I work for the Palestine-Israel Journal as the online content editor. This job involves trying to increase our online reach to a global audience and I had hoped, a more local audience in the West Bank and Gaza. Unfortunately, copies of the print journal are unable to reach the Territories because the mail going to and from is highly censored and often delivery is interfered. Weekly, we receive calls from Gazans and West Bank residents about their desire to receive and read the Palestine-Israel Journal and couldn't we find a way to help?
Over the past few months I've been researching and trying to implement the idea of the online subscription for the PIJ, but many obstacles have arisen. At present, the main block to accomplishing this task is that we are out of funding. The end of March 2008 signals the second month that my colleagues at the Journal will go home without pay.
Everyone except for me is going to the office as they live in or near Jerusalem, even though they are not receiving compensation for their work. At this time I cannot afford to make the commute back and forth without pay so I work primarily from home and I also have part time work at a preschool that offers me hours with pay. I have to take the job that pays.
This means that since the Jerusalem yeshiva shooting, I have not traveled to Jerusalem. I exist solely in Tel Aviv. I study Hebrew at cafes with rich chocolatey cafe mochas, walk to work in the afternoons, jog on the seashore and spend several hours cooking creative dishes from the weekly organic vegetable from a local farm that I pick up at a nearby Gan (preschool). I sit at my computer, I follow the news in Israel, in Tibet, in the States, return and write e-mails, practice yoga, enjoy the evenings with Eitan and relish the time I spend with two of my close friends here -- Clare and Anne-Sophie (fellow Israeli residents due to having an Israeli boyfriend).
In Tel Aviv, there is no indication of any conflict, injustice, difficulty or anything even hinting that Israel isn't anything but a thriving country with malls, restaurants, young, old, dogs, cats, too much pollution, tourism and a falafel stand on every block which reminds me that I am in fact in the Middle East.
In Tel Aviv, life is...normal. Sixty kilometers east, in Jerusalem, life has changed for a certain population.
Working from home means that any changes to the PIJ website or final edits and drafts of the PIJ newsletter must be executed from my living room in Tel Aviv via e-mail and telephone. I speak to my webmaster, Nidal, and we communicate about the appearance, content and the never-ending battle between my Mac and the PIJ PC computers that for some reason, do not receive files from me, that can be opened.
Nidal's first language is Arabic, his second is Hebrew, his third is English. At times, there are miscommunications. But we are friends and we laugh on the phone about our love lives, whether or not we've found the "one to give my heart to for all my life" and the frustration we have with our zany bosses. If something goes amiss with the website, we fix it and eventually the job gets done.
Nidal doesn't tell me that since the shooting in the Mercaz HaRav Yeshiva that he has trouble returning to his own home in the Old City when he goes home from work because there are heightened restrictions on the age and number of men allowed to enter the Old City on Fridays.
He doesn't complain or curse the State of Israel because the woman he mentions he'd like to marry cannot live here as she is a Palestinian with Jordanian citizenship (and if he marries her and goes to Jordan he will have great difficulty coming home and may have his identity card revoked).
Instead, he is more concerned with whether or not I'm looking for a new job and how my love life is going and when we will see each other again.
However, my dear Najat, who challenges and loves me with each interaction we have, does share with me her life, post-yeshiva shooting. But not until this week.
Last week, she didn't want to talk to me, she was too angry, too scared and too upset to be living a reality she tries to forget, but which always forces itself into her face.
Yesterday I asked her how she was doing. She replied with a cheerful voice happy to hear from me and asked when I'd be coming to the office. Again, I asked her how she was doing and what was happening in Jerusalem. I heard her voice drop from sunny yellow to twilight purple. The laughter left her voice as she told me she did not sleep well the night before.
She lives near the neighborhood, Jabel Mukaber, where the yeshiva shooter was born and raised. Since then, helicopters are constantly hovering overhead searching for suspects. Najat's neighborhood is near to a settlement. Right now, each day and night, Najat, her family and neighbors are careful when they step outside as settlers are throwing stones at them and their homes.
Najat usually drives to work. The checkpoints between her home and the office (which are all inside of Jerusalem-- not in the West Bank) are too much hassle. She does not want to be harassed or stopped or questioned about something she has nothing to do with. She's taking the bus, it's safer and easier. She is tired and upset and completely unable to do anything about the situation.
