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Sarah Tuttle-Singer
A Mermaid in Jerusalem

At the little supermarket between East and West Jerusalem

Tensions are brewing in Jerusalem – Violence erupted on Temple Mount today, after a spate of terror attacks.

But at our little supermarket on the seam between East and West Jerusalem, this is what I saw:

The shopkeeper and a customer were chatting in Arabic. The customer was buying a bottle of tamarind – a sweet drink perfect for breaking the fast on Ramadan.

A Jewish Israeli woman very big with baby waddled to the counter holding a bag of ripe avocados.

“How much are the sunflowers outside?” She asked the Palestinian shopkeeper in Hebrew.

“35 shekel a bunch, but 30 for you.”

“Thank you!” She said.

She rummaged in her purse.

“Next time,” she said.

The Palestinian man who bought the Tamarind said something to the shopkeeper, paid him, and left.

The Israeli woman paid for her avocados.

“Don’t forget your sunflowers,” the shopkeeper told her.

“I wish! I don’t have enough money this time,” she said.

“Oh, that’s ok,” the shopkeeper said “the man who just left paid for them for you. He wants me to tell you b’shaah tova – may the baby arrive in a good time! – and have a beautiful Pesach”

About the Author
Sarah Tuttle-Singer is the author of Jerusalem Drawn and Quartered and the New Media Editor at Times of Israel. She was raised in Venice Beach, California on Yiddish lullabies and Civil Rights anthems, and she now lives in Jerusalem with her 3 kids where she climbs roofs, explores cisterns, opens secret doors, talks to strangers, and writes stories about people — especially taxi drivers. Sarah also speaks before audiences left, right, and center through the Jewish Speakers Bureau, asking them to wrestle with important questions while celebrating their willingness to do so. She loves whisky and tacos and chocolate chip cookies and old maps and foreign coins and discovering new ideas from different perspectives. Sarah is a work in progress.