A Little House in the Darkness or Where is the Al-Kurd Family’s Living Room?

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Far from the media spotlights a most absurd case is being heard before the Jerusalem District Court. There are people who would argue that it is a substantial case dealing with the state’s image and it is probable that both are true. In the case called “the State of Israel vs. Diana Al-Kurd” the state wishes to revoke the widow benefits that Mrs. Al-Kurd receives due to her husband’s death, since at the time of his passing, the deceased lived outside the Jerusalem city limits. To be precise, not really outside the city limits, but most of the house was outside the city limits, since the municipal boundary cut the house in two – part within the city limits and part in the Occupied Territories.

This particular house is in Anata, north of Jerusalem, a village partly within the city limits and partly in the Territories. Like many buildings in the east of the city, the ’67 boundary arbitrarily cut it in two. The border simply passes through the house’s living room. Jerusalem military commander during the Six-Day War, Shlomo Lahat, told me that at the time situations like this arose “because there was a tremendous mess” and the borders were determined without consideration of the physical conditions, by drawing a straight line between two points.

The Al-Kurd family rented the house in question, and before taking it they checked to the best of their ability that it was in the Jerusalem city limits, aware that over recent years the National Insurance Institute and the Ministry of the Interior had been revoking the residency status of people living outside the city limits. The apartment owner presented as incontrovertible evidence, the fact that the house was charged property tax by the municipality. He added that the garbage along the street was collected by the city. They also approached the Anata Council with the question where the village’s legal boundary passed and they were given a map that proved that the specific street on which they rented the particular house was entirely within the Jerusalem limits. They did not bother to ask the Jerusalem municipality since they knew that it did not supply answers.

In 2002 Diana’s husband fell ill and died, leaving a widow and five small children. The widow began receiving the legal survivor benefits. Three years later, in 2005, the National Insurance Institute surprisingly announced the cessation of survivor benefit payments, claiming that it had become clear that most of the house was in the Occupied Territories. The frightened widow hurriedly moved to another apartment, but soon realized that it wasn’t enough. Following her change in address, she is still entitled to receive children’s benefits, but not survivor benefits since at the time of her husband’s death he lived in a house that was mostly outside the state boundaries.

At present the suit is being heard to determine what percentage of the house is within the city limits. The State, equipped with maps from the “Israel Cartography Center” claims that more than 60% of the house is outside the city limits. The family, equipped with U.N. maps, argues that more than 60% of the house is within the city limits. Regarding the Anata Council’s maps, the state refuses to acknowledge them. Since the court recognizes the authority of the “Israel Cartography Center”, the Al-Kurd family’s chances of receiving a favorable ruling are not too good. With respect to the claim that the family acted in good faith when it checked the house’s location and the basis of property tax payments to the municipality, the state argues that the payment of property tax is not evidence of the house’s location and if the city illegally charged property tax, the family may demand a refund. In response to the charge that the city collected the garbage on that street, the state says that indeed that is true since the sidewalk is in Jerusalem, as is the front of the house. As aforesaid, the rest of the house is not! Simply Kafkaesque, dreadful.

 

 

This instance is of the kind that one doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. The state – the National Insurance Institute, expends great energy and sullies the court’s time in a battle with a widow on the “principle” question of how much of a house is within its borders. Is there a more grotesque example of insensitivity and moral bankruptcy? Is there more persuasive evidence that the state has lost its conscience? The Al-Kurd case is a prime example not only of the inability to distinguish between the important and the trivial, but of the fact that we have not only lost our shame but also elementary Jewish values. We have lost our proportions and with them our humanity. The state of the Jews is robbing a widow and her children’s lifeline and even asks the court’s approval for it. What has happened to the command not to torment proselytes or widows and orphans? Maybe the Midrash meant that they should not be tormented as long as 60% of their homes are within the city limits?

Maybe the people who argue that this is a substantial issue are correct. In a state without clear borders, trying to move east all the time and bite off a little more territory, the question of borders is “the mother of all problems”. This issue has caused blood to flow like water. Thus the Al-Kurd house is the essence of the whole dispute, a metaphor for all the territories. An imaginary line crosses it arbitrarily and because of this imaginary, arbitrary line, the state is bleeding Mrs. Al-Kurd and her children, all of our children in miniature. All of the elements are present in it – insensitivity, evil, an empty struggle on trivial matters, ill-treatment of the weak, etc. Perhaps, in fact, the whole discussion is not about the Al-Kurd home but the national home that we established sixty years ago. The question is not about the percentage of the Al-Kurd house here or there but about how much of our national home is in the moral section of the map and what percentage is in the dark part where evil and insensitivity reign. We have lost our sense of proportion and together with this our humanity. There were days when the lines were clear and we wanted to belong to the human part of the world. Now the boundaries are uncertain and most of our national home is within the borders of arbitrariness, insensitivity and obstinacy. The question is how we return the state borders to the enlightened part of humanity.