We talk about these things after I've returned from a lovely jog with the sea breeze blowing in my face, while I wait for the boiler to heat up the water for my shower.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Jerusalem Shooting
The news about the shooting which killed 8 students at the Rav HaCook Yeshiva in Jerusalem spread throughout Israel quickly. The first rumors I heard were that the perpetrator of the killings was actually a suicide bomber from East Jerusalem that blew himself up. The man who opened fire in the yeshiva library was in fact from East Jerusalem, but he had a rifle and not a bomb apparatus.
There are a few things about the incident to which I have an ongoing reaction.
In every article from "peace" or "alternative" news sources, I find an effort to contextualize the situation, to allow the reader to understand how and why it is that a man could go into a library in which students are studying Torah and murder them in cold blood, knowing full well that his own life was at stake. Before the contextualization however, comes several sentences iterating the horrific, inexcusable nature of the crime. I believe Barak Obama called it a "cowardly" act and others called it heinous, some British media labeled the incident as the moment the peace process died. Condemn the act strongly before offering analysis that seeks to educate the public before it is slammed back into the black and white comprehension of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Is it necessary to lend adjectives to the shooting that reassure the reader that in fact, this media source is not justifying the incident in order to keep them reading?
Are not the facts of the event shocking enough-- a Palestinian East Jerusalemite who drove to the yeshiva, got out of his car, shut the door, cocked his gun, went into the library and sprayed bullets at students whose blood filled the floor of the library, the books they were carrying and, as some news sources showed pictures of Jewish prayer shawls soaked in the blood of the victims?
Why is it necessary to condemn an act of terror in so many words, in order to be allowed a platform, or rather, hope for listeners to a platform that explains the between-the-lines of a story?
How about we swallow the facts, as bitter, huge and nasty a pill or pill-cocktail as they may be? One people's villains are another's heroes and vice versa. I believe this is a fact both the people here and those involved internationally have to understand and really integrate into their approach to life here, living in conflict and hoping for an end to it.
What would happen if a news article read something like -- brave Palestinian citizen sought justice by single-handedly attacking a yeshiva today, sacrificing his own life to draw attention to the continued control of the Palestinian people by Israel. Families, teachers, friends and the people of Israel are shocked and bereaved by this incident. Hopes are low for a continued peace process as the event illustrates once again how superficial the Middle East peace process really is in the consciousness of the people -- Israelis and Palestinians.
And what if the story continued to relay more facts -- the young Palestinian man found hope and sustenance in the teachings of Hizbollah and Hamas whose cry for a free Palestine from oppression of the Zionists and America allowed him to find a purpose for his short life. In an act of selflessness he took matters into his own hands in what he must have believed was his contribution to the struggle for nationhood and an end to the oppression about which he has learned and lived since his birth.
In the aftermath of the shooting, the lives of Palestinians in the West Bank and Jerusalem are becoming more and more difficult. Palestinian residents of the Old City are not being allowed into their homes as a result of the security restriction keeping men younger than 45 from going to pray at the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Delays at the checkpoints have been increased and general harassment of Palestinians is continuing at heightened levels.
Meanwhile, back at the yeshiva and the massive funeral processions to bury the teenage victims of the shooting, rabbis and community leaders are declaring the just cause of Israel's occupation of the West Bank. One mother of the victims demanded that eight new settlements be built in memory of the eight youngsters killed while studying in the yeshiva. The stereotypes are proven true-- they want to kill us and they do and we want them to be pushed out, so we will.
Nearly a week later, news of Prime Minister Olmert's consent to continue settlement building in the West Bank is surfacing. Defense Minister Ehud Barak snubs a joint meeting with a Lieutenant of Defense from the United States and Mohammed Abbas' Prime Minister Salam Fayyad in Jerusalem as part of the ongoing peace talks agreed to at Annapolis in November 2007.
On Facebook I'm receiving requests to join the "Remember the 8 Who Died at the Yeshiva".
I speak to my co-workers in East Jerusalem and I hear heaviness and an unwillingness to talk in their voices.
