This is a story of immigration but we must remember that behind every immigrant there is an emigrant that cannot be erased.
People ask me why I'm leaving America and I tell them that I'm not leaving. I'm going. People get very lofty ideas, ask me if I'm following a dream, following my roots back and becoming one "with the salt of the earth". I don't say aloud that I learned Israel with my feet and that the knowledge of it crept up from my soles until it reached my mind. That the primary reason for going is that it is the only place I have ever been where I am happy without trying. I don't tell them that I made the decision to go only after much pondering and collecting the salt of my eyes.
I will always be an emigrant from America and I'll always remember. I'll always remember what I came from and what I left behind me. It's why I sing my own arrangement of Woody Guthrie about how this land was made for you and me. Now, it's that land.
Frozen Pond in Boston
As usual, the flight was on time--Israeli style--over an hour late. I made friends with the officer from the משרד הפנים (Ministry of the Interior). She invited me over for Shabbat, along with another עולה (immigrant) I befriended on the check-in line. This is why I've moved to Israel. Because even the משרד הפנים officer invites me over for dinner and gives me her cell phone number.
"You must call me," she insists. I will. Once I get a phone.
I'm smiling already. This is home.
I also befriended the stewardesses. Martin wouldn't fit in the overhead bins or the closet. I hung out waiting and talked to No'a, the stewardess about why he can't go under the plane and why I've chosen to move. She told me she lives in America now and that even though she enjoys it, there are still things she cannot understand on a fundamental level.
December 26, 2010 Blizzard, Old Bridge, NJ
"My husband and I were driving," she told me, "and there was a huge accident. And not one car stopped to help. I couldn't believe it! Nobody cared! In Israel, everyone would stop. No question."
This is the difference. In the United States, we can go to jail for acting the Good Samaritan if those saved decide to sue us for saving their lives. "Because I wanted to die and you took away my rights." Look it up.
No'a couldn't find a place for Martin, so she took him and put him in the staff storage on-board. "Don't forget him," she told me. "Don't worry," I said.
Once Martin was squared away, I attempted to return to my seat, 51H, an aisle. Very religious man was asking me if I could switch seats because one of the stewardesses knew a married couple who had been separated and gave the groom a seat next to his bride--the man's seat.
The man's problem was that the new seat arrangement placed him next to a woman and he is forbidden from doing this. Now I'm sandwiched in a middle seat across the plane, but the company is great, other than the screaming babies (about 20 children all under the age of 4) in the seats behind me.
Bud the Frog
We just ate dinner and a crowd of people is dancing and clapping in the aisle benching (saying the Grace After Meals prayers) right now...Actually they're apparently getting married on the plane. What the hell! Only on El Al. Oh, just found out that they're not getting married, they're saying the Seven Blessings after the ceremony. Still what the hell! Only on El Al.
One other thing you'll never find on another airline: thirsty passengers taking charge and pouring their glasses of water. Flight attendants waving them by and taking care of the crying bride who can't find room for her wedding dress in the closet.
Despite this, there are still things I'll miss. People. Connections and how I had to cut them short. Beef hot dogs, cheddar cheese, fried chicken and biscuits.
Blizzard Dec. 26, 2010 Plowing Aftermath
I'll miss the way leaves burn on fire, brilliant at the cusp of death in a New England autumn. I'll miss the lush green of the South, the flooding wetness and the thunder of an atmosphere charged with the energy of a summer storm.
I'll miss warm rain in summer and the Massholes in Boston.
I'll miss driving, being in complete control of my vehicle of motion and the curves it traces down the road. I'll miss the glitter of raindrops sparkling in the pre-sunset light on the back window from the driver's seat. I'll miss the distinct smell of cold rising up off fallen leaves.
Netanya from my friend's apartment. Yes, that's the Mediterranean.
But the world opens up before me. It emits light like an explosion and of days with clear skies.
America gave me a good send-off: the blizzard of the decade. New Jersey was buried in 2.5 feet of snow overnight. I plowed.
As it fell I wondered at how the snow fell like universes, descending flakes ad infinitum. Flakes descended in drifts and soft waves. It is beautiful until we have to become part of civilization again.
I know I won't miss the snow.
More Netanya
Calm has descended upon me, like the snow erasing the lines we humans have carved into the earth. I'm going home and it will be hard. And it might not work out. But it is right. Sometimes logic doesn't cut it and I have to follow my emotion. For the first time, I really have. It is like gliding on wind, a rush and a calm all at once. And nothing can describe what I felt when the plane touched down: happiness swelling until I couldn't contain it and so it came out again, through the salt of my eyes. And so my emigrant met my immigrant and they canceled each other out.
November 14, 2010
Today is the day I'm giving my notice at work. I hope. The Boss should be there. And he won't be happy. He's never happy. I know what that's like. But too bad. My visa finally came through and my notebooks are lined up on a shelf in Netanya waiting for me. Scared as I am, there is no turning back.
As usual, the state of affairs is not well. Like every morning, the first thing I do is read the news. The world doesn't understand Israel's "Temporary" "Loyalty Oath" and I have to admit that I don't quite understand it either. As a Palestinian quoted in Svetlova's article "Law and Disorder" from the Jerusalem Post on November 14, 2010, states: "...as far as I know, Jews, Muslims and Christians live in this state, and I don't see how it can become a 'Jewish state.' And what does that mean exactly?" Israel has always been something else. But it has always been a state run by Jews and created as a haven for Jews. The question is what is Jewish? The other question is what is democracy? And the biggest question is can a 'Jewish' state - whatever that means- in fact, be democratic?
A very good friend of mine from the Tel Aviv area says with more conviction than I've ever heard from anyone else that as citizens of a democracy it is not only our right but our daily obligation to question, protest, and fight our governments. Israelis, judging by the level of activism, which translates into actively screaming street mobs in the tens of thousands every other week or more, obviously share the same opinion.
Americans like to complain but we haven't really moved as a body since the 1960s and early '70s during the protests of the Vietnam War. An old high school friend of mine says that this is precisely because all the protesters are now in power, so they know how to quash the incentive and the riot. Everything has fizzled from inspiration-to-action into insubstantial jargon. And so by our inaction, we pour the acid that dissolves the ground from beneath our feet.
November 16, 2010
We can easily see the disintegration of America in everyday life. Let's return to my retail job.
Like I said, I was giving my notice to the Boss two days ago. Just for the record, the previous cafe manager apparently quit over the phone and never showed up again. Boss was already informed about a month ago that I would be leaving around December.
He says, 'I thought you would be here until December."
"Yes," I replied. "Through November 30. Until December."
"I'm going to need that in writing," he says. "For your file."
For my file? What am I resigned from? The FBI?! Friggin' RETAIL. What's he going to do if I don't do it? Fire me? Because I sure as hell know it's not going to include giving me an extra paycheck.
I've decided that I will put it in writing to his boss:
Dear Madame,
I am writing to inform you of my resignation from my position as a whore-to-retail-barista as of November 30, 2010. Your gluttonously bitter underling has made it so very pleasant to work for your company.
