Living Rather Than Visiting

We plan to be here in Jerusalem for five weeks. It's a completely different trip from any we've ever taken before. We've been fortunate to have many opportunities for travel, but these are usually 10-14 day trips, often moving around all over the location we are visiting. 

As a teacher, I often have very open summers. I can schedule as much time as I choose for tutoring, visiting family and friends locally or not-so-locally, mini-adventures, exercise etc. etc. Meanwhile, my husband works a remote job that usually has him sitting at a desk in our home office. We are doing the exact same thing this summer but in Jerusalem instead of in New Jersey. 

We've been here almost a week now, recovered from the first shock of jet lag, colds we picked up on the plane and learning to find our way around. Taking a bus for the first time on my own last week was a big hurdle. It turned out to be super easy, but until I took the plunge I was very anxious about it. My husband, AR, starts back to work today. This afternoon I take on more ambitious travel, taking buses to Modiin and back. 

There's a little cafe and gift shop up the street called Nuli. It is owned and run by two survivors from Nahal Oz who happened to be on leave on October 7th. I've heard stories of Nahal Oz, most notably about the women observers there who tried to warn the IDF of increased activity from Hamaz on the other side of the border wall. These young women were not listened to, were unarmed, and were burnt to death by the terrorists. I've heard in person the father of one of them, Roni, and I've heard the recordings of her calling for help during the terrorist infiltration. 

I stopped by Nuli this morning in order to support the business. On the corner were some red pieces of petrified wood. When I asked what they are, the shopkeeper (Yaelli) explained to me in Hebrew that this were from the forests that were burned and petrified when terrorists used balloons to set forest fires. The language barrier caused me to process more slowly than usual what she was saying, and as I started to get it I started to cry. 

When I got home to write about this here, I googled to research incendiary balloons. I wasn't sure of the best search terms and first instead found articles about destruction in Gaza. There are so many of those -- stories of buildings destroyed and of heritage sites that have been lost. These make me sad, but when those pop up first there's this sort of inner critic that pops up in my head. This is the same critic that reflects what I fear so many people actually think when we talk about Israel. This critic rolls its eyes and says, "See how it feels?" as if Israeli pain is somehow deserved. 

This inner critic has lived in my head now almost constantly for the past few years, nagging at me, making me feel under attack by those around me, and it's not always clear whether I am or not. At the moment I'm thinking back to a  Cloud Cult concert I attended with my son last summer. Like most concerts, it opened with a more local musician. I don't remember his name, but his guitar case was plastered with self-righteous indignation, bumper stickers that were about environment, anti-racist and anti-war sentiment. Before he even played a note, the stickers screamed out that he wanted us to know where he stood on all the "right things."

At some point between songs he rolled his eyes and made some bland and random statement about how in Gaza they were finally allowing vaccines in for children that were just going to be murdered anyway. Someone in the audience cheered and my son and I made eye contact. When we talked about it afterwards we both agreed that we didn't care that much what he said. He was trying too hard to please the crowd, but the tone of the cheer in the audience made me wonder if we were welcome in the room. 

Now I never listen to Cloud Cult again without that association. Where I once found that that band spoke directly to my soul, I now think of the man who sang before them and how I felt we didn't belong in the same room.

In the single week that I've been here in Israel, there's a lightness to my shoulders that I didn't have before. When I read in the news about the growing threats to Jews around the world, I find myself taking a breath and feeling gratitude to be here right now amongst strangers who are friends. I don't have to hide my identity here or read into gestures the way I find myself doing in the U.S. When I cried at Nuli, the store keeper squirmed a little but I was neither afraid nor embarrassed. 

She most definitely understood.