Events such as this polarize the publics both near and far. Any moment of clarity that accepts that a drastic change on the ground must occur and quickly becomes fogged over in the re-experiencing of a story line lived too many times before.
In these situations everyone is losing, no one is safe, the well-being of all parties are at stake.
A crime was committed against children in a yeshiva and I'm not even willing to call them innocent because at this yeshiva they are taught of their god-given right to the land of Israel and therefore their right to remove Palestinians from the land.
Conversely, an act of terror was committed to upturn any sense of stability and to reinforce the fragility of the safety of the Israeli public, by a Palestinian.
The action and the reaction perpetuate the violence cycle here and if you take a side, you too -- I also -- perpetuate the cycle. In the end we all lose-- our sense of security for the Jewish State, our hope for a free Palestine, our dream of coexistence, our dream of dominance, our dream of justice.
The only thing that endures is the fighting.
There are a few things about the incident to which I have an ongoing reaction.
In every article from "peace" or "alternative" news sources, I find an effort to contextualize the situation, to allow the reader to understand how and why it is that a man could go into a library in which students are studying Torah and murder them in cold blood, knowing full well that his own life was at stake. Before the contextualization however, comes several sentences iterating the horrific, inexcusable nature of the crime. I believe Barak Obama called it a "cowardly" act and others called it heinous, some British media labeled the incident as the moment the peace process died. Condemn the act strongly before offering analysis that seeks to educate the public before it is slammed back into the black and white comprehension of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Is it necessary to lend adjectives to the shooting that reassure the reader that in fact, this media source is not justifying the incident in order to keep them reading?
Are not the facts of the event shocking enough-- a Palestinian East Jerusalemite who drove to the yeshiva, got out of his car, shut the door, cocked his gun, went into the library and sprayed bullets at students whose blood filled the floor of the library, the books they were carrying and, as some news sources showed pictures of Jewish prayer shawls soaked in the blood of the victims?
Why is it necessary to condemn an act of terror in so many words, in order to be allowed a platform, or rather, hope for listeners to a platform that explains the between-the-lines of a story?
How about we swallow the facts, as bitter, huge and nasty a pill or pill-cocktail as they may be? One people's villains are another's heroes and vice versa. I believe this is a fact both the people here and those involved internationally have to understand and really integrate into their approach to life here, living in conflict and hoping for an end to it.
What would happen if a news article read something like -- brave Palestinian citizen sought justice by single-handedly attacking a yeshiva today, sacrificing his own life to draw attention to the continued control of the Palestinian people by Israel. Families, teachers, friends and the people of Israel are shocked and bereaved by this incident. Hopes are low for a continued peace process as the event illustrates once again how superficial the Middle East peace process really is in the consciousness of the people -- Israelis and Palestinians.
And what if the story continued to relay more facts -- the young Palestinian man found hope and sustenance in the teachings of Hizbollah and Hamas whose cry for a free Palestine from oppression of the Zionists and America allowed him to find a purpose for his short life. In an act of selflessness he took matters into his own hands in what he must have believed was his contribution to the struggle for nationhood and an end to the oppression about which he has learned and lived since his birth.
In the aftermath of the shooting, the lives of Palestinians in the West Bank and Jerusalem are becoming more and more difficult. Palestinian residents of the Old City are not being allowed into their homes as a result of the security restriction keeping men younger than 45 from going to pray at the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Delays at the checkpoints have been increased and general harassment of Palestinians is continuing at heightened levels.
Meanwhile, back at the yeshiva and the massive funeral processions to bury the teenage victims of the shooting, rabbis and community leaders are declaring the just cause of Israel's occupation of the West Bank. One mother of the victims demanded that eight new settlements be built in memory of the eight youngsters killed while studying in the yeshiva. The stereotypes are proven true-- they want to kill us and they do and we want them to be pushed out, so we will.
Nearly a week later, news of Prime Minister Olmert's consent to continue settlement building in the West Bank is surfacing. Defense Minister Ehud Barak snubs a joint meeting with a Lieutenant of Defense from the United States and Mohammed Abbas' Prime Minister Salam Fayyad in Jerusalem as part of the ongoing peace talks agreed to at Annapolis in November 2007.
