Stranger City

This essay traces the author’s family’s daily commute, from their East Jerusalem neighborhood to school and work in West Jerusalem. The path, charged with political and emotional weight, embodies the everyday challenges of the Palestinian community in Jerusalem. Each section of the commute involves a variety of barriers both physical and psychological. Ultimately, the family has come to feel like strangers in the very city they call home, or perhaps it is the city that has been transformed into a place they can no longer recognize.