Contrary to popular belief, your employees are highly educated, literate, and well-rounded. Surprisingly, we are aware that English is, in fact, written from left to right. In addition, we are capable not only of critical thinking but of the practical application of our skills in a high-stress, abusive atmosphere where we are perpetually treated like yesterday's decaying refuse. Unfortunately, we are very much alive and will not be of use to any rogue students of the mycological or scatological disciplines, although I am sure many of our customers would.
We maintain our artificial smiles and cheer in spite of these conditions, along with the knowledge that all we get in return is a complaint and a minimum wage paycheck eaten to nothing by taxes for which we receive nothing in return but the promise of an empty social security account.
I would also like to inform you that despite my lowly position on your corporate food-chain, I am always aware of when I have customers. Your general manager, however, seems not to be aware of the fact that a human being devoid of super powers is quite incapable of taking an order, making an order, grinding coffee, brewing coffee, doing dishes, restocking the RTD case and condiment station, asking 25 irrelevant questions about our Plus program (that the customers don't give a crap about), and selling bags of beans simultaneously- all within the course of one minute and forty-five seconds. We are particularly incapable when we are scheduled alone on a Sunday during the Holiday season.
Also, "every customer, every time" often results in "no customers, anytime" because they've already made their choice, are sick of being pestered, and just want to pay for their goddamned drink and get on with it.
I could go on but I'll offer a suggestion: begin an anonymous employee evaluation of their general managers every 4-8 weeks. There's more than one reason our stores are failing and it's not solely due to the lack of micromanagement. Rather, it has much more to do with the lack of employee morale incited by abusive, thankless management.
With that, I bid you adieu. Have a wonderful Holiday Season and generate much profit.
All the best,
Me
Later...
On Sunday, after I gave the notice, I got another deluge of brilliant customers. First of all, I was on the floor (alone again) and had to call over help from the book side - which actually showed up this time.
We get a woman who asks me what drinks we have that "aren't sweet". I tell her any of our teas, brewed coffees, or cold-brew coffees without added flavor. She says "No, I want something cold, with flavor."
"Ok. We have sugar-free options: vanillia, hazelnut, raspberry, and orange-vanilla," I tell her.
"I don't want sugar. How about this strawberry drink?" Does it have sugar?" she asks, indicating a blended strawberry shake.
(Are you getting lost, because I am...)
"Yes. Strawberry is fruit and full of glucose...sugar," I say.
"What do you have sweet without sugar?"
(FML): "Vanilla, hazelnut, raspberry, and orange-vanilla," once again, now.
"I'll take the strawberry drink."
"Even though it has sugar?"
"Yes."
"Ok."
I start to make the strawberry shake. She sees me fill the cup with ice, says "No. I don't want ice."
"It's a blended drink. You won't see the ice, but it's sweet and cold like you want..."
"I don't want. Give me a regular coffee."
WTF.
And then someone confuses the stinking banana bread with the cinnamon pecan again and really means orange cranberry coffee cake--but gets angry with me for telling her that the banana bread is sold out. While she clearly points at orange cranberry, insisting that it's banana bread, and changing her mind to "cinnamon pecan," and yelling at me about how the banana bread, which is no longer available, is actually still there.
Then, the stupid espresso machine explodes milk everywhere.
The line is out to the front door and the Boss shows up and stands between the register and the coffee brewers, taking up 2.5 of the 3ft space, and watches me run back-and-forth frantically while he does absolutely nothing.
We're out of coffee, we're out of milk, and we're almost out of whipped cream. We're out of napkins. Customers are complaining about all of this and I can't make half the drink because of the lack of whipped cream and coffee.
I run to the back to get supplies as customers scream at me from every direction because I need to restock and the Boss says (as he stands there, in the way, doing nothing): "You have customers."
Mmm. I didn't notice. Thought we were absolutely empty just now.
What kind of idiot is he? A very rare breed mixed with extra-special schmuck. Two more weeks. And I'm done.
Just a little bit different than the usual, but this is what I do in real life. These were recorded a few days ago at a jam session I went to with my Dad at his friend Sam's house, by Sam:
More adventures of working during my last bit of time in the States. Working retail jobs gets really entertaining when you think about the irony of it all. Like I mentioned, people automatically think I and my co-workers are idiots because we work behind a cash register. But we know who the real idiots are.
Yesterday was a prime example. First of all, I was scheduled on a Saturday. Again. The one day I do not have availability. Ever. For the sixth week in a row.
Anyhow, I get there and the strip mall paradise-of-posh is exploding like fireworks on Chinese New Year with children in costume under the age of ten. Followed by lots of pissed-off disgruntled parents dealing with too many children jacked up on sugar highs.
The line at work was about eight miles long and all of us were thinking that now would be the perfect moment to collapse and feign death. At least it wasn't mop night.
Everything went wrong. The refrigerator/RTD case that had been broken for three weeks until two days ago decided to start flooding the lobby, with the temperature fluctuating between 30 and 43 F every sixty seconds. Perfect.
The only way tot fix this, since the troubleshooter handbook does not list this "error," is to turn off the case via circuit breaker. Whoever labeled the circuit breaker was just brilliant and confused book side with cafe side (but only sometimes), so when I went to turn off the case I ended up turning off all the lights int he cafe and all the computers in the staff room. Oops.
While looking for the actual switch, which ends up being labeled "deli-something-or-other", I come across a switch labeled "Fart Fan". WTF is that, may I so humbly ask?
Then, in the middle of everything, we get the worst nightmare customers possible. In the middle of that, my co-worker left the sink on for I-have-no-idea-how-long, so I walked into a flooding kitchen with bubbles six feet high. Yay for floods. Everywhere.
As for the customers, I can't believe how incredibly genius they are. And how caring.
One woman walks in and stares intently at the food case. She order a "cinnamon pecan coffee cake".
I give it to her and she says, "No. That's not what I ordered." So I repeat "cinnamon pecan coffee cake". She says, "Yes. But I wanted this," and points to the banana bread.
I say, "That's banana bread."
She says, "But the sign says it's cinnamon pecan coffee cake."
"I'm sorry," I say. "Someone must have made a mistake earlier in the day. Would you rather get the banana bread?"
"No. I hate banana bread. I want the cinnamon pecan."
"Well, you've got it," I say and push the plate towards her.
And she says, "But I wanted that..." and points to the banana bread.
O_o
"If you want cinnamon pecan, I'd go with what I gave you," I say. "And if you want banana bread, I'd go with what you're pointing at."
She says: "I don't like bananas."
Kill me now.
Then, there's the guy who orders a Large Decaf. I give him a Large Decaf. He says "Didn't I order a Large?"
I say, "Yes. That's what your holding."
He says, "You better not be pulling a Starbucks on me."
And I say, "We're not Starbucks."
He says, " Well, when I order a Tall at Starbucks, it means small."
"When you order a Large here, it means Large," I say. He tells me to show him the sizes. Small. Medium. Large.
He says, "Well, this is too much for me. Spill it out." I spill it out into a Small cup. He looks at the board.
"You know, in English, we read from left to right," he informs me. As if I'm illiterate. "And your sign lists Large on the left and Small on the right, which is false advertising and counter-intuitive. I wanted a Small."
"But you said 'Large'," I say.
"I want to complain," he responds.
"Ok. Feel free to fill out one of our customer comments/complaints cards on the condiment station and tell Corporate how stupid they are. Have a great night."
