Vision of Israeli ‘Apartheid’

17.30. Shabbat. The ‘Shabbat of Vision’. Yesterday.

34 degrees, sunny, with cool coastal breeze as evening draws close. Northern Israel. The local park.

The grass, the playground, the benches, the line of small flat rocks, the shady trees, the concrete yard of the adjacent school, the drinking tap, the bomb shelter, and the paths that crisscross between them.

A football game on the concrete yard. Religious teens in dark trousers, white shirts and black kippot. Mainly Mizrachim (Jews of Middle Eastern origin), a few of African- and and a few of European-origin.

Four Arab women wearing hijabs walk through the park, stopping for water at the drinking tap before resting on the grass in the shade of the trees.

Small children frolicking on the climbing frames under the watch of young men from the nearby hesder yeshiva. Two with prams, two with guns, one with both. Their wives, in headscarves, chat on some benches close by.

Next to them, two Russian-looking grandmothers drinking tea with a third of African-origin who is smoking a cigarette.

A middle-aged European-origin couple in matching t-shirts, shorts, sandals and shades walk their poodle.

East Asian-origin women, maybe a few Europeans as well, sit in a circle on the grass – some kind of meditation activity, and yoga. Or maybe Pilates. Who knows.

Three Ethiopian women of various ages in traditional white flowing dresses on the bench by the shelter, while the husband of one plays catch with a tennis ball off the shelter wall with his son.

Along the line of rocks next to the playground, the local Chabad rabbi in long black coat and black fedora hat recites pesukim (Torah verses) with mainly secular European and traditional Mizrachi children, then offers them sweets.

Five teens in beachwear walk past on the road up from the coast.

A gaggle of youngsters – religious, traditional and secular; Mizrachi-, European- and African-origin – flutter around the swings waiting their turn.

An Arab lady in hijab is pushing her daughters on two.

Adjacent are two toddlers – a boy and girl, mixed race, in their fine Shabbat clothes, as their African-origin mother and European-origin father look on.

And adjacent to them, on the large flat round swing, three Mizrachi-origin boys having a play fight, each trying to push the others off, as the swing reaches higher.

A fighter jet roars low overhead. No-one pays any attention.