Advertisement
Published: July 18th 2006
Hi.
I lied. I will write a couple more of these. What can I say. People are fickle.
So, an update from the calmest place on earth. I've been living in Jerusalem since the beginning of June, in a little apartment not far from the Bethlehem checkpoint (i.e. the Green Line, the border with the Palestinian West Bank), with a fun and eccentric Russian roommate who stocks our fridge with kvass. I am attending, so it seems, what is described as a pluralistic, egalitarian yeshiva - surprise! I was surprised - where I am one of the most, if not the most, devout skeptics in attendance. Apparently, combined with my lengthening hair and my not dressing like a schmuck, this has resulted in my developing a reputation, for good or bad, as something of a nihilistic hippie. Which amuses me. Apparently too this impression has spread to Israeli society at large. I've been stopped by the police and searched bodily twice for the crime of existing in public. Both times they thought I had/was on drugs; the first time they also inquired after the whereabouts of my knife. Where, sir, is your knife? (Except they were Israeli and brash, thus saying only: "Knife? Your knife? Mah? Huh? Yah?") I would have liked to say I left it with my bomb, but I did not. Alas. Instead I got indignant and, after tiring of their insistantly asking if I was Jewish, I told them yes, but clearly not the right kind of Jewish, so let me buy a black hat (I was in Tzfat) so that they wouldn't look twice; which was not terribly polite of me. At the time they drove up in their car I had been talking long-distance to my parents on a pay-phone outdoors, on a deserted street. The second time this sort of thing happened I was in Jerusalem, close to my apartment, but I'd been running, so, you know, naturally. I'd forgotten my permit for public leg-pumping, after all. One must accept responsibility. While walking with a friend here in Jerusalem, wearing my exotic dress (i.e. a white T-shirt and jeans), I was greeted fondly by young male strangers in a car, and my friend told me she thinks I am, here, a "subtle statement of difference". As long as I'm subtle, I said.
A friend recently e-mailed me and asked whether I was still critical of the Israeli government. I told him no. Not with exclusivity. I told him (with a nod to Rotey, for whom I drafted this list, with some changes), in the interest of not discriminating and instead offending absolutely everyone, I am now critical of:
The Israeli government
The Palestinian government (insofar as it exists)
Israeli people (insofar as they own cars and should not)
Palestinian people (insofar as they don't stage a coup already and install some responsible representation)
The opposite sex (also related to responsible representation)
Thirtysomething American Jewish males who think saying hello would be an unthinkable indulgence
Hairy Russian men who remove their shirts in my apartment before introducing themselves; hairy Russian men in my apartment who introduce themselves while shirtless.
And I suppose a word is necessary about what's going on right now war-wise. So, apparently the country I'm in is at war. More or less. Both sides are saying war. Some people in my program here have changed their flights and left. It's funny, most of us who lean ever so slightly to the left have, in light of recent events, been the most militant voices to say Fuck off, we're staying right where we are. I don't particularly support the Israeli government, it's true, but I support those who want to destroy the state incomparably less. Beyond that, I feel like living in Israel has stripped me of all political opinion. Or, more accurately: if you are infuriated by and critical of both sides, does that make you a moderate? I arrived in Israel and had a certain, passionate reaction, I spent a week in the territories and had the opposite, equally passionate reaction, and now, having lived in Israel for a couple months as a "citizen" (or perhaps let us say a "subletter"), I proudly throw up my hands and say, what a mess. What an absolute mess. My solution: read Amos Oz's non-fiction on the one hand, Mahmoud Darwish's poetry on the other. Be a hermit. Skip school - if that's what it is - to sit by the window and write. A person does pretty well the same things wherever in the world he is, I think. In Africa I sat by the sea and wrote, in London I sat by the English and wrote, here I sit and stare at cypresses and the Mazda dealership and write; in Toronto I can't imagine things will be much different.
Which reminds me: I'm returning to Toronto! I have my ticket booked. I'm flying home from Glasgow on August 18th, after spending two weeks and a bit in Paris, where I have a friend and also the prospect of staying at an English-language bookstore that has a tradition of putting up young writers for free, in exchange for some housework and for reading a book a day. I heard about this from someone I met on the bus to Eilat two months ago. I also got an e-mail out of the blue from a French guy I know working in the Alps, inviting me there, so I might do that too. Then Glasgow, then home. I'm hugely excited about this.
Merry summer, sorry for the lack of pictures (thank the camera thief), and please remember, should war and things concern you, that it's better to be in Israel right now than in Lebanon. Don't trust CNN or BBC; they're reporting an entirely different war, it seems. Ha'aretz (www.haaretz.com) and The Jerusalem Post (www.jpost.com; leans pretty hard to the right) are pretty good sources coming out of Israel. Or Al-Jazeera, if you are inclined to hear the other side, though mostly what they're saying is the same.
L'chaim,
Daniel
Advertisement
Tot: 0.1s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 8; qc: 51; dbt: 0.0679s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Rebecca
non-member comment
I find if you lean too hard in any direction, you fall over.
Interesting isn't it? How people normally continue to do whatever it is they do wherever they are. I think that could possibly be attributed in part to the fact that people often really do very similar things. Everywhere. (Get back to me as to whether not playing bagpipes in Glasgow is considered highly unusual or not. You may completely disprove my point.) I'm very glad to hear that you're doing well, despite your lack of knives. Sometimes I forget that you haven't fallen off the face of the earth, you're just on the other side of it. (It's a very big face). Things here have been relatively normal. I've done some travelling to foreign lands myself, as I am now on an extended stay at my father's house for the first time in over a year. The wildlife here is fascinating. Other than that, there have been various teenage soap opera dramas that I've been doing my best to avoid and cosequently have found myself right in the middle of. And that's about all, really. I look forward to your return. We should get together for some kind of legal stimulant beverage once you're back in town.