Expulsion and return: the Via Dolorosa of the Gdērāt al-Ṣāneʿ tribal group as reflected in two poems by a Negev Bedouin poet

ABSTRACT

This article explores the poetic expressions of a traumatic event experienced by poet Ibrāhīm Abū Ṣyām of the Gdērāt al-Ṣāneʿ tribal group, which was expelled in 1952 from al-Lgiyyeh in the northern Negev to the southern West Bank. Forty days later the tribe was returned to Israel, but not to the area from which it had been expelled. Instead, it was resettled in the eastern Negev. The article presents two poems that tell of this expulsion and return, examining them in their diverse contexts and interpreting their subtle symbolism by drawing on the history and culture of the Negev Bedouin.

KEYWORDS:

• Bedouin poetry
• 1948 war
• Negev Bedouin
• military government
• Israel’s Palestinian Arabs
• expulsion

Written sources – most of which are preserved in Israeli archives – provide valuable information about the chronicles of the Gdērāt al-Ṣāneʿ tribal group, which was expelled from al-Lgiyyeh (literary Arabic: al-Laqiyyah) in the northern Negev to ar-Rahwah in the southern West Bank in mid-September 1952, and allowed to return to Israel forty days later.¹ Although one may discern the voices of the expelled between the lines of these sources, it is usually hard to glean the Bedouin perspective from them and, as with members of other tribal groups, almost impossible to determine what the members of this group underwent in the years immediately after the 1948 war.² A powerful, complementary source through which one may bring to light the perspective and experience of the “outcasts from history and homeland,”³ in the words of Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, is oral history.⁴ One of its weaknesses, however, is that it is shaped by the circumstances of the moment at which historical subjects are asked to reconstruct, in their own words, the past that they had witnessed.⁵ Remembrance colors the past in the hues of that moment and tends to frame it in its own terms. It is likely to attest, above all, to its own point in time. A combination of written sources and oral testimonies may be helpful in this regard,⁶ but it is not the only approach.

In this article, we examine the experience of one of these deportees and bring to light his perspective on the events of those days by drawing on two poems he composed during the period of expulsion and return. The advantage of popular poetry as a historical source lies in its capacity to offer the (albeit narrow but still deep) perspective of the ordinary people, of someone with the power of expression who witnessed the events described in his verses.⁷ As a source for research of the past, popular poetry is similar to oral history in this sense. Yet it is closer to the historical moment than oral history because, at the time of its composition, its words were formed using rhythm and rhyme in order to facilitate their remembrance over time. Like written records, popular poetry is first and foremost a product of the time of its composition. Admittedly, one cannot always know precisely when it was composed (as is also the case with archival material), and as we shall see below, it might not have been composed all at once. Moreover, it is the nature of popular poetry that the passage of time plays with it, and a successful work may be reborn in distinct forms, perhaps even departing substantially from the original. And even when a new version does not depart substantially from the original, the fact of its performance under circumstances that differ from those of its composition may imbue it with new meaning. Nevertheless, popular poetry, particularly that of the Bedouin, whose oral culture was highly developed,⁸ carries a clear imprint of its moment of composition. Popular poetry may therefore give expression to significant experiences of ordinary people, as does oral history, but in a way that maintains contiguity with the events experienced, as do written testimonies.

In addition to these qualities, the popular poetry of the Negev Bedouin, as well as that of the Bedouin in other countries of the Middle East,⁹ has great potential to be used as a unique historical source for its considerable weight – past and present – in the social, cultural and political lives of the Bedouin. Much like its “older relative” – classical Arabic poetry,¹⁰ the poetry of the Bedouin is considered in their eyes to be the pinnacle of their artistic creation.¹¹ In the world of the Arabs in general and the Bedouin in particular, poetry was – and to some extent still is – a powerful political instrument in times of war and peace, a highly influential means of communication, a deep reservoir of historical memories, a captivating medium for instilling values and worldviews, and a revered art form. From time immemorial, the Bedouin lent their ears to the rhymes of their poets, whether they were princes, as was the poet Imruʾ al-Qays, who lived in the pre-Islamic period, or whether they were not of noble origin, as was the poet who composed the two poems that are the focus of this article.

This study, which also draws on written sources and oral testimonies, focuses on popular poetry as a historical source for understanding the experiences of poet Ibrāhīm Abū Ṣyām, a member of the Gdērāt al-Ṣāneʿ tribal group, during the years immediately after the war, and particularly in late 1952. Dwelling among his people, the Bedouin poet was attuned to their suffering and their joy, and we may therefore surmise that his verses gave voice to the feelings of many, even if every individual is unique and special.¹² We are unable to shed light on the emotional world or the experiences shared in the souls of the Gdērāt al-Ṣāneʿ tribal group during the months of their expulsion and return if we rely solely on Israeli historian Benny Morris’s account of these events. According to Morris, the Israel Defense Forces expelled 130 families (850 individuals) who belonged to this tribal group, which had been tenting south of Beersheba before the war. When the group refused to move southward, “they were given the option of crossing into Jordan – and they took it.”¹³ Before turning to poems of expulsion and return, let us quickly amend Morris’s description: First, this tribal group did not tent to the south of Beersheba,¹⁴ but rather primarily to its northwest, around Wadi ash-Sharīʿah (Nahal Gerar), and to its northeast, in al-Lgiyyeh, whence they were expelled.¹⁵ Second, the tribal group was not given an option, which they then took, but an unequivocal order that was forcefully executed.¹⁶ The order of expulsion followed a series of threats and repeated pressure to depart al-Lgiyyeh for Tall ʿrād (literary Arabic: Tall ʿArād).¹⁷ After not complying with “an offer they could not have refused,” they “chose” expulsion to Jordan.¹⁸ Third, Morris made no mention of their return. That return – though not to the place from which they were expelled – is what makes their story a complicated one and the poet’s inner world, as reflected in two of his poems, intricate and filled with pain.

The article will focus on the period of the expulsion and return (September-October 1952) but will also relate to the first four years of the military government, which preceded it, and to the 1948 war, which drastically transformed the world of the Negev Bedouin. Most of the Bedouin who dwelled in the Negev before the war had to flee, fearing for their lives, some were expelled outside the borders of the new state, while others were returned to the Negev, like the tribal group discussed in this article. The Bedouin who eventually remained in the Negev were put under military government, like the majority of Palestinian Arabs who remained within the territory of the State of Israel after the 1948 war. The mechanisms of military control were designed to keep an eye on their actions, reduce their presence in public space and their attachment to the land, discourage and weaken them, and shape their political consciousness. The military government was established for security reasons, but it was used as an instrument of political, economic, social, and cultural control by the young state over its Arab minority.¹⁹ The suffering of the Gdērāt al-Ṣāneʿ tribal group during the war and the first years of the military government, during which those of them who lived in the western Negev were deported, and the hardships they faced in al-Lgiyyeh and the arid area of the eastern Negev (after their return) – will have to be examined in more detail elsewhere. The longer Via Dolorosa of the Gdērāt al-Ṣāneʿ, in the almost five years that passed from the outbreak of the war till the expulsion order, is barely mentioned in the first poem that will be analyzed in the article, but it is poignantly expressed in the second one.

