Some of my final thoughts

It’s taken me a while to get to writing up some final thoughts on our trip to Jerusalem.  I don’t know why, because I have mostly just been sitting around in Amman not doing anything. But sometimes it is when you have the least to do that it is hardest to make yourself think.

I will echo Helen’s assessment of living abroad.  Our time in Jerusalem made me feel like not only could I continue living there, but I could maybe live somewhere else, too.  If it’s that easy to feel at home (maybe “at home” is an exaggeration) in Jerusalem, the weirdest city I have ever been to, then maybe it would be similarly easy to live in Tblisi or Nairobi or Istanbul.  (It may be slightly less easy in Karachi.)

It was interesting to see how my feelings about Jerusalem changed over the month that we were there.  Six months ago, when I first visited the city, I couldn’t stand it.  It felt to me like a place dominated by divisions, cut in half into the Arab East and the Israeli West, with its heart, the Old City, quartered and divided.  This impression wasn’t exactly wrong.  Jerusalem is a divided city.  But it is far more complex than I realized. Jerusalem is at its essence a multicultural place, a city rich in history and mythology and religion that attracts people from around the world. It took me a while to come to appreciate the layering of cultures that makes Jerusalem what it is, but in the end I figured that out.

Spending time in Israel-Palestine did not make me feel more confident in my ability to conceive of a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian situation.  If anything, hearing the pessimistic views of all the Israelis I met, views that so tragically reflected the fatalism and pessimism that I’ve heard time and again from Arabs. That said, it did increase my understanding of the situation. I have a better grasp on where the borders stand, what the distances are, what the cities look like, how people live and move and think.

I really enjoyed my job, but I’m not going to bother talking about it.  Suffice to say that it reinforced my desire to be a foreign correspondent, an aspiration I have held since I was in elementary school. I have no complaints at all, except that the trip was far too short.  I hope to be able to return to that bizarre, magical city before too long and experience more of it, though I doubt that I will ever be able to understand Jerusalem.

Some Nice Words About Living Abroad

I started this day, the fourth of July, about 24 hours ago, giving the security officials at Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv a full demonstration of how my 4×5 camera works. The camera has no electronic elements—it is essentially an empty metal box with a tiny little hole that clicks open and shut.  But in this digital age, it thoroughly confounded these people who spend their days searching through mountains of underwear and idiosyncratic souvenirs for bombs and guns.  And this was after having to run my film through their gigantic x-ray machine, very probably ruining it and rendering the whole arduous process of carrying this big camera and tripod half-way around the world—not to mention to all corners of the city of Jerusalem on foot in the blazing sun—pointless.

It was a fitting goodbye to a place that, while being comfortable and modern and in that way familiar, exists at a level of tension that can border on absurd.  But Max and I truly became settled in the holy and bizarre city.  I felt as though I could go on living there, going to our market, our pastry shop, our coffee shop, our favorite restaurant whose name we never learned (it was written in Hebrew) but which we referred to as “Mountains of Food,” for quite a while longer.

This past month, while stepping off the bus, or going to the post office I would often look around me and think, “all these people live in Jerusalem.  In Jerusalem!”  The name brings to mind the world’s holiest sites and a long-standing and high-profile conflict.  The walls are steeped in thousands of years of momentous people and events.  But after a few weeks, it started to feel almost humdrum to walk through the old city.  Going to the Western Wall Plaza became just a slightly annoying shortcut, having to wrap a taupe-ish colored cloth around my scandalously exposed knees, even as I walked in one entrance and out the other.

But now I’m sitting in the Detroit Airport, not outside the Damascus Gate as I would normally be at this time of day, and I am trying to decide how to end this blog.  The surreal time created by international air transit, with days stretched and squished to unrecognizable sequences of light and dark, has only added to my current sense that I dreamed I lived in Jerusalem, on Klein St., in the German Colony.  But once I’ve slept and showered, I’ll realize that I didn’t make any of it up.  What’s more, I could go back to that life in Jerusalem whenever I want.  Or, if I were to choose a new city, life would be waiting for me to start there, too.  Slowly but surely, I am becoming comfortable and familiar with the world.  Cities with outlandish names are no longer abstract collections of foreign associations, but real places that can be visited, that are lived in.  There might very well be a little apartment in Tbilisi or Nairobi that will someday be my home.

Weird Rubber Shoes–The One Thing Everyone Likes

Something I’ve noticed since landing here is the high number of people wearing Crocs.  I don’t really have anything against Crocs, they seem comfortable, but honestly, I think they look pretty silly.  I never quite understood how Brown’s Shoe Fit  Co. in Grinnell could sell their mountains of Crocs.  Who is buying all of those funny looking shoes?  Here, though, there are entire stores selling only Crocs.

