Several people have been asking me lately how I really am. How is life with Zochrot and in Tel Aviv? I appreciate questions like that and rather than write several responses, or copy the same response to those inquirers, I decided to make it the focus of my next e-mail to "all y'all."
Life is. One month ago, today, I stepped off the plane.
It is goood; it is niiice; it is goood and niice.
There is so much stuff going on in Palestine / Israel, right now, I am feeling a little guilty being so damn comfy and happy over here, hitting up the beach, riding my bike around, loving my work, having meaningful times alone and with God, and hanging out with my new friends at Zochrot.
Speaking of Zochrot, I love it. I really do. Protester types (here, they're called the Radical Left of Israel / Palestine...I call 'em pippies) are all weirdos, with quirks and quarks; but that just endears me to them even more; I fit right in. They think my germophobia is hilarious and tonight I got the whole inquisition about how I use a public toilet. I was accused of being the worst (as in poorest) Obsessive/ Compulsive my friend Talia had ever met. Anyway, back to the marginalised and passionate - a kickass combination.
The folks I work with in the office are really cool and I get along with them wonderfully. I am also really liking the challenge of becoming Mr Video Editor. The program I am using is capable of editing anything and everything, so obviously it is confusing and long to learn; but I am getting the hang of it; seeing my progress makes me feel good. The folks at Zochrot tell me that they expected me to really be inept and to suck. It is so encouraging to know that I don't suck and they don't find me inept. I have become the unofficial computer go-to guy (thankfully it is all super easy stuff like showing shortcuts in programs, installing and copying stuff and various zooming and pasting tricks...folks who know me know the truth); so that always makes it seem like I know what I'm doing. I am feeling much more confident these days and actually have a pile of stuff to do - which is great because I would HATE to be grasping, or asking, all the time for something to do.
As for Tel Aviv; this city hardly compares to Vancouver. The only thing I can think of that has Vancouver beaten is that the water is warmer here; although I do love the beaches of BC, too - especially the freshwater mountain lake beaches.
So what would make me make such an ethnocentric statement, causing concern to readers? Well, to start, as I've mentioned before, urine is the scent of choice for Tel Aviv. People don't pee on organic stuff either, they pee on the sidewalk or on walls; they seem to be drawn to peeing on cement. Men are gross, aren't we? And the cats, the cats, the cats. I like cats, but every cat here is still raging with their reproductive hormones and the smell proves it. I bought bleach today and had at 'er with the anteroom to apartment 11. Ah, the neutral smell of bleach. Out of all the neutral smells I know, bleach is my favourite - so germ free.
Back to gross. There's the smell of rotting garbage everywhere. And wafts of strong human poo coming randomly and powerfully without warning. This city reeks. And it's dirty. Filth-muck. Although, I've been told Cairo is worse. But this is one reason why I love my bike so much. I can get around so quickly and I am elevated off the gross streets and my flip flops don't melt from the hot concrete. My feet aren't burning anymore.
But I do like it here. Somehow I do; I have a spring in my step and I am full of laughter, except when I'm crying. I like all the lights at night; I often like looking at all the people packing-out the streets doing their Euro-stylin'-it-up, nouveau-Israeli, hip-and-happenin' routine that most people in Tel Aviv are STRIVING toward. I also dislike it, however, because this incessant need to be a scenester comes at the expense of Middle East peace in that people want their fancy night clubs and their expensive dinners; they don't want to face up to the pain, malnutrition, lack of water, overt military and policital oppression and the active continuation of those things by Israel unto Palestinians. Either they believe the zionist propaganda or they just don't care that Israel is really, actually crushing people and depriving them of basic human rights and freedoms.
I do have a laugh at the same things I did in Vancouver: people want to be seen and they do their hair just so...the young scenesters dress with a particular fashion that is like Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston when they were "happy" and paid hundreds of thousand of dollars to look like bums. The in-crowd these days dress like really stylish wanna-be apathetics. You know they spend hours perfecting that throw-off image. I dress like a bum but I can truthfully say that I kind of am a bum; and I don't spend money trying to look like a bum; I look like a bum because I don't spend money trying....
I struggle with the shirts I see people wearing; statements like "alive and kicking," adding to the mood of a victim mentality. Or the ever-present orange streamers tied to purses and hanging from bikes, scooters, cars; even the blue ones for that matter. I struggle with the ongoing Israel-is-the-true-victim mentality that seems to permeate this city in some noetic, yet ineffible manner; well noetic and ineffible for my untrained discernment, at least.