How did these two poems make their way into our hands? According to Abū Ṣyām, they were composed in the latter part of 1952, and presumably they were recited on various occasions before the poet met a Jew named Sasson Bar-Zvi, who wrote them down based on Abū Ṣyām’s recitation. We know very little about Abū Ṣyām, but we know much more about Bar-Zvi, who took the poems from a residually oral culture, to borrow Walter Ong’s terminology,²⁰ and immortalized them.²¹ Bar-Zvi was born in 1924 to a long-standing Jerusalem family that traced its roots to Basra, Iraq.²² At home, his elders spoke Arabic, in addition to Hebrew and Ladino. As a young man he enlisted in the Palmach (the elite force of the Haganah, the main Jewish military organization in Mandatory Palestine), and in 1944 the Haganah Intelligence sent him to Mitzpe Revivim, in the Negev Mountains, where he served as a watchman and later as a mukhtar (a person responsible for relations with the Mandatory authorities and Arab neighbors).²³ At the newly founded kibbutz, Bar-Zvi became acquainted with Bedouin life, learned their language and customs, and formed ties that were beneficial to the Jewish side in the 1948 war. After the war, he joined the military government in the Negev, where he made his way up the military hierarchy and was eventually appointed military governor. In the early 1970s, while serving as a senior official in the Beersheba municipality, he began to systematically document their gradually disappearing culture, including their popular poetry. The hundreds of poems that he methodically and laboriously collected through the late 1980s, alongside proverbs, stories, and descriptions of their customs comprise a wondrous cultural treasure, the study of which is still in its infancy.²⁴

In the summer of 1976 the former military governor turned documenter of Bedouin heritage met the poet Abū Ṣyām and at that point, nearly a quarter of a century after they had been composed, heard the two poems about the expulsion and return. At the time of their composition, it took daring on the poet’s part to express himself as he did, condemning the military government, an arm of the Jewish state designated to govern the Arab population in Israel and discipline it. By that summer, however, a decade after the military government had been abolished and at the dawn of a new era in Israeli history and state-Bedouin relations,²⁵ Abū Ṣyām and Bar-Zvi could adopt a different style of conversation as well as a retrospective outlook. Given his past position as governor and present role as a functionary in the Beersheba municipality, Bar-Zvi undoubtedly still had a certain degree of authority. It would be a mistake to overlook the power relations that formed part of the setting in which the poems were heard, but alongside the fear he provoked among them, Bar-Zvi’s records indicate that the Bedouin also regarded him with fondness and friendliness. The complex relations that many Bedouin had with Bar-Zvi and comparable figures are beyond the scope of this discussion,²⁶ as our efforts will focus mainly on understanding the two poems, presented separately below, as an expression of the trauma experienced by Abū Ṣyām and his community during their expulsion and return.

The first poem

A few of al-Lgiyyeh’s elders still recall Ḥājj Ibrāhīm Abū Ṣyām’s voice emanating from one of the hills, where he lived, calling them to prayer at the mosque back in the days when he served as a muezzin. Al-Lgiyyeh was not his birthplace, and in the past he had actually lived near Rehovot (Dīrān²⁷ in Arabic, as noted in his second poem), in a village named ʿArab al-Saṭariyyah.²⁸ At some point, he joined the Gdērāt al-Ṣāneʿ tribal group, where he became known as a rhymer and storyteller. Of the three groups into which Negev Bedouin classify themselves – black-skinned, Fellahin, and “authentic” Bedouin – Abū Ṣyām numbered among the Fellahin. The ʿArab al-Saṭariyyah claim that their roots lie in Arabia and that before migrating to Palestine they resided in Egypt,²⁹ but it is conceivable that this claim was shaped by the assertions of “authentic” Bedouin who take pride in their own pedigree, and that this is therefore only an imagined biography.³⁰ It is known with certainty, however, that before some of them migrated to the area of Dīrān and Abū al-Faḍl (Talmei Menashe today) and others headed to the Negev, the ʿArab al-Saṭariyyah had resided for a while in Khan Yunis and Rafah, where a number of them still live today. We know very little about the upheavals that Abū Ṣyām experienced in his lifetime, and in any event, those are beyond the scope of our discussion. The key point for our purposes is that Abū Ṣyām, who was born around the start of the twentieth century, numbered among the Fellahin who assimilated among the Bedouin, and whom the self-identified “authentic” Bedouin generally consider inferior.

In July 1976, during the twilight of his life, Abū Ṣyām met Bar-Zvi and recited two of his poems. We know nothing about the site or circumstances of their meeting, the other participants, or the ambiance between them. It is reasonable to assume that they met in al-Lgiyyeh, shortly after some members of the Gdērāt al-Ṣāneʿ tribal group returned there. Salāmeh Abū Badr, who was born in al-Lgiyyeh in 1927, recalled that in the early 1970s authorities began putting pressure on members of the group to leave Tall ʿrād and return to al-Lgiyyeh.³¹ This belated return was undoubtedly hard for Abū Badr, Abū Ṣyām, and many others for whom al-Lgiyyeh was a home they had left more than once and the place from which they had been expelled two decades earlier, and on whom the authorities were now applying pressure to return “home” (surely an emotionally charged concept for them). Abū Ṣyām’s grandson, Ashraf, related that his grandfather did return to al-Lgiyyeh at that time, but shortly thereafter went back to Tall ʿrād before returning once again to al-Lgiyyeh.³²

Why is all this important? The site, circumstances, participants, atmosphere, time, and context in which the poem presented below was recited are not merely the background to or setting for the poem, but an inseparable part of it. If Abū Ṣyām and Bar-Zvi indeed met in al-Lgiyyeh in the summer of 1976, then the site, like – undoubtedly – the time, would have been a vital component of the meeting itself because the very essence of the poem is the trauma of expulsion from al-Lgiyyeh. To recite a poem composed during the expulsion at the site from which the composer was expelled is no small matter. Did it represent some form of closure? Did Abū Ṣyām recite his poem with daring or, perhaps, with nostalgia? We do not know, just as we do not know with certainty where the two met. But we do know, and we will see this very clearly with respect to the second poem, that the site, time, and other contexts surrounding the poem’s recitation may be no less important than its content, and sometimes even more so.³³

