Recently, I was escorting a group of tourists north, and was speaking to the taxi driver, Sami, a Christian Arab from East Jerusalem.  We were killing a little time before the group needed to leave.  He asked me where I lived, and I said Jerusalem.  He then asked me where in Jerusalem, and I said Musrara.  Musrara is a neighborhood right near the Jaffa and Damascus Gates, and borders the Old City.  I noticed his face changed and he became a bit more serious.  He then asked me where in Musrara.  I answered him and said the name of my street.  He became even more serious and asked me the # of my building.  I told him.   His face became like a stone.  It turns out his family home was exactly next door to where I am now living.  They lost it in the war in 1948 when people fled the Old City area because of the fighting.  After the fighting subsided, they returned home, only to find the home taken by Israel.

I just happen to know the people who now live in this home . . . they are Jewish immigrants who had come from France after the Holocaust.  They recently closed a small upholstery shop in the area they had run for decades and are now probably in their late 70’s.  I had already taken time to hear their story some months ago, not ever even thinking that I would ‘bump into’ the other part of their story about the family who had lived in their house while they were French Jews trying to survive in Nazi Germany.   
 
These are some of the realities and challenges one bumps into in this part of the world.  One of the worst things anyone can do wherever they are in life is to enter themselves in a ‘suffering contest’, to see who has suffered the most.  Sadly, this is a part of human nature for all of mankind.  How to acknowledge someone’s pain, without adding a few shovelfuls of pity which can then easily become self-pity to their situation, is a rare art form.  One this writer hopes to grow in as she encounters people like Sami.  What do you say?  Really, what do you say?  There I sat, in the taxi, an outsider as an immigrant in this land.  At that tender moment, I didn’t say anything.  I gave Sami  a gentle smile with eyes that said I’m sorry for your pain.  He smiled back, and we loaded the bus and headed north. 
 
Sami and his family live very close by,  on the Mt. of Olives, and their lives have moved on.  But this part of his heart has not.