10 October 2009

This was a long week. The Jewish holiday season is in many ways more exasperating than the American Christmas season, which should just about be starting. While the buildup to it lasts only a month, it’s comprised of four different holidays, one lasting a full week. Add to this potentially stress-filled time hordes upon hordes of tourists, newly arriving students, itinerant dwellers of luxury apartments and equally anxious Israelis and you got yourselves quite a scene. Even the eastern side of town is relieved by the season being over, as the echoing sound of fireworks has been especially louder in the past day.

I ended up having to work extra hours this week, leaving myself prey to all manners of out-of-towners belligerently walking about town, some inebriated by alcohol, others by simply “being here.” While I remember and appreciate that kind of euphoria being in Jerusalem, which in many ways sustains me living in this town as opposed to Tel Aviv, some of these people walking around seem to have gone hypoxic from the altitude change, leaving their brains less oxygenated than normal.

Just an illustration of what the autumn can bring to Jerusalem:

A trio of black-clad 18-year old American yeshiva girls walk up Rivlin St., a pedestrian street in the city center, saturated with bars serving drunken expat teenagers and the occasional Israeli. One bumps into a yeshiva boy five times her size.

Yeshiva Boy: Excuse me (to get her attention)
(Yeshiva Girl keeps walking, ignoring YB, stops in her tracks after the bumpand looks right at me)
YG: Oh my God, I love what you’re wearing! Are you gay?
Me: I don’t think that’s any of your business.
YG: But I really love your bowtie!
Me: Since when is there a connection between one’s sexuality and how one dresses? That’s a really offensive question. (Walks away)
YB (turns around, half-hearing the altercation): Did she bump into you too?
Me: She wishes.

I’m not sure where that academic response came from, especially when she deserved something far more embarrassing in return. Maybe it’s because of the encounter’s proximity to the previous week’s Yom Kippur; maybe it was pitying this overly-sheltered kid whose left the clutches of Mommy and Daddy for the first time (anyone who equates neckwear with sexual identity deserves, at least, pity); or maybe it was because exhaustion seems to make me less witty (except for my last line in the above script). Frankly, I blame the girl’s parents for raising her to believe such a remark to a complete stranger (or anyone) would be acceptable. Regardless, the drink I was already off to get with a friend gained more saliency after this experience in absurdity.

I’ve said before that I find it an odd phenomenon for many of these 18-year olds who come to Jerusalem for a year in yeshiva, as for many of them it’s their first time away from home for an extended period of time. To be plunked down into the already- complicated and challenging situation in Jerusalem makes having one’s first taste of freedom from American suburbia equally challenging. For example, the Middle East is a region where one shows off the actual or perceived wealth of his/her family through one’s clothing – at least this is my theory explaining all the sequined T-shirts, gold-plated jewelry designer labels. While Jerusalem is no exception to this theory, there are limits to the extent of one’s material displays. American teenagers follow these rules by wearing luxury branded clothes all the time (North Face black fleece jackets, Lacoste polo shirts, etc.) but diverge when they dig their heels into the limestone and bust out with their feelings of entitlement: talking loud on their rented cellphones; talking loud and slow to us Israelis to help our comprehension (I love it when they do this with me); asking rhetorical questions aloud, actually intending to be answered by anyone; arguing about the price of everything; bumping into people on the street without apologizing; and all those other actions one doesn’t think of in the suburbs nor when one is supposedly living for the year in Disneyworld.

When I see or hear these roving bands of teenagers, I think about what kind of preparations their high schools and families back in the States give them before their flights. I also think about the larger picture, namely what does this say about Diaspora Jewish travel in Israel and relating to Israeli society while here. I’m all for creating a life for myself Here and There, and embracing some aspects of American culture while living here (if not using said aspects to make societal positive change at the same time); but what this annual influx of teenagers suggest is a parallel dimension to daily Israeli Jewish life (as opposed to those ultra-Orthodox who choose not to interact, or Arabs who are largely left out of this kind of interaction) that only entrenches Diasporans and Israelis in their views of each other.

On a non-negative note, my iPod seems to sense my mood lately. Long hours at work make the walk home a bit of a challenge, the only source of relief on the way being music. For the last week, almost every day, the shuffle function in the iPod plays either “So What” or “‘Round Midnight” by Miles Davis. A present from my father before one of my flights back to Israel, the two tracks always seem to lift me up long enough to get me home by adding a touch of class to an otherwise long and usually classless day.