owes to the circumstances of its birth,
which saw the state expropriate some
300 acres of land, much of it from
landowners in Nazareth and sur-
rounding villages, to create the new
city.
The move led to a shortage of land
for the rapidly growing local Arab
population.
These days in northern Israel, many
Jewish Israelis, particularly younger
ones, leave home for the center of
the country, where the vast major-
ity of Israelis live and where jobs are
more plentiful. This includes tens
of thousands of immigrants from
the former Soviet Union who were
settled in northern Israel in the 1990s.
In Nazareth Ilit, Russian-speaking
Israelis comprise 60 percent of the
city's population, though their number
is dwindling.
New Makeup
On Nov. 11, a new list of Arab candi-
dates hopes to capitalize on the votes
of the city's growing number of Arab
residents.
"Nazareth Ilit is already a mixed
Arab-Jewish city and no longer a
Jewish city," says Salim Khoury, a
former city council member who
again is running for office. He wants
to establish Arabic-speaking schools
so local Arab residents will feel more
connected here.
Relations between the city's Jewish
and Arab residents are mostly
smooth, although some Jewish
residents have resisted selling apart-
ments to Arabs.
Dan Rabinowitz, an anthropolo-
gist at Tel Aviv University, moved to
Nazareth flit for a year to observe the
changes here for his book, Overlooking
Nazareth. He says he was taken aback
by how threatened some of the city's
Jewish residents felt by the notion of
Arab neighbors.
"It made even the most liberal,
secular, modernized Israelis into
something that is much more extreme,
exclusive and generally intolerant:' he
says.
On the streets of Nazareth Ilit,
Jewish residents expressed a range of
viewpoints.
"I have an Arab neighbor across
the hall and I have no problems with
her:' says a woman who asked that her
name be withheld. "But I would prefer
they stay where they came from. It's
better if each group lives separately"
Eliezer Gershoni, 86, who has lived
in the city since 1965, is about to sell
his house on Zippori Street. Most of
the small houses on the street with
private gardens, like his, have been
sold to Arab families. He says it will be
hard to find a Jewish buyer.
Gershoni faults the government for
not investing more in the Galilee, both
in Arab and Jewish communities. He
says the government should have been
investing in Israel proper rather than
diverting resources to Jewish settle-
ments in the West Bank.
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A Longer Look
Geremy Forman, who teaches and
researches the historical, legal, and
geographical dimensions of the Israeli
land regime at Tel Aviv University and
the University of Haifa, says he is trou-
bled by the Israeli paradigm of Arabs
and Jews living separately.
"I think it is mistaken to see con-
tinued ethno-national segregation as
a solution to the difficulties surround-
ing Jewish-Arab relations in Israel;'
Forman says. "In my mind, residential
segregation has always been part of
the problem. It perpetuates stereo-
types, prevents real understanding,
and facilitates discriminatory gov-
ernment and Jewish Agency policies
that make genuine Jewish-Arab rap-
prochement in the country difficult to
imagine:'
Even when Jews and Arabs do live
together in cities like Nazareth Ilit,
there is little mixing between the
groups.
"For the Arabs here, the city is like a
hotel, a place they sleep, but their daily
life is not here says Orna Joseph, the
municipality's spokeswoman.
"On some level, it is an example of
coexistence, but there is a lot of sus-
picion even though I would like to say
everything is ideal;' she says.
"There is a fear that their 15 percent
could turn into 20, 30, even 50 percent,
God forbid, and that then they'd take
over:"
The Abdubais hardly view their
family's decision to live in a pleasant,
affordable neighborhood as part of
any plan to "take over." But they do
worry that their generally good rela-
tions with their Jewish neighbors, who
constitute about half the population
of their "mixed" building, could sour
during times of heightened political
tension.
"There are outbursts here and
there Saher says.
"But what will happen during
times when we are really in different
camps?" O
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