My Arab Dentist Adventure: Walking the the Crescent, Abu Ghosh

      Of all things, I broke off half my tooth one night while I was in Israel.   Now I had to go to the dentist.  I'm in a foreign land, have limited resources and a pressing medical issue. Nightmares of decay and infected root systems danced in my head. I would have to bite the bullet and just take care of this thing.  Before it ended my life!    :]

Abu Ghosh Main Shopping Street

The Judean Hillside

I talked to my volunteer coordinator and she offered up a dentist.  But someone within earshot mentioned that a relative of the banquet hall manager, 'Sufi', was a dentist. 


 Sufi was kind enough to call up his uncle and ask if I could see him.   He even searched for the word ‘discount’ when telling me to come the next day. 




Sufi, the daytime manager, was an Arab. We hadn't had much interaction with the banquet hall staff, because as girls, we weren't encouraged to fraternize with Arab men.   And pretty much all the banquet staff, were Arab men.   Now, it should be said, that Arab men in the Middle East--well, all men in the Middle East--are kind of 'Middle Eastern men'.    If you know what I mean.   There is just a different set of cultural ques and stuff that we western girls don't know about.  Unseen trip-wires.   So to not stumble on any of these, the rule of thumb is just non-association.    It's for everyone's best interests.   One of my friends said it:  'Why do they have to be so tan!    And in such good shape.'


But I needed to see a dentist.   And if he was related to Sufi, I would have to break the silence and talk to an Arab man.          

Thus begins my adventure of seeing an Arabian dentist in Israel.

The Manager’s uncle was called Dr. Jaber (Jah-bear) and was thankfully located close by, in the town next to us, Abu Ghosh. 


Now Abu Ghosh wasn't just any ol’ Arab town. Everyone who talked about it said that it was 'special'. It was a town made up of Arabs that supported Zionists even in the time of the British occupation.   So, these were Arab-Israelis citizens.   

These Arabs fought alongside their Jewish neighbors during the war for Independence.    They saw what was coming and decided to join ranks with their neighbors when Israel was just a baby nation and was attacked by 7 other nations. 


In the following years, these neighbors were so neighborly, they even worked out their differences. Here is a little story.

A very sweet ice cream shop in Abu Ghosh.

Once upon a time in Abu Ghosh, there was a time when hard feelings developed between the Arabs and the Jews.

Neighbors were fighting with neighbors, some were even throwing rocks. 

One day, the Arabs went to a Jewish rabbi and said they didn’t want to fight with their Jewish neighbors. What should they do? 

The rabbi, very wise, said, “Bring flowers to your Jewish neighbors on Shabbat (Friday). That will solve the problem.”

Well, the Arab neighbors did this, and it helped.

Whatever happened, people stopped throwing rocks and Arabs started being invited to their Jewish neighbors for Shabbat dinner.  What a commitment to community. 

The resulting unity in Abu Ghosh is precious in sometimes tension-filled Israel. 



      This expedition was so extraordinary because I hadn't gone outside the safe walls of the Yad Hashmona compound/kibbutz alone except to catch a bus with other people to other safe places.  The city of Jerusalem, The Dead Sea, other tourist attractions.   But not my own neighborhood.    


(The second week I was in Israel, 2 lady hikers were knifed on a nearby trail 20 minutes away by two Arab men. The reason for that action was never known.)  From our Judean hilltop, we would hear coyote cries and laughing hyenas howl at night. We heard stories of Arabs in the surrounding countryside stealing goats and smaller lifestock from the Yad Hashmona Biblical Museum at one time.

A clear day.

I took the first steps toward the hill’s edge of Abu Ghosh with no small amount of trepidation. You would think I wouldn't have done it, but I was so excited to have an excuse to leave the ‘island’.  


If some terrorist attack happened I would have had a reason to be arriving in heaven early. 'It was either me or my tooth,' I would tell St. Peter at the Pearly Gates. 


I practically floated to my dental destination.  Taking pictures, breathing in Arabic sounds, trying to catch the scent of the air in my memory... 

I was so happy to be out and about.   I tried to just smile with my eyes, hidden behind my hounds-tooth captain's hat.   (Hey tourist!  we know its you!)   I remembered to be careful and tried not look anyone in the eye.   

You see, Middle Eastern males seem to interpret this as, ‘You are HAPPY to see ME!’ and that starts all sorts of distractions and explanations and so on.

A picture to memorialize the day.

            Like a crescent moon, Abu Ghosh is settled on the curve of a hillside. I walked its length through a relatively empty city. ]


The sky was blue, not a cloud in sight.  Calm and serene were the city limits. A perfect day.


I passed white stone walled homes with black wrought iron fences. Girls playing in yards below asked me if I was married. “Not yet…” I said,  perfectly the opposite of non-plused by such a  reasonable question.

The longer I walked, the more worry rose in my heart that I would miss the dentist's office and wander for hours through the maze of little city.

Mid-crescent

Dropping the 'no-eyes' rule, I asked stranger after stranger if I was going the right way.   "Dr. Jaber’s, " I would say, and they would nod and look up the hill. One man pointed to a sign. I couldn't tell because of the Arabic, but because he took the time to point emphatically, I double-backed and went through its gate.   I was rewarded finally by a lush courtyard and title in English on a ceramic tile outside the door. 

 'Dr. Jaber'  it said and when I opened the door....  

In a courtyard outside of the dentist office.

Along the Courtyard

For More Arab Dentist Adventures Read Part II - My Arab Dentist Adventure: Dr. Jaber