On Facebook I'm receiving requests to join the "Remember the 8 Who Died at the Yeshiva".
I speak to my co-workers in East Jerusalem and I hear heaviness and an unwillingness to talk in their voices.
Events such as this polarize the publics both near and far. Any moment of clarity that accepts that a drastic change on the ground must occur and quickly becomes fogged over in the re-experiencing of a story line lived too many times before.
In these situations everyone is losing, no one is safe, the well-being of all parties are at stake.
A crime was committed against children in a yeshiva and I'm not even willing to call them innocent because at this yeshiva they are taught of their god-given right to the land of Israel and therefore their right to remove Palestinians from the land.
Conversely, an act of terror was committed to upturn any sense of stability and to reinforce the fragility of the safety of the Israeli public, by a Palestinian.
The action and the reaction perpetuate the violence cycle here and if you take a side, you too -- I also -- perpetuate the cycle. In the end we all lose-- our sense of security for the Jewish State, our hope for a free Palestine, our dream of coexistence, our dream of dominance, our dream of justice.
The only thing that endures is the fighting.
Monday, March 3, 2008
Being Human is Enough
Different Israelis have different opinions about being Israeli. Naturally.
There are those with immense national pride. There are those with great guilt and shame. There are Israelis with resentment of a condemning world. There are Israelis whose lives are not affected by that upon which the world is focused in this region but rather, and simply, their own lives.
But what most fascinates me, or gets thinking sometimes is the generation of Israelis that are my peers. Young, educated, pursuing professions in medicine, law, engineering, product design, journalism, linguistics and so on and so forth, who are not interested in being Jewish. They know the stories of Purim and Hanukah, the traditions of Yom Kippur and Rosh HaShanah. They are aware of the customs and practices and rigid, manipulated rules of the religious community. They do not keep kosher. They shake their heads at the aspects of Judaism that may sound strange to someone on "the outside."
They are not concerned whether or not their partners are also Jewish or whether or not they will raise families and grow old in Israel. They are not concerned with the Zionist dream, and definitely not with the more religious Zionism that is prevalent today.
But they are Jewish and most of them are Israeli because their Jewish families fled from Eastern Europe before or during or after World War II. Certainly, particularly among the families of European descent, reasons for coming to Israel stemmed from too long a history of anti-Semitism. Different rules for the Jewish people. Different opportunities for learning, discrimination in schools. State and local government organized sabotage of businesses, talent, revoking of property and other rights of ownership.
These Israelis are the descendants of families who created the modern State of Israel. Perhaps their grandparents were religious in that they kept kosher and attended synagogue, married only other Jewish people and envisioned a future for the Jewish heritage, in the land of Israel. Perhaps they weren't. Perhaps they were the cultural Zionists who wanted to revive Hebrew as a modern language and simply create a haven for the Jewish People because no matter where or what era, there always seems to be a problem for being who they are.
A voice inside of my head speaks when I meet Israelis not interested in being Jewish. It says something along the lines of, what a shame it is that the parents and grandparents of some of my Israeli contemporaries sacrificed and chanced their lives to come here where they could be Jewish. What a shame that one, two generations later that which they held so dear and that which was the cause of ostracization from other nation-states is so easily tossed aside for a secular existence.
The voice asks, doesn't the ancient Jewish heritage of which you are a part mean anything to you?
Then another voice makes itself heard. It asks, is it their humanity or their Judaism that was and is more valuable?
In the Jewish community-at-large there is, at some level and in some communities more than others, an underlying message of the fear of extinction. That through intermarriage and rapidly reproducing Arabs, as examples, the Jewish People, the Jewish Race will gradually decrease and threaten to disappear. But, is that why the Jewish People had and have a right to a land of their own?
It's a strange stream of thoughts that I am having in which the reason there are Israelis today, the ones whose families came here before World War II and because of World War II, is because their families were fleeing persecution for being Jewish. Human but Jewish. Now, these young Israelis, who are also Jews are eschewing their heritage because it no longer, in most of the world, is a hindrance to the pursuit of their dreams and aspirations. The very thing contributing, literally, to some of my peers (Israeli) existence is something they very adamantly wish not to make as a part of their lives today.