Then there was the woman who told us that our hot chocolate (seriously one of the best drinks EVER) was the "most disgusting drink she'd ever had in her life". We fixed it for her and she said it was great, then sent her boytoy over to us to complain and get a refund.
And then there was the woman who got pissed because she didn't like waiting in line with ONE person in front of her for thirty seconds. So she stormed out and threw her book at a sales person.
Time is perceived and in these few months I have been in America, it seems to flow in slow motion. I know I'm going towards where I belong. It's the only place I have ever felt truly at home. But I have given my life thus far to America, to its ideals, to the Dream that I know cannot come true anywhere in its borders but for a very small group of people. Apparently, I am not one. And I never felt at home no matter how hard I tried.
Possessions are inconsequential so I am going through them and tossing them out. Clothing, toys, all sorts of things. Everything but the books. The books are not inconsequential. They are ideas, illustrations of a life, souls captured and conveyed beyond themselves. Everything else, I leave behind. I will build my life from the ground up in the place where I belong. And it will be hard.
I read the news daily. Of course, it is its usual dire self. An apocalyptic depiction. A desperate situation. It's always been this way. If the world has always been at the brink of destruction, I think we're all just fine. Thus far, the brink has not crumpled into thin air.
Still, though, there are things I'll miss. Of course, the people. Who I always miss but who I never get to see anyway. But really: beef hot dogs, cheddar cheese, the occasional basket of fried chicken and biscuits.
I'll miss the way leaves burn on fire, brilliant at the cusp of death in New England in the autumn. I'll miss the lush green, the flooding wetness and the thunder of an atmosphere charged with the power of a summer storm. I'll miss warm rain in summer, the southern drawl and the Masshole accents up in Boston and the Woo. I'll miss the fact that for my hard work and for all my love, I could never give enough to America to make myself fit the mould.
People ask me what I found in Israel and if I really let myself answer I would tell the absolute truth: I found the love of my life. Sometimes you just know and it's love at first sight. I tell them this without saying it and it becomes a much longer answer . I tell them I love the weather, the way we're all like one overly-involved dysfunctional family around a dinner table. I love the insanity, the chaos, the way we can pause for a moment, go para-sailing, snorkeling, running, singing, take a breath, always have somewhere to go, someone to turn to who genuinely cares. I found Home. Heimat. The feeling I never thought or believed had anything to do with geography.
Well, maybe the geography is just the key. It's the people within that space who really make all the difference. But I feel at home even on a street where I don't know anyone.
October 28, 2010
Two months to the day until I land as an Israeli citizen. The autumn here goes back and forth between hot and cold. One thing stays consistent: wind. The wind drives at my back and I turn around to face it. As always, I take comfort in motion.
As usual, I grind on at my retail job which insists on getting worse by the second. Standing behind a cash register in food service must be synonymous with "non-human, worthless idiot" to the average person. I and my co-workers are constantly mistreated, insulted and under-appreciated.
Not to mention that the boss is my favorite kind of person. Taking pleasure in creating others' misery is his favorite past-time. If we tell him we are absolutely unavailable on a certain day at a certain time, he'll make sure to schedule us in. And not on days we have no problem with. We've also been informed that we don't really matter because food is cheaper than books. But we better be flawless at our jobs--and the added tasks due to the abrupt firing of all cleaning staff.
Not to mention that no matter how hard we scrub the floor drains, the toilet likes to explode through the sink in the cafe every evening when we empty the ice bin. Go figure. Of course, this is our fault, and not the fault of Those-Who-Do-Not-Call-Plumbers.
It is routine to get scalded and to have customers call us morons for not being "fast enough" when we're alone with a line of 25.
I wouldn't mind this if I actually had a life. But there is no life here and I see no future. I never did, I guess. This is the sad part.
Later...
I spent all of today getting my visa application ready. AKA The heights of Israeli bureaucracy. It drives me insane. But it drives everyone insane and after we're covered in red tape, peel it off until we're bald, we get to sit down with some nana tea and chumus and have a good laugh. Truly, it baffles me how they can need so many damned copies of one form. This is the digital age and I already presented them in person.
Meanwhile, my things are finally beginning to take shape in boxes. Lots of books. Clothing gotten rid of. I've been running around getting last-minute stuff before I do the final packing. Got the new computer, netbook, travel speakers. Last minute clothing I need: some pants, shirts, etc. Still need to get sneakers and other kinds of shoes here because that's cheaper. And my favorite: consolidating my favorite Federal Student Loans! Already dealt with the Private ones and once this is over with everything will be in lovely order.
Writing some songs. Hopefully finding someone to bring my guitar, Therem, over to Arkady in Yokneam so I don't have to worry about wasting baggage. And giving lots of things away and/or selling them. It will be a nice feeling when my space here is empty and my whole life is ahead of me waiting to be filled with meaning instead of things.
On many tours, we are taken atop, Ramot, "heights," mountains overlooking the landscape. From up there, the contours of the land are laid out and the patterns of settlement are easy to decipher.
"Wherever there are neighborhoods with red roofs, it's a Jewish town. Whenever they are flat and white and, usually, built along the natural contours of the land, it's an Arab town," the tour guides tell us. Jerusalem is the one exception--Jerusalem Stone and no red tile. When I first heard this, I filed it away as useful information.
View of the Galil over Yokneam
In retrospect, I can say that a lot of what goes on in the little space of land between the Mediterranean and the Jordan comes down to people yelling about a red roof. Some commission them, live under them. The red roof is their pride and glory, the realization of an impossible dream. It is the long-awaited reclamation of their long-lost land. Return.
Some wake up and look over the green and brown hills. They build the red roof. It is the symbol of their oppression, of what has been built atop land that once was theirs, over the plot where their home stood for generations. They still grasp the rusting key but it doesn't fit the door under the red roof.
Everyone yells for mercy--mercy for some space, some time, for a Homeland, for shelter from the political storm. Mercy for death and mercy for life. Souls bleed the summation of the human cocktail of emotion. Souls search for salvation, for a haven from genocide, for a Westernized democracy. Jewish souls, Muslim, Christian, Arab souls, souls of refugees and of foreign workers--all yell from under or above, looking in upon, or out from, for and against the red roof.
View of the Negev from Sde Boker
Climb a red roof: from the west, the sea. From the east, the mountains. From the desert, an empty landscape dotted with green kibbutzim--a vast vacuum of nothingness so full of dreams, anguish, God--gods--it's no wonder nothing else can fit.
Two days ago, it rained. I thought I was hallucinating. It couldn't be raining: it's the dry season. But it was. A perfect downpour for thirty full seconds. I was on my way to the שוק (shuk).
I have befriended an Arab worker in my building. Our common language is Hebrew. He teaches me words and corrects my grammar. He teaches me some words in Arabic. Hebrew is coming faster now to the tip of my tongue, but it's still hard. His name is Jimmy.
Today, he took me to Yafo. We walked there and back from the apartments. He knows everyone. He took me to an amazing restaurant where they serve twelve plates of salads with every meal. And fresh lafa, pita, chumus, t'china, and the best tomato thing I've ever had in my life.