And it is not at all surprising.  Some of the most stylish girls on the street wear Crocs.  Off duty soldiers wear Crocs.  The spaced-out “manager” of the hostel-bar-indian restaurant-movie theater we stayed at in Tel Aviv was wearing mismatched Crocs.  Moms wear Crocs.  Babies wear Crocs.  Dads wear Crocs.  Even this stately Arab man has taken advantage of Crocs Inc.’s endless array of colors to perfectly complete his all-white ensemble.

Maybe if all Israelis and Palestinians would just take a look at each others’ feet every once in a while, they would see that whatever their differences are, they really are all just people who like Crocs.

A day at the beach

The trip from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv only took forty-five minutes in a shared taxi, but when we arrived it felt like we had traveled to another country.

Tel Aviv, which sits on the beautiful coast of the Mediterranean, is Israel’s largest metropolitan area and its most modern city.  Before 1900 the area was just a cluster of houses on the sand dunes north of Jaffa.  This location means that the weather was stifling, just as hot as Jerusalem, but unbearably humid.  On the other hand the modernity and beachfront property make the city feel like a natural party town, sort of how I imagine parts of Miami or one of the surf towns near Los Angeles.  It helps that Tel Aviv is full of really nice bars and restaurants and cafes.

The population is known to be largely secular and that was apparent from the first few minutes of walking down the street.  Of course you still see men wearing kippot and women in long skirts in far greater numbers than you would in New York, but the streets aren’t crowded with men in black hats the way that Jerusalem’s are.  Tel Aviv residents also seemed—and I feel pretty shallow and guilty saying this—quite a bit better looking than those of Jerusalem.  On the whole the city felt, to us, pleasantly normal.

In a lot of ways Tel Aviv makes Jerusalem feel like some kind of provincial outpost inhabited by fanatics.  I have grown to love this city, but I can’t help feeling that this impression of it as provincial and fanatical is largely correct.  Over a third of all Jerusalemites are ultra-Orthodox.  They live in a society of their own.  To say the least, they are not the kind of people you’ll find playing volleyball in Speedos or bikinis on the shore of the Mediterranean.  There are also very few Palestinians in Tel Aviv, as opposed to Jerusalem, half of which is technically occupied territory according to international law.  This is not to say that the absence of Arabs that makes Tel Aviv pleasant—I generally feel more comfortable among Arabs than Israelis and prefer Arab culture overall—it just makes it possible to forget for a minute about the conflict that plagues this region.

What I found interesting was that being in Tel Aviv made me feel—for pretty much the first time since I arrived here—that I can be proud of Israel and supportive of Zionism.  Zionism is a movement to provide a homeland for a nation that lacked one.  Unfortunately, much of this has come at the expense of a people who already had a homeland.  (And there have been countless flaws with the way Zionism has been implemented.) But in Tel Aviv, which was built on an empty piece of land, incurring minimal displacement, there is a feeling that maybe this project could be a success. Maybe Zionism and the State of Israel don’t have to be dominated by religious fanatics and marred by racism.  As a Jew, I do get a certain satisfaction and sense of pride from going to a café or bar and knowing that everyone there is also a Jew, this is a country that was made for us.  But that satisfaction and pride are far greater at a bar in Tel Aviv than it has ever been in Jerusalem.

What kind of tourists are we?

Haaretz, one of Israel’s most prominent newspapers, ran this story the other day about tourists to Israel.  This is one of the things that they said:

Tourists who visit Israel are divided into clear categories, adds Heisman. The majority are Jews from the United States or France who come to the Holy Land for a vacation and at the same time, when possible, also conduct real estate deals. Next on the list are Christian pilgrims, who, to the dismay of many business owners, are not that wealthy for the most part and not big spenders. Another large group is comprised of business owners who make brief but regular visits here several times a year. There are also cruise ship passengers who spend a night or two, as well as casual tourists from all over the world.

So what are we?  I am a Jew from the United States here for a vacation, but I am most definitely not conducting any real estate deals.  Helen is a Christian, here on her own sort of pilgrimage, but she has little in common with the troops of Koreans or Spaniards you see at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. And I am here on business, kind of, but not for a regular visit by any means.  And neither of us have ever been on a cruise.  Does this mean that we are “casual tourists from all over the world”?  I guess so.  We have stayed in hostels, traveled the country, floated in the Dead Sea, but even this broad label seems like it doesn’t really describe us.

A friend of ours who spent last semester in Tel Aviv commented that he found it interesting that our experience in Israel was so much more political than his.  I think that this gets to the heart of what kind of tourists Helen and I are in Israel.  We are both news junkies, fascinated with politics, attracted less to beaches and luxury than important and misunderstood cultures.  This is why Helen and I lived in Moscow and Amman respectively last semester, as opposed to Australia or Paris.  We are in Jerusalem largely because we want to see for ourselves this place that we read about in the New York Times every day.

