Does it matter when you lost your home/

Does it matter if you lost your home ten years ago, or 15, or in 1967 or 1948. Does it hurt any more the second time or the third? Today I met with a man who lost his home in the last 10 or 15 years. He can't even be sure exactly when it happened that Israel changed the rules and would make it impossible for him to continue to call East Jerusalem his home. When I met Majdi today, he was covering for his brother who owns a very progressive bookstore in one of the most beautiful, old hotels in the world. I wanted to thank the other brother for a favor he had done for me last year. In chatting with Majdi I learned that both he and Munther, having achieved U.S. citizenship, had been deprived of their Jerusalem I.D. cards, which made both of them unable to consider living permanently in the country of their birth. They don't know when that law was passed, only that when they traveled back "home" one day they were told by the Israeli immigration people at the airport that they could only stay for 3 months, and could only be in Palestine a total of 3 months in any calendar year.
Majdi is a tall, handsome man in his 30's or 40's with a broad smile. He has 4 children under the age of 12 who were born in the U.S.. He wanted to raise them in E. Jerusalem where he was born and raised--right near this hotel, but now that is not possible. He must settle for living in Amaan, Jordan in order for his children to grow up in the same culture that raised him.
So you could say that Majdi lost his home. He is grateful that one brother chose to stay in E. Jerusalem where he can look after their 75 year old mother. Munther, the bookstore owner is fighting his case in court, hoping that there will be an exception made because he is a business owner, and it is hard to run a business if you are only there 3 months of the year.
Earlier today, before I met Majdi, I went to the home of Im Nabil who is 88. I had met her last year on the day that Israeli settlers had barged into her garden and right into her living room to tell her that the house was theirs and not hers. Since then she has been to court over and over to protest the takeover of her home, while still living in it. And she has met with hundreds of supporters and reporters to tell her story as she was doing today when I arrived.
Not that she was prepared for this destiny. My friend Amal, who also lives in this neighborhood of East Jerusalem called Sheik Jarrah, says that Im Nabil may have come from a middle class background as she married young to a man who ran a very successful cafe in the city of Haifa before Israel became a state. In 1948 the couple was forced to flee from the Jewish army, and went to Jerusalem, where Im Nabil had family. Her husband secumbed to what came to be called "the sickness of the Palestinians" - what we might call PTSD with major depression. He died soon after, and she raised their 5 children.
So Im Nabil lost her home in 1948 and now is likely to lose it again. Last week the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that her house and 25 others in Sheik Jarrah neighborhood belong to the settlers in spite of being built by the United Nations in 1953 for these refugee families. ( You might guess that there is more to this story, but my battery is running low, and not charging properly, so I willl write as long as I can. ) After that ruling, Im Nabil received an eviction notice, as did the other families. Amal believes that if the settlers get away with these evictions, the whole neighborhood in which she lives, will be exposed to the same sort of injustice - the same loss of home.