This is an article by a Druze socialist who explains why the 1st of May, as a unifying universal holiday, had pride of place over divisive conflict causing religious holidays – including, of course, Jewish holidays.
He relates a joke about a Moslem, a Christian and a Jew arguing over which religion has the most holidays with the Jew coming out victorious. He writes that in his youth he was jealous of the Jews having more holidays. He was also jealous of how the Jews matched national holidays with religious holidays – for example Israeli Independence Day following Passover.
He then goes on to describe how the Jewish holidays impacted on his life as a child as well as on the economy of his village – for him the Jewish holidays were a blessing (extra income, extra experiences etc.). But over the years his attitude to the Jewish holidays as well as to Shabbat changed for the worse. His village, Daliat El Carmel became a kind of tourist attraction for Jewish clientele – stores and restaurants catering to Jewish visitors on holidays and Shabbat became a major economic factor in the village and the entire village lived according to the Jewish calendar rather than the Druze calendar. Later on, as a university student, exams and other tasks were assigned according to the Jewish calendar – not taking into consideration Moslem and Christian holidays.
He describes how he became a workshop trainer on conflict resolution and how the Jewish participants only wanted to learn about the Moslem holidays and how they were celebrated while the Moslem participants wanted to talk about how they had been oppressed by the Jews.
He also describes a period he spent in jail for refusing to serve in the army. It was during Passover and the non-Jewish inmates also had to eat matzoth. In order to make it “edible” the non-Jews poured water on the matzoth. For this they were punished by a religious guard and were not allowed to send or receive letters for a period of time.
He contrasts this with a pleasant childhood memory of buying leftover matzoth spread with jam.