Which is not to say that we are strictly political tourists.  We appreciate biblical history or romantic scenery just as much as oppressive walls or Zionist political ideology.  And I don’t think that we are alone in finding these aspects of travel in Israel interesting.  A number of those interviewed for the Haaretz story expressed a similar interest in visiting Israel. This is undeniably a draw for a lot of people who come here.  That’s something to keep in mind while you read about what Helen and I are up to.

Marketplace Marketplace

See those sandals they are selling? I bought some of those the other day.  They are the kind that look like what the Romans or Jesus would have worn, which I guess is the point.

I had been glancing longingly at those shoes since I got here.  A couple days ago I was walking through the Old City and lingered at a sandal shop.  Lingering on anything is obviously an invitation for the shopkeeper to start offering tea and good prices and a pleasant buying experience.  But when I was walking away, the shopkeeper said “Come back!  Free shoes!  You can have free shoes!”  I thought that was such a hilarious proposition that I went back and bought some shoes.  They were very reasonably priced, though not free.  In fact, I’m  pretty sure that I paid quite a bit more for them than I had to.  I am absolutely terrible at bargaining, unless I don’t want something.

After I left, wearing my new sandals, every sandal shop I passed was even more aggressively courting my business than they had been previously.  I understand I had tagged myself now as not simply a tourist, but as a tourist who buys things.  But the sandal-sellers drew the obvious conclusion that if I had just bought myself a pair of sandals, the next thing I would want to buy would probably be a pair of sandals.  Of course.

Anyway, now I’ve got new sandals.  When I walk I stare at my feet and think about being a prophet or the Virgin Mary.  I say to myself, “I’m just another pilgrim with the simplest leather sandals, on my way to the ATM.”

War at the movies

Seeing a movie in the theater isn’t the kind of thing that should vary too much from one country to another.  You go, you sit in the dark, you eat popcorn, you watch the movie, and then you leave. As long as the subtitles are in English, why should it matter if you are in France or Russia or Jordan or wherever?  But last night when Helen and I went to see a new Israeli movie called Waltz With Bashir, the fact that we were sitting in a movie theater full of Israelis entirely changed the way I thought about the film.

Waltz With Bashir is an animated documentary about the filmmaker’s struggle to sort through his memories of being a 19-year-old Israeli soldier fighting in Lebanon in 1982.  At first he can’t remember anything, but then he probes the far reaches of his memory by conducting interviews with fellow soldiers and psychologists.  The truth—if you insist on calling it that—he dredges up is harrowing.  Waltz With Bashir is in many ways a classic anti-war movie; it deals with the inhumanity of warfare, the absurdity of wars being fought by teenagers, the trauma that it inflicts on the soldiers.  But the movie conveys its message originally and thoughtfully.  I would have appreciated Waltz With Bashir even if I had seen it in the comfort of my living room in Montclair, New Jersey.

At the end of the movie I stood up to leave and looked around at the crowd in the theater with me.  Many of the moviegoers were middle aged, about the same age as the filmmaker.  Among them there must have been at least one who fought in Lebanon, I thought to myself, one who could relate to the memories that the film depicts.  If I had seen Waltz With Bashir back at Oberlin, it would still have been a powerful movie, but having seen it in Jerusalem lent the themes a far greater immediacy.

Life in Israel-Palestine is quiet right now, though it would never really be described as peaceful.  Israel and Hamas are set to begin their ceasefire tomorrow; terrorists haven’t attacked in a while (aside from the rockets that continue to fall from Gaza) and the Israeli Army hasn’t launched a major offensive for a few months (though they continue to bomb targets in Gaza).  But conflict is never too far away here: potentially on the ground, always in people’s memories.

They’re Everywhere

The other day on the bus, someone’s cellphone started blaring Sheryl Crow. I looked to see where it was coming from and, of course, it was the girl with big sunglasses, manicured nails, an army uniform, and a machine gun whose pink-sparkle cellphone was ringing (not the same girl as pictured above). And the other day a young couple in civilian clothes asked Max and I for directions. It was jarring as they walked away to see their machine guns swinging behind them.

Mandatory military service is just a part of life here, and the soldiers are required to keep their guns with them all the time. I don’t feel threatened by the nice kids with guns, nor do I sense that there will be any reason for anyone to use one of those guns in the vicinity of myself. But still, it is hard for me to imagine having military service be so much a part of my daily life, and I still find it difficult not to stare at the stylish girl soldiers. As Max pointed out, the two of us would have finished our time by now, and who would I be if I had just finished 3 years in the military instead of 3 years majoring in Art at Oberlin College?

