Student Day and Jerusalem Day

You may have noticed that I haven’t mentioned any Israeli holidays for quite some time (about three weeks!). The country must have caught on to this grievous hiatus, so the coincidence of Student Day and Jerusalem Day gave a good reason for celebration and another break from classes last Thursday.

The first holiday, Student Day, convinced me that Israelis are looking for any reason to take a break and have a party. It was a day devoted to university students and came along with barbecues, concerts, parties on the beach, and other festivities. I’m pretty sure the celebration is the manifest positive answer to the question I asked as a child, “When is Kids’ Day?” The answer, of course, is that every day is Kids’ Day. I also think every day is Students’ Day, but here in Israel they are certain to turn the occasion into a definite festival.

The second holiday celebrated on Thursday was Jerusalem Day. This holiday recognizes the reunification of the Holy City under the Israeli victory of the 1967 War. I went downtown mid-afternoon, where thousands of people crowded the streets. The roads were blocked off to traffic, and all along Jaffa St. stages were set up to accommodate musical performers and emcees. The crowds were full of mostly religious young Jews, much of the base of the religious nationalistic right here in Israel. Groups of young people were dancing and singing to traditional Israeli and Jewish tunes while others waved the Israeli Star-of-David flag with pride. The crowd was overwhelming. People were ecstatic with the joy of a united Jerusalem as if the historic Israeli victory had occurred yesterday. Although I don’t necessarily agree with the Israeli policy regarding East Jerusalem, I’ll admit I was caught up in the excitement of the moment. Jerusalem was the heart of a Jewish homeland and an indispensable part of modern Israel, these young people proclaimed.

After spending some time celebrating in Western Jerusalem, the crowd made its way to the Damascus Gate of the Old City on its way to the Wailing Wall (The Wailing Wall, located in the Old City next to the currently-Muslim Temple Mount, is perhaps considered the most holy place to Judaism). This gate is normally the busy center of Muslim commerce and stands as a potent symbol of Jerusalem’s Arab community. Before the Jewish crowds came marching through its gate, however, the Damascus-facing entrance to the Old City was silent. Most of the Arab shopkeepers had closed up and gone home early, hoping to avoid confrontation with the thousands of Jews who would cheerfully come through their Muslim Quarter.

In place of the usual Arab buyers and sellers stood hundreds of Israeli security force members, guns and batons ready for confrontation. Nationalistic Israelis celebrated their victory in Jerusalem with a parade through the Muslim Quarter, but the procession was made under the shadow of a heavy military presence prohibiting any objection from the defeated Arabs. The Israelis, descendents of Jews who had been persecuted and wronged for so many generations in so many places, were finally able to celebrate military dominance, political supremacy, and national victory. I can only imagine that, to the Arabs, the Jewish celebration of Jerusalem’s unification must have felt like salt in the open wounds of seeming defeat and weakness.

I returned to the Old City after dark, where a huge Jewish celebration continued in the plaza adjacent to the Wailing Wall. A stage was set up where very religiously-dressed Jewish fellows performed a concert for the crowd. The large gathering danced according to gender, with clear signs marking wear men and women were to dance. I smiled at the huge barrier made of green tarp that prevented any contact between the sexes.

After seeing the Jerusalem Day festivities, I made my way home through the Old City. My quiet stroll was interrupted, however, with the sounds of loud explosions. I nearly jumped out of my skin, thinking the sounds were coming from a series of bombings. My fears were eased, though, when I saw a beautiful fireworks display lighting up the ancient stone walls of the Old City. It was a magical ending to a day full of thought-provoking Jewish Israeli demonstrations of ethnic, religious, and national pride.

