Israel, Day 5

I got out of the shower and Guy was still groaning.

“It’s Shabbat… day of rest. We’re not supposed to have a wake-up call at all. Unghhhhh.”

“You can sleep another ten minutes while Joel showers, if you want,” I said.

He didn’t respond, but he sat up. It was 8:30 AM, the latest we had slept on the whole trip. We were supposed to be at breakfast by 9:00. We readied ourselves at an even pace and made it to the dining room on time.

I scanned the food for something to eat. Because it was Shabbat, they wouldn’t have cooked anything new. Leftovers were laid out in exquisite taste, made to look fresh and sparkly. The hard-boiled eggs would be okay; those can last a bunch of days in the refrigerator, but I didn’t want to eat any of the other egg dishes on the second day. Eggs, bread, and jam, it was.

Andrew waved me over to a table that was semi-populated. “Boker tov. How is everyone this morning?” I asked as I sat down.

Lindsay responded with a question, probably directed at Andrew. “Can we sleep in again tomorrow?”

“I don’t know,” he answered. “We’ll see.” A day or two before, Ran had compared Andrew and Tair to our father and mother of the trip. This was proof that Andrew was sliding comfortably into that role. Nobody but a parent can say, “We’ll see,” fully knowing he’s dashing the hopes of the child who asked, and simultaneously expecting said child to believe there was still an element of possibility in those words.

“I think we’ll be okay,” I said, ever the optimist. “I was up with everyone last night until the end and I’m awake.”

“Yeah, but you have two settings: on and off,” Andrew pointed out. I had explained this to a couple of people in a previous conversation about sleep. I don’t drift off or groggily awaken. I shut down and start up like a high-tech computer. “You’re not human.”

“The sad part is you’re nowhere near the first person to have told me that.”

“Well, you’re not.” He was adamant. I still ultimately disagreed with the phrasing.

“Let’s ask a third party,” I suggested, both eyebrows raised in hopeful resolution. I looked around the table for someone who was both uninvolved in our little debate and not in the middle of eating. “Carly,” I inquired, oh so neutrally, “am I human?”

She glanced up, brushed a few stray strands of chestnut brown hair from her face, and without half a beat, fired back, “I don’t know. I haven’t looked at your DNA structure lately.”

It may not have resolved the argument but it certainly killed it. Andrew and I nearly died choking on laughter.

We gathered in the bomb shelter when breakfast was over. Chairs were set up in a circle around the room. We were to be an audience that morning for a Mr. Neil Lazarus, British Israeli keynote speaker and political humorist extraordinaire.

His first act as leader of the room was to order us to massage each other. We stood up, the way I remember from College Choir at SUNY Oswego, facing the person to our right, and massaged that person for several seconds before turning around and doing the same for our other neighbor. That’s one way to wake your audience up. Relax them into attentiveness!

“Birthright,” he began, amidst our massaging, “is about Jewish babies. It’s not Birthright; it’s birth rate. It’s about getting you young people together to increase the Jewish population.” Wow. That wasn’t awkward at all, timing such a pronouncement while we the whole room was exchanging back-rubs.

He was kidding. Luckily, that was just his way of loosening the audience up, so to speak. He ended up being a very compelling character with very compelling questions, inspiring us to inquire and contest and think about issues we hadn’t before considered. What is Judaism in a Jewish State? What is the current condition of Israel’s international reputation and how does that relate to the distribution and use of the media? What difficulties does Israel face in the future? Is peace even possible in this part of the world (the Middle East)?

I won’t bore you with the details (mostly because I don’t want Mr. Lazarus suing me for using his shtick without permission), but if you follow the link above you will find some really intriguing information and resources about Israel. Know this, though: the group may have been asleep, but when the group wasn’t actually asleep (from exhaustion; not boredom), they were entirely amused.

Mr. Lazarus gave us his card and took his leave. We were about to begin our discussions geared to prepare us for Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Memorial Museum. After a couple of minutes to stretch, we sat back down in the same circle and Ran began with the Rules.