Unlike the site, the time of the poem’s recitation actually is known – nearly a quarter of a century after its composition. It is of course possible that the passage of time has left its mark on the poem, but it is still safe to assume that it remains relatively true to its original form, because such is the power of Bedouin poetry and such was the miraculous memory of its creators and curators, who could faithfully safeguard numerous verses over many long years.³⁴ How precisely was the poem composed, and when? Here too, we can only surmise. The two final stanzas indicate that they were not composed before October 1952, when members of the Gdērāt al-Ṣāneʿ tribal group were allowed to return to the Negev, though not to the place from which they had been expelled but instead “into exile, to Tall ʿrād.”³⁵ The second poem, as described later, therefore originated before these two stanzas, but it appears that the fourteen other stanzas were composed at a different time. The poem’s sixteen stanzas fall into four categories: A. Stanza 1 (three lines); B. Stanzas 2–9 (two lines each); C. Stanzas 10–15 (three lines each); D. Stanza 16 (two lines). The final lines of all sixteen stanzas rhyme with each other, but the preceding lines do not. It is possible that the poem is an amalgamation of two fragments, supplemented by the opening and closing stanzas. This is implied not only by the rhyming scheme, but also by the different content of the poem’s two parts. The first part centers on praising the leader of the Gdērāt al-Ṣāneʿ tribal group, while the second describes the period preceding expulsion. And so, almost half a century ago, Abū Ṣyām recited to Bar-Zvi as follows³⁶:

Before I start and say my piece,

I’ll pray upon the chosen Messenger,

To whom travelers go on pilgrimage.

awwal ma nibdi w-ngūl,

nṣalli ^ca-Ṭāha aṛ-ṛasūl,

alli tzūṛuh az-zawwāṛāt.

Fortune and destiny,

Brought us to the tribes of Gdērāt.

jābatna al-gismih w-an-niṣīb,

^cala ṣaff al-Gdayṛāt.

There we met a sheikh powerful and famed,

On whom mounted knights wait to hear his words.

ligīna ^cinduhum šēx_in kibīr, masmi,

^ca-ḏimmtih b-yitṭaṛṛinnih aṣ-ṣāfnāt.

He has a great well-wrought tent,

Where guests may rest at noon and stay the night.

^cindih bēt_in kibīr mabni,

ygayyil fīh aḏ̣-ḏ̣ayf w-ybāt.

He has a great well-wrought tent,

With bedding prepared for the guests.

^cindih bēt_in kibīr mabni,

w-al-maṛāki mṣaffaṭāt.

He has a great well-wrought tent,

And coffeepots placed on flames.

^cindih bēt_in kibīr mabni,

w-al-bakārij mgannadāt.

His cups are set out on a tray,

Clean and ready for serving to guests.

fanājīlih ^cala ṣīniyytih,

dīmt ad-dōm mġassalāt.

He has young men, Maṣriyyīn and Gdērāt,

Vying unceasingly to serve the guests.

^cindih ṣibyān, Maṣriyyīn w-Gdayṛāt,

ma ybaṭṭlu al-mġālaṭāt.

They slaughter only fat sheep,

And serve the meat dripping in butter.

w-la yaḏbaḥu ġayr as-simīnih,

w-samⁱnhiy ^c-al-bawāṭi mdaffagāt.

As to ʿAbbūd,

He got back by bicycle,

In a fold of the hills he fixed a meeting.

aṃṃa ^cAbbūd,

^c-al-biskilēt y^cūd,

fi ^cirg al-jabal sawwa mī^cād.

He fixed a meeting in a fold of the hills,

Oh Jaʿʿār, fetch the merchandise,

And go meet the foreigners!

sawwa mī^cād fi ^cirg al-jabal,

ya Ja^ccāṛ hāt al-bḏ̣ā^cah,

w-lāgi al-xawājāt.

How fine were ʿAbbūd’s days and his nights,

The food rations we were allotted sufficed,

There were even leftovers.

ya sag-Aḷḷah ^ca-layāli ^cAbbūd!

kān al-buṭāgāt tikfīna,

w-yḏ̣aḷḷ min waṛāha faḏ̣lāt.

With the leftovers we had,

We bought what we needed,

From the sons of the women of aẓ-Ẓāhiriyyah.

al-faḏ̣ⁱl alli ḏ̣aḷḷ min waṛāna,

ništiri fīh ġurḏ̣ānna,

min wlād aḏ̣-ḏ̣ahṛawiyyāt.

All the wealth of al-Lgiyyeh,

Went to aẓ-Ẓāhiriyyah,

In the difficult years of drought.

aṃṃa xayr al-Ligiyyih,

ṯanna ^c-aḏ̣-Ḏ̣ahriyyih,

fi li-snīn al-mjiffāt.

They forced the dwellers of al-Lgiyyeh,

Into exile, to Tall ʿrād,

Away to that remote region.

ṛaḥḥalu ahl al-Ligiyyih,

fi Tall ^crād manfiyyih,

fi al-blād al-bi^cīdāt.

And he who caused our tribe to be banished,

Oh Lord, make him die the worst of deaths.

ya ṛayt min sabbab l-raḥīl ^caṛaḅna,

tmawwtu ya ṛaḅḅ ašna^c al-mītāt.

The final stanza, wishing death upon the (Jew) responsible for expelling the Gdērāt al-Ṣāneʿ to Tall ʿrād, is, for Negev Bedouin poetry, unusual in its directness. The Bar-Zvi collection and the writings of ʿAref al-ʿAref (Palestinian politician and historian) and Clinton Bailey (scholar of Bedouin society and culture)³⁷ paint a picture of this poetry as a subtle form of artistic expression characterized by its ability to speak the truth by way of insinuation.³⁸ This final stanza reveals tremendous rage, an emotion almost never expressed directly in the verses of Bedouin poets. The stark nature of spoken truth, whether implicit or (as in this stanza) explicit, helps explain why it is so customary to open with a stanza praising God or his prophet (as in the first stanza). This opening, aside from being a social and poetic convention, also embodies an assertion about the limits of protest and grievance, with which Allah and the “chosen Messenger” have no part.³⁹ Between the prayer upon the Prophet at the poem’s opening and the wishes for “the worst of deaths” at its closing,⁴⁰ it contains two parts, which we now examine in order to understand Abū Ṣyām’s mind-set, as expressed in his verses.