I got a "Mixed Grill" plate which gave me a taste of everything: a skewer of kebab and a skewer of chicken, plus a piece of lamb. It
also came with French fries but I wanted the bread more, so I didn't eat them. Then, the amazing desserts, which I allowed myself about a crumb of each. Tonight, I'm hosting two friends and I'll give them to them.
After the restaurant, we went to a sweets shop and Jimmy got me a pack of sugarless halva that's only 11 grams of carbohydrate per serving. I can't wait!
Really, I'm impressed with myself because almost all the conversation was in Hebrew. I was successful in explaining to him how and why I need to eat the way I do and in dispelling his confusion over why a "young, thin person" would have Diabetes because he thought it was only old fat people who got it. I explained the two types and the differences between them. He told me about all of his jobs and working around the country selling flowers and doing handy jobs.
He told me about having trouble with his eyes as a boy, and how he spent sixteen months in prison for not having a Jerusalem housing permit for a house that was not originally incorporated into municipal Jerusalem. He told me how his brothers have all traveled the world
and how, because he can't speak English well enough, he's denied visas. Most likely because Western countries think he's looking to come and stay for work. But he also
told me how much he earns per month and it's about 5 times as much as the average middle class US worker.
May 30, 2010
My friend, C. came to visit me last night. We went out to a bar after leaving the OTZMAnikim. We spent the whole night talking between there and the beach next to my apartment.
When it comes to the men I was talking about before, I think she has it worse than I do. By far. Some guy actually tried to grab her in the middle of the street.
Within the course of an hour, about ten guys approached us. We gave them a
variety of pseudonyms and humored them until they got the point. One African French guy gave us a whole monologue about how he just loves seeing two girl friends in a conversation and how he hopes that Providence will have him meet us somewhere again. His friend stood on the side and stared at him in open amusement the entire time.
We went to sleep around 3:30 and were out and about by 9:30. It took a while to find a place, but we finally did near the shuk. We talked more and had a great time. In the middle of our conversation, an old friend of hers walked in, something not uncommon here.
Tonight, I see Assaf after the last workshop with Korin Allal. There is one more meeting
with Korin, where we record in her house. I'm supposed to interview her afterwards.
When it comes to the interviews, I have quite a few more to do and so little time. I will do as many as possible now and the rest when I get back,which gives me time to finish the transcriptions and start reforming them into narratives mixed with my own. It also gives me time to start agent/publisher hunting. If I publish anything, this will be it.
Meanwhile, I'm debating putting my stuff in storage with people or sending it to Georgia via snail mail. Perhaps a combination. I've started sorting through all the stuff and getting rid of clothing and other items. If possible, I want to go back with as little as possible fit into one suitcase.
May 31, 2010
Today, the flotilla claiming to carry peace activists and humanitarian aid bound for Gaza was intercepted by the IDF and at least nine people died. The atmosphere here is tense. There is a loaded silence that hangs heavily between every word said and unsaid, from every action to the next.
"No one is more wrong or right in this situation," someone told me.
This country is chain smoking today. We can start a heated argument, the one that is the subtext of everything else here, or at least lingering in the backs of everyone's minds. It's the argument that never ends.
We can all argue "sovereignty" and "unjust blockades" or the prohibition of free movement for at least 1.5 million people.
But the double standard ignores that lifting the blockade and "not storming boats in international waters" and allowing "sovereignty" may give freedom to 1.5 million but may just as likely not--while at the same time put many more under threat. I hate playing the victim card.
Everyone, societally, is responsible. All parties here are aggressors and the victims of themselves. Then, there is the international community and we are just as responsible for assuming our opinions in ignorance, for not actually understanding anything or trying.
June 1, 2010
People are quieter today than usual. Morning traffic in Tel Aviv is atrocious like always, but there are more horns being honked. If that's even possible. Maybe I'm just imagining it. People shut their lips tightly, brace themselves for what they know is coming, and continue on in a pseudo-normal fashion.
I missed my bus by 45 seconds. I saw it pass me about 50 feet from the bus stop. It wouldn't stop for me. Everyone is frustrated. Another war is brewing and in some ways, it's already begun. Everyone complains about the government and its stupidity. All eyes are glued to the news: "They have to be. Knowing what's going on is just as necessary as needing to breathe".
Here, everyone is a reservist. And whether they're called or not, over 100% show up for duty in times of war, because although they hate the government and although they hate war even more, they love their country. I understand all too well.
This morning, we got a text message from OTZMA: "In addition to the Old City being off limits, the same goes for mixed Arab-Jewish communities (Acco, Haifa, Natzrat, Yaffo, Ramle, and Lod). Call...with Qs".
"This is segregation," was our first reaction in the apartment. But it is to keep us as safe as possible. There's a good chance of rioting in the streets in all of these areas and beyond. What this means for me is that I will not be able to conduct my interviews with
Arabs unless they are understanding enough to come to a place where I am allowed. This means I won't be able to finish my interviews until I get back. Hopefully, I will be able to come back.
"You must be insane," I am told. "For wanting to stay. For coming here in the first place."
I understand this, too. But I'd be more insane to stay away when I know the way in which the scale finds balance. I know which claims are lies and which are truths. I know which claims hover somewhere in between. And I know, most definitely, where I find happiness.
May 26, 2010 It is8:30 a.m. and in the way I like, I've been woken by the sun. It's a special morning because I'm in Yeruham, a very small town in the Negev, about a ten-minute car-ride from Ben Gurion's resting place in Sde Boker.
As always, I'm in love with the desert. I can't get enough of it. People of all backgrounds--Jewish, Arab, secular, religious--all say that there's something about Jerusalem that catches them. None can articulate the feeling given them by that city. For me, Jerusalem doesn't do much. The streets are dirty, the air overlaid with tension, the Wall is just a wall, like any other with great historical and archaeological significance.
If it's holiness we're talking about, God is in the desert. Or maybe the emptiness here is more inviting, or the city drowns God out with the din of people. Or maybe the emptiness makes room for God and cities are too busy drafting false gods and forcing them on everyone all at once.
In any case, I'm here to conduct interviews for the book I'm writing. Over the weekend, I went to Efrata, a Jerusalem suburb just over the Green Line, to conduct two interviews there. I went from there, directly to Yokneam to finish up another interview, attend the Korin Allal workshop, and conduct another interview. Monday, I had a day of rest, but spent most of it transcribing.
May 28, 2010 Collecting interviews from people across the country has been an amazing experience. Some of them, I know very well, but the details they give about their lives reveal so much about them that I never knew existed. It's almost as if I'm speaking to perfect strangers and diving in to the story of their lives. Others, I don't know at all. I'm a proactive person, so I scope people out wherever I go. I tell friends about my project and they link me to people they know. People like you, people like me.
When I was in Yeruham, my friend and fellow OTZMAnik hosted me for a day and night and arranged three interviews for me. Each of these people met me when the interview started and were still very receptive to the idea of the project which, by nature asks them to divulge their life stories. Because of them it is really coming to fruition.
The everyday lives and opinions of these people go so far beyond what the outside world conceives of this place. Many will be shocked to learn the millions of tiny details of daily life, or even that a daily life exists. These details outweigh, or at least balance the scale against what the rest of the world magnifies in the Israel-Arab Conflict. What I have found (like my friend who recently made Aliyah said yesterday) is that the quality of life here is much higher than where we came from.
