NOT KEEPING SCORE

Freelancing abroad in the Holy Land for 18 days

 

The bus I’m on now does have, in the front seat opposite the driver, a uniformed guard sporting a semi-automatic.

At work, we had a meeting in a small, windowless concrete room at the end of a narrow corridor. When I remarked at the strange architecture for a conference room, the CEO told me it’s actually not a conference room but a bomb shelter — every house and building in Israel is mandated by the government to have one concrete room.

“Most people use theirs for an extra closet.”

*     *      *

The best thing about working in Israel is that you get Friday off for Shabbat. Sure, you also work Sunday, but somehow having Friday off feels like a bonus.

I decide to meet my friend Shula in Jerusalem.

The armed guard riding shotgun on the bus brings on another “this is real” moment, where the connection between everything one hears about Israel and its neighbors is made manifest –

“29 January 2007: Suicide bomber kills 3 in Red Sea Resort in Eilat, Israel”

“5 February 2005: Four people are killed and at least 30 people are injured in a bomb blast outside a night club in Tel Aviv.”

“1 November 2004: A teenage suicide bomber kills at least three people in the crowded Carmel market in Tel Aviv.” 

“22 February 2004: A Palestinian suicide bomber kills eight people and injures dozens in an attack on an Israeli bus in Jerusalem.”

“18 May 2001: Five Israelis are killed and around 100 injured when a suicide bomber belonging to Hamas blows himself up outside a shopping centre in Netanya.”
                                                                                       [Source: NYT.com]

–All of these real events. All of these places (except for Eilat, where I had friends vacationing) I visited; I worked in Netanya. 

Somehow, when in the U.S., these stories seem unreal and part of a far-away reality… but once I come to know these places as real, there is strange new familiarity in the headlines.

And here I am, boarding a public bus to Jerusalem.

*     *     *

I’m in the Beverly Hills of Israel (once, when I told a taxi driver where I was staying in Israel, he said with a wry smile “Oh. You must be a millionaire.”) It’s easy to associate the whole of Israel with turmoil; but despite being a small country, areas seperated by 50 miles — the distance of, say, San Francisco to Petaluma — feel worlds apart. For example, even though I’m around two hour’s distance from Gaza there is no need for ‘Kevlar’ where I work — it feels more like Silicon Valley than a war zone.

Even the bus I’m currently on has an ad for Jethro Tull.

When I asked for directions from my landlord, he wanted to make sure I knew that “in Jerusalem there are a lot of ‘Arabs’”. He whispered the word ‘Arab’ the way my grandmother, coming from Texas in the 30’s, might have said the word ‘black’ or the way my grandfather describes the ‘Mexicans’ he knows — not in any racist or hateful manner, but with clear chords of disassociation, notes of coming from different worlds — a complete lack of understanding or comprehension.

And yet, the political climate influences culture. A friend told me that, despite the proximity, there was a clear difference between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

“Tel Aviv feels more sheltered. In Jerusalem, people are more impatient, stressed, terse. The tension is thick here, and although we have to just go about our daily lives, people are much more aware of the conflict with the Palestinians. We cannot ignore it; we are right up next to it.”

*     *     *

Rounding the corner before the main entrance to Jerusalem, a valley opens up to scaled houses built along an edge, all built of white Jerusalem stone with red tile roofs. They blend in with rocky, Biblical landscape, and make everything, everything look old. We come upon a terrace with what look like thousands of tiny bird houses – a cemetery.

A Hasidic Jew wearing an iPod walks by.

Hugging the edge of the cliff as we drive and climb, the air thins into piercing rays under a mid-day heat. Any shadow or shade is taken up by people or an animal attempting to get out of the sun. Each and every building is statuesque and chalky, still dressed in Jerusalem stone as mandated by the city — even the McDonald’s looks holy.

I get off at the central station, and have to go through security to exit the terminal / enter the city (whichever you prefer). I cross the street and look for shade, and then for the number #48 bus. I ask someone for its location, or if they know how to get to the German Quarter.

Suddenly, no one speaks English.

A bus pulls up. I ask the driver if he knows where to catch the #48. He shakes his head. No English. I repeat the name of my stop in Hebrew. He shakes his head again but waves his hand, as if fanning himself, urging me to come on board. I keep one foot out the door, one foot in the bus, struggling to confirm that this bus will get me to the right location, but the bus begins to move. 

I resign and hop on.

As we begin driving, I repeat again in Hebrew where I need to go. Someone to my right, in a distinctively American Southern accent, calls over to me “this’ll get you there, honey.” I turn and smile. A woman most certainly named Shirley, or Betsy, or Suzanne sits, legs together, handbag casually clutched in her lab. “I’ll tell you where to get off,” she says, her voice like honeysuckle, and then proceeds to talk to the driver in perfect Hebrew. 