In stanza 2 he appears to be alluding to the circumstances that led him to join the Gdērāt al-Ṣāneʿ tribal group. “Fortune and destiny” are a combination often attributed to marriage,⁴¹ and by invoking them the poet may be pointing out that he is not an organic part of the group, that the bond of matrimony or another form of fortune and destiny is what united him with it. His marginal social and political position, elucidated in stanza 2, is starkly contrasted with the status of the leader, “a sheikh powerful and famed,”⁴² whose praises the next seven stanzas sing. The poem does not reveal the sheikh’s name, perhaps in order to further exalt him, as there was no one greater or more renowned than him in the poet’s eyes among all the tribes of Gdērāt, not only within the Gdērāt al-Ṣāneʿ tribal group he headed. In these seven stanzas (3–9), three lines of which repeat, Abū Ṣyām praises the leader’s strength and generosity, using familiar symbols from Bedouin poetry: a spacious tent that offers wonderful hospitality, brave men eager to do his bidding,⁴³ coffeepots on flames and cups prepared to serve the guests, and fat sheep and meat dripping in butter.

The glorious leader is Ḥājj Ibrāhīm Mḥammad al-Ṣāneʿ, who led the Gdērāt al-Ṣāneʿ tribal group for about a quarter of a century, from 1927 until his death in 1952, and who was among the most important sheikhs in the Negev during the Mandate era.⁴⁴ Toward the end of the Ottoman era, al-Ṣāneʿ attended the School for Sheikh’s Children in Beersheba and was even sent to the School for Tribes in Istanbul.⁴⁵ In the 1930s he became prominent as one of the main supporters in the Negev of the Palestinian national movement,⁴⁶ and on one occasion he hosted a national conference with the mufti’s participation in his spacious tent, then located not far from Wadi ash-Sharīʿah in the western Negev.⁴⁷ The aim of this conference was to halt land sales in the Negev to the Zionist Movement, which at the time was intensifying its purchasing efforts in the south of the country.⁴⁸ During the conference the mufti, Ḥājj Amin al-Husseini, had the participants, Bedouin leaders and heads of local settlements, pledge not to sell lands to Jews or mediate any such land purchases. Al-Ṣāneʿ’s daughter Rgayyah (born in 1918), a young woman at the time, related in a 2006 interview that “Ḥājj Amin brought a large sword, placed the Koran on it, and said: ‘Declare: I pledge not to sell the land and I will not betray [our] honor.’”⁴⁹ And yet, the land sales continued. In the words of Al- Ṣāneʿ’s daughter, “Then Ḥājj Amin fled, and my father kept quiet, never saying another word on the matter.”⁵⁰ It would appear that al-Ṣāneʿ changed his mind in the following years, adopting a more moderate policy, but this is no more than a supposition that should be examined separately.⁵¹

Also of importance is what the poem omits. The poem does not mention the hardships that the Gdērāt al-Ṣāneʿ endured during the 1948 war and the early years of the military government imposed by Israel on the Negev Bedouin, as on most of the Arabs of Palestine who remained within its jurisdiction. These will be noted, briefly, in Abū Ṣyām’s second poem. The second part of the first poem presents a nostalgic look at the four years following the war, during which the Gdērāt al-Ṣāneʿ were concentrated in al-Lgiyyeh, where some of them had already established a foothold in the early twentieth century.⁵² Conceivably, the trauma of expulsion to Tall ʿrād and the hardships of life in the eastern Negev, where grazing lands and water sources are scarce, led Abū Ṣyām to describe life in al-Lgiyyeh before the expulsion as a beautiful period. During those years Israel maintained a policy of rationing in an effort to cope with the challenges of mass immigration to the young state,⁵³ and, as the poem notes, the Bedouin were also allocated food rations. From his vantage point in the eastern Negev, his place of exile in “that remote region,”⁵⁴ Abū Ṣyām describes the economic prosperity that befell the residents of al-Lgiyyeh before their expulsion, during a period of austerity and drought, thanks to the food rations they received. His description indicates that the Bedouin acted as mediators between the “foreigners” (a khawājah is a master, and most often a foreigner),⁵⁵ meaning the Jews of Beersheba, and the residents of the Palestinian town aẓ-Ẓāhiriyyah in southwest Mount Hebron.⁵⁶ With their surplus rations of products such as oil and ground coffee, which according to Bar-Zvi the Bedouin tended not to consume,⁵⁷ Bedouin smugglers – two of whom are named in the poem⁵⁸ – were able to buy merchandise for which there was a demand in Beersheba from the villagers of southern Mount Hebron, in addition to meeting their own needs. The poet does not specify the nature of this merchandise, but presumably it included meat and poultry, which were in high demand in Israel during the years of austerity.

The second poem

All of this came to an end with the expulsion of the Gdērāt al-Ṣāneʿ, which eventually led them to Tall ʿrād. The first poem, which concludes on a note of rage after its words of praise and nostalgia, contains no hint of the suffering they endured during the war and its aftermath.⁵⁹ In contrast, the second poem, presented below, does not overlook their torment, and in terms of the emotions expressed it is more complex. The parameters of this study do not allow us to examine the history of the Gdērāt al-Ṣāneʿ during those years, except to point out that many of the group’s members who were living in al-Lgiyyeh during the conquest of Beersheba and its surroundings (October 21, 1948) fled to Khirbet ʿAtīr al-Khalīl (5 km south of as-Samūʿ) for a period of two-three weeks.⁶⁰ Even more harrowing was the expulsion of those residing in the western Negev, in the Wadi ash-Sharīʿah area, and their subsequent concentration in al-Lgiyyeh (a process completed only in late August 1951).⁶¹ Initially, the authorities allowed them to remain in ash-Sharīʿah and even bought grains from them, according to Ḥasan, one of al-Ṣāneʿ’s sons,⁶² but later the authorities insisted on their expulsion to al-Lgiyyeh, forcibly removing them, killing some, and injuring and arresting others.⁶³