There will b a familiar story: what is the country's greatest problem today? and you'll hear something along the lines of "the disintegration of the education system". Many will say that the Israel-Arab Conflict, though dire in need of resolution and the poser of existential threats to the country (not everyone agrees on this, I have to note), is no more than a convenient distraction for the host of internal issues suffered by the State. These issues are normal, though, and are present in nearly every Western country I can think of in one form or other: illegal immigration, immigration absorption, foreign workers, resource management. The list goes on.
I do have to acknowledge these two unfortunate facts before any others are mentioned about my interviews: 1. Most of them are conducted in English, and this language barrier limits me to a very specific group of people: those of Anglo background or those with a Western education that taught them English. One interview will be conducted almost entirely in Herbew, because Hebrew is his second language, Arabic his first, and English is basically non-existent. 2. As Eve Harrow pointed out: No matter the language barriers or anything else, I am only able to attain the narratives of those people willing to talk. The silent majority is never represented.
So, with these fact in mind, I admit that they project is inherently flawed.
For some, I have offered the choice of remaining nameless. A shroud over their identity opens a slight chance for those who would otherwise remain silent to speak aloud. No matter what, though, the voices are important. They are everyday voices like yours and mine and this is what is important.
In real life, the mundane takes precedence, so the greaser hitting on me on the street for five minutes (hopefully less than that) is an important part of the story. So is the long line of bureaucracy we have to go through here in order to get things in order like Social Security or a checking account. Or how we have to wait 35 minutes in the grocery line for the old lady to pick up all of her spilled change. Or how the shuk vendors all have degrees in screaming about whose avocados are better. Because Israel might be high-tech to the nth degree, but it still doesn't trust technology. Everything has to be in hard copy from beginning to end. It's 2010 and some of the shuk vendors still weigh out the kilograms in scales that use weights and stones. Like I said earlier, it's the Middle East. We're stuck in the past alongside heading the way into the future. "The Future is Now" but so is yesterday.
Like anywhere, this place is full of contradiction. Democracy vs. Theocracy, liberal vs. conservative, religious vs. secular, computer vs. stones.
But I love the contradictions and the way one, single voice can really affect change here in an immediate and tangible way.
I love the way public transportation here is cheap and insanely efficient, the way health care is one of the best in the world and costs $15 a month.
Really, what sold me what the shuk, where I can buy a kilo of plump and crunchy fresh tomatoes that taste like heaven for one shekel.
I love the way people appreciate life here. The way every moment counts. Every moment is precious and so is every individual because you never know when it's over. But I've never felt safer anywhere else in the world.
Maybe the media makes it seem more dangerous, but I learned definitively that the cushy suburbs of North America are even more so because that's where you're caught off-guard. You don't expect the world to come into your Chapel Hill bedroom and hurt you.
The whole world's a war zone, you just have to pick your location and method of fighting. I've chosen mine. As always, for what I've chosen, the price is worth it.
One thing I think I have mentioned briefly is my newly-found flood of male attention. It started, I think, around December or January.
Sexual harassment laws here do exist, but not like in the United States. According to a friend of mine, there was opposition to the nth degree by many conservative men in the Knesset whose argument against outlawing it was "But we're men. This law will prevent us from being how G-d created us". To this paraphrase, his wife rolled her eyes and said "See? This is the chauvinist state we live in". Yet both of them chose Israel over America and choose to remain.
To get back to my original point about my experiences here with it, I could have had at least twelve men locked away for a significant amount of time in the States, or at least black-listed them as sex offenders. Here, it's a different story. Some things, you just have to let slide. I let slide all of them because they don't involve contact. But they still go on the record as awkward moments. For example:
In January, I was in Jerusalem and went to meet my friend Chana--typical girl's-night-out, dinner/dessert and a movie. When it was over, I caught a cab back to where I was staying because buses only run every 45 minute at that time of night, if they run at all. I get in the cab.
The cabbie looks at me and casually asks me "Do you like spontaneous sex?" Hmm...how do I respond to this? Especially to a creepy, 50+ Jerusalem cab driver? Holy City...right. "No, thanks." "Oh, come on. Why not?" he pleads with me, half in Hebrew. "You are beautiful. It is good for you." "I have a boyfriend." "What will he know? Trust me. It is good for you. I am good. Trust me. Just half an hour. I kiss you from here to here" --he motions from foot to head-- "I take you to my home. Not far from here. Or I park up the street. Just half hour. Trust me. Please. You are beautiful. It is good."
Really? Do I seem that easy? Seriously, if he wants to seduce me, he's going to have to try a hell of a lot harder than that. Or at least offer a back massage. "No. Let me out here, please. Thanks." He actually does. He waits until I'm inside the building. He waits another five minutes, probably to make sure I don't change my mind. Then, finally, he drives away.
Meanwhile, some random person, who I can only speak with in Hebrew, keeps calling me at 3:00am and other inopportune times, telling me he likes/loves me and wants to see me--from a "Private Number". I have no idea who he is, how he knows my number or my name. Sorry.
I walk everywhere in Tel Aviv. The שוק (shuk--open market) is about five blocks from my apartment on the corner of הירקון (HaYarkon) and אלנבי (Allenby). Within five blocks I get hit on at least four times, each time I go to the שוק, two to three times a week.
Or it's like this: to get to Assaf's house (at night) I take the bus. The 16 to the תחנה מרכזית (Central Station) is a half block from the apartment. About ten feet from the bus stop is a restaurant/cafe. Old 60+ man is sitting there. I have Therem with me, always doubles my attractiveness apparently. He asks me to play for him and to come over to his house. I decline. He says he'll pay me. Gives me some sob story about being a widower as if that'll win me over. I get flashes of being dumped in a gutter somewhere in Yaffo.
I tell him I have a boyfriend. (Different from last time--better, real, an actual relationship.) The guy complains: "What kind of boyfriend? He can't even pick you up?" "He doesn't have a car." "Then he's good for nothing! I'll show you what I have. Cars, buildings, lots of money. Want to work in real-estate? I'll hire you." Now that's tempting...a well-paying job (if I can actually sell anything), but not if I have to sleep with Mr. Creep-Bomb to get it--and keep it.
"Sorry. Not interested. I love my boyfriend." The Beatles start playing in my head.
I walk to the bus stop which is about ten feet from him.
About fifteen seconds later, he gets up and gets into his car, a blue BMW convertible. He turns it on and starts driving, or so I think. Really, he drives it ten feet up the curb to right in front of me, stops, looks at me and smiles, gestures at the vehicle around him, makes sure I acknowledge it, then puts the car in reverse. He parks, gets out of the car, sits back down at his seat and winks at me.
"You, I'll drive you," he says.
Thankfully, the bus shows up. 5.80 is more than worth the price of getting quickly away.
Once, on the way back from Assaf's, I was walking to the bus stop and got stopped by a guy who asked me to a concert and begged me to give him my number. It's ridiculous, really, but I do have to admit rather flattering, considering my previous record. I just keep wondering when I actually got attractive.