I wonder how this plays into the conflict. The humanity of today's "other" (in this region at least) the Palestinians. People who deserve a land not in my mind because they are Palestinian but because they are people with human rights that the majority of the global community, at least on paper, has agreed to work to promote and uphold.But apparently we don't see each other as simply but most importantly human. We "deserve" independence because "we" are Palestinians, because "they" are Jews or Tibetans or East Timorese or Kurdish or Kosovar and histories of each other's inhumanities to one another are what merit a people's right to sovereignty, when enough other people who have power manage to influence more people to take action to get the deprived and persecuted people some safety and respect on territory upon which they can create or rebuild the present and therefore the future.
And all these clashing aspects of identity -- that fill the newspapers, academic journals, books, seminars, think tanks, policy groups with material for critical analysis and evaluation, as the causes of the conflict, the obstacles to explore and negotiate in order to get beyond impasse become less salient and precious once that goal of self-rule is attained. That people fight with everything they have, their survival instinct, to be "who" they are as a "people", only to achieve that goal of self-determination as a Jewish people, for instance, so as to have the choice to simply let it go.
I don't quite understand what I am getting at except maybe I'm tired of finding reasons translated through the language of history, religion, politics to express why I believe there should be an Israel, why I believe there should be a Palestine. Isn't it enough that we are human and expect to have the same rights to life as those of our neighbors?
There are those with immense national pride. There are those with great guilt and shame. There are Israelis with resentment of a condemning world. There are Israelis whose lives are not affected by that upon which the world is focused in this region but rather, and simply, their own lives.
But what most fascinates me, or gets thinking sometimes is the generation of Israelis that are my peers. Young, educated, pursuing professions in medicine, law, engineering, product design, journalism, linguistics and so on and so forth, who are not interested in being Jewish. They know the stories of Purim and Hanukah, the traditions of Yom Kippur and Rosh HaShanah. They are aware of the customs and practices and rigid, manipulated rules of the religious community. They do not keep kosher. They shake their heads at the aspects of Judaism that may sound strange to someone on "the outside."
They are not concerned whether or not their partners are also Jewish or whether or not they will raise families and grow old in Israel. They are not concerned with the Zionist dream, and definitely not with the more religious Zionism that is prevalent today.
But they are Jewish and most of them are Israeli because their Jewish families fled from Eastern Europe before or during or after World War II. Certainly, particularly among the families of European descent, reasons for coming to Israel stemmed from too long a history of anti-Semitism. Different rules for the Jewish people. Different opportunities for learning, discrimination in schools. State and local government organized sabotage of businesses, talent, revoking of property and other rights of ownership.
These Israelis are the descendants of families who created the modern State of Israel. Perhaps their grandparents were religious in that they kept kosher and attended synagogue, married only other Jewish people and envisioned a future for the Jewish heritage, in the land of Israel. Perhaps they weren't. Perhaps they were the cultural Zionists who wanted to revive Hebrew as a modern language and simply create a haven for the Jewish People because no matter where or what era, there always seems to be a problem for being who they are.
A voice inside of my head speaks when I meet Israelis not interested in being Jewish. It says something along the lines of, what a shame it is that the parents and grandparents of some of my Israeli contemporaries sacrificed and chanced their lives to come here where they could be Jewish. What a shame that one, two generations later that which they held so dear and that which was the cause of ostracization from other nation-states is so easily tossed aside for a secular existence.
The voice asks, doesn't the ancient Jewish heritage of which you are a part mean anything to you?
Then another voice makes itself heard. It asks, is it their humanity or their Judaism that was and is more valuable?
In the Jewish community-at-large there is, at some level and in some communities more than others, an underlying message of the fear of extinction. That through intermarriage and rapidly reproducing Arabs, as examples, the Jewish People, the Jewish Race will gradually decrease and threaten to disappear. But, is that why the Jewish People had and have a right to a land of their own?
It's a strange stream of thoughts that I am having in which the reason there are Israelis today, the ones whose families came here before World War II and because of World War II, is because their families were fleeing persecution for being Jewish. Human but Jewish. Now, these young Israelis, who are also Jews are eschewing their heritage because it no longer, in most of the world, is a hindrance to the pursuit of their dreams and aspirations. The very thing contributing, literally, to some of my peers (Israeli) existence is something they very adamantly wish not to make as a part of their lives today.
