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Antoinette:
Listen to the Children’s Song
Interview by Jane Toby
Antoinette
with children, Bethlehem
I am
Antoinette Knesivich. I live in Beit Jala in
the Rachel’s Tomb area. The main street
used to be full of people-Palestinian and
Jewish. Now where I live is a dead zone.
Before 1948,
in Jerusalem, everyone lived together:
Palestinian, Jewish, Muslim, Christian.
Here is the door to the Jewish man, here is
the door to the Palestinian.
In 1948, the
Hagannah came and threw the Palestinians out
of their homes; the Jewish occupied their
villages. The Palestinians fled, many to
refugee camps. Near here, in Daheisheh
Camp, my husband saw a woman press her
mother close to her to shield her from the
rain pouring into the tent.
My husband
founded the Kalandia school, a Vocational
Training School for the Palestinian
people. He took young Palestinians to
Sweden to study engineering. He also
assisted at The House of the Children in
Jerusalem where I am a Board member.
 Yet
I can’t go to Jerusalem anymore to attend
meetings. From the time of the uprising, I
can’t go with my car. Israel forbids our
cars to enter and I am too old to walk and
go through the checkpoints. When I was 60,
I retired from teaching but stayed in
Jerusalem societies. I am on the Executive
Board of The Arab Society for the
Handicapped. But I can’t go to Jerusalem
anymore. I can’t assist the Mass there as
I used to. I used to arrange the flowers in
the church. But I can’t go there anymore.
They put a
Wall around Bethlehem. The wall put us in
prison. The Wall separates us from Rachel’s
Tomb. Rachel used to be my neighbour.
Before, I was having Jewish women from the
nearby settlement, Gilo, come to my home to
take piano lessons. I was a teacher for the
Jewish ladies there. Now they can’t come
here, also. How I want to do negotiations
between the 2 nations, Jewish and Arab. But
how-with the wall- can we talk together?
When I was
17, I bought an accordion. It was with me to
let the children be happy, to change for
them the situation. During the uprising,
when nobody could go out, I opened my home
to the children. And I played the accordion
for them.
Listen to
the children’s song: “The world is
beautiful. Let us be happy. Let us love
each other. Let us have peace here.”
Interview: January 2008
Interviewer: Jane Toby from Catskill, New
York, who worked for many years with Women
in Black and Middle East Crisis Response,
Hudson Valley, NY. Interview in cooperation
with AEI.
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