American Etiquette and Pleasantries

G.K. Chesterton, a British writer, once noted, “I have always found Americans by far the politest people in the world.” After spending time in the Middle East, I whole-heartedly agree with the esteemed author. American society is, in general, a very friendly culture in which to find oneself.
Grocery stores, for example, employ baggers whose sole job is to nicely arrange a customer’s vittles in paper or plastic sacks. Older folks are offered a hand by store employees or the nearest passer-by when carrying packages or loading vehicles. Here in the Middle East, groceries, once scanned and paid for, are left for the buyer to bag on their own. Old ladies, scarcely able to carry themselves, are left with heavy bags to lug home alone.

Cashier etiquette in the Middle East is also much different from what I am used to in the States. On most days here, cashiers greet me with an indifferent frown. I have found that many are rude to me when I am unable to communicate with them in Arabic or Hebrew. Although I speak the native language when I make purchases in the States, I cannot imagine sellers being rude to people who have difficulty understanding English. I have also upset many cashiers through my lack of smaller bills to pay for their services or goods. While I have studied abroad, my source of cash has come from ATM machines, which distribute money in mostly 100 Shekel bills (about $22). This is unhelpful when I try to make small purchases, but the situation really is not my fault. In response to my large bills (which I am sure many sellers believe are offered out of a wealthy American's pomposity), I have received countless unhappy requests for “kessef katan” (small money). Unable to provide smaller change, most cashiers scowl and then place the difference on the counter. Vendors rarely hand me back my change- a courteous and humane gesture I miss from the States. It is almost as if most vendors are afraid of the human touch, which might require a civilized connection with another person. It is a good day here if a grocery-store cashier says “thank you,” and I cannot remember a time when a coffee-house vendor has said “have a nice day.” I am usually the one to say thank-you as I leave a place of business, just so that my interaction with the cashier will not end in an uneasy silence.

It also seems to me that most people here do not understand the concept of waiting in line. Many here understand waiting as pushing their way forward to the front, usually regardless of who is shoved aside in the process. If one does not participate in the stampede to be first, they are pushed around, may actually miss the bus, or can wait an unspeakable amount of time to pay for services or goods. I miss the States (at least in the Midwest) where people generally follow the rule of patiently waiting for their chance to be up front.

Perhaps I am homesick, but spending time in a different culture has made me appreciate good aspects of American life -- the niceties, politeness, general friendliness, and noble etiquette of common daily interactions -- all the more.

Some Shabbus Reflections

Some random thoughts on Israel, the Middle East, and life in general, as they come to me:

I just got back from Shabbat dinner. It was my turn to cook. We had chicken nuggets, noodles, eggplant, and salad, along with poppy-seed and chocolate cookin. I’m really going to miss nice Shabbat dinners along with the times of preparation and hanging out afterwards. Americans need Shabbat. I’ve heard that if Israelis had the chance to do away with a day of rest on Shabbat, much like Americans have done away the day of rest on the Lord’s Day, even the most secular Jews would object. People need and want a Shabbat.

I was given the chance to write a thank-you letter to supporters of Musalaha’s reconciliation ministry today in my time helping out at the organization. This semester has been easy academically for me, and I’m glad volunteering has given me something productive to do. I really believe people (especially fellas) need to work and be kept busy. Doing too much of nothing is unhealthy. A professor of mine cancelled our third and final paper. Two of my professors here don’t take their classes seriously, and I’m certain this is why the aforementioned teacher canceled our final paper. Normally I’d be happy, but for now I’ve had enough of easy studies.

The political situation in the West Bank is really interesting, and no one really knows what is going on or what is going to happen there. Earlier this year, the Palestinian Authority gave into international (and American) pressure to hold democratic elections. Palestinians overwhelmingly elected a Hamas leadership, which is a problem to the rest of the world because Hamas is a terrorist organization that does not recognize Israel. So what has happened since then? The rest of the world has cut off aid to Palestinians and nearly 1/3 of the Palestinian work force, which works for the PA, has not received a paycheck in quite some time. Without money, things get interesting and people become unhappy. Welcome to democracy, our Arab friends.