I wonder how this plays into the conflict. The humanity of today's "other" (in this region at least) the Palestinians. People who deserve a land not in my mind because they are Palestinian but because they are people with human rights that the majority of the global community, at least on paper, has agreed to work to promote and uphold.But apparently we don't see each other as simply but most importantly human. We "deserve" independence because "we" are Palestinians, because "they" are Jews or Tibetans or East Timorese or Kurdish or Kosovar and histories of each other's inhumanities to one another are what merit a people's right to sovereignty, when enough other people who have power manage to influence more people to take action to get the deprived and persecuted people some safety and respect on territory upon which they can create or rebuild the present and therefore the future.
And all these clashing aspects of identity -- that fill the newspapers, academic journals, books, seminars, think tanks, policy groups with material for critical analysis and evaluation, as the causes of the conflict, the obstacles to explore and negotiate in order to get beyond impasse become less salient and precious once that goal of self-rule is attained. That people fight with everything they have, their survival instinct, to be "who" they are as a "people", only to achieve that goal of self-determination as a Jewish people, for instance, so as to have the choice to simply let it go.
I don't quite understand what I am getting at except maybe I'm tired of finding reasons translated through the language of history, religion, politics to express why I believe there should be an Israel, why I believe there should be a Palestine. Isn't it enough that we are human and expect to have the same rights to life as those of our neighbors?
Saturday, March 1, 2008
Living the Ugly Truths
I arrived here last February to start an internship that I knew would challenge my faith and my opinion of the Jewish State of Israel and consequently force me to scrutinize my people, the Jewish People and its management of the much-longed for State of Israel. I knew that coming across unlimited volumes, websites, books, journals, magazines, newspapers and people dedicated to exposing the injustices that occur here both against Palesitians and Israeli citizens as well, would shatter any romantic notion that I retained about Israel as a place where people came together to create something different from the rest of the world-- and that I wanted to be a part of it as a Jew.
In spite of the fact that I had prepared myself for accepting ugly truths, I don't think I understood what it meant to continue to live among the ugly truths.
I found a diary that I wrote in when I was ten years old. In it there are short paragraphs describing my desire to be helpful to the world, to make it better. To do good-- perhaps I even used the words human rights, I can't remember specifically now. I mention this because sometimes I think I'm a great fool to continue trying to do what I said I wanted to do when I was ten. Sometimes I wish I was in computer software or engineering or fashion or bookkeeping, something that would allow me to do my job 40 hours a week and be content with going to the mall, watching television programs on the weekends and the occasional opportunity to travel.
If I were pursuing any one of the professions mentioned above, I would find a decent paying job in Israel. I would live in Tel Aviv, as I do now, unabashedly throw myself into continuing to fall in love,and thus be able to ignore the constant state of violence being carried out only a few hours drive from where I am. Perhaps I would be able to see the conflict in black and white and I would fall asleep at night, trusting that the army and the government of Israel are acting in the best interest of the people and what they are doing is in the interest of my security and those of my neighbors. And when I read in the newspapers of arrests of Palestinians in the night, and young children killed in the soccer fields of Gaza because their people launch rockets from them and the children become casualties when the Israeli army retaliates, I would maybe accept that this is how it is, and no matter what the world says in condemnation or concern, Israel has to defend itself.
But every day, I read several news sources, each one more illuminating but simultaneously confusing in their descriptions and analysis of how and why decisions are made to manage the occupation or to defend the nation.
I get really worked up about all of this each day because I'm used to doing good and feeling good about it. In the States, when I helped Tibetan Buddhist nuns, or made a donation to the Heifer Foundation, planned a screening of documentary about Tibet for Students for a Free Tibet, it felt very satisfying to plan and execute a project. To receive the acknowledgment for the efforts and to be assured by employers, executive directors, peers and professors that my work has made a difference.