The expulsion from their agricultural lands and curtailment of their liberties prompted some of them to engage in smuggling and provide assistance to infiltrators,⁶⁴ which according to Bar-Zvi was the reason for their expulsion from al-Lgiyyeh.⁶⁵ It stands to reason that in referring to infiltration, Bar-Zvi was hinting at Israeli, Jordanian, and Egyptian intelligence activities in the Negev in the early 1950s.⁶⁶ In mid-1951, al-Ṣāneʿ’s son Khalīl, who had engaged in operations against Jews during the 1948 war,⁶⁷ was arrested on charges of spying for Egypt. It has been argued that this arrest and the murder of a Jew who had been involved in smuggling were what lay behind the decision to relocate the Gdērāt al-Ṣāneʿ to Tall ʿrād.⁶⁸ Additional factors, such as the fact that some members of the group fought against the Jews in the 1948 war, may also have contributed to that decision.⁶⁹ More than a year before the expulsion, the military governor of the Negev visited Tall ʿrād with al-Ṣāneʿ, and reportedly the latter even agreed to the relocation but later changed his mind and requested a postponement until after the rainy season.⁷⁰ The military government pressured al-Ṣāneʿ to agree to the relocation, threatening to carry it out forcibly, and eventually the sheikh hired a Jewish lawyer to bring the matter before the High Court of Justice. The order of expulsion was issued on the same day that the matter was submitted to the Court (September 14, 1952), because at that time the army had the upper hand in such struggles, and on the following day it was mercilessly executed.⁷¹ Jordan submitted a complaint to the UN Truce Commission regarding their expulsion to its territory, and forty days later they returned to Israel’s territory.

Among the hundreds of returnees was Abū Ṣyām. When he met with Bar-Zvi in the summer of 1976 he described the circumstances that had given rise to his second poem, as he and his people journeyed “from exile to exile” in the words of the Israeli Druze poet Naim Araidi.⁷² Contrary to his custom of leaving himself outside or on the margins of the narrative he constructed around a poem and keeping the information about its context or performance to a minimum, Bar-Zvi documented Abū Ṣyām’s remarks to him. Perhaps he sensed their uniqueness. In producing this record, he provided us with unmatched testimony of his own involvement in the event and of the moment in which the poem was conceived, as viewed by the poet. Describing the event a quarter of a century later, this is what Abū Ṣyām told him: “When we reached the bridge over the Hebron-Beersheba Road, in order to return to Israel, Sheikh ʿĪd Ibn Khḍērah from the ʿAzāzmeh came with us. He approached you and said, ‘Frēḥ,⁷³ I want to return too.’ And you told him, ‘The time has passed. You cannot return.’ So I composed a second poem:”⁷⁴

First let me pray upon the good Prophet,

The Hashemite, in whose prayers we find relief.

awwal kalāmi aṣalli ^c-an-nibi az-zēn,

al-hāšmiy alli b-ṣalātih nista^cīniy.

Why and wherefore, my heart, did you sigh?

So many sighs will not relieve hunger.

wannēt ya gaḷb; gūl lay lēš wannēt,

ma yanfa^c al-jū^cān kiṯīr al-winīniy.

Oh eye, what I saw through you displeased me,

Wait the length of a penstroke, oh eye, and help me.

ya ^cayn y-alli b-šōfki ma tihannēt,

mugdāṛ jarrt al-gaḷam, ya ^cayn, isi^cfīniy.

Even from a high mountaintop this world will cast you down,

Praise Him who says to something: “Be and it is.”

ad-dinya tirmīk w-law innak ^ca ṛās mirgāb,

suḅḥān man gāḷ l-aš-šiy “kūn fa-yakūniy.”

Abū Zēd and Dhiyāb did not remain forever,

Praise him who says to something: “Be and it is.”

ad-dinya ma dāmat l-aḅu Zēd wi-Ḏyāb,

suḅḥan man gāḷ l-aš-šiy “kūn fa-yakūniy.”

Lord, who leave none empty-handed who entreat you,

You to whom men beg for mercy.

ya ṛaḅḅ, y-alli man tarajjāk ma xāḅ,

y-alli an-nās l-raḥamtak yirtajūniy.

Light up our moon now that it has set,

And set us free from the prison’s gloom.

tiḏ̣wi gaṃarna ba^cd ma ġāḅ,

w-tfikkna min miḏ̣ilmāt as-sjūniy.

We who had been generous hosts and givers of shelter,

We are now at the mercy of incompetent wretches.

^cugub ma kunna dawāwīn wi-ṭnāb,

al-yōm ġidēna ṭam^cah l-al-^cfūniy.

The Jews of Rehovot coveted us,

They brought the photographers to us.

ṭim^cuw fīna yahūd Dīṛān,

jābu līna al-mṣawwrīniy.

And whoever did not possess a photo,

They loaded onto the vehicle.

w-alli ma ma^cāh taṣwīrih,

ydibbūh f-aṭ-ṭṛambīliy.

May the All-Merciful have mercy on the soul of Ḥājj Ibrāhīm,

The day they brought him back the expulsions of Bedouin ceased.

ya ṛaḥīm yirḥamak ya ḥajj Ibṛāhīm,

min yōm ṛaddūh irtāḥat al-baduw min riḥīliy.

Israel used to be a reckless state,

He who committed any infraction was doomed to deportation, like Gypsies.

kānat Isṛāyīl dōlih zamīmih,

alli sawwa ḥādsih, zayy nawaṛ, yiḥikmu ^calēh b-ar-riḥīliy.

But Israel has become a wise state,

It judges and decides like the rest of the kingdoms.

wila Isṛāyīl ṣār dōlih fihīmih,

yiḥkum w-yursum zayy sabi^c salāṭīniy.

And if we sinned with our tongues, let us pray upon the Prophet,

The Hashemite, in whose prayers we find relief.

w-inkān axṭayna nṣalli ^c-an-nibiy,

al-hāšmiy alli b-ṣalātih nisti^cīniy.

The poem has fourteen stanzas, and as with the first poem, the final lines of each stanza rhyme with one another, while the rhyming scheme of the opening lines varies. It is not difficult to find examples of more highly regarded rhyming schemes, in which the opening lines also rhyme, in the Bedouin poetry of the Negev. Yet the key point here is not the perfection or structural beauty of this poem, but rather the mood it expresses. The story of its tragic conception has the potential to explain something of this mood. The Bedouin refugee who turns to Bar-Zvi (as witnessed by Abū Ṣyām) four years after the fall of Beersheba, asking to join the returnees, appears to be asking on his own behalf, not on behalf of his group. In the mid-1920s, ʿĪd Ibn Khḍērah had been appointed head of the Farāḥīn group within the ʿAzāzmeh confederation.⁷⁵ It would appear that Bar-Zvi, who was better acquainted with the ʿAzāzmeh than with all the other confederations, knew the identity of this man who was addressing him by the Bedouin version of his first name. It is also reasonable to assume that the two had been acquainted since before 1948. Nevertheless, their association, if it existed, did not advance the cause of the longtime sheikh (his son was appointed head of the group after his death),⁷⁶ nor did his having addressed a military government officer by his first name. That moment, with Frēḥ’s terse, harsh answer echoing in his heart, brought forth Abū Ṣyām’s second poem.

