Yesterday I was thinking about tolerance. Raz and Royi arrived at my house from Israel. I didn’t know them, but Raz looked a lot like my friend Heytham, who is Egyptian and belongs to a different religion. I talked about it with my partner while he was busy moving all of his plants from the terrace to the living room to protect them from the cold. As I talked he surrounded me with banana fronds, lemon trees, mandarins, and lots of ants. Though there is no longer any space for a Christmas tree, we have a tropical greenhouse in return. This year we’ll have an exotic holiday, just like in a movie by the Vanzina brothers. Hanging the angels and balls on the branches of the lemon trees and the mandarins, I pretend I’m in Palestine.

( Translated by Alexander Booth )