When the annual fringe theater festival in Acre is canceled due to violent disturbances, the term 'culture clash' takes on a new connotation.
By LIAT COLLINSAcre wrecked car 224.88(photo credit: Yaakov Lappin)
Acre managed to beat Napoleon Bonaparte. And now it has beaten the cliche that "the show must go on." Napoleon planned to use the port town north of Haifa as a starting point to invade Syria but his hopes (and forces) were destroyed by a joint show of Turkish and British strength in an act of cooperation which was not the harbinger of things to come. Things aren't quite what they seem in Acre.
Assyrians, Alexander the Great, Ptolemy of Egypt and Saladin all laid claim to it in their time. Two thousand Jews were massacred there in the Roman period. The walls which today give it much of its cache and provide the tourist pull were built during the Crusades. In 1918, the British conquered it from the Turks, turning the Crusader-constructed citadel into the British mandatory prison. On May 4, 1947, 41 prisoners being held there from IZL and Lehi, fighting for Jewish independence, were freed in a daring IZL operation. The British flag was taken down for the last time the following year, replaced by the blue-and-white flag with the Star of David in the middle when Israel gained independence.
Only in 2001 was Acre's Old City declared a UNESCO world heritage site, but its potential has been clear for decades. The city is reminiscent of Rhodes, the Greek island not so far from Acre's own shoreline. Its own special seasonal attraction is a cultural niche well suited to its tempestuous past and dramatic landscape: The Acre Festival of Alternative Theater.
Acre has always had its alternative side - something melodramatic, struggling on the periphery, occasionally taking center stage by force.
ACCORDING TO the UNESCO Web site, the World Heritage Committee added the Old City of Acre to its list because: "Acre is an exceptional historic town in that it preserves the substantial remains of its medieval Crusader buildings beneath the existing Moslem fortified town dating from the 18th and 19th centuries"; "The remains of the Crusader town of Acre, both above and below the present-day street level, provide an exceptional picture of the layout and structures of the capital of the medieval Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem"; and "Present-day Acre is an important example of an Ottoman walled town, with typical urban components such as the citadel, mosques, khans, and baths well preserved, partly built on top of the underlying Crusader structures."
Jerusalem should be proud that Acre mirrors it both above and below the ground. But it's hard to be proud of Acre at the moment. And people in Jerusalem are praying that recent incidents in Acre are not the cue for dramatic events in the capital. While most of the world was busy with the financial crisis, and the Jewish world with the introspection that comes with Yom Kippur, in Acre a shocking performance was taking place.
The town which had been held up as an example of Arab-Jewish coexistence exploded into riots after an Arab resident drove noisily through the carless streets of a Jewish neighborhood on the holiest night in the Jewish year, leading to a confrontation with affronted Jewish youths. An Arab who witnessed the response contacted a local sheikh and quickly a call to arms was being broadcast from the muezzin's loudspeakers in a local mosque. Close to 2,000 Arabs, some chanting "Death to the Jews," stampeded into the Jewish area, rioting and looting and leaving a scene which one Israel Radio reporter described "as something out of Spike Lee's movie Do the Right Thing." Some Jewish residents responded by setting fire to a few Arab homes and cars.
Jerusalem, and all Israel, was watching. News stories in these parts tend to come and go as quickly as the waves crash into the rocks off Acre's shores. Acre stayed in the news. Partly because what happens on Yom Kippur - the Day of Atonement, when our fates are sealed in Heaven - sets the tone for the coming year. Partly because the riots brought the curtains down.
MAYOR SHIMON Lancry, who said he feared more riots which could lead to bloodshed, decided to postpone the annual theater festival on which many of the Old City's tourism-related merchants rely. It gave a whole new connotation to the term "showdown." Arab Old City residents who had previously expressed fears that the city was gentrifying and would eventually drive them out, now complained that the mayor was submitting them to collective punishment by canceling the festival just days before it was due to start. They had, they noted, already stocked up on merchandise for the expected tourist influx.
Instead of visitors, police flooded the town and cabinet members made their way to its picturesque walls to study the unruly scene.
Kadima leader and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Transport Minister Shaul Mofaz, in an even more fragile sign of coexistence, made the journey separately. President Shimon Peres, whose vision for a new Middle East based on economic cooperation looks as shattered as the windows of the looted Jewish stores, called the riots "an embarrassment to all the city's residents." Science, Culture and Sport Minister Ghaleb Majadle, an Arab, appealed to Lancry to let the shows go on but to no avail. Despite it being a largely working-class town, two MKs - one Arab, one Jewish - live there. Both called for a return to peace and order.
Police reportedly feared the riots could spread to other towns with a joint Arab-Jewish population: Jaffa, where Arab residents have - with some justification - expressed fears that gentrification is forcing them out, or Lod, where both Arabs and Jews complain - again, not without reason - of years of neglect. Or places even closer to Acre like Haifa and Ma'alot-Tarshiha.
ARTISTS MOURNED the months of investment of time, money and effort that had gone to waste along with the broken dreams.
Offstage, Hamas officials reportedly declared that Acre was the start of the third intifada.
One of the most disturbing aspects of the Acre riots, and another reason why they did not leave the headlines straightaway, is that they were not the result of a planned incident. Rather than being staged, the riots were spontaneous and their fury and force all the more frightening for that.
As Shakespeare noted in a cliche yet to be proved untrue, "All the world's a stage." Hence ordinary people, the unwilling audience of the unexpected tragedy, are now asking: what is the next act?
All around the country, in the first few days of the Succot holiday people took the opportunity to travel and celebrate. In Jerusalem, always center stage, the annual parade passed peacefully with police and organizers breathing a sigh of relief.
With determined audience participation giving the cue, the curtain need not come down on coexistence. But the scenes just witnessed remain disturbing. Acre will inevitably fade from the spotlight; let's hope nothing more dramatic upstages it in the news. Acre should be the last act, not the prelude.
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