But what exactly was it that came into creation at that moment, when the returning poet was exposed to the pain of a man whose return was prohibited, a man for whom “the time has passed,” in Bar-Zvi’s words? This we cannot know. Perhaps a few of the poem’s first verses began resonating in Abū Ṣyām’s heart at that moment, for we know that the final verses, particularly stanza 11 with its reference to the death of al-Ṣāneʿ, were composed in Tall ʿrād. With the exception of the opening and closing stanzas, which provide a framework of a religious nature for a poem that also voices anger, the poem itself may be divided into three main parts⁷⁷: the first (stanzas 2–5) is devoted to the dialogue taking place within the poet’s soul; the second (stanzas 6–10) touches on the hardships of the present and recent past; and the third (stanzas 11–13) ponders the transformation that took place after the return (to the place of exile, Tall ʿrād). Let us briefly examine the three parts of the poem.

In the first part, immediately after the prayer upon the “Hashemite” Prophet, there appears a paradoxical voice that uses poetic language to ponder the futility of poetic expression (stanza 2). This query by the “reciting self,” directed at his aching heart, changes (in stanza 3) into a statement directed at his eye – “Oh eye, what I saw through you displeased me”⁷⁸ – which can be understood as a response to the question directed at the heart. After telling his heart that his sighs were futile, the “reciting self” asked his eye for more time and for help so that he could continue to observe. The vacillation between wanting to express his suffering and recognizing the futility of doing so becomes a rapid shift between a realistic, pessimistic tone (in the opening line of stanza 4) and a fatalistic approach phrased in religious terms (in the closing line of this stanza). This shift reappears (in stanza 5) in reference to the protagonists of the oral Arabic epos Sīrat Banī Hilāl, Abū Zēd (al-Hilālī) and Dhiyāb (Ibn Ghānim),⁷⁹ whose souls also had a taste of death. In the identical closing lines of stanzas 4 and 5, Abū Ṣyām cites a well-known phrase that appears eight times in the Koran.⁸⁰ Do these four stanzas reflect the poet’s emotional turmoil upon hearing Bar-Zvi’s reply to Ibn Khḍērah’s request to return?

Like the first part, the poem’s second part also opens with an entreaty, not to the heart but to God, to cast His mercy on people (not only on believers) who entreat Him (stanza 6). God is asked to restore the Bedouin’s strength and honor, lyrically represented by the metaphor of a moon in the night sky. Abū Ṣyām’s reference to “the prison’s gloom” is evidently an allusion to the harsh rule of the military government (stanza 7). The darkness of the Bedouin’s night, as he envisioned it in late 1952, and their inferior status “now,” when their fate is in the hands of “incompetent wretches,” leads him to recall their days of glory, when they were “generous hosts and givers of shelter” (stanza 8). The poet does not name these incompetent wretches who rule over them, but he does imply (in stanza 9) that they are none other than Jews from Dīrān, in the vicinity of which, as we know, he had resided in the past. It would appear that he was referring to experts on Arab affairs, who resided in Rehovot as well, and who had been sent to the Negev after the 1948 war to address Bedouin issues.⁸¹ The poet portrays their part in the expulsion of Bedouin to Egypt and Jordan explicitly, describing how whoever did not possess a photo (ID card) was loaded onto the vehicle (stanza 10).

This picture of the expulsion, the portrayal of which was an act of daring at that time, seals the second part of the poem. The third part opens with a reference to the passing of the group’s leader, Ḥājj Ibrāhīm al-Ṣāneʿ, who died about three weeks after they reached Tall ʿrād.⁸² For Abū Ṣyām, his death marked the end of the period of expulsions (although in practice this period ended only in late September 1959, with the expulsion of the “Sarāḥīn” groups after the assassination of Captain Yair Peled).⁸³ The death of the leader and the end of this period cause the poet to ponder the change in Israel’s policy. Until late 1952 Israel had hastened, “like Gypsies,” to expel anyone who “committed any infraction,”⁸⁴ yet following the painful return of the Gdērāt al-Ṣāneʿ to the Negev, its conduct and governance underwent a change, becoming more moderate, in keeping with the character of a functional state. It seems that these lines were composed after the death of the head of the tribal group, Sheikh al-Ṣāneʿ, but when exactly were they composed? We do not know. A conciliatory tone such as the one expressed in these verses does not at all characterize the handful of poems compiled by Bar-Zvi in the early years of the military government, whose clear, albeit restrained, protest – as is the way of Bedouin poetry in the Negev – is their prominent characteristic.⁸⁵ Was the poet truly pondering the onset of a new era, or was he voicing pleasantries for the sake of a military governor known to be fond of poetry? The final stanza, opening with the words “And if we sinned with our tongues,” supports the second possibility and then, in conjunction with the parallel first stanza, it encloses the poem within a prayer upon the “Hashemite” Prophet, as a means of securing a seal of approval for the poet’s harsh verses.

Conclusion

In this article, we have learned about the expulsion of the Gdērāt al-Ṣāneʿ to the West Bank, then under Jordanian rule, and their return to Israel, from the perspective of a poet who belonged to this tribal group. On the face of it, the group’s members returned to Israel and the injustice committed against them by their expulsion was remedied. In their own view, however, their forced relocation to the eastern Negev was – as oral history reveals and the first poem presented above attests – an unbearable blow. This was not the first time they were forced to leave their homes, nor was it the last: after the 1948 war fragments of this group who had tented in the western Negev, around Wadi ash-Sharīʿah, were violently expelled to al-Lgiyyeh, and in the early 1970s the authorities pressured them to leave Tall ʿrād and return to al-Lgiyyeh, from which they had been brutally displaced about two decades earlier.⁸⁶ Their forced relocation from Tall ʿrād to al-Lgiyyeh – a place that embodied intertwined memories of expulsion and home – was apparently the backdrop to the recitation of the two above poems in the summer of 1976.

