If you are borderline depressed, have schizophrenia or any other personality disorders in your gene pool, it is best not to move to Israel.
Forget the politics, forget the conflict, forget accusations of apartheid, the reality of occupation or the threat of Iran's pursuit of a cache of nuclear weapons. These are nothing compared to trying to hold onto your sanity while living one week in Tel Aviv.
The highs are followed by such frightening lows, that it's best not to get too attached to those moments of homeostasis, erase the notion of euphoria from your mind.
Last night, on a walk through Kikar Rabin, the site of the assassination of Prime Minister Rabin, the gathering place for demonstrations, national celebrations and various other festivals and fairs throughout the year, four men brought their telescopes to provide a view of the moon to passersby. Telescopes magnifying the wonder that is the moon from the viewpoint of Earth, 95 times. I gazed upon a three-quarter's full moon, a flat silver disc made three dimensional, spherical, pocked by meteors the size of basketballs, leaving craters 200 kilometers in diameter.
Each view of the moon from the four telescopes brought such a sense of joy to my person. I felt a wide smile stretch my face from side to side, like a child presented with a lollipop, a treat to be savored.
The moon, pearly-grey, hardly smooth, yet so very peaceful. For a few seconds of gazing I felt all of my senses drawn into the silence and stillness of the moon. And there was something so humbling about seeing this member of space up close, when it is in actuality so far away. To see the excitement of the amateur astronomers sharing their knowledge of moon and to admire the craftsmanship of the men who built the telescopes, which they brought to share with the community.
Nearly everyone who looked through the sight of the telescope responded in delight, "Eizeh yofi," how pretty, "magniv," and so on. Everyone was impressed with this simple opportunity to see the moon up close.
Eitan and I continued on our walk, we were heading to Blockbuster. A Saturday night movie rental to make for an easy passage into a new week.
Before crossing the street to reach the store, suddenly, a vehicle between a vespa and a motorcycle screeched shortly, turned sideways, throwing the male driver off into the street, leaving the woman rider to fall under the bike. Ten people rushed to help. Fortunately there were no cars coming from the opposite direction and a near catastrophe remained but a minor, yet unsettling accident.
I tried to remember the stillness of the moon but my heart was jumping. I decided to focus upon the fact that so many people came to help the girl out from under the bike and felt back to normal after a couple of blocks.
There are many days, where, if I can avoid it, I leave home as infrequently as possible. It's dangerous out there. Unfortunately, I discovered that even my own home is not impervious to the treacheries of the outside.
Until today, my apartment in Tel Aviv offered refuge from a pretty hectic world. However, as daylight surrendered to dusk, a perhaps semi-crazy, French woman prowled outside my window, desirous of killing the cat, which came with this apartment. My protective bubble burst. I should have known that in Israel, there is no place immune to disorder and disruption.
This year, Rosh HaShanah and Eid al-Fitr (the festival at the end of Ramadan) coincided with one another. The moon calendars aligned on September 29th and thus, for nearly two whole days a majority of the population, both in Israel and the Occupied Territories, were celebrating important and joyous holidays of the calendar of Judaism and Islam, respectively.
Ten days later, Yom Kippur descended upon the land, sending shops, restaurants, cafes and businesses into a state-mandated closure, along with various checkpoints leading to and from the West Bank. A time of reflection, fasting, with only ambulances and police cars patrolling the streets to attend to the yearly bicycle accidents and injuries incurred by stone throwing in certain neighborhoods where cars dare to drive on this holy of holy days.
In fact, on the eve of Yom Kippur, riots broke out in the city of Acre (Acco), incited by Jewish youths throwing stones at an Arab driver, who the Jews alleged had been blasting the radio and smoking a water pipe through the neighborhood as Yom Kippur began. (How one drives and smokes a hookah simultaneously is beyond my comprehension and this particular testimony remains of a dubious nature.)
The driver and passenger were wounded and the repercussions of this encounter are ongoing.
Journalists are comparing this situation to Bosnia, I think of similar conflict, communal violence, in India between Hindus and Muslims. Whatever you call it, it's bad. A theater festival, that many Arab-Israelis rely on for a business boost in Acre, has been canceled. The racial slurs are flying and so are the stones and shattered glass.
In Israel, I feel like the reverberations of all activity throughout find their way to each and every other city and community in the country. Maybe, the tension of these riots contributed to what happened outside of my kitchen window today.
To honor this holiday season and to allow for a graceful move into the fall and winter, during which I imagine I will be spending much time inside (especially because I am hoping and praying for biblical, torrential rain this season to alleviate the frightening drought that is threatening this country), I have been on a mission to clean and beautify the living space that I share with Eitan.
Bathroom, bedroom, living room -- cleaned. I repotted houseplants, vacuumed the corners and removed cobwebs. Finally, when I finished and sat down to write some e-mails, I saw the silhouette of the French woman who lives in the adjacent building, lurking, looming.
She feeds about a dozen cats that linger about the building, mangy creatures that I am convinced are one day going to unite and fight us all out of our apartments and then take over the rest of the city, they are that aggressive.
Anyhow, suddenly she appears at my window, screaming at me.
"My cat, your cat! Your cat, why do you feed that cat! Your cat has killed my cat! I cannot find my cat, why don't you do something about that cat!"
Then she walked away.
I remained seated, somewhat shocked and a little confused as to whether or not she meant to yell at me. In the near distance I hear, "Salot! Putin!!"
Not so nice French words, directed at the cat, which, as previously mentioned, came with the apartment.
The woman came back to my window, yelling at me.
To which I replied, "why are you yelling at me?"
And again the same accusations of this bad cat, "Your cat killed another cat four months ago and now she has killed mine, I cannot find my pet."
I am alone in the apartment and feeling rather uncomfortable, vulnerable, and debated whether or not I should cry, that trigger point of insult and burnt pride when I feel that someone thinks I am a bad person when I didn't even have anything to do with the situation. Maybe if I started to cry she would leave me alone.
She walked away again.
She came back. I explained to her that the cat is here, was here before I was. She kept saying that she was looking for Valerie, the cat's owner. Valerie used to live here, I explained. She is not here anymore, she left the cat behind.
She came at me again, "You kill people in the streets! You kill children!"
"Huh?"
That was my internal reaction, coupled with, "now what the hell am I supposed to do? Is she nuts?"
I called Eitan. I needed someone to be on the phone in the event that suddenly I was assaulted by this woman. For the second time in my stay in this apartment, I appreciated the bars on the window, potential for damage or bodily harm --- minimized.
The woman informed me that I needed to kill the cat and if I will not, she will. To which I responded, "please, be my guest." (Animal lovers forgive me, I felt a little threatened myself, like maybe she was going to fling something at me from outside, or poison my water supply.)
In the midst of this insanity, I received a last-minute babysitting plea from a neighbor up the street, mother-in-law stuck in traffic, could I come for an hour or so? I jumped at the opportunity to get the hell out of dodge. Fortunately, this phone call came during a break in the killer cat episode, which resumed shortly thereafter.
It is very challenging to "keep my cool" here. I yelled back, I didn't know how else to stop this woman from screaming at me. She moved on. Her shrieks of "Salot! Putin!" continuing into the early evening.
Riots in Acre.
Moongazing in Tel Aviv.
Killer cats on Smolanskin.
And it's only Sunday.
