HOMInG interview with Ariel Handel

(Tel Aviv University)

Conducted by Barbara Bertolani

December 2020

“In Arabic and in Hebrew, the word for “home” or “house” is very similar, it’s beit in Arabic and Ba’it in Hebrew. We don’t have in our languages separate words for home and house, so it includes the physical structures and the social and personal meanings. To lose one’s beit means that you lose your home and house at the same time. The similarity between the languages is important. It can remind us to learn how to share the space, how to de-colonize the region in the deep sense of it. It does not necessarily mean that we exactly know which part will be Palestinian and which one will be Israeli and what it exactly means to be living together, but the fact is that both populations do live together in one place that is Israel-Palestine, and the question is how to really get rid of all forms of colonization and to make it a safer place for everyone”

Read ther interview!