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James
Hider in Jerusalem
The TimesOnLine
For almost 100 years the Sandouka family has fired a cannon over
Jerusalem’s Old City to mark the beginning and end of the daily fast of
Ramadan.
Now Rajai Sandouka, who carries the responsibility of the sunrise and
sunset ceremony, fears that the Israeli Government is trying to push him
out of his job and erase a vital part of the disputed city’s Muslim
tradition.
When he applied for the permit from the Department of Labor this year,
his twentieth Ramadan on the job, he was told that he would have to get
additional permits from seven different offices, including the bomb
squad, the secret service and the police. He must also undergo a $2,000
(£1,000) course in handling explosives.
“I’ve been doing this for 20 years and this is the first year they
remembered I need to be qualified,” Mr Sandouka said. “Every year they
make things a little more difficult, to push me to give up on the job.
Then they can say, ‘He didn’t want to do it any more.’ It’s an indirect
way of getting rid of an old Muslim tradition.”
The shots used to be fired from a cannon donated by the Ottoman Empire,
at the Old City’s Flowers gate. Twenty years ago, that artillery piece
was replaced by a gun donated by Jordan. Now, Mr. Sandouka fires a large
percussion grenade? a sort of glorified firework that makes a loud boom
? from a pipe set up at the gate.
Mr Sandouka rises before dawn to set off the symbolic explosion that
marks the beginning of the fast. If he is late with the sundown blast,
he is inundated with angry phone calls from Muslims waiting for his
signal before beginning their main meal of iftar.
He learnt the art of firing the cannon from his father, who learnt it
from his father. He scoffs at the thought of needing a qualification to
handle the charge, which he says he lights with a cigarette lighter.
He receives a minimal fee for his ceremonial duties, which he said does
not cover his expenses. At 46, he is thinking of handing over to his
son, Nabil, 23, to save on the cost of them both doing the course. He
says, however, that the family is determined to continue the practice.
While Mr Sandouka has been given permission to carry on this year
without having taken the course, the security forces have insisted that
the percussion grenade ? which does contain explosives? must be
delivered every day by an armed Israeli military explosives expert, to
make sure that it does not fall into the hands of terrorists.
Uri Lupolianski, the Jewish Mayor of Jerusalem who joined Mr. Sandouka
for the first firing of Ramadan at the weekend, said that he should be
allowed to carry on the tradition. “Changing the situation could cause
damage to the delicate coexistence in Jerusalem,” he said.
But already in the Old City Palestinians were complaining at what they
saw as an Israeli attempt to stifle a Muslim tradition. “They are trying
to abolish an old Arab custom,” said Marwan Hashlaman, 51. “They want to
take over Jerusalem.”
Ramadan tensions were raised last Friday when Israeli troops stopped
hundreds of Palestinians in the West Bank from trying to reach the Al
Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem. Only men aged over 45, and women over 35, can
visit the city’s holiest Muslim site, and then only if they have
obtained permits.
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