TheBanyanTree: Fwd: Tobie's Sheik Story

[Tobie Shapiro]

>Enthralling story Tobie, about your interaction with the
>Kuwaiti sheik.  I can't seem to let go of it.  Definitely
>more than a passing fancy, at least on his part.  Proof that
>something good can occur between Arab and Jew and maybe a
>kind of doorway to ponder..  I understand the limits but
>wonder why the conversation couldn't go on..
>
>Tom
>

January 10, 200000007

	It was more than a passing fancy on my part, too.  But I was 
caught in a ridiculous position.  I'm not even sure that a Jew can 
enter Kuwait.  I certainly couldn't get into Saudi Arabia.  I took 
him very seriously, but his wealth actually got in the way.  I 
couldn't imagine someone with so much money while other people can't 
send their children to school, can't scrape up a day's food, can't 
lift themselves off the street corner.  When that de Kooning arrived 
in the mail (hand delivered you betcha), I reacted with a mixture of 
awe and dread.  Plenty of good things happen between Jew and Arab. 
They get married and have children together.  They make music 
together, work side by side.  It is a much more complicated situation 
than we foreigners comprehend with our all news all 24 hours 
understanding of the middle east.

	I still think about Mahoud (I never saw his name spelled in 
English, only in Arabic).  Imagine his dilemma, wanting to study art, 
or more likely buy art and have a gallery, and having instead to take 
over the reins of an oil field, get married to Mum and Daddy's 
selection.  They sent him off to study abroad and he brought back the 
culture from England.  He told me the re entry was painful.

	Tobie
-- 




Tobie Helene Shapiro
Berkeley, California   USA

tobie at shpilchas.net