I’ve learned to follow the rules of a gender-conservative society while I’ve been here. On Israeli buses, I would never think about sitting next to a religious Jewish woman (wearing a full head covering or wig along with a skirt that reaches the ground.) On Palestinian buses, I only sit next to guys. These buses only leave the station when they fill up completely, so I’m always sitting next to a person, and this person is never a Muslim lady.

Christian ladies are actually “looser” than Muslim ladies in Arab society. Christian ladies don’t wear hijabs, the full Muslim head coverings, and they often wear pants and other revealing clothing. Basically, if an Arab woman is not covered from head to toe, she is probably a Christian. I never look at Muslim women -- at all. I stair at the ground as I pass them and avoid eye contact at all costs. I’m somewhat afraid that if I say hello to a Muslim lady her angry Muslim brother, father, or husband will come chasing after me with a whip. I’ve learned a lot while I’ve been here, but I reckon I still have some stereotypes of people.

Iran is considering a law requiring all its citizens to dress according to a strict code. Included in this law is a provision requiring Jews, Christians, and other tiny religious minorities to wear badges of cloth identifying themselves as such. This frightens me, and I pray for the believers in Iran.

I’m coming home three weeks from tomorrow. I’m really looking forward to returning and to this summer, although I’ve got to learn to be content here in Israel for the next few weeks. I’ve got piles of stuff I’ve collected, now I need to figure out how I’m going to get it all home.

Shabbat Shalom, all.

Lo Kal Lehiot Messiach (It's Not Easy Being Messiah)

I had seen her walking around Jerusalem before. I found her interesting, this little lady clad in a white robe adorned with flashy Hebrew letters. Occasionally she would stop, hold out her arms, raise her silver scepter, and proclaim, “I am the messiah. I am the new Jerusalem. I am your king. I am the mother of all.” This small lady with a short haircut believed that she was going to save humankind.

Tonight I decided to follow her around. I wanted to get some pictures and, if the opportunity presented itself, to speak with this self-proclaimed messiah. I knew I would be disappointed if I came all the way to Israel and never met someone pretending to be Israel’s new king (or queen, in this poor lady’s view of things). I saw her first outside the Jaffa gate of the Old City and then followed her as she traveled downtown Western Jerusalem. It was the final hour of Shabbat, and countless Jewish families saw her as they traveled home after synagogue services. Most stared at her, whispered and giggled, then turned around for another look after she passed. Some hurled insults, cursing her proclamation and the mockery she brought to the very real and serious Jewish expectation for messiah.

I took several pictures of the lady then followed her around to catch the reactions of other people on the street. Eventually, she caught on to the fact that I was following and stopped to talk to me. I was excited, and nervous, to meet this strange and seriously-mistaken lady.

She introduced herself by saying that she liked me. She could tell from my appearance that I was like her -- I was seeking the truth and was on a higher plane of spirituality than everyone else. I asked her to tell me a little about herself. Come to find out, she was a Polish Jew from Toledo (she later reckoned this was one of the reasons she liked me -- we were both from Ohio). As an adopted child she had been raised in a Catholic family. At a young age, however, she began questioning her family’s faith and came to the conclusion that she disagreed with Catholic teaching. She got married, had a son (who is now 37), and then began having dreams and visions. She believed that God was showing her the true way to wisdom and that she was the one responsible for showing everyone else the path. She was bringing the message that God’s power could be accessed through a “secret number code that only (she) knew,” much like electricity can be accessed on a power grid. I didn’t follow her explanation, but she told me that if I looked to the book of Daniel long enough I would be able to figure out when her messiahship would commence and her path to understanding recognized as the only way to her god. Telling me that she was the spiritual mother of all, she also mentioned a male messiah who would come down some day and validate her authority. The prophetic time was very soon, she said, and we should all be ready for the magnificent event any day now.

