pay attention, various
\nof my family as well as yours) died in vain;
\nin vain, I say. And if your Zionism makes you
\ndeaf to this man?s screaming, then the God
\nwho dwells somewhere in this land, so they say,
\ndoes not want your Zionism in his kingdom.
\nAnd if you hear the PLO in this man?s screaming,
\nthen it is your own screaming you hear, not his.<\/p>\n

Now you are very angry, you turn away,
\nyou are disgusted, you feel self-righteous,
\nyou are indignant, you will try to forget
\nwe ever had this conversation.
\nBut high on his lonely mountaintop
\nthis man is still screaming his pain,
\nand as long as he goes on screaming,
\nI cannot rest, and as long as I cannot rest,
\nyour anger will not protect you.<\/p>\n

And so I call upon you to judge yourself;
\nI do not claim the right to judge you.
\nThe days of the judges in Israel are gone.
\nBut I say, look at your anger. I say,
\nif you cannot yet listen to this mean?s screams,
\nthen listen to your anger.
\nYou would not need to be angry
\nif his screaming meant nothing.<\/p>\n

And I say, if your leaders have hardened their hearts,
\nO my people, you must find new leaders!
\nAre there none among you who can hear
\nthe man on the mountaintop, screaming?
\nAnd I say, we need a new vision in Israel.
\nI don?t see it clearly, but the seeds are
\nwithin YOU, and also within HIM;
\nand you cannot water them with anger,
\nbut only with tears of compassion.<\/p>\n

You must weep, O Israel, for this man
\nscreaming his pain on his mountaintop.
\nGod will not help a people who weeps
\nonly for itself.<\/p>\n

?The man on the mountaintop? was written in February, 1982, in Kufr Qar?e, a Palestinian-Arab town in Israel ? while the author was serving as a community service volunteer with Interns for Peace, a grassroots Arab-Jewish cooperation program. Deb was born and raised in New York and educated at Barnard College (Columbia University) in Manhattan. She first visited Israel as a student in 1966-67 and later wrote a story about the Six-Day War called ?Dudu in Heaven,? which appeared in Lillith magazine (USA) in the summer of 1996. Deb has lived mostly in Israel\/Palestine since 1981 and is the mother of a son and a daughter. Deb may be reached at debmail@alum.barnard.edu<\/a> .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Deb Reich A man is standing on a mountaintop, alone. And he is screaming, screaming to the sky, into the wind, screaming at the sun, at the clouds, in the rain, also at night, by moonlight, by starlight, screaming. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1452","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdXTf-nq","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1452","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1452"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1452\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}