MALKA

“In the War of Independence, I was the first girl to fight in the Old City for the Haganah. I was there from ages 15 – 20. Ever since, I wanted to return to the Old City to live. I moved back here in 1976, to the Jewish Quarter. Every day for the first year, I would climb up to my roof to see the Temple Mount. I felt like a blessed person, drunk with happiness, surrounded by holiness. I would imagine that I smelled the incense that was once burned in the First Temple. This is the best place in the world. Being here makes me want to live as a more complete Jew – to be a better Jew.

I will never leave here until it is time to go to the Mount of Olives (the cemetery). I am planted here. I am like a tree with deep roots and even the strongest wind can’t blow me away from here. It is only by chance that I was not born here, but in Alexandria, Egypt.

My connection to this land is like the feeling a child has towards a mother who nursed her. But I am not a Zionist, that’s nonsense. This is the land of the Jews. The fact that there were some Arabs here doesn’t take away from the historical fact that in the Talmud, this land belongs to the Jews. The Arabs that are here now came in the 1920’s as nomads. A geographer told me this. I don’t hate Arabs. I only hate their political movement that wants to kick me out of here. The Arabs cannot take this land away from me. They are guests in my house.”