April 23, 2010 When a group of Americans in their early twenties was asked to list cultural differences between themselves and Israelis, this was what they came up with: Israelis are aggressive, lack the notion of personal space; they are direct but simultaneously laid back, abrupt, are quintessentially inefficient and have no idea of how to plan anything; they smell, they have no sarcasm (I think this is false, and that the group of Americans has no sense of dark humour), are task-focused, are less prompt (e.g. multiply every ETA by at least three), and lack professionalism. They are always out to screw the system, are quick to take over-advantage of office supplies; they can't drive, they dress less formally, and their cell phones are always on--all two or three of them--and they answer at any time*; they are aggressively hospitable--if you knock on their door, you will come in and you will, goddammit, drink a full pot of nana tea and eat all refreshments, a full meal, and dessert.
Americans usually get a bad wrap for being loud and obnoxious when abroad and infinitely moronic. Israelis by far outdo us. Apparently India has a separate set of tourist maps highlighting the roads and regions that are Israeli-free for those who would like a quiet and uninterrupted vacation; Indians are surprised Israelis aren't actually from India (they have their own country??) because there are so many romping around their country, it's hard to believe they all don't actually live there. Many of my Israeli friends declare that they turn away and run fast when they run into a group of their fellow countrymen abroad--no, they have nothing to do with that group of cretins--new nationalities are conjured out of thin air in moments like this and new accents are created.
May 10, 2010 The fields here are lush. They go on until they fade into fog or until they run into the sea or mountains, depending on which direction you're looking.
I've met more than one Israeli who has an aversion to east coasts--"they're unnecessary because Israel doesn't have one".
Maybe I'm paranoid. I know this is all ending. Happiness is foil-wrapped, like candy: sweet illusion.
So much fits into this tiny space of a country where everything can be said but doesn't have to be. It's all already understood. And when I go back, I'll have everything to say and nowhere to say it. Blank pages must suffice.
Words spill with precision, as blades of the shochet through flesh. Is it possible to find yourself destroyed and remade at what you thought was the end of the world? In the one place you were so certain you would never really be? No, I'm thinking. I'm not just a visitor here. I was a visitor at home and a guest nowhere.
Sometimes, I'm alone with a well-kept secret. We embrace; he kisses me lightly on the cheek, giggles, and runs away. I keep it to myself. Some people are only meant for speculation, for dreams, and he is one of them.
In the car, my friend tells me that he's worried about another war ruining his travel plans.
"Don't think about it," I say. "Not until it happens."
I don't add my usual hopeful "if"--"if it happens" doesn't exist here. War is an inevitability. And we're due.
Back to the mundane insanity of everyday life here:
On the train from Haifa (another doctor's appointment--I'm doing well) back to Tel Aviv. The train stops at Binyamina, the station I would get off at if I were going to Zichron Ya'akov.
They kick all of us off the train and chaos ensues. I hear many stories: there is a fire between Binyamina and Hadera, so no trains can run. Not to mention that the entire line north of Haifa is out for maintenance until Thursday. Other stories: there is a chemical fire right on the tracks, no one can breathe there; there's a volcano, there's a terrorist attack, etc etc.
Everyone gets their ticket stamped: "We're sending three express buses to Tel Aviv". People are idiots. They pile into the middle of the street. The usual pissy Israeli drivers get more pissed. When buses arrive, people step farther into the road, smack on the bus, bang, scream. The drivers yell and gesticulate angrily. People get trampled. I think they want to get hit by the bus they claim to want a ride on. I love mobs.
I look over and see a familiar face, then lose it in the crowd. When I get out of the gates, I find him again. His back is to me, he's on the phone. I walk up to him.
"Hey," I say. "Are you Raz?" By some advanced miracle, I remember his name: Raz, from Avichai, where I met Assaf back in February.
We pair up and wait in the mob, under the burning sun. We find a tree. Yay for shade.
Over ten buses show up, lots of 70s--all to Hadera, none to Tel Aviv.
"Welcome to Israel," everyone keeps saying and rolling their eyes.
So much for "express buses". They're banging on the sides of a full school bus, hanging off the mirrors.
I call Assaf to find out what actually is going on. The Israel Train employee told me about the "chemical fire" and I relay this over the phone. He finds nothing.
"But the guy told me chemical because of some explosion," I say.
"Yeah, well, he's an idiot." He has to go to work, so we hang up. I relay the info to Raz. He tries calling a friend to come get us. Won't work.
I tell him about my interviewing project. He's interested, so I get his number and tell him I'll call him tomorrow to set something up for next week. This week is already insane for me and he's doing part of the Shvil anyway.
We wait for about an hour and give up on our days. But it's nice reconnecting like this.
A bus shows up. Sheirut size. "Are you kidding?" I ask. Raz laughs.
Then he says: "Someone just said the trains are running again."
A bunch of buses pull up.
We look between them and the trains, then at each other. We decide on the train.
He laughs. "Someone just said that someone probably screamed that the trains were working just so they could get on the bus."
"Oh, crap. Is that true?"
But we're already at security and they're letting people through.
"Guess not," he says, and we're in.
A very enthusiastic announcer tells us that all trains are up and running again. Yay!
We get on and amazingly find two seats next to each other.
Turns out, Raz is a counselor at Coleman, arch rival of Ramah Darom. But I get excited because it's Georgia and tell him to come visit. If I actually go back to Georgia.
We ride on the train for about two minutes before Raz tells me to look out the window. Lo and behold! There actually was a fire almost on the tracks. A farm burned and the tracks were lined with heaps of ashes. Remnants of bushes and crops stretched away from the tracks.
Raz and I commented on the terrible brush fires in the States and how they take days, weeks, and sometimes months to get under control.
"Well, think of the size of the area we're talking about getting under control," I say. "California, etc., mid-western prairie, versus some tiny little strip you can drive by in two minutes between Hadera and Binyamina."
It's worth noting here that for all of Israel's ETA x3 (because we're lots of Jews from concentrate), the rule does not apply to emergency situations like this one. True, the buses took hours to show up for us (and we didn't even end up using them), but the fire was completely extinguished in less than that time. That's about two hours total between start of fire (probably because of some idiot and a throw-away cigarette butt), discovery, extinguishing, and getting all citizens affected back on track--quite literally.
Raz got off around Netanya and the woman across from me started up a conversation about the day's insanity after asking me if I speak Hebrew, too, which I affirmed. She got off at the University, which left me with three stops to go on my own.
I got off at HaHagana and made my way around to the bus stop to get home. By the way, they need to rethink this efficiently (like almost everything else around here): bus stop is directly across from the station but there's no cross walk. Instead, there's a barrier. In order to get there, I have to walk about half a kilometer around and navigate two cross walks instead of walking twenty feet forward. Yay Israel. But we already know the priorities. And if it's not an emergency, act first, think later.
I and the other remaining passenger on the sheirut asked the driver to drop us off in front of Aroma. Beeline for the coffee after this nutcase day. God, it was good.
I get home and start to change. I'm pants-less and can't find what I'm looking for and there's someone knocking at the door. I tell them to wait a minute. They knock again.
I give up on the pants and answer the door with sweat pants on that I forget to change out of later. It's the maintenance guy seeing if the internet's working. He doesn't seem to understand our request for a securenetwork. Welcome to Israel! "Who would try to hack you?" he asks. "How should I know?! That's the point!" He says he'll work on it. Just like those light bulbs I requested last week that he'll get to me "this second".