The little lady shared that it was not easy being the king. She knew she looked crazy and even expected bad treatment from people. She communicated to me that she had given up everything to be messiah. She had left her home and lost her family, people thought she was nuts, and little children stared and laughed at her. Why would anyone do what she had done willingly if they were not legitimately being spoken to by God? When I told her I didn’t believe her claim, she smiled and said that was all right. People do not know the truth now but they will soon, she said matter-of-factly.

I shared with her several times that Jesus Christ was the Messiah and she was very wrong. She told me that Jesus was dead and that he needed her as well.

The little lady was very patient and smiled at me until the very end of our conversation, when I told her I would pray to the real God on her behalf. The fact that I would be interceding for her so that she would come to know the truth in Christ seemed to upset her messianic sensibilities. She said that one day I would regret the fact that the messiah had taken time out her schedule to speak with me on the street and that I had rejected her out of hand.

Looking back on the situation, I’m reminded of the words of G.K. Chesterton. “If we said what we felt (to the madman who called himself Christ), we might say, ‘So you are the Creator and Redeemer of the world: but what a small world it must be! What a little heaven you must inhabit, with angels no bigger than butterflies! How sad it must be to be God; and an inadequate God! Is there really no life fuller and no love more marvelous than yours; and is it really in your small and painful pity that all flesh must put its faith? How much happier you would be, how much more of you there would be, if the hammer of a high God could smash your small cosmos, scattering the stars like spangles, and leave you in the open, free like other men to look up as well as down!”

I pray that the true God does smash the world of delusion in which this tiny, self-proclaimed messiah finds herself. The real Messiah came to Earth, gave his life on the cross, and was confirmed as the true Son of God by his Resurrection from the dead so that this lady, trapped by the maniacal machinations of her mind, might be reconciled in relationship to the real God

Left-wing?

Racial profiling is essential for security in Israel. Walking the streets of Jerusalem, it’s a common sight to see IDF (Israel Defense Force) soldiers checking Arab identity cards. Suspicious-looking people, usually with darker skin and slicked-back hair, are routinely searched. I’ve also seen many Palestinian drivers, often-times people my own age, pulled over at military checkpoints for the simple fact that they are Arab and therefore suspicious.

There is a great disparity in Israel between the amount of government money given to Arab and Jewish communities. While Jewish neighborhoods are generally well-funded and taken care of, Arab areas tend to be neglected by the state and their welfare viewed as a second-class concern (Israel is, after all, a Jewish state).

I’ve come to be bothered by both these aspects of Israeli life. I can’t say that I’ve become an Arab nationalist, because I certainly haven’t, but Israel has a lot of problems. It seems to me that racial profiling and the unequal distribution of government resources are incredibly unfair and undemocratic. It’s interesting, though, because I never saw racial profiling or economic/social disparities as a problem in the States. I was quite certain that singling out an Arab fellow for further questioning at the airport was right and that searching a black man’s car for drugs was acceptable because, in both cases, the individuals being profiled were more-likely to be guilty than others. I saw the ghettos in Washington DC as a result not of social injustice or inequality in government concern, but as a result of the inhabitants’ laziness and disregard for normal standards of living. I probably sound like a liberal, but seeing the way many Arabs are treated here has changed the way I think about a lot of social issues back in the States.

I don’t want to simplify the situation here in Israel to make it appear that powerful Jews are trampling on the rights of oppressed Palestinians, because that certainly is not the case. There are many good reasons why Arabs are profiled, and I’m certain the practice is a necessary evil. Many Arabs, even Israeli citizens, do not believe Israel is a legitimate state. Many Palestinians have committed acts of terror against Israel and many more will undoubtedly try. The racial profiling makes good sense, but it still bothers me. The economic disparities can also be explained. Why should Israel support communities of Arabs who do not believe the Jewish state ought to exist? Why should a nation help neighborhoods where the inhabitants may seek to bite off the hands that feed them? The political situation and countless points of view here are very difficult to comprehend. I miss the days when I saw the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the social inequalities back in the U.S., from an easy and one-sided perspective.