Here, I can work and work and work at "doing good" well, but at the end of the day, when I put my head on the pillow at night, another soldier is barging into the home of a Palestinian family, another alarm goes off in Sderot, giving the residents 15 seconds to take cover before the rocket explodes on the ground. For all the "good" work that I attempt to do and that of my colleagues in other organizations of peace making, we don't make the decisions for military incursions or high alerts at the checkpoints. We are not the commanders that set the examples of dehumanizing Palestinians, we do not teach lessons of tolerance in Israeli and Palestinian classrooms. Even though hundreds, perhaps thousands of people are working for peace in Israel and the Occupied Territories, it is one rocket, one suicide bomber, one assassination that can transform the tentative stability of today into chaos.
And the people here are so accustomed to this cycle of violence, the imagination for something different, something better that a return to bomb shelters and self-fulfilling prophecies is unbearably absent.
And there isn't much that I can do about it.
I can make my home beautiful. I can light Shabbat candles, eat sweet challah, put flowers all around and buy vibrant rugs from Egypt from a vendor on Dizengoff, but, unfortunately, it doesn't satisfy this persistent desire to witness a change, to be here for the reconciliation of two peoples that the world seems to thrive upon their misfortune.
In spite of the fact that I had prepared myself for accepting ugly truths, I don't think I understood what it meant to continue to live among the ugly truths.
I found a diary that I wrote in when I was ten years old. In it there are short paragraphs describing my desire to be helpful to the world, to make it better. To do good-- perhaps I even used the words human rights, I can't remember specifically now. I mention this because sometimes I think I'm a great fool to continue trying to do what I said I wanted to do when I was ten. Sometimes I wish I was in computer software or engineering or fashion or bookkeeping, something that would allow me to do my job 40 hours a week and be content with going to the mall, watching television programs on the weekends and the occasional opportunity to travel.
If I were pursuing any one of the professions mentioned above, I would find a decent paying job in Israel. I would live in Tel Aviv, as I do now, unabashedly throw myself into continuing to fall in love,and thus be able to ignore the constant state of violence being carried out only a few hours drive from where I am. Perhaps I would be able to see the conflict in black and white and I would fall asleep at night, trusting that the army and the government of Israel are acting in the best interest of the people and what they are doing is in the interest of my security and those of my neighbors. And when I read in the newspapers of arrests of Palestinians in the night, and young children killed in the soccer fields of Gaza because their people launch rockets from them and the children become casualties when the Israeli army retaliates, I would maybe accept that this is how it is, and no matter what the world says in condemnation or concern, Israel has to defend itself.
But every day, I read several news sources, each one more illuminating but simultaneously confusing in their descriptions and analysis of how and why decisions are made to manage the occupation or to defend the nation.
I get really worked up about all of this each day because I'm used to doing good and feeling good about it. In the States, when I helped Tibetan Buddhist nuns, or made a donation to the Heifer Foundation, planned a screening of documentary about Tibet for Students for a Free Tibet, it felt very satisfying to plan and execute a project. To receive the acknowledgment for the efforts and to be assured by employers, executive directors, peers and professors that my work has made a difference.
Here, I can work and work and work at "doing good" well, but at the end of the day, when I put my head on the pillow at night, another soldier is barging into the home of a Palestinian family, another alarm goes off in Sderot, giving the residents 15 seconds to take cover before the rocket explodes on the ground. For all the "good" work that I attempt to do and that of my colleagues in other organizations of peace making, we don't make the decisions for military incursions or high alerts at the checkpoints. We are not the commanders that set the examples of dehumanizing Palestinians, we do not teach lessons of tolerance in Israeli and Palestinian classrooms. Even though hundreds, perhaps thousands of people are working for peace in Israel and the Occupied Territories, it is one rocket, one suicide bomber, one assassination that can transform the tentative stability of today into chaos.
And the people here are so accustomed to this cycle of violence, the imagination for something different, something better that a return to bomb shelters and self-fulfilling prophecies is unbearably absent.
And there isn't much that I can do about it.
I can make my home beautiful. I can light Shabbat candles, eat sweet challah, put flowers all around and buy vibrant rugs from Egypt from a vendor on Dizengoff, but, unfortunately, it doesn't satisfy this persistent desire to witness a change, to be here for the reconciliation of two peoples that the world seems to thrive upon their misfortune.
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