Three stories

Israel is a complicated place.  Everyone has an opinion; most people voice it loudly; some people argue about it loudly; a few people are so worked up about it that they choose to throw things at the police or at passers-by.  I knew when I moved here that I would not be able to avoid the issues around what the people here call 'the land', Israel and the Occupied Palestine Territories (OPT), around what it is to be Jewish, to be Israeli, to be Arab, to be Palestinian.  So I guess what I’m trying to do is talk to individuals and listen to their stories, so that I can put them into the historical context that I’m reading about and my daily experience.  This week there have been three people whose stories I’d like to share as they’ve helped and challenged me in my own thinking.

Story 1: My school is on Haneviim, the Street of the Prophets, which runs along the southern tip of the area called Mea Shearim, home to the Haredi – ultra-Orthodox Jews who follow very strict guidelines about how life should be lived.  These guidelines which affect what clothes they wear, what language they speak (mainly Yiddish, not Hebrew), what jobs they do and their role in modern Israeli society: Haredi distance themselves from modern culture and some of them are actively anti-Zionist, associating themselves with pro-Palestinian groups.  I’ve not been into Mea Shearim itself, though I have driven along Haneviim on a Saturday afternoon when the Haredi men and boys protest against the driving of cars on the Sabbath and so throw stones and rubbish at any car going past.  It’s not a pleasant experience.  The Haredi are a very controversial, and increasingly influential, group in Israeli society.

Anyhow, our school is right next door to an ultra-orthodox school and on Thursday I came out of my classroom to discover one of our lovely cleaners, being shouted and spat at out of a first-floor window by a group of boys. She was wearing leggings, you see, and women should not wear trousers. The boys continued to shout – at me, at the Anglican students, at the cleaner.  This bothered me.  She's Jewish; she grew up here; she speaks English haltingly and of course Hebrew is her first language; she keeps Shabbat and the festivals; she is a kind, thoughtful and helpful woman who has spent time patiently teaching me a few basic Hebrew phrases and practising them with me.  Why should she get abuse simply for wearing a pair of leggings?  I find the contradictions of life here to be extraordinary, including the way so many disparate groups, with so many differing ideas and beliefs, live alongside each other.

Story 2: Yesterday, I went to the West Bank for the first time.  Some friends of mine took me on a two-hour hike from St. George's Monastery, a 6th century Greek Orthodox monastery dug into the sides of narrow valley called Wadi Qelt, to Jericho, with the reward of a tasty lunch at a local café.  Wadi Qelt follows the ancient road from Jericho to Jerusalem which is the backdrop for the parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10 and for those of you with a biblical persuasion it brings the parable into much sharper relief when you see how dry, dusty and potentially dangerous the landscape is, with its hiding places and lack of water.  It’s not a particularly arduous trek but it was long and hot and I was very impressed with the stamina of Ben (age 7) and Sam (age 5).  

 The view to Jericho from Wadi Qelt

When we finally arrived at the café, Sam took me to see the animals out the back and I met an old lady whose family owned and ran the restaurant.  As we got to talking, it turned out that her family had left Jerusalem in 1948 when the nation of Israel was formed and many Palestinians displaced, so her family had settled in Jericho, where they still live today; some people in the international community consider her family, and those like her, to be refugees.  She didn’t seem bitter about this; in fact, she was a Christian and she explained to me that from her point of view the Bible talked about these people, these Jews who lived in 'the land', so there was some sort of claim there, though she said she would never say this in front of the Muslims, whose anger about the displacement was stronger.  She asked me what I thought and I didn’t know what to answer, but was reminded of the line from a song, Boundaries by Leena Conquest:  "This land is my land, this land is your land, but it was their land first...whose world is it anyway?"  I was amazed by her willingness to forgive and the peace she showed despite the upheaval of her childhood.

After lunch we drove back to Jerusalem and had to pass through one of the many checkpoints between the OPT and Israel, at a place called Hizma.  The queue snaked back quite a distance and was, of course, total chaos – one car even drove the wrong way round the roundabout in a brave attempt at queue-jumping.  I’d forgotten my passport and was a bit concerned, but being in a car with two other blondes (my friend Jo and her daughter Elizabeth, age 4, with a pink balloon tied to her wrist from the party she’d attended) we got through fairly quickly – the young IDF soldier seemed more interested in trying out his English than looking at my ID.  Easy for me as a westerner, as a foreigner; I felt a mix of relief and guilt at how simple my life is.

Story 3: Later that evening, I went to my friend Shira’s birthday party on the rooftop terrace of a hotel called the Notre Dame, with fabulous views over the Old City.  We drank wine, ate very good cheese (a rarity here, where feta and cottage cheese reign supreme) and then headed out to a club for some dancing.  Over dinner, conversation turned to Messianic Jews, with one Israeli guy making the point that many Israelis considered that a Jew who had turned Messianic (that is, acknowledged Jesus Christ as the Messiah the Jews have been waiting for) could no longer be a Jew.  This made me curious about what actually makes a Jew.  Is it an ethnic thing?  Is it purely religious?  Is it about tradition, or culture, or belief?  I asked these questions and my friend responded that whilst he does not consider himself to be religious, he is traditional: he lights the candle on Shabbat with his children, he keeps the religious festivals.  For him, being Jewish is about a shared past, that of a community that has shared traditions and culture and experience.  The Jews are united in that shared past, regardless of where they come from or even whether they believe in God (YHWH).  Yet for many in Israel, a Jew who has acknowledged Jesus can no longer be part of that community.  I found his story interesting, yet another (different) perspective on life here.

Three stories.  I’m sure there will be many more.  These stories are part of the puzzle of living here and it feels like for every piece I put into place, another goes missing.  Sometimes there are no easy answers.  At the moment, all I can do is turn to the one who teaches us that “blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy; blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God.”