The book, Blood Brothers, which I am reading right now, is really moving for me (being drawn to personal stories and journeys of faith) and I have found it really hard not to sin in my anger. I find hot tears in my eyes and on my cheeks and dread that someone would ask what in the world I am reading. It is by Elias Chacour (ghost-written by David Hazard) and is Elias' autobiography starting when he was eight and his family and the whole of Bir'im were expelled from their village in 1947, as Israel was gearing up to declare statehood. Chris and Tim Seidel (Bethlehem MCCers) loaned it to me after we visited the destroyed village and I am so grateful to read it. You can view photos and a reflection write-up about the village-tour Zochrot did on our website (www.zochrot.org) - a couple of video clips I'm working on will be posted in the next week, or so, Insh'Allah (God willing in Arabic). This man's life story grips me and pulls me and challenges my Sunday school idealism of Israel being established as a modern miracle. I simply cannot believe that anymore. (This book is the antithesis of the zionism that comes from Brock and Bodie Thoene.) I strongly encourage you to read it; it reads like a novel; the info is:
Blood Brothers, Elias Chacour, with David Hazard, Chosen Books, New York, 1984, ISBN# 0-8007-9096-0.
Back to Tel Aviv: I have found that I have to make a conscious effort to smile at the hardened unsmiling faces that pass by me on the sidewalks and streets. I have to make a conscious effort to not tell the line-budders to bugger off when they physically push past me.
I am finding wonderful solace in being unable to hear what people are saying. In fact, as much as I am yearing to learn Hebrew, I am dreading being able to understand what people are saying. I mean, by that, being able to overhear what people are talking about with each other. So much of my peace and quiet in this bustling city will disappear once I can overhear people's conversations. Then I'm sure the battle against negativity will become greater; it will have more weapons against me. For example, the other day I was at Mike's Place, having a cheap dinner. It is a restaurant overlooking the beach, with all the service and menus in english and most of the clientele being english speakers, with inexpensive and decent food. Well, there was this table of really loud Americans (not that there's anything wrong with being American....) and they were having the stupidest conversations about wearing orange or not wearing orange; and then they started talking about how much they like lesbians because lesbians are the coolest ever. And this mindless drivel just got more intense with each beer they drank - and I found that they kept breaking into my peace. These loudmouths were disturbing my sunset and giving me a headache with their mindless banter. I found myself getting negative and sour and resenting them for being there. I started to remember how much I would get driven nuts overhearing people's dumbass conversations in Vancouver. Then I started to get paranoid that I am going to hate listening to Israelis talk and am going to get all cynical and bitter because they will drive me nuts with their trivial verbal diarrhea. This is the battle against negativity. This is perhaps the biggest war I wage.
Don't get me wrong. I am deeply happy and filled with joy. I laugh a lot and even when I lost my sunglasses, which losing anything annoys me, I shrugged it off and said "easy come, easy go." I do smile at the unsmiling faces. I do say toda raba (thanks very much), instead of just saying toda (thanks). I do look at people in the eye as much as possible and see their humanity. I do attempt to quell the temptation to judge all Hebrew speakers as coldblooded Occupiers.
I just don't understand so much, that's all. I don't understand how people can be tender to their family, friends, or even stray cats, then venomously say that Palestinians are terrorists and that we should have no mercy on them. And that Palestinians need to mourn the evacuation from Gaza, rather than celebrate it. I have talked with people that are very friendly and kind until I slip up and mention Palestine or Palestinians and they get a glint in their eye. They turn on me and chastise me because I'm not Jewish and can't speak Hebrew, and if I am going to be concerned about Palestinians and desire a free democratic society, then I am antisemitic and don't know what I am talking about and certainly don't belong here. This nationalism is frustrating. I find myself lying to people when they ask me what I am doing here or how long I am going to be here.
I do struggle with lying because I don't think that things will get any better if there can't be recognition of the Nakba (Palestinian catastrophes of 1948, 1967 and their continuing catastrophe of being crushed under Israel's iron fist). Unless the Nakba can be mentioned, there won't be healing. And that is Zochrot's whole deal, to bring the Nakba to the attention of the Hebrew speaking Israeli public. So why do myself and other Zochrot activists shy away from telling people what we do for work? Why are we afraid of talking about the Nakba when we're not within the safety of Zochrot functions or events?
A popular argument used against Zochrot is that we are hypocritical because we only highlight Palestinian suffering, we don't highlight the suffering of Israelis. Even yesterday, during a presentation being given to a group of mostly American Jewish teenagers, one of them shakingly and through gritted teeth asked how we justify talking about massacre of 245 Palestinians in Deir Yassin (1948) and not mention what happened in Hebron (Palestinian uprising against the illegal Jewish settlement there in 1997). I thought the Zochrot spokeswoman (Jewish Israeli) did well in her response to him - she repeated his own argument for clarity, then dispelled it by saying, "It's not equal, there isn't a balance. To ask us to act as though everything is balanced is wrong. It is continuing the unfairness."