Memorial and Independence Day

After my adventures in Egypt, I must admit it’s somewhat difficult to return to writing on the normal life here in Israel. Even so, I’ll give it my best shot.

This past week was Israeli Memorial Day and Independence Day on Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively. The Hebrew University, like it has for other holidays this semester, gave us both days off in the middle of the week. The first holiday, Israeli Memorial Day (Yom HaZikaron), remembers Israel’s fallen soldiers and victims of terror. Each year the number of Israeli deaths from war and other hostilities is counted and added to a running total number of deaths since early Zionists arrived to the Holy Land in the mid-19th century. This year’s fatalities included 138 soldiers and security officers killed in the line of duty, so that, in Israel’s modern history, 22,123 are counted among the dead in the defense of the state. There was a ceremony at the Western Wall on Monday night and two moments of silence commemorating the day. I spent Tuesday on a solo trip up to the Galilee, and at 11:00 am our bus stopped, everyone got off, and stood quietly for a moment as sirens cried out for the dead.

I reached Tiberias around noon and rented a bike for the day. While I had visited the Galilee when Mom came, I wanted to spend plenty of time in solitude, prayer, and meditation in the area where much of Christ’s earthly ministry took place. A bike ride among the hills surrounding the Kinerret (Galilee) afforded me just that opportunity. I was seemingly unprepared, though, for the physical task at hand. I hadn’t biked for eight months, and the ride up the Mount of Beatitudes was a tiring lesson that the giant hill is not named “mount” in vain. To make matters worse, I arrived to the Mount of Beatitudes when it was closed for a three hour break. Luckily for me, though, a tour bus was leaving late and I was able to sneak in before the gates closed.

I sat on a rock overlooking the Sea of Galilee and enjoyed a spectacular view of the Kinerret region. On the left, the hills and the mountains of the Golan Heights rose far above the sea. It was from one of these cliffs, the Bible records, that demon-possessed pigs flung themselves after having an encounter with Christ. Below me I could see Capernaum to the left, the ancient fishing town and home of Peter located just yards from the Galilee beach, and Tagba on the right, where the Miracle of Loaves and Fishes is remembered. The sky was a clear blue, but the heat of the day caused a blurry view of the distance. At some point far away the water and mountains seemed to merge with the sky in azure haze. Heaven met earth and the infinite encountered the finite in the same place where Jesus Christ, God-of-God and man-of-man, united these seperate realities so long ago.

After the Mount of Beatitudes I biked to the Jordan River, my first encounter with the biblical stream that flows into and out of the Sea of Galilee. The river, however, was no mighty Amazon or raging Colorado. It was about the size of the Mohican and, even in its full stage, the Jordan looked like a large irrigation canal one might see in the States. It certainly wouldn’t have been a difficult task for Israel to cross the Jordan River as the nation entered the Promised Land. Truth be told, save for its biblical significance, I didn’t find much of interest in the Jordan’s muddy waters. Since I was by myself and have already been baptized, I decided not to go swimming but instead immersed my feet at the water’s edge (Christ says in John 13:10, “The one who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but is completely clean.”). The river cooled me down and was a nice break before the tough ride back to Tiberias.

On Wednesday, Israel celebrated its 58th year of freedom from the British with Independence Day (Yom Ha’atzma’ut) festivities. The holiday, also a salute to Zionism and the principle of a Jewish state, is remembered with carnivals, special ceremonies, and family get-togethers. Arabs mark the day quite differently. To them, Al-Nakba (the Catastrophe) is a day of remembering the destroyed Arab villages and displaced Palestinian refugees from the 1948 War of Independence. The differences between the Israeli celebration of Yom Ha’atzma’ut and the Arab remembrace Al Nakba are just one illustration of how tremendously divided the two peoples are in culture and perspective.