The driver nods in acknowledgment to her explanation.

“I’ve been in the exact same situation,” she assures me once I finish my profusive exercise of gratitude.

In my head I find myself endlessly repeating the Blanche Dubois quote I’ve always depended on the kindness of strangers. Now is no exception.

*     *     *

I finally manage to meet up with my friend Shula. She lives in the very quaint German Quarter, with coffee bars, flower shops and simple boutiques. We go out to lunch at a cafe nearby.

She tells me she can take me around Jerusalem by car to show me the layout of the city. Shula was born here, and is incredibly knowledgeable about the history, culture and political climate of Jerusalem. She dives right in, telling me about the historical places she’ll take us.

“But just not to the Old City or East Jerusalem, right?” I ask, “I read that I shouldn’t go to the Old City, or to East Jerusalem.”

Shula looks at me with forgiveness in her eyes. “Shannon: Old City, new part of town, East, West, South or North — it’s all the same. Jerusalem is Jerusalem. For that matter, Israel is Israel. If you’re going to get blown up by a bomb, you’re going to get blown up by a bomb; doesn’t matter where you are.”

I looked at her naïvely. “Really?”

 ”Shan-on!” she smiled, “What do you think? Everything here is vulnerable. The cafe you are sitting in right now was blown up by a bomb three years ago.”

At first I got nervous, feel myheart race with the palpable reality of it; then, after a time I did what the people who live there must do — here’s a woman drinking coffee here, two kids playing kickball over there  – grew accustomed and forget, save for every-once-in-awhile moments when I found myself thinking:

“Just on the other side of that wall is the West Bank, and here I am… drinking an iced latte.”

And then, I just got addicted. Shula took me to the Old City, the Wailing Wall, the Arab Quarter, Eastern Jerusalem, Mount of Olives, the first Hebrew University, the Dead Sea and Jordon, all in one scape, and even (briefly) through a checkpoint to the West Bank.*[1]

As she unravelled the history, culture and conflict of Jerusalem, I became more and more eager… what else can I learn? Where else can I go?
Parked on the top of Mount of Olives she pointed out several groupings of houses.

“Do you see these? This is a Jewish neighborhood. And do you see the houses there?” Houses bled into one another. “Now this one, this is an Arab neighborhood. Do you see how they are nearly mixed, so close! How do they expect to build a wall and solve the problem? How can you divide a city like that?”

It would be like building a wall in San Francisco to separate by race. At times seemingly clear, other times impossible.

“The solution is not here. There… there is no simple solution.”

With this, she took me through the Arab Quarter of Old Town, passing by where, only two weeks before, a Palestinian man had been shot and killed after stealing a security guards gun and opening fire. We emerged at the Cotel, or Western (Wailing) Wall, where Shula was harassed for not covering her shoulders with a shawl by a young Jewish woman.

Shula is Jewish.

“Shannon. People think that it is clear but it is not clear. It is not Israeli vs. Palestinian; it is not Jew vs. Muslim; secular Jews live next to fundamental Jews live next to moderate Muslim Arabs live next to fundamental Muslims live next to Christians. Everyone living next to each other, and inside each other’s neighborhoods — and everyone wanting a different way of life.”

Directly behind us was the grand Mosque. Ahead of us on the opposite hill was a Christian Church.

We approached the Wall. It is divided into halves: the women pray on the right, the men on the left.

On the right side, women (heads covered) and girls (with shoulders covered) stood with faces pressed against the historic monument, or rocked forward and back while repeating passages from the Torah.

I asked Shula for a piece of paper and pen, so I could inscribe a something and stick my own little prayer into a crack in the wall.

But once I had pen in hand, my mind drew nothing. Calls in Arabic reached me from the entrance to the Arabic Quarter; wisps of Hebrew hummed in steady prayer around me; the fierce sun stung any bits of skin that shown through my covering. I was tired and thick-headed and desperate for some word of divine inspiration, some way to capture the confusion and need and peace and change and understanding and love and bitterness and history and holiness and wisdom and loss that seemed to cover, like half-dried Elmer’s glue, everything in sight. How could I pray for thousands of years of what had gone on here; how could I, on one little college-lined scrap of paper, write something suitable to represent my hope for the next thousand years to come in this holy of holy sites?

I wrote one word in the center of the paper and stuck it in the wall. Then I walked away.
 

*[1] It was only after coming back to Tel Aviv that I realized I had crossed the checkpoint without having my passport, driver’s license, or any form of ID on me whatsoever …Oops.