Last evening, I walked along the Mediterranean Sea to join my friends in Jaffa for the Shabbat evening meal. Once there, lovely was hearing the melodious chanting call of the muezzin to Muslim believers to come to prayer. On this eve of Ramadan, a month of intense prayer, dawn-to-dusk fasting, and nightly feasts, Muslim residents of the neighboring streets were enjoying their evening meals at tables set up close to their homes and in restaurants under decorative colored lights.
Later that evening, setting out to return home, kind celebrants guided me to the main street, Jerusalem Boulevard. They graciously responded to my Hebrew "khhag sameakh" — an awkward though well-meant happy holiday greeting. I always panic scrambling for proper Arabic expressions though I have studied them many years, flunking courses, tutorials, and attempts to teach me. NOTE: Learn languages as early and as young as possible!
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In Beit Jala, the West Bank: Breaking the Ramadan fast
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