Anyway, yesterday must have been field trip day for the soldiers. I ran into the crowd above while taking a bus tour of the city. And later, at the archeological attraction City of David, where the top picture is taken, most of the visitors were soldiers.

It usually looks bigger, I swear

In the US it seems to be common knowledge that Israel is roughly the same size as New Jersey, my home state, which is the 47th smallest in the country.  In other words, everyone knows that Israel is very small, especially considering how much news comes out of it.  But I don’t think that people realize exactly how small this country really is.

The occupied territory of the West Bank and the (sort of) autonomous Gaza are generally included in people’s impression of the size and shape of Israel.  Furthermore, I don’t think that most people realize that the sparsely populated, barren Negev Desert dominates the southern half of the country (from approximately Exit 58 down on the Parkway, if we are going to continue with the New Jersey metaphor).  The resultant distribution of population means that most contentious place in the world is about twice as concentrated as you probably thought it was.

This means that most Israelis live within a two-hour drive of the West Bank, which is the land that is supposedly going to become a Palestinian state.  Because of this the lives of those in the West Bank and Israel proper seem to be far more intertwined than I ever thought they were—not just among the extremist Zionists who live on settlements in the West Bank or the Palestinians who hold jobs in Jerusalem, but among everyone who spends time here.

This point was brought home to me yesterday when Helen and I went to the Dead Sea.  This salty lake that borders Israel, the West Bank, and Jordan, is the lowest point on earth at more than four hundred meters below sea level.  The salt and mineral concentration of its water is so high that you can float around on your back and read the newspaper.  Also, a lot of people think that the minerals in the water have healing powers.  For these reasons it’s a major tourist attraction.  The beach we went to yesterday was crowded with Japanese, American and Brazilian tourists floating in the water and covering themselves with mud.

But perhaps to the surprise of the tour groups who arrived comfortably in their air-conditioned buses after a half hour ride from Jerusalem, the beach on which they were sunning themselves is actually land under military occupation. One could easily forget this, since the checkpoints on the road are easily by-passed with an Israeli license plate and a bus full of foreigners.  Even I, despite my almost obsessive awareness of international relations, was able to forget that I was in the West Bank.

This is the surreal condition of life and tourism in Israel-Palestine. An Israeli I know was telling me the other day about why he believes peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians is impossible.  “This piece of land is too small for two peoples to share,” he said.  “It’s just too small.” After my trip through the occupied West Bank just to get to the beach, his argument seems more convincing than I want.

The clothes make the man

Jerusalem seems like it was made for people watching. I could sit for hours outside of the Jaffa Gate and watch the various incarnations of Jerusalem’s citizens file past—Arabs and Jews, locals and tourists, religious and secular. What I find particularly interesting is the extent to which you can read a person based on what he or she wears. A kippa or a kaffiyeh, a hijab or a pony tail, a beard or a shaved face—all give observers an idea of who you are and what your about.

Even within Jerusalem’s ultra-Orthodox community (which makes up about a third of the city’s population) there are important variations in style. Because I am ignorant of how the ultra-Orthodox world operates, I can’t tell you what each little flourish represents. But the ultra-Orthodox themselves are surely able to tell each other apart.  Minutiae like what shape their fur hats are or how far up they pull their sock let people know which rabbi they follow, an important fact of life for these super-Jews.

Among the women of this city, long skirts are the norm. All of the observant Jewish women wear them, whether they are Orthodox or ulta-Orthodox. But the majority of the Muslim women wear long skirts of some sort, as well. So do, for the matter, all of the nuns (of which there are many in this holy city). As I have noticed this, it’s brought me to an interesting conclusion: in each of Jerusalem’s three religions, a very similar level of modesty is expected of devout women. When it comes to women’s dress, a long skirt and some kind of head covering transcend the boundaries between Jerusalem’s three monotheisms.

The ubiquitous Israeli military is not exempt from being read by their clothes either. Olive colored uniforms alone offer a curious people-watcher little to look into, but their outfits exhibit tell-tale signs of personal status. Each soldier wears a folded beret on his or her left shoulder and the beret’s color indicates its bearer’s corps. This is comparable to—but obviously not the same as—the decal in your car window that says “Oberlin” or “Harvard” or “Montclair State University”.

And then of course, there are the tourists. I don’t think that they are as aware of their self-representation as the Jerusalemites, but they also stand out as a result of their choices of apparel. Big crowd of old white people wearing matching lanyards with crosses on them? Probably some kind of pilgrim tour group. Shorts, Tevas, and a frame pack? Probably a college student on summer vacation.

There is more to it than the few things I have mentioned here, such as beard and sleeve lengths, embroidered dresses and kipa style. In light of all this, I try to dress as inconspicuously as possible.