Home for the Holidays

I have been away from home for a long time now, but the semester is over and my flight is today. I am going home to Jerusalem, to Baka.

Stay tuned for my next post, which will be about "Baka Leftists". I am sure the reference will be understood by some of my readers, but for those who don't: Baka is a neighborhood in South Jerusalem which was overwhelmingly Arab (upper middle class) until 47-8; then it was occupied by Israel, and the homes were made available, for the most part, to immigrants from North Africa. Like other places in Jerusalem, it has been undergoing gentrification, and there is a high percentage of professional (and academic) Israelis who live there now, alongside the residents from the "oriental" communities. Many of the new residents are politically liberal, even leftwing.

Baka is the original Arabic name for the neighborhood; Israeli official attempts to Hebraize it with "Geulim" have failed, except at the Baka -- oops, Geulim -- postoffice on Derekh Bet Lechem.

My home is on top of a Palestinian's former home, and my next post will be, inter alia, about that.