There is a small old neighborhood in Jerusalem called Yamin Moshe. It was one of the first to be built outside of the old city walls. when it was first built people were so scared to live outside of the city walls that they would pay poor families to live there. today you can't touch a piece of property there for under a few million dollars.
My point is that what is today's prime property was a bit more than a hundred years ago such a scary place to live that people would not stay there at night.
about a decade or two after Yamin Moshe was built another Jewish community was built outside the city walls but even closer to them.
This village was built on land which was purchased by wealthy Jews in order to provide a place to live for the poor Yeminite Jews who had come to Israel.
The state of the Yeminite Village to day is nothing close to that of Yamin Moshe. In fact the yeminite village would have been completely lost and forgotten if not for the work of the foundation Ateret cohanim. The Jewish families were evacuated by the british back in the 1930's because of the rise in Arab violence toward them.
Today you have close to twenty Jewish families that live in the center of the arab village of Silwan who are there for the purpose of rebuilding the Yeminite Village.
But I really don't want to write a history book here. I want to tell you my story. What it's like in 2019 to work in security in the old Yeminite Village. To be in the time of history that will soon, I think even in the next few decades, when people will say, “back when we needed an armed escort to get to school and work, when they threw rocks at us every day and molotov cocktails every week.
Because then what will be called back then is really now, and I saw it and I see it every day that I am at work.
Most people feel that the story of their lives would make a good book, and I bet that if we all really knew how to express our experience of life then everyone's life is a best seller.
But then on the other hand maybe not, maybe we need to really be looking for the excitement in life to get it. Even more true in my opinion is that we need to be able to see the best selling novel in our lives.
With those words I do finally think that I have found the true reason that I want to tell my story to the world. It came to me this very moment while sitting here at work, typing on my smart phone using my bluetooth keyboard(because we are not allowed lap tops at work(or lap dances)), sitting in Bayt Ovadiah at the edge of the old yeminite village and listening to the muslim prayer songs.
To be able to see the story of my life experience and share it with the world.