“For tomorrow, you need to be very awake and aware. This means no drinks. We are going to Ben Yehuda Street later, but you can enjoy that without drinking.”

“No drinking. Is that, like, a rule? Or…” Apparently someone needed explicit clarification. Better safe than sorry, I suppose; given the Corona Catastrophe, I couldn’t blame the questioner for requesting the facts in black and white.

“Yes, that is a rule.”

“Okay, then.”

Inside, Calvin was squirming. Seriously? Why would anyone want to drink the night before we go to the Holocaust Memorial Museum? I suppose it’s better than wanting to drink the morning of our visit there…

“Where have you been before?” Ran asked. “What other Holocaust museums or Holocaust-related sites have you seen?” He looked around at us and saw sudden gravity on our faces. I’ve studied the Holocaust a good deal. Whenever I think about the Holocaust, my thoughts move beyond the actual period of war, destruction, and desecration of the then and into the lasting effects of that atrocity on the now. This room of young adults, who, a minute prior were laughing because someone was asking about drinking on a night when nobody really would, had been brought down to ground level, alert and severe and thoughtful, by a word representing an experience they had only gotten second- or third-hand. Their first-hand experiences dealt with the memory of the Holocaust, and even that was being hacked at with knives, pens, and words by people filled with hate and ignorance. Still, despite the distance of time between our predecessors and us, the whole group was riveted to silent consideration by three momentous syllables.

Dustin raised his hand. “There’s a Holocaust museum in D.C. I’ve been to. It’s filled with exhibits on the events of World War II and the Holocaust.”

I raised mine. “Safe Haven Museum in Oswego at Fort Ontario. It’s the only place the United States allowed Jewish refugees from World War II. They brought over just under a thousand people from Europe in 1944, many of them concentration camp escapees.”

“What about experiences with these places, or just with the Holocaust?” Ran asked. He wanted us to branch out and talk about our connection with this piece of history.

Michelle had gone to Yad Vashem just after seeing Dachau. She kept her head up as she spoke, but there was an intensity in her eyes that bespoke a strong connection to the memory she described for us. It was a lot to take in. “Yad Vashem is meant to put you in the places of the victims, to make you remember in a way that they would remember. To be there just after seeing in the very place where prisoners were overworked, beaten, humiliated, and murdered… it made me think about what it would be like to be there, naked in a hell that had frozen over.”

“It was spring when I visited Dachau,” Reagan began. “I remember thinking, ‘How beautiful and how contradictory. This place was hell no matter what season it was.’”

Robby was next. “My grandparents were in the Holocaust. There’s a really good story there, a love story, and I want to write it because that’s something I do. I also want to preserve the memories they have, because… they’re starting to lose the facts. My aunt interviewed them in the ‘80s, so there’s a lot there from that, but… talking about it is hard for them. Twenty or thirty years from now there might not be any survivors left. We’re going to be the ones who have to make sure we remember so it never happens again.”

“That’s why it’s important to talk about it, I think. My grandfather was there. He was scared to talk about it, and now it’s all gone,” Stern said.

Robby’s and Stern’s comments brought me back to the way the Holocaust is related to memory. The way that piece of history brings out the liquidity of memory, how malleable our experiences become once they’ve passed by. Grandparents might remember bits and pieces – a kiss at this place, what they wore at that time – but ultimately, the stream of events that builds the whole story will need to be pieced back together with best-guesses and feelings called up by reminiscence. We lose touch with experiences, and facts can be corrupted by the very emotions they once called forth.

Or worse: they can be corrupted by other people with that very intention.

“What about prejudice? Anti-…” Ran broke off, trying to find the word.

Tair helped him out, “Anti-Semitism.”

“Have you experienced this? When have you been judged differently because you’re Jewish?”

Not an unexpected segue, but I still wondered how much weighty discussion this group was ready for in one sitting. Some of us were shifting in our seats. I looked over at Guy, whose glasses had come off, and he was looking at his feet fixedly.