The poet infused these poems with the mood that befell him in late 1952, to which Bar-Zvi was exposed about a quarter of a century later, and which we now examine more than seventy years later. It is possible that some words have acquired new meanings since then, and reasonable to assume that this examination has not revealed all the poems’ subtleties of expression, thus leaving us with questions that we cannot put to the poems’ author or their documenter, as both have passed on. Yet we still have these two rare documents, two poems by Abū Ṣyām, as a means by which to conceptualize what this episode evoked in the soul of a seemingly historically unimportant actor at a decisive moment in the chronicles of relations between the State of Israel and its Bedouin population. How, then, did these poems assist us and what did we learn from them? I believe it is no small matter to lend an attentive ear to a clear and singular voice from that time, to hear (albeit mediated by a foreign documenter) his words, spoken for the first time soon after the events of those days. These words tell us something about how he approached his hardships and some of the upheavals in his life. First, we saw how pure rage (“Oh Lord, make him die the worst of deaths”), which is completely uncharacteristic of Negev Bedouin poetry, essentially framed the poem. In my view, Abū Ṣyām’s anger at those responsible for the expulsion colored the time in al-Lgiyyeh – years of drought and military governance – in a rosy light. Conceivably, it was the harshness of his words that led him to praise al-Ṣāneʿ so extensively, so as to avoid any inference that he was condemning the leader for eventually not having prevented the expulsion from al-Lgiyyeh and the forced relocation to Tall ʿrād.

The first poem opens with praise for al-Ṣāneʿ and concludes on a note of strong anger, whereas the second poem opens on a note of deep inner turmoil and concludes with praises for the deceased leader and for the State of Israel. In this sense, the poems appear to be complementary opposites. Their final stanzas were composed in Tall ʿrād, where, as oral history reveals, the sufferings of the Gdērāt al-Ṣāneʿ did not come to an end,⁸⁷ but the second poem was, according to its author, conceived during their forced return. We can therefore surmise that the first poem was conceived at the outset of their exile or during the forty days they spent as refugees north of the Negev. In fact, we learned that neither the first nor the second poem emerged intact and complete; rather, they took shape over time through a process that cannot be reconstructed. The range of emotions expressed in the second poem is greater than that of the first, and in addition to despair and pointlessness, it conveys hope and rebelliousness, accusation, and appeasement. Both poems give voice to Abū Ṣyām’s emotional world, in which are entwined complex and even conflicting emotions stemming from the tribulations of expulsion and return.

Acknowledgments

This article was supported by the Israel Science Foundation (ISF) under grant 1746/22.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kobi Peled

Kobi Peled is a historian and an architect by training, who studies the cultural history of the Palestinian Arab society and the history of the relations between Arabs and Jews. He is a faculty member at the Ben-Gurion Institute for the Study of Israel at the Sde Boker campus of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. His latest book Words Like Daggers: The Political Poetry of the Negev Bedouin was published by Brill (2022).

Notes

1. The Gdērāt al-Ṣāneʿ tribal group belonged to the Gdērāt group of tribes, which were part of the Tiyāhā confederation. For more about the sociopolitical organization of the Negev Bedouin, see Marx, Bedouin of the Negev, 61–80; Stewart, “The Structure of Bedouin Society in the Negev,” 257–90.

2. The Bedouin perspective and experience of the first years after the 1948 war were described by Nasasra, The Naqab Bedouins, 111–76.

3. Cited in Rubinstein, Hibuk ha-teena, 11.

4. For an example of an oral history project carried out among the Negev Bedouin, see Kabha, Ha-Historiyah ha-oralit, 5–24.

5. This is not only a weakness, and, in fact, it can be an advantage for understanding the meanings people attribute to their past. For more on this perspective, see Portelli, “What Makes Oral History Different,” 32–42.

6. For such a combination, see Golani and Manna, Two Sides of the Coin.

7. On poetry as a historical source, see Ribeiro, “Knowing you will understand,” 109–24.

8. An excellent account of a highly developed Bedouin oral culture is Musil, The Manners and Customs of the Rwala Bedouins.

9. For a useful review of studies on Bedouin poetry in the Middle East see Holes and Abu Athera, Poetry and Politics, 4–7.

10. On the differences and similarities between classical Arabic poetry and Bedouin poetry, referred to in Arabia as Nabaṭi poetry, see Sowayan, Nabaṭi Poetry, 147–82.

11. Caton, Peaks of Yemen I Summon, 14.

12. For more on the relationship between the poet and his people as well as his uniqueness, see Kurpershoek, The Poetry of Ad-Dindān.

13. Morris, Israel’s Border Wars, 157.

14. Abu Khawsa was also wrong about the whereabouts of the Gdērāt al-Ṣāneʿ tribe, relying on al-ʿAref’s reference to the locations of the entire Gdērāt sub-confederation. Abu Khawsa, Mawsūʿat Qabāʾil Bīr as-Sabʿ, 104; Al-ʿAref, Taʾrīkh Bīr as-Sabʿ wa-Qabāʾiluhā, 124.

15. Kabha, Ha-historiyah ha-oralit, 10–13.

16. Oz, “Yisraelizatziya,” 114; Porath, “Mediniyut ha-pituah,” 389–438, esp. 432; Kabha, Ha-historiyah ha-oralit, 11.

17. That is, to the east, not to the south as Morris wrote.

18. For more about the events of the expulsion, see Hutchison, Violent Truce, 31–8; Dahan-Kalev and Le Febvre, Palestinian Activism in Israel, 56–61.

19. As for the Military Government in its first decade, see Ozacky-Lazar, “Ha-mimshal ha-tzvai,” 103–32. As for its second decade, see Bauml, Tzel Kahol Lavan.

20. Ong, Orality and Literacy, 21.

21. For further details about Bar-Zvi, see Peled, Words Like Daggers, 1, 15–8.

22. Bar-Zvi died in 2012 in Beersheba.

23. For more about the relationship between the Negev Bedouin and the Jews during the 1940s, see Zivan, Yahasey yehudim u-bedouim, 54–64.

24. The Bar-Zvi Collection was deposited for research purposes at the Ben-Gurion Archive in Sde Boker, Israel.

25. Regarding state-Bedouin relations during the 1970s, see Yahel, “Lifnim mi-shurat ha-din,” 84–127.

26. For a brief discussion of these relations, see Peled, “The Jewish Other,” 1–43, esp. 4–8.

27. Also: Dūrān (and Deirān in the 1880 PEF Survey of Palestine map).

28. For further details about ʿArab al-Saṭariyyah, see Khalidi, All That Remains, 356–7.

29. For more on their history, see https://www.palestineremembered.com/al-Ramla/Abu-al-Fadl/ar/index.html. (Arabic; accessed June 19, 2024); https://ar-ar.facebook.com/243181939025782/posts/1617307464946549/ (Arabic; accessed June 19, 2024).