He tells me he hasn't slept since two days ago because he was up until 5:30 playing poker. He leaves. The internet connects with a full signal but doesn't work...I use my usual mooch connection. Off to Ulpan now and then Assaf's. And Dexter...my latest addiction.
*In the Emergency Room, my doctor's phone rang and she promptly answered. A ten minute conversation ensued. When she hung up, our conversation picked up without a pause, as if nothing had happened.
April 11, 2010 It is the day before Yom Ha'Shoa, Holocaust Remembrance Day. I am in Jerusalem and as if on cue, the atmosphere assumes an eerie, ethereal quality. The sky descends on us, misty, yellow- green. It presses in upon us, hot, humid, oppressive. "Is it fog or pollution?" I ask and no one knows. Perhaps it is something else--an effect on the physical state of the country emanating, as a reflection, from the mood of the populace.
The air is thick with angels and accusing human fingers. Forgiveness is not on the agenda but blind eyes are false justifications. How quickly the victim becomes the mirror of his own enemy when given the chance. As usual, lives are reduced to numbers, statistics. This is why I hate the way Sho'a education is conducted.
Germans are depicted as extraordinarily more monstrous than the next human. To be cruel is human. To be animal is human. To lust for blood, to hate, to denigrate--is human.
Tell me you wouldn't do it, too--no, not that you don't "think" you would, but that you wouldn't.
This story is cliche. The winner writes history and the fine lines are drawn: between good and evil, between which person behind which gun represents the more righteous cause. What is forgotten or ignored is the fact that both sides hold a gun.
You tell me who is more civil--or not.
This is linked to Germany's problem, the societal struggle that is gevalt: history proposes a dichotomous problem at the least: that of being remembered and also of being forgotten. The consequences of either take their toll on the populations affected and that reckon with the history in question.
Yet too much dwelling creates insensitivity, lack-of risks a repetition. But humanity never learns anyway.
Question: can victims and their descendants ever overcome collective martyrdom? Can descendants of perpetrators ever overcome collective guilt? Is Germany's exercise in vergangenheitsgevaltigung valid? Healthy? Because of the Holocaust are Israel and Germany more linked than the US and Israel? Emotional interconnectedness is more binding than fiscal in terms of lasting memory and the maintenance of the societal/cultural collective mythos.
Are Jews a nation of martyrs or a nation that celebrates life, like we claim? Ironic, considering Holocaust history, the way we treat it, and the current political/social situation here.
April 12, 2010
"It is interesting, darling, this human concern with grouping. Do you not all have the ultimate identity at the start?" asks the angel.
"It's part of our propensity for conflict. We tend towards hate. It is innate. So we create reasons and ways in which to do so. The easiest is defining ourselves and defining ourselves in opposition.
"It's too hard to figure out what we are but we're obsessed with it. So we give ourselves a positive label with a negative definition. To keep it up, destruction of the Other--the basest method of contact--usually satiates the need for definition. Unfortunately, the satisfaction is only temporary. Now, we tend towards hybridity. But we're still human--we're not this, we're not that. So it goes. Nothing changes, essentially."
"Is this a curse of corporeality? Your kineticism traps you in a cycle of destruction fed by...let us say...the biological instinct for the illogical, for hierarchy?"
"Perhaps it is a curse. But we escape it when we Scatter. It's actually very logical, though. Biology is all about hierarchy."
"You escape it when you Scatter. Yes. Potential realized and experienced. But I do not have qualms with my nature. I may not have potential. But I can never be Animal."
"No, Micha'el. But look how much you're missing, nonetheless."
At 10:00 a.m. this morning, on יום השועה (Yom Ha'Shoa), Holocaust Remembrance Day, the minute-long siren of commemoration sounded and the entire country stopped.
Cars in the middle of the road, people got out, stood still, hands clasped behind their backs. Not a breath stirred We all stood still. We give up one minute to remember all of those generations lost. The siren ends.
In perfect Israeli fashion, life resumes. The siren is only winding down and traffic starts rushing again. Within literally half a second, horns are honking. Welcome to Israel, Empire of Impatience. "We're going to die tomorrow, so we do things today," my friend tells me. "Don't waste time. You waste time mourning a future that hasn't happened yet and you miss today. Live to day." It's the old carpe diem again: try everything at least once. The past has been mourned enough. Take history in stride and make a new one.
April 13, 2010
Walking down the street here for two seconds doesn't just exhibit the active, conscious creation of a new history but flaunts the shattering and reconstruction of deeply ingrained myths. For instance, "The Holy Land".
When I was growing up, I attended Jewish summer sleep-away camp. Ramah Darom, in Clayton, Georgia. Common practice in the American Jewish camp world is importing Israelis as counselors and campers. One year, when I was either eleven or twelve, an Ethiopian counselor (we'll call her Z.) told us about her immigration to Israel. I'll paraphrase what she told us:
She came to Israel as a little girl from Ethiopia. Later, her parents told her what she couldn't comprehend as a child. Operation Moses, the Israeli operation begun in 1984 and continued in Operations Joshua and Solomon, brought about 36,000 Ethiopian Jews to Israel (for more information on this some sites are: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Juda ism/ejhist.html, and http://www.moia.gov.il/Moia_en/AboutIsrael/mivtzaMoshe.htm).
Z.'s parents were brought to Jerusalem, with thousands of others. Needless to say, modern-day Jerusalem looks nothing like the Jerusalem of Gold they all had in their minds. Jerusalem,
ultimately, was a disappointment. Jerusalem stone was ubiquitous but not gold. And where was God? Some, surely, felt holiness, but according to Z. and her parents, most couldn't feel any sort of holy presence in the Holy City. Perhaps God was there, disguised as a man or two but no deafening voice thundered down from the heavens. What Z.'s parents found was an earthly city with just as much (or just as little) holiness as the next. So what is this "Holy Land"?
From this narrative, it is possible to say that it is only a desperate mythology that gilds hope in fool's gold at best.
Wake up call: this is the Middle East and the holiest, most disputed city in the history of the world really struggles to retain that golden image. Shitting in the street is commonplace here. Holy water doesn't fall to be blessed, if it falls at all. It's counted as a blessing to have fallen.
Despite the grime and the feces, the complex undercurrents of hate between the various sects of Jews and the overcurrents between Jews and Arabs, this city retains some inexplicable quality that I can only describe as holy. Despite the kipple, if you will, and despite the violence. (We are still not allowed in some sections of the Old City and every few weeks, we're told not to go near at all.) For what it's worth, Jerusalem exists on a scale teetering between a stressed, fragile calm and explosive violence. Holiness takes its toll but so does banality. Even so, there are more angels here than anywhere.
April 3, 2010 "What you've got to understand is that you're in a country where the whole population will pack their families into a car and drive five hours just to see one flower on one hill in the middle of the desert that only blooms one day in the whole year."
So says the tour guide, an ex-pat American who's been a Jerusalemite for thirty years.
She shows us the separation fence between Megiddo and the West Bank. A kibbutznik reminisces about the days when they could walk across the border--because there wasn't really a border--and buy spices from Jenin; about how his parents walked from Syria into Palestine, which soon became Israel.