Allie’s hand went up. “Where I’m from, there aren’t, like, Jews everywhere. I mean, in Charlotte you’ve basically got a church on every street corner, in every kind of Christianity possible.” She smiled blandly at the irony, and it broke a bit of the static in the room. “So I’ve gotten the, ‘You’re a Jew, so obviously your dad’s a doctor,’ before, and okay so he’s a dentist, but these generalizations are ignorant because they just don’t know and they think they do. Like, they put us in a box, you know?”

“People just assume that you’re Christian, too, right?” Stern replied. “They do that all the time. It’s frustrating to always get asked, ‘What did you do for Christmas?’ after break, with that assumption that I celebrate Christmas just because everyone else seems to.”

A hand went up, and the voice of the person it belonged to was incredibly quiet. “I was told my grades were low because I didn’t have enough Jesus in my life,” Sarah explained. Her eyes were down, as if she was seeing the scene in her head as she retold it. “The teacher was dead serious.”

The group was taken aback. Side conversations, full of shock, started cropping up immediately. Ran silenced everyone and passed the floor on again.

“When I’m around new people and I introduce myself, I say, ‘I’m Emmanuel.’ But the minute they find out I’m Jewish, it’s like I stop being Emmanuel and I start being the Jewish guy.”

This came up in a conversation I had with Emmanuel later, and I tried to explain the way I saw it. “I have no problem being the Jewish guy, as long as my name and face are attached to it. I believe we identify others based on differences. If they didn’t have your Judaism to identify you by, they’d use your curly hair, your height, your skin tone – anything that makes you you as opposed to them. The problem is not in associating with me the things that make me different; it’s in criticizing or hating me for those things and treating me unfairly because of them.”

Blaire, often quiet in big group discussions, sought the floor. Her cool blue eyes were soft but serene, which struck me because it was becoming a very emotional discussion. Her positivity eased the tension, some. “Explaining helps, I think. I have a tzedaka (charity) box at work. People would come over and ask, ‘What’s with the box?’ and I’d tell them. It became a conversation piece. Now they all know I’m saving up to buy a tree in Israel. Talking about it makes a difference.”

“You’re right,” Jessie said. “One year, at my school, we got there to find a giant swastika painted in red on the door. That was the senior prank that year.” Eyebrows shot to the ceiling, fists clenched, and huge gulps of air were let out. “But the school let us bring in speakers and really address it, so it ended up being a positive experience. A couple of people did something stupid and the whole place got to learn from it.”

“Anyone else who wants to speak about experiencing anti-Jewish…?” Guy spoke up. He had been waiting patiently for some time.

“There are Palestinian websites, Muslim extremist websites… all kinds of websites against Jews that show these videos, videos that I have to watch because of my position in the army. The movie shows one thing and the subtitles say something completely different on anti-Semitic websites,” Guy said. His hands were balled into fists. “They say, ‘You are masters of brainwash; you are Jews. Nazis would have done well to learn from you.’”

That was a hard piece to chew on, so we were all grateful when Tair broke the silence that followed Guy’s comment with a description of Holocaust Memorial Day in Israel.

“The Holocaust – Ha-Shoah, as it’s called here – is commemorated officially on a specific day in Israel each year, called Yom Ha-Shoah.

“Every group, school, army, etc., wears white and has a candle-lighting ceremony. There’s no T.V. on; only Holocaust documentaries. A siren runs for two whole minutes, and cars and buses all stop. Everything shuts down. It is a true day of remembrance here.

“Can anyone guess which day was chosen to commemorate the Holocaust? Over six million Jews were killed over a period of several years. How could we choose just one day?” She looked the group over, and then began dropping large sheets of paper at random intervals on the floor. Each time she dropped one, she described what was written upon it.

“The Vanza Summit – where the German officers announced the Final Solution.

