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PROFILE: PALESTINIAN WEDDING IN EAST JERUSALEM
All Things Considered: July 16, 2003
Palestinian Wedding
MELISSA BLOCK, host:
Against the backdrop of tension and violence that is life in the Middle East these days, ordinary events can take on extraordinary significance. NPR's Julie McCarthy recently attended a Palestinian wedding in predominantly Arab East Jerusalem, and found that even such a joyful event can get complicated.
SOUNDBITE OF WEDDING GUESTS MURMUR
JULIE McCARTHY reporting:
At first blush, it is a thoroughly modern affair. The 24-year-old bride is a university-educated social worker in the West Bank town of Ramallah, north of Jerusalem. The groom, a 27-year-old computer engineer in the same city. Suzie Goshi(ph) is adorned in a wedding cake of a dress that looks straight out of Bride magazine. Deftly drawn charcoal eyes peek out from her white veil. The wedding party officially gets under way at her home in East Jerusalem when the groom arrives with the women of his family who inaugurate the proceedings with a ritual that makes clear even the most up-to-date couples make way for well-rooted customs.
SOUNDBITE OF RITUAL
McCARTHY: The ululation welcome the bride into her new family. The father of the bride, standing a chain-smoking vigil, lifts the veil from his daughter's face, and Suzie descends the steep stone steps with her groom, Ahmed(ph), to a bullhorn serenade.
SOUNDBITE OF SERENADE
McCARTHY: Then comes the rite that any American would recognize.
SOUNDBITE OF AUTOMOBILE HORNS BLOWING
McCARTHY: But a Palestinian Muslim wedding is not what Westerners think of as a marriage ceremony. An Islamic judge unites the couple with simple vows before four witnesses in private. The public part of the wedding is held this night in Dream Park with a guest list of 600 people.
SOUNDBITE OF POURING BEVERAGE
McCARTHY: Tables stretch along a torch-lit hilltop in this wedding garden for hire that overlooks the old city of Jerusalem. Its ancient back-lit walls shimmer under an orange moon that looks as if someone has pinned it to the sky. The newlyweds enter the grounds under a canopy of white chiffon that billows in the night breeze.
SOUNDBITE OF ORGAN WEDDING MARCH
McCARTHY: The music explodes along with fireworks. A man trails the bride and groom, cranking a machine pumping fake smoke, and the dancing couple momentarily disappear behind a thick haze. The wedding starts to look like a forest fire. Unfazed guests say special effects are standard. Both sexes sit together but, for the most part, dance separately. The men rise for traditional tunes, the women for Dolly Parton.
SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC
Ms. DOLLY PARTON and Unidentified Harmony Vocalist: (Singing) And baby, every time you touch me, I become a hero.
McCARTHY: For all the merriment, there is also a discernable reserve. Scores of guests from the West Bank failed to come. Many were stopped at checkpoints and prevented from leaving the Israeli occupied territories to enter East Jerusalem. Friend of the bride, Nadal Roffa(ph), says some of Suzie Goshi's closest friends missed her wedding because they are West Bankers.
Ms. NADAL ROFFA (Friend of the Bride): And basically they don't have the permission to come to Jerusalem. You know, wedding, it's, like, once in your life, and your best friends are not able to attend because of politics and because of checkpoints and the soldiers who just turn you back, which make it, of course, sad.
McCARTHY: Spokeswoman for Israeli Civil Administration Talia Somik(ph) says the West Bank is currently closed, but that Palestinians can apply for special permits to enter Israel. Father of the bride Hahni Goshi(ph) says some guests chose to come to the wedding using paths that are not patrolled.
Mr. HAHNI GOSHI (Father of the Bride): These paths are well-known. The same as for smugglers who are looking for getting money through illegal ways, our people are looking for smuggling themselves, not to get money, but only to penetrate the checkpoints and get to their relatives.
McCARTHY: Hahni Goshi is accustomed to the disappointment this day brings. Three of his 11 brothers have been exiled from Israel. But he says his brothers living in the West Bank are just as unlikely to make the wedding as his family living in exile.
Mr. GOSHI: They have the same situation, which is very ironic.
McCARTHY: With 60 percent of the Palestinians now living in poverty, weddings are less lavish. Ice cream was the only dish served here, and still the tab will exceed $8,000, which the groom will pay. Again, the father of the bride.
Mr. GOSHI: It's modest. OK. It's modest. But you know, it's the only way for us to be cheerful, the only way--all of us. It's the only way. Oh, that's nice music, yeah.
McCARTHY: Julie McCarthy, NPR News, East Jerusalem.
Mr. GOSHI: Now it's our turn to dance, yeah.
SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC
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