We're with a group of college-age Americans. They joke and laugh and don't get it. I'm embarrassed. But I have to go back in a little less than three months.
Three years ago--more--I promised myself I'd never do anything stupid like changing the course of my life for another person and that from now on, I only work for myself, that selfishness is a virtue if practiced in the correct manner. I found people here, what I've always wanted and I want to stay but have to put that on hold. It's not for them but for me. They make me happy.
Time is Yokneam is over. I will miss it. I said good-bye to the children at Dalyiot. They clung to me and begged me to stay. All good things must come to an end.
On my last day of school, I went back to the gelato shop and ordered real ice cream instead of the yogurt and fruit. Little did I know it, but it became the last one for the rest of my life. But that's the price of healthy living. That's the price of life.
In the parking lots where the gelato shop is, there's a very large snow pile with children building snowmen and having snowball fights.
April 4, 2010
The snow was a mystery for awhile: why was it there? Where did it come from, in Israel, in spring weather? And why didn't it melt? I foudn the answer by asking the owner of the gelato shop: it was there because children needed to have fun in the snow. Snowball fights are an essential part of childhood. Yokneam (and other cities, too, apparently) import the snow from Mt. Hermon and replenish it every day. Hence its seeming immortality.
We are sent on another American delegation, this time, high schoolers. I am much more impressed with them than with the college students. It's the usual run-around: great food, hikes through beautiful scenery that lasts all day, the order to drink more water than the Mediterranean contains.
Back in Yokneam, I participate in a music workshop with the Israeli sperstar, Korin Allal. We became friends. She likes my music and wants to keep in touch. I write songs on-demand in three hours every week with a group of teenagers. At first they protest that I'm too old, more than seven years their senior sometimes. They get over it. I am late the next week and they cry relief when they see me.
"Thank G-d. I thought we were doomed, but you're here."
We settle into the task. Our songs are a mixture of Hebrew and English. I will never play or sing them on my own; they are a joint effort.
I become friends with them. I am forced to speak Hebrew and somtimes, to type it. Welcome to Facebook. The workshops are so good, I will return to Yokneam once they resume. I get rides with Korin. It is yet another example of not losing touch.
Now, I have journeyed north, all the way to Nahariyya, from Ashkelon. The journey took three hours. I am still waiting for Assaf. Trains pull in and out...He's here, so I go.
April 7, 2010
Nahariyyah is beautiful, miles of clear blue-green Mediterranean coast. Hermit crabs crawl around beneath the water alongside fish of many colors, little shrimps, deposits of salt. We pick up the crabs and set them on our legs. I watch as they timidly test the safety of their new environment, as their little limbs flit in and out of the shells.
The beach is a mixture of shelly sand and stretches of half-submerged rock covered in seaweed, slat deposits, and young coral. Fishermen spread out along the shore. Our feet are in the clear water. We wait for the schools of fish to crowd around them and feast on our dead skin. Here, the mutual dependency between human beings and the greater natural world is evident. In the distance lies the Israeli-Lebanese border, shrouded in a thin layer of fog. It's quiet now and if people didn't hate each other and there were no fences, I could walk across.
My train goes up and down the coast. As I wait in the stations, I make acquaintances. I am given undue attention by a number of men, who ask me if I have a boyfriend. They tell me to send him this message or ones similar: "He is lucky. If I only I were younger; if only I weren't married," etc. I am not used to this.
I befriend an Arab boy and his mother in the station at Tel Aviv University. She fusses over his wrinkled collar and his lack of a sweater. He is about twelve. We share smiles and I reach over and straighten his collar and we get into a limited conversation because of our limited Hebrew about the tardiness of the train and where it's going. I sit across from them on the ride andt he boy keeps stealing glances at me and smiling shyly. If we had a common language, we would have become friends. I tell them where to get off and I leave them. They smile and wave.
After my doctor's appointment is over, I stroll into the hospital Aroma. As usual, it's crazy busy and chaotic. For some reason, like three weeks ago, decades old shows of Tom and Jerry loop on the television. A woman asks if she can sit with me and I say yes. she tells me she's a researcher at the hospital but when I ask her for a title she doesn't know what to say. She researches the correlation between mind, emotion, and physical health: are physical ailments caused by a state of mind or a fluctuation in one's psychological state of being? Can one possibly cure the incurable with the power of thought?
I couldn't see it while speaking with her but in retrospect it sounds as if it's related to Noetics. Let her research and let her theory prove true. If cancer cells can be eradicated with just a thought, let them; if Beta cells can start producing insulin again, let them; if lungs can start breathing on their own again...You get the picture. I got her name and information. I'll keep in touch.
At home, I work on another batch of cover letters. Now, more than ever, I need a job. I have hope. Things are changing, too. Supposedly, gone are the days of the one-page resume. Now, employees want everything. I tailor it anyway, but don't stress over a page limit.
When I tell Israelis about cover letters, they don't know what I'm talking about. Here, it's all about the CV and the interview. I am already planning how I will work my return, budgeting in my mind depending on which job I receive in America, praying that there will be one. With benefits.
Meanwhile, I concentrate on the task at hand here: my internship. I have designed a project that I feel is of utmost importance, particularly today. It is directly related to why I came here: to find the truth behind the mythical conceptions of this place. What is it really like to live here, to grow up here, to think like a Jewish Israeli or an Arab? My only goal is to get as true and real a picture as possible. Coming from a background in dialogue and diplomacy, I believe that perhaps the only legitimately effective way to do this is through the collection of first-person narratives.
I strive to create a human connection, an interwoven story between people of different backgrounds who may or may not interact with each other but who harbor the deeply ingrained myths of the Other within them. I will collect the testimonies of representatives of different sects of society in this geographic region--Jews, Arabs, foreign workers, African refugees. What do these people think of each other? What do they merely assume? Why? have they ever actually met each other? What was growing up here or immigrating here, or emigrating from here and back again like? Why? My collection will serve as the beginning of a primary source database of like testimonials.
Much of my project will deal with transcriptions of audio and visual files, verbatim. I also intend to interweave them into my own narrative and couple them with some photojournalism. However, I'm working for a new documentary film company that specializes in the testimonials of genocide survivors. Some of the interviews will therefore be on film My initial meetings and correspondence with the film crew and interviewee contact for the refugees have been very successful and professional.
Of course, my time constraints by far exceed theirs as they already live here and I must return to the States. I will be beginning my interviews as soon as I can get my hands on as inexpensive a digital recorder as possible--this weekend hopefully. Then, I'll begin scheduling my interviews and finding an awesome internet cafe where I can park myself for three months for hours at a time while I transcribe, edit, write my own narrative, flip through my photographs, and edit those...and whatever else that needs to get done.
I can't even begin to describe how excited I am about this--and to be working with reliable people whose activism actually reaps results: tangible, clear-cut results that can be seen and felt in communities and individuals. This is exactly the kind of grassroots work I have always wanted to do and now that conventional diplomacy is barred from me because of my lovely new health condition, I don't have to make the choice between conventional and grassroots diplomacy. It has been chosen for me. Perhaps really good things do come out of terrible ones. Eh. it could be worse...Much worse. And in life, in general, I am happier than ever. I have everything I have ever wanted. Unclear though the future may be, I see one. And that's enough for me.
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