“The Nuremburg Laws – they defined Jews, put them into specific genetic boxes. If you were a second-generation Jew, you were considered Jewish. Even if you were not practicing. Even if you considered yourself Christian; they had churches in the ghetto because of this.

“Kristallnacht – a horrible night of book-burning and shop-destruction, considered to be the actual beginning of the Final Solution.

“The invasion of Poland – the military act that started World War II.

“Tish B’Av – a traditional day of fasting and mourning because many expulsions occurred and temples were destroyed on this day.

“The liberation of Auschwitz;

“Or the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. A few Jews on Passover Eve committed the only act of rebellion in the Holocaust.

“So. Which is it? Which do you think would be the right day on which to annually remember the most atrocious act in history? Sit by the sign that you think would be right.”

We slowly rose and found a place to sit.

If you don’t know which date was ultimately chosen by the Knesset – the Israeli parliament – look it up and see if you’ve guessed right.

The activity wrapped up and we walked outside. It was silent. Nary a car in sight. In the middle of the modern city of Jerusalem. In the middle of the day. I was more blown away by this than I was by the panoramic vista of the Old City from the Haas Promenade. I’m from America: even on Sunday, there are cars moving, if none of the banks are open. There are grocery stores open 24 hours, even if none of the bars are open. It was as though everyone was observing a day of rest or something.

Our next destination was Givat Ram and the Knesset – the Israeli parliament’s meeting place. We walked up to the top of the hill through a beautiful park and sat down for a photograph in front of the large bronze menorah given to Israel by Great Britain. This was a considerable gift, considering that menorahs, an ancient symbol of Judaism, were holy treasures in the Temple. The Star of David was first used by Jews in the 1700s; previously it was a pagan symbol.

“So this is the Knesset,” Ran began, donning his tour guide demeanor and vocal projection like a well-worn coat. “Dhe Israeli parliament and prime minister are elected by party. In Israel, we don’t always like our politicians – they say one thing and do another, just like all politicians all over dhe wurld. They are politicians, after all.”

“Hey, did everyone hear that?!” Dan called. “I think Ran just made a joke!”

We laughed.

“Now,” Ran continued, “we will have a discussion, as is part of dhe Shabbat tradition, atop this hill in this beautiful park. Please, everyone, line up so we can count off and make teams.”

As we split up and formed ‘teams’, another group of tourists, this one Chinese, was held back by its leader. “Come away and let the foreigners through,” the guide said to them. In English. If you’re reading this with a look of complete bewilderment, both eyebrows meeting your hairline, eyes like planets, jaw having a tea party on the floor with your feet, then you can empathize with my reaction.

When the moment of bemusement passed, I discovered that I had been given the number five, so I joined the other fives and we sat in a circle on the grass. This was another beautiful view. There was no shortage of beautiful views in Israel. If it wasn’t for the constant conflict between religions, religious-political factions, and bordering states, they’d surely beat out Disney for tourism there.

With the Knesset across the street in all its glory, cobalt and white Israeli flags proudly waving in the light breeze, set against the lush green grass and the deep azure sky, we had the perfect setting for deep discussion. Truthfully, Calvin was shouting Picnic! but that wasn’t on the agenda today; discussion would have to suffice.

I want to highlight a couple of the better quotes from the discussion.

We discussed what Shabbat meant to us and someone said, “Shabbat can be different for different people. Shabbat’s a day of rest, and a time to reflect. It’s good personal time, and it’s good to connect with yourself, with G-d, with your heritage. It’s time to step back from the chaos.”

When asked what Judaism means to us, David answered, “We take our culture, our spirit, seriously. We are unified in that. It’s actually hard to convert to Judaism, and Judaism goes deeper than religion – it’s identity in so many different ways.”

Ran asked us what the best and worst parts of our trip were so far. The Western Wall was a popular answer for the best part. We had a hard time choosing a worst part; for some it was the bus ride, for some it was the lack of sleep.

We also discussed the group: how we all connected so easily and how great it was to have such a broad mix of people. “I feel like you’re all my sisters,” Carly announced, grinning. We knew what she meant.

