Two days before the start of Passover, I get stuck at the Israeli border. I’m re-entering the country from a weekend trip. It’s early in the morning, but already hot and there’s no breeze.

“Please sit outside and keep waiting,” an Israeli guard tells me. “Thank you.” She speaks with a thick accent and smiles. I’ve already been waiting two hours.

I wonder why I’ve been stopped. I’m not part of any activist groups. I don’t go to demonstrations or protests. I don’t think I’m a security threat. I haven’t hurt anyone.

An Israeli border check.

I’m waved inside and motioned to sit down on a plastic chair. A phone is put in my hand and a voice comes through the receiver. It’s an official, someone’s superior. The line crackles; he sounds far away.

“How long have you been in Israel?” he asks.

“Around three months,” I say.

“We know you’ve been to the West Bank. Is that right?”

“Yes,” I say. “I have.”

I feel like this was the wrong answer. There’s a long pause.

“What is your relationship with the Arab?”

This time of the year, the Holy Land is flooded with pilgrims. The Holy Week of Easter and Passover overlap. There’s also a Muslim holiday, celebrated only here in Palestine, called Nabi Musa, Prophet Moses. We’re all telling stories of prophecy, exile and renewal.

Jerusalem is packed. Crowds squeeze through the narrow streets, rushing from one holy site to the next. It’s a thrilling, hectic time to be in Israel and Palestine. Tour busses are everywhere. Sacred narratives overlap, spring is here and everyone is celebrating something.

That’s when this place feels its most exciting, when it’s pluralistic. I meet many different kinds of people. And wherever I go — whether I’m in Israel or Palestine — I tell people who I am and why I’m here.

Yes, I’m Jewish, I say. Yes, I’m studying Arabic and yes I’m living in the Palestinian West Bank. I’m here to hear stories, to understand this place.

Sometimes responses are positive, sometimes they aren’t.

On a bus in West Jerusalem, I mention that I live in Ramallah. “That’s where the Palestinians go with our stolen cars,” one American-Israeli tells me. “You’re naïve for living there. You won’t accomplish anything,” he says. “They don’t want peace.”

I also meet two off-duty Israeli soldiers. They’re on vacation for Passover. I tell them that I’m studying Arabic in the West Bank. One soldier slaps his forehead and closes his eyes.

“Don’t tell me that, man,” he groans. “I’m in the military.” For him, I’m talking about politics. He wants to relax. It’s his day off.

“They’re just people over there, too,” I offer. “Like you and me, living day to day.”

Another soldier leans in closer. He’s interested. “You’re living in the West Bank?” he asks. “I bet that’s really cool. My grandmother speaks Arabic,” he admits. “I don’t. But a generation ago, a lot of us did.”

Back at the border, I wait. I look at my watch and hope I can still catch the last bus to Jerusalem. I don’t want to be stuck here. A short, stern-looking woman comes in the room to ask me another set of questions. She sits down in front of me.

“Where have you been in the West Bank?”

“Bethlehem, Jericho, Hebron, Nablus” I say, “and Ramallah.”

“Wow. Ramallah?” she says and squints at me. “Weren’t you scared of the locals, the Arabs, there?”

“No,” I say. I think of all of the friends I’ve made since moving to Ramallah. “Not at all.”

She looks at me skeptically and asks me to “sit outside, please.”

I’m kept at the border for another hour. I sit in the shade, leaning against a wall, next to an elderly Arab couple. They’re visiting family in Israel and have also been selected for extended security screening. They drink small cups of coffee out of a thermos.

We wait together, to see if we’ll be let into the country.

Finally, an Israeli guard hand us our passports and we’re waved forward.

I hold the door for the old couple and look at my passport. Instead of a regular three-month tourist visa, I’m only given one month. It’s a clear warning. Don’t travel so much; don’t go so many places, especially not those kinds of places.

I make it to Jerusalem in time for Passover and spend the holiday with a group of American students studying to be Rabbis. They live in Jerusalem and study in yeshivas here. They’re young, engaged, intelligent and welcoming.
We crowd around a dinner table and sit on couches and pillows. The table is crowded, too, with wine bottles, plates and glasses. In the center is the Seder plate.

We read through the Haggadah and sing. We retell the story of Exodus, but also leave plenty of time for discussion, to talk about our own interpretations of the story and liturgy. We do our own analysis, our own midrash.

I was planning on bringing up Palestine and telling my new friends about life in Ramallah. I’m surprised when someone else mentions Palestine first.

In addition to the symbolic food on the Seder plate — the bitter herbs, the charosset, the shank bone, karpas, the egg and matzah — one young woman holds up a bowl of olives.

“Last week,” she says, “I learned about settlers uprooting olive trees on Palestinian land.” She takes a deep breath. “This isn’t what our Torah teaches. Even if we’re at war, we have to love the land.” She’s visibly upset.

“It’s wasteful and it’s destructive, to the land and the people,” she says. “The Torah says bal tashhit, that we should not destroy fruit-bearing trees, even if we’re at war.” She chokes back tears, then apologizes. “That’s why I brought these. I’m passing around olives. Please, eat one and think about this.”

After my Passover seder a Palestinian friend named Shadi invites me to his son’s baptism on Easter Monday. Driving to the church, inevitably, we start talking about the conflict.

“If there’s going to be peace,” Shadi says, “it needs to happen now.”

Shadi lives with his wife and three kids in Bethlehem. His third son’s baptism is in a few hours. It’s a bright, beautiful day.

“The longer we have this wall and these checkpoints,” he waves his hand, “the harder it will be.”

During Easter, Palestinian Christians can apply for special permits to visit Jerusalem’s Old City, where Jesus was crucified and resurrected. But this year, Shadi didn’t want to go through the process. He spent the holiday in Bethlehem.

“Why do I have to apply for a special permit to visit Jerusalem, to travel in my own country? It’s degrading. It didn’t used to be like that,” he shrugs.

“But,” he says, “I’m more worried about what’s going to happen to my kids with this wall and security checks. That’s the real problem. They don’t know any Israelis. I’m afraid that they don’t really know what Israel is,” he says.

“My father had many Israeli friends. He spoke Hebrew. I still have many Israeli friends. I used to work there. But my kids,” he goes on, “they only know occupation. The only Israelis they know are the soldiers.”

Our car pulls to a stop outside the church. “I don’t want them to forget that there are people over there, too,” Shadi says.

At the baptism, we crowd around the priest as he dips Shadi’s son into a basin of holy water. Shadi watches, smiling. Everyone cheers. The baby looks shocked for a moment, gasps a mouthful of air and then bursts into tears.

Now he’s the newest part of this community, the next generation. We cheer again. He twists and turns, bright red in the face and dripping with sacred water.