22 July 2008

First off, I’m OK. I was at home when a second tractor driver in three weeks went on an attack before being shot dead by a civilian and a Border Policeman. We can only hope and work for happier days ahead, not just because of today's events.

Looking through the job classifieds has become a morning ritual as commonplace as drinking my cup of instant coffee. It’s a long and arduous process, sifting through the innumerable ads of hi-tech companies, with slim pickings for a graduate student like me who’s only in school twice a week and is looking to use his brain while working.

The group of us who were friends at NYU and moved to Israel started a new tradition of kidnapping each other on our birthdays and going on a road trip. ‘Kidnapping’ being a relative term in this region, of course. After lots of deliberation on the destination, we decided to take a trip to Nazareth, with me playing the role of “unofficial tour guide” (lest be accosted by licensed tour guides and possibly fined by a roving Ministry of Tourism official). After a quick ride up, we climb the Lower Galilee mountains, getting lost in the terracing roads. For a major tourist destination, singage in any language is at a serious loss.
Nazareth is the largest Arab city in Israel and as such one sees stark contrasts between the sites connected to the Annunciation and Jesus, and the Muslim majority population that has displaced the traditionally large Christian population. Coming from Jerusalem, the small streets and sprawling outdoor market look practically the same, albeit without the security precautions. I’m still kicking myself that I didn’t bring a camera to capture the poster of an Arab summer camp sponsored by the Israeli Communist party (a bright red poster in Arabic with a picture of a swimming pool underneath a hammer-and-sickle) and a poster for an Islamic fundamentalist group just under the Roman Catholic Basilica of the Annunciation. After sightseeing and a short tour, we climb upwards to a lookout over the entire area. Being the summer the 30-minute, 30 degree ascent left us exhausted yet satisfied from the view of the entire area, with me in typical tour guide fashion pointing out the sites we could see “on a clear day.” Back down the hill for food, we ended up at one of the most famous restaurants in Israel, enthralled by endless salads (my picks: fried cauliflower in tehina and baby spinach with sesame oil) and a perfectly juicy lamb dinner prepared right in front of us. Yummmm.

A few days later it was time for Jerusalem’s annual wine festival. Located in the Israel Museum’s sculpture garden, the event epitomizes yuppiness in a city which is quickly replacing its yuppie population for the ultra-Orthodox crowd. The last time I was there, live jazz set the scene for would-be connoisseurs who strolled around with their all-you-can-drink glasses, trying to look dignified with a wine buzz. This year, on a Tuesday night, it was yuppie bedlam: the ticket line wrapped around the barriers like the most popular roller-coaster at an amusement park; and the event was mobbed with people, from the “Gimme whatever’s red!” guy to the attempting-to-be-a-oenophile to the “I’m so drunk!” reveler. There was another photo opportunity lost, just like in Nazareth and just as culture-shocked: While one gentleman offered his date his jacket to fend off the cool Jerusalem night, another man offered his talit katan to female friend as a scarf. Only in Jerusalem?

The night was the followed in the morning by the media spectacle that was the exchange for the Israeli soldiers Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev. I managed to wake up in time, with little residual effects from the previous night, to watch the live coverage. It was as if the last two years led up the few seconds when, answering a “reporter’s” question about whether the two soldiers were alive or dead, the Hizbullah spokesman in melodramatic fashion answered “Let’s find out” and out come two coffins. A huge thud followed by mournful violins went through my mind at the savagery of it all (kidnapped from the Israeli side of the border, no word on their fate for two years, exchanging the shameless Samir Kuntar without more concrete word on Ron Arad), finally coming to an end. I think every Israeli, regardless of their origin, wanted an American fairytale ending to this sad chapter in our history, hoping at least one of the two would be alive or that the bodies in the coffins would prove to not be those of Ehud and Eldad. While their families deserved an end to their misery and “Redemption of Captives” is a commandment in Jewish tradition, no one wanted an ending as sad as this one.

Happy and sad, light and dark, it's a bipolar kind of life here. I’ll do my best to keep up with the updating.