The park was gorgeous, and we saw more of it on the way back to the hotel for dinner. Rock walls came to the knee. A pond entertained a couple of birds who sat tranquilly on the banks. It was a good pondering place through which to trek after such a peaceful talk.

Once dinner had concluded, we met just outside the hotel, past the stairs, for Havdalah.

Ran had brought a candle, spices, and a goblet with him. He explained that we would be saying the blessings over the wine, the spices, the candle, and concluding with the Havdalah prayer. We circled around and prepared for the candle to be lit.

Sarah came running over. “I have a lighter!” Excellent! She hovered over the candle and tried to light it. The wind promptly blew it out.

She tried again, this time with help from a few of us, shielding it with our hands. The wind blew it out again.

Excitedly, she made an urgent grab for the candle and ran it back up the ramp and into the vestibule. “Hang on, I have an idea!” she shouted as she went.

We all craned our necks to see her frantically trying to light the candle in the vestibule. Twice she lit it, and twice it blew out as soon as she opened the door to come back outside. Andrew went up to try to help her. They simply brought the candle back to the circle, and this time several of us stood around it to block the wind, leaving the top of our smaller circle open for oxygen. Finally, the candle was lit.

We began to sing, and the spices were passed around the circle as we did. When the ritual concluded, we all exchanged, “Shavua tov” (lit.: good week), and began our walk through the Jerusalem roads to Ben Yehuda Street.

While we walked I waved Andrew over. “Hey, wouldn’t that last song sound so much cooler with vocal percussion behind it?” I started laying down a beat. He joined in with some sweet turntables and bass.

We had a good soundtrack going for the trek to the market. Eli heard us and started nodding to the beat. Robby dropped a couple of lines and became part of the band. “But he’s gotta be the front man,” Andrew insisted.

“Definitely,” I agreed. “He’s got the flow that makes the party go.”

After that comment, Robby mysteriously disappeared into the rest of the mob.

When we reached the marketplace, there were lights everywhere. They were strung up against shops, lampposts lit in the streets, shop lights glowing brightly against the night sky. It was brilliant.

And the market itself was awesome. They had tons of items for sale, much like the daytime market we had seen the day before, but there were key differences. One: there was an element of night life here. Bars were open (not that anyone was drinking that night – there was a rule in effect, remember?) and traffic was still inexistent, so pedestrians walked freely through the street.

As we approached, I saw a choir performing loudly in the center of the road. I guessed that they might be Korean, and Danielle said she agreed they probably were. Regardless of from whence the group had come, they were fun.

I explored some more. We bumped into some random groups of people. Danielle taught me some Hebrew while I wandered aimlessly looking for cool shiny things. There were lots of cool shiny things on this street, so I was everywhere. “You kind of have ADD,” she commented.

“How do I say, ‘Be quiet,’ more forcefully than just, ‘Be quiet,’? Beyond a simple, ‘Sheket’?”

“‘Stom et ha-pe’ would work. It basically means close your mouth.” I deciphered the literal, non-grammatical translation as Close you the mouth, but I understood that this was the phrase I wanted.

“Yes, I might have ADD. Stom et ha-pe,” I said, grinning.

“Why am I following you, again?” she asked.

“Because I am an awesome language student. Hey, it’s Emmanuel! And Tair!”

Danielle resignedly shook her head.

Tair waved. “What are you guys up to?”

“Wandering, mostly,” I answered candidly. “You?”

“We’re hunting for a coffee shop. Wanna join us?”

“Sure!” I said. Danielle nodded.

The four of us found this coffee shop that Tair seemed to know. The entrance was through an alley, behind some buildings, and up some stairs. It was a cozy little place with wonderful, aromatic smells of hot and cold, sweet beverages.

The others got tea or shakes.

As was my tendency on this trip, I went for the adventure. Sachlab, some kind of thick milk with dulce de leche caramel and banana, topped with whipped cream, became my dessert. It was served hot and tasted like the land of milk and honey is supposed to taste: heavenly.

