{"id":744,"date":"2025-01-02T16:48:08","date_gmt":"2025-01-02T16:48:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thanassiscambanis.com\/sipa\/?p=744"},"modified":"2025-01-02T16:48:08","modified_gmt":"2025-01-02T16:48:08","slug":"the-things-we-dont-carry-samia-halabys-memories-from-palestine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thanassiscambanis.com\/sipa\/2025\/01\/the-things-we-dont-carry-samia-halabys-memories-from-palestine\/","title":{"rendered":"The Things We Don\u2019t Carry: Samia Halaby\u2019s Memories from Palestine\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A Glimpse of the Life and Relocation of Palestinian Artist Samia Halaby <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Samia\u2019s old Family Home in Jerusalem (taken 2017)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Sidney Kuri Poor <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the Spring of 1948, Samia Halaby\u2019s family fled their home. At age 11, Samia was under the impression that they were going on a short 2-week summer vacation. Her mother told her and her siblings each to grab something that was special to them; there was a bit of room in the suitcases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before age 14, Samia had lived in many different homes. She fondly recalls fragments of each of them. She had relocated several times by measure of force, including the displacement of her family out of Palestine during the Nakba in 1948.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Samia and I sat down for tea at her apartment in New York City, I had only met her once before. Samia\u2019s niece and my mother have been close friends since they were young. She is now 87. She had recently broken her arm. She told me she was dealing with learning to simply use the other. She was happy to tell me about her life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She told me about her grandmother\u2019s house, and her grandmother\u2019s garden. There was a small, modest fountain in the middle, with goldfish and a little water spout at the center. She described it as \u201ca delight\u2026 a paradise.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She told me about her extensive collection of toys. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She told me about one family home in particular – of the rectangular apartment unit and the plants and trees that it housed. \u201cThe apartment was full of young people,\u201d she said. \u201cIt was fun to play on the roof, sometimes at the annoyance of my parents.\u201d She vividly recalls the unit\u2019s green terrazzo floor. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Things quickly changed when she was about 8 or 9 years old. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zigzagging Through Barbed Wire <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAll of a sudden, one night, my father gets news,\u201d Samia told me. \u201cI didn\u2019t know what the news was.\u201d A group of men came in and hassled her family into the bedroom. The next thing she remembers was waking up in a new house.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Samia would quickly learn that this was the British administration taking their apartment unit, and forcing them to another neighborhood within Jerusalem. The British installed barbed wire throughout the neighborhood. \u201cThey had spread those coils all across,\u201d she said. \u201cPeople coming in would have to zigzag through the barbed wire.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite being so young, she was not ignorant to the power dynamics at play. \u201cI understood they were stealing something that didn\u2019t belong to them,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was not the last time her family would undergo forceful relocation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the Spring of 1948, Samia\u2019s family was displaced again. This time, they were forced out of the country all together. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was no Israel at the time. But the process of its construction had begun. This move marked the start of what is known as The Nakba – an Arabic word meaning \u201ccatastrophe.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Samia remembers the effects that this move had on her father. Her grandfather died when her father was young, leaving her father to take care of his family at age 12 or 13. He sold bread on the streets during his youth, and eventually gained success throughout his life and accumulated ownership in land, orange groves, and residential properties – many of which she lived in. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd then 48 came,\u201d Samia said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Olive Trees and Fountain Tiles <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Decades later, far away from home, her father received a magazine, and in it there was a photograph of one of these properties. The magazine highlighted how the population now had \u201cmade the desert blossom.\u201d What Samia saw was the mutilation of a place – a space – that now existed as it once was only in their memories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Samia has returned to her hometime many times since. The memories of those returns often blend together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On one trip, in the early 2000\u2019s, she recalls her home – the one with the green terrazzo – to be completely \u201crun down.\u201d \u201cI was shocked at how shabby it looked,\u201d she said. \u201cIt was very disorienting\u2026 I felt disgusted\u2026 I knew this house no matter what, was our house.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Samia has also returned to her grandmother\u2019s house. It has now been changed from a house into three divided apartments. At first she wasn\u2019t able to get into the building. \u201cThey were very rude,\u201d she said. After finding her way up to one of the units by meeting someone in the building who spoke English, she talked with a Jewish couple who lived there. The wife told her about what had changed in the house. \u201cShe kept trying to tell me what she added to the house,\u201d Samia said. \u201c\u2018I remodeled the bathroom\u2026 I did this, I did that.\u2019\u201d Samia tried to get to the other side of the house, towards the dining room. She remembers her grandmother having had a basket hanging from the ceiling to keep items away from any critters. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd they wouldn\u2019t let me in,\u201d she said. \u201cThey told me no.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Samia also discovered that day that her Grandmother\u2019s fountain had been dismantled. \u201cWhat was a beautiful formal garden with amazing flowers and trees turned into a slum,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She has since found that where her father\u2019s building once stood is now home to a division of many storefronts. \u201cOne of them had toys,\u201d she said. She noted the irony of this being the place she had lost her own extensive collection. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not everything about her home had changed. \u201cThe land is familiar,\u201d Samia said. \u201cThe trees are familiar. The kind of shade the olive tree casts.\u201d Although the city adheres to the same streets, they\u2019re no longer called what she called them. \u201cIt’s the same house you lived in,\u201d she said. \u201cBut no, it has a different name.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

About 150,000 people stayed in Palestine in 1948. Samia was one of more than 700,000 that fled. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She has since been able to experience the place again. Only now she has to do it in fragments. She returned in the 90s, the 2000s. She has found the house with the green terrazzo floor. She returned again just a few years ago. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She\u2019s been able to find the plot where her grandmother\u2019s fountain once stood, although it does not display the same intricate tiles. Samia noted that often tiles of this kind were taken and sold in the United States. She speculates that\u2019s what happened to the fountain. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEverything changes,\u201d she said. \u201cThe food changes. The ingredients you want to buy. You try to cook with replacement ingredients. You lose your friends.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The toys Samia left behind were taken. New toys – ones she doesn\u2019t recognize – are now sold nearby. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She never got to save one of the tiles from her grandmother\u2019s fountain. On one visit home, she found one little stone in its remnants. It’s \u201csomewhere\u201d in her apartment in New York City. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After age 14, Samia has lived in many different places. Although none in what she originally called home. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Samia is now regarded as one of the most successful living Palestinian artists. In 2023, Indiana University – the institution which she previously taught and earned a Master Degree – canceled a major exhibition of her work just weeks before the show.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, there are an estimated 9.2 million displaced Palestinians worldwide. Every visit back to the country shows Samia how the space continues to change – an ongoing process almost never done by those who call it home. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What, I asked Samia, did she choose to carry with her in her suitcase in 1948, when her mother told her there was extra room? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She smiled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI decided to be stoic and save space,\u201d she said. \u201cI told her I didn\u2019t need to bring anything.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sidney Kuri Poor is a Graduate Student at Columbia University, completing a dual Master Degree in International Affairs and Journalism. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Glimpse of the Life and Relocation of Palestinian Artist Samia Halaby  Samia\u2019s old Family Home in Jerusalem (taken 2017) By Sidney Kuri Poor  In the Spring of 1948, Samia Halaby\u2019s family fled their home. At age 11, Samia was…<\/p>\n

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