Travel Log #37

May 26, 2010
It is 8:30 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.