30. On immigration from Egypt to the Levant, see Kressel and Aharoni, Egyptian Émigrés in the Levant.

31. Kabha, Ha-historiyah ha-oralit, 12. The interview was conducted in 2008.

32. Interview conducted by the author with Ashraf Abū Ṣyām (July 15, 2021).

33. This line of thought is largely based on Portelli, “What Makes Oral History Different,” 32–42.

34. This is evident in Clinton Bailey’s account of his encounter with Bedouin poetry in Sinai. Bailey, Bedouin Poetry, 7–11.

35. The first poem, stanza 15, second line.

36. The Bar-Zvi collection, Booklet No. 5, 45–9. Bar-Zvi transcribed the two poems presented in this article into Hebrew letters. His acquaintance with Bedouin poetry was truly unparalleled, but as he was not a linguist, I asked Dr. Musa Shawarbah, an authority on Bedouin dialects, to revise his work and prepare a professional phonemic transcription of the poems. I carefully reviewed Shawarbah’s work, and translated the poems into English, relying upon Bar-Zvi’s translation into Hebrew.

37. Al-ʿAref, Taʾrīkh Bīr as-Sabʿ wa-Qabāʾiluhā; Bailey, Bedouin Poetry.

38. For more on allusions and insinuation in Bedouin poetry of the Negev, see Peled, “The Jewish Other,” 1–43, esp. 40–3.

39. The first poem, stanza 1, second line.

40. The first poem, stanza 16, second line.

41. In Arabic: al-Jawāz qismah wa-naṣīb – marriage is all about luck and fate. The first poem, stanza 2, first line.

42. The first poem, stanza 3, first line.

43. Couplet 8 may hint at the tension between the sheikh’s “young men, Maṣriyyīn [Egyptians] and Gdērāt,” the former being the Fellahin among the Bedouin (like the poet himself) and the latter – the “authentic” Bedouin.

44. For a photograph of Sheikh Ibrāhīm al-Ṣāneʿ from the early 1930s, see al-ʿAref, Taʾrīkh Bīr as-Sabʿ wa-Qabāʾiluhā, 123.

45. Abu-Rabiʿa, A Bedouin Century, 125. For more on the school in Istanbul, see Rogan, “Asiret Mektebi,” 83–107.

46. Nasasra, “The Southern Palestine Bedouin Tribes,” 305–35, esp. 325.

47. For further details about that gathering, see https://www.knooznet.com/?app=article.show.8040. (Arabic; accessed June 19, 2024); Dahan-Kalev and Le Febvre, Palestinian Activism in Israel, 49–50.

48. About these efforts, see Kark, Toldot ha-hityashvut, 33–122.

49. Interview with Rgayyah al-Ṣāneʿ (2006), https://www.zochrot.org/testimonies/view/51605/ar?Hajja_Rukayya_alSanaa (Arabic; accessed June 19, 2024).

50. Interview with Rgayyah al-Ṣāneʿ.

51. For evidence of al-Ṣāneʿ’s more moderate policy, see Danin and Shimoni, Teʿudot u-dmuyot, 114–7; Oz, “Yisraelizatziya,” 111–2. By contrast, Abu Rabiʿa claims that al-Ṣāneʿ had joined the Arab defense of Beersheba in October 1948. Abu Rabiʿa, A Bedouin century, 126.

52. Oz, “Yisraelizatziya,” 110.

53. Rozin, “Food, Identity, and Nation-building,” 52–80.

54. The first poem, stanza 15, third line.

55. The first poem, stanza 11, third line.

56. The Bar-Zvi collection, Booklet No. 5, 49. Aẓ-Ẓāhiriyyah is often spelled: ad-Dhahiriya.

57. Booklet No. 5, 49.

58. According to an interview with Ḥasan al-Ṣāneʿ (1931–2020) conducted in 2008, one of the two smugglers, a man named Jaʿʿār, was arrested during the expulsion from al-Lgiyyeh, together with a few others. https://www.kul-alarab.com/Article/936400 (Arabic; accessed June 19, 2024).

59. Except for the mention of “the difficult years of drought” (stanza 14, third line).

60. Kabha, Ha-historiyah ha-oralit, 12–3.

61. Oz, “Yisraelizatziya,” 112–3.

62. Interview with Ḥasan al-Ṣāneʿ. https://www.kul-alarab.com/Article/936400 (Arabic; accessed June 19, 2024).

63. Ḥasan al-Ṣāneʿ claimed that two men were killed while his sister Rgayyah remembered that six people were killed. https://www.zochrot.org/testimonies/view/51605/ar?Hajja_Rukayya_alSanaa (Arabic; accessed June 19, 2024).

64. Oz, “Yisraelizatziya,” 112.

65. The Bar-Zvi collection, Notebook No. 43, 74.

66. For more about these activities, see Cohen, Good Arabs, 181–94.

67. See note 64 above.

68. Ibid., 113.

69. As noted, al-Ṣāneʿ himself participated in defending Beersheba in October 1948 (according to Abu Rabiʿa, A Bedouin century, 126).

70. Oz, “Yisraelizatziya,” 113.

71. Ibid.

72. Araidi, Hazarti el ha-kfar, 7–8.

73. Among the Bedouin Bar-Zvi was known by the name Frēḥ, a translation into Arabic of his first name, Sasson, which means “joy” in Hebrew.

74. The Bar-Zvi collection, Notebook No. 43, 74–6; Booklet No. 5, 28–31.

75. Al-ʿAref, Taʾrīkh Bīr as-Sabʿ wa-Qabāʾiluhā, 99.

76. Abu Khawsa, Mawsūʿat Qabāʾil Bīr as-Sabʿ, 165.

77. This division is not clear-cut like that of the first poem.

78. The second poem, stanza 3, first line.

79. An allusion to the Bedouin ethos of heroism is embedded in the naming of two of the protagonists of the popular epos, which was particularly widespread in Egypt. About the epos, see Reynolds, Heroic Poets, 1–20.

80. The idiom “kun fa-yakūn” appears in the Koran eight times (2: 117; 3: 47, 59; 6: 73; 16: 40; 19: 35; 36: 82; and 40: 68).

81. The Bar-Zvi collection, Booklet No. 5, 31.

82. According to an interview with Rgayyah al-Ṣāneʿ (2006), https://www.zochrot.org/testimonies/view/51605/ar?Hajja_Rukayya_alSanaa (Arabic; accessed June 19, 2024).

83. Mintzker, “Ha-Janābīb,” 191–5.

84. The second poem, stanza 12, second line.

85. For several examples of this tone see Peled, Words Like Daggers, 165–205.

86. Kabha, Ha-historiyah ha-oralit, 12–3. Some of them remained in the Tall ʿrād area.

87. Le Febvre, “Lest You Take These from Me,” 30–3.