It reminds me of an anology of my own. One of my brothers, who shall remain nameless, used to pin me down when I was younger. He would spit in my face and essentially torture his weaker, younger brother. When I would panic and become irate and start to scream and freak out, he would tell me that he wan't going to let me up until I calmed down. We were kids and there's NO hard feelings; but it's an interesting parallel. I see Israel as the one who is pinning (or choking) and Palestine is reacting and Israel says, "I won't let you up because you are acting this way." Yes, but, Israel pinned Palestine in the first place. They're the pinners, not the victims.
Let me say, however, that I believe it IS important to recognise Israeli and Jewish suffering. I think that someone needs to extend grace and forgiveness. I am having that affirmed through reading this book, Blood Brothers. But I don't think that Israel is the victim and I don't think that the Western media portrays what is happening here accurately. AndyBoy remarked to me that all he sees in Danish media are stories about the "poor Israelis." What about the Palestinian people who have been oppressed for sixty years?
In spite of my reactions to all these whirring issues and emotions and sufferings, I wonder if I partake in the Oppression, myself, by immersing myself in Israeli society and culture. It bothers me that I love having my own space and being able to venture out at any time to get some milk or cheese or whatever. The grocery store is 24/7; which is "nice." I have my own little routines and enjoy my liebenstraum. I am constantly wondering why I get some and not others. I wonder why I more than happy to accept the conveniences of a first-world city, yet revile the politics of oppression. Where are my clothes made? What kid put my flip flops together? Stupid musings, you might think.
Let me affirm, however, that I am spending so much personal and alone time with God that it is wonderful. So much of the smoke-screens and busyness, for me, of living in Vancouver has melted away here and I can be alone with God often.
I do go out. I do socialise; I am energised by my relationship with people I work with. But I also get to spend a lot of time alone. I either read or write or listen to music or cook or clean. I like to sit overlooking the Sea watching the sun drop into the water, spilling it's light so beautifully through all the poluted particulates.
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I also wanted to take the opportunity to clarify some statements I made upon my immediate arrival here. I had said that by the flights of stairs and my best reasoning, that my apartment was on the sixth floor. Well, I was wrong. There are apartments on every half-floor, here, so my apartment is on floor three-and-a-half. I felt like I should clear that up.
Here is another clarification. It presents a perfect example of cross-cultural, cross-lingual miscommunication. I had told you earlier that when I was first here I was chatting with Eitan R. and I mentioned to him that I am looking forward to rain. "I read on the Internet that it rains for about four or five months a year, here," I said. "Oh, no," Eitan responded, "Only for maybe one month." A month? That's it? I told him that I was going to be very sad because of how much it rains in Vancouver and how much I have come to love the rain. He explained to me that the clouds just go overhead and they don't rain until they feel the pressure from the higher elevation, like in Jerusalem, he said, where rains more there.
Since then, I have mourned the lack of rain and been extra sensitive to this pissy-pants smell of the city. I have even wondered if this city EVER smells clean. Anyway, two days ago, Eitan and I were hanging out at the beach and we were talking about the increasingly bigger waves that pound the beaches (the water is never calm or mellow - mediocre surfing and terrific body-surfing abound). He said that in November they get to be these huge four-metre high waves barrelling over the breakers. I asked him why and he said it has something to do with the changing of the seasons. "Ah, yes," I said. "So, when does it rain here?" He responded that it starts raining in November and continues until February or March before the dry season starts again. I looked at him like he was crazy and said, "What about the one month of rain you told me about?" "Yes," he said, "One month of rain in total, spread out over five months." "Eitan," I exclaimed, laughing hard, "Who calculates total rainfall like that?" He was laughing, too, and said, "I thought you meant that it rained for five months straight without stopping." We both had a good chuckle. I made an immediate mental note to correct that earlier citation of only one month of rain. I am so happy, too, that for five months, this city will be clean! I can only hope....
New devlepment for Wallace. I believe he lives in apartment 3. Their door was wide open and he was hanging out in front of the doorway when I was walking up the stairs tonight. I stopped, gave him a good cuddle and he followed me up to my place. The reason why I think he lives in #3 is because he didn't feel the need to go in there. He was content hanging out right out front; but he always tries to get into my place. I nearly turned around and asked if he was theirs but didn't. I guess I really want him to be theirs and didn't want to be disappointed.
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Perhaps I am no better than anyone else living in Tel Aviv. In the face of suffering and human oppression, I go to the beach, eat humous, pet kitties and keep myself busy. I need to remember that. Yeah, but I do spend ten hours a day, at least, working actively against the blanket of oppression, either at the office or educating myself at home. I need to remember that, too.
Sorry for the long answer, folks, but that is how I am doing.
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