“Oh, man, we’re cutting it close on time,” I realized. We paid and departed, catching up with the group just as they were gathering at the meeting place at the front steps of a big bank. In a couple of minutes we would run a ‘quick’ head-count.

“Andrew, I need to make a quick withdrawal at the ATM. How much cash do you think I’ll need for the rest of the trip? Should 250 shekels be enough?” I wanted to make sure I wouldn’t need any more withdrawals after this.

“Yeah, that should be fine,” he answered without turning. He was looking through the group to make sure nobody was missing.

“Okay. I’m going to get in line here so I can be done when we leave. If they’re looking for me, my number is five.”

“Sure thing,” he said.

I got in line. Every time somebody finished up at the front and the line moved up, I looked back over my shoulder to make sure the group wasn’t counting off again. I didn’t want to miss it, if it could be avoided.

My turn finally arrived and I made my withdrawal. I was getting halfway decent at reading Hebrew on sight, but my vocabulary wasn’t strong enough to allow me to use the Hebrew settings on the ATM. I selected ENGLISH and took out the money I thought I would need.

When I turned around, the group was gone. I didn’t panic. I didn’t freak out. I have a half-decent sense of direction, but more importantly I was carrying a notebook in which I had already recorded the phone numbers of most of the people in our group, and I had already programmed Tair’s number into the phone I was issued at the airport. I started walking in a direction I thought made sense and began dialing Tair.

As it rang, I looked around and realized this was not the way we had come. I had taken over six hundred pictures on my camera by that point, so I turned it on and confirmed, by scrolling back through the most recent ones, that this was, indeed, not the way we had come. I turned around.

Tair picked up. “Garrett? Where are you?”

“I’m heading back towards the bank we met at. I started walking and realized I was heading in the wrong direction, so I was going to re-orient myse--”

“What do you see around you?” she demanded.

I described a couple of the buildings.

“Okay, head back towards the bank. Shai and I will meet you there in two minutes.”

That’s what I was doing. As soon as I got there I realized my error and knew the direction I ought to have been heading. I stood there looking for Shai and Tair. They arrived a few seconds later, waving me over.

“Sorry, guys. I was withdrawing money, and I thought you knew I was up there; that’s why I gave Andrew my head-count number.”

“No, it’s okay. And you don’t have to hurry; the group is waiting up for us,” she reassured me as we made it to the corner where everyone else was waiting. They began walking the second Tair nodded to Ran. Andrew dropped back to where Shai and I were.

“Yeah, man, you good,” Shai said in his Israeli-weighted English.

“Yeah, but I didn’t want to hold the group up like this. I feel terrible.”

“Dude, what happened back there?” Andrew asked.

I recapped for him what had just happened. “Did you forget that I was withdrawing money?”

“Man, I don’t know what happened. I didn’t realize you were still up there. I am so, so, so sorry, bro.”

“It’s okay. Really. I should have been clearer. I wasn’t too worried, anyway; I would have found everyone sooner or later, and I wasn’t going to be lost for long with everyone’s contact info in here.” I waved my notebook at him. “So don’t beat yourself up, either.”

He didn’t listen to me. “I’m sorry, seriously.”

“Seriously, forget it, bro. It’s all good.”

“No, really, like, if it had been someone else I wouldn’t feel as bad. Like Joel, we can leave him at a bank--”

“Hey!” Joel spun around. He had been walking right in front of us.

“Just kidding,” Andrew smirked.

“Mostly,” I added.

We arrived at the hotel and I slapped Andrew’s back. “I’ll tell you what. You can stop being so hard on yourself about this if I get to leave you at the ATM next time.”

He laughed. “All right, all right.” He was a good leader and a good friend. As much as I hoped he would just let go of it, I knew if I were in his position, I’d have a hard time doing so, too. So I just thanked him again for his unnecessary concern and went to bed.