Outtakes

BELOW ARE SOME LOOSE REFLECTIONS OF MY WEEK IN ISRAEL.

1. ISRAELI HORNINESS

Israeli drivers -- bus drivers, cab drivers, truck drivers, soccer moms -- particularly in Jerusalem, are extremely horny. It is not an overstatement to say that Israel is a thoroughly horny culture. I have it on good authority that Israelis, by law, are prohibited from driving with two hands on the wheel, and can be ticketed if spotted driving so. Instead, they must steer with one hand on the wheel while keeping the heel of the other hand poised mere inches above the wheel, ready too strike, to be driven into the horn like a pile driver. 

This is because no driver ever knows when the traffic up ahead will so insult him or her with unwanted delay -- however brief -- that a good, long, angry zetz is the only appropriate response. 

What audacity, trying to parallel park when I am behind you so clearly on my way to something important!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

How dare you impede my progress simply because oncoming traffic prevents you from making a left-hand turn!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What chutzpah you have keeping me waiting at this traffic light one-na-no-sec-ond now that it's turned green!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

Sorry to say, there are many bad drivers in Israel who simply don't understand the rules of the road and must be punished (the Israelis call it hornished) for their ignorance.

2. BUS DRIVERS

It is also a little known fact that Israeli bus drivers, in addition to zetzing their horn when warranted, are trained to pump the brakes when passengers have become or are on the cusp of becoming a little too comfortable moving about the bus, heading fore to aft, for instance, after they have just paid the fare and are trying to find a seat while clutching shopping bags in each hand; or when they are 90 or 100 years old and moving just a tad too slowly getting to and/or lowering themselves into a seat. Or for those hot-shot dare-devils, full of pride and arrogance, who like to stand in the bus without holding on to a strap-hanger: look ma, no hands! There is nothing like a sudden tap on the breaks to popquiz the balance or agility of Israeli riders. This is Israel, after all; tossing passengers around on the bus is for their own good. 

Why? Because comfort breeds contentment; contentment breeds unguardedness; and unguardedness is the terrorists' workshop. Bus drivers, as instructed by the Knesset (Israeli Parliament) and by the Israeli Defense Forces, pump their breaks then, not to toy with their helpless riders, but rather to keep Israelis on their toes, for their own good. The bus drivers' motto reflects their sense of purpose and commitment:

 הסערה טוב השליך על ידי בנו ואז הסערה השליך על ידי אותם

which translates roughly to, better storm tossed by us than storm tossed by them.  

All that vigilance, and while driving with only one hand, to boot. Incredible.

3. MOTORSCOOTERISTS

If you ride a motorscooter in Israel, as many do, you are exempt from the one-hand rule. In fact, you are exempt from all rules. You can ride in whatever way you want so long as you don't get killed. If you do get killed, you will be ticketed. Severely. And hornished like you wouldn't believe (just imagine the delays a geshtorben scooterist layng in the middle of the street would cause!!!!!!!!!!) 

Wishing not to be fined nor hornished to high heaven, motorscooterists try to stay alive, and, for the short period I was in Israel, I didn't see one who didn't. Though I saw many who came close to getting ticketed. 

But, the simple fact is that if you are on a scooter and you don't like the way traffic is moving, create whatever traffic path you like that will get you moving. Of course, you will get hornished for being an upstart. No matter. You have it coming to you. (That's because you are free in a way other motorists are not. And they know it and resent it.)

Pass on the left in a no-passing zone, pass on the right without a passing shoulder; thread between two lanes of cars, bob and weave left and right in you onward progress. Anything is fine, except getting killed. Because if you do get killed you will tie up traffic, and you will get hornished with righteous fury miles long.

4. PEDESTRIANS

What, you may be wondering, are the rules regarding the pedestrian? Answer: to stay out of the way of the more important motorists and not muck up the works by trying to cross a street when there is traffic to be had. This means obeying crossing signs religiously. Because if a pedestrian crosses in traffic and causes a driver to apply the brakes -- or even just ease up on the gas -- the pedestrian will be severely hornished, and rightly so. If a cop is around, ticketing may ensue. And if a pedestrian crosses when he or she shouldn't, and gets hit and killed by a car, a ticket will ensue, plus the corpse will be hornished roundly. 

Israeli motorists have a saying directed at pedestrians:

אם אתם רוצים שאנחנו לא צריכים לרוץ לך למטה כמ, כבר. 

Roughly translated, it means, If you want that we should not run you down like an animal, walk like a person, already.  

And Israelis pedestrians respect this: A pedestrian-crossing may be in its flashing red, no-cross mode, and Israelis on foot will wait patiently for the signal to change regardless of whether there is a car within twenty miles. 

The Israeli pedestrians, too, have a saying for this:  

 סבלנות עדיף על המדרכה מאשר חולים על אלונקה

Better patience on a curb than patient on a gurney

***

6. ORTHODOX MEN AND WOMEN
Orthodox Jewish men look constantly harried, always holding onto their hats and running as if late (probably because they are). Most are bearded so it is difficult to see what's going on underneath all that hair, but it doesn't seem to be smiles. Perhaps this is due to the garb they wear: black shoes and socks, black pants, t-shirt (black?), white tafillit (prayer shawl), white shirt, black jacket, black overcoat (optional), yamulka (skullcap), black fedora (optional, but likely). 


The orthodox garb might have been great in icy Russia, from where many no doubt emigrated, but in Israel -- Jerusalem, where it's scorching hot, or in Tel Aviv, where it is only slightly less scorching hot but constantly humid -- such a get-up doesn't make sense. The orthodox must shvitz like crazy. 


I'm not suggesting that they wear flip-flops, Speedos, and fishnet tanktops, but perhaps switching from heat (light)-absorbing black to heat (light)-reflecting white might help brighten their day, turn that Hasidic frown upside down.

On the flip side, not bound to the same color scheme as their husbands, the orthodox Jewish women struck me as serene, radiating with everpresent Mona Lisa smiles. Where their husbands are generally in a state of pronounced agitation, they remain ever placid, cool lakes without so much as a ripple crossing their surface. I don't know what might give them this sense of well-being, but if it is non-pharmaceutically induced I have the sense it is in part due to the simple satisfaction of not having been born an orthodox Jewish man.

7. ISRAELI MODESTY/IMMODESTY
Tel Aviv is very European and modern. It's a Mediteranean resort town, and comes with all that you might expect from such a place: lots of beaches and bathers; lots of bars; lots of chi-chi restaurants, lots of people walking around half (or less) clad. In Tel Aviv, the harried orthodox orthodox man clearly  stands out.

In contrast, anyone not orthodox in Jerusalem stands out clearly, and my sense is that anyone half (or less) clad would not only stand out but get stoned (and I don't mean high). It took a while to sink in before I noticed the uniform, modest dress of the women, and I don't mean orthodox women (Jews and Muslims. That goes without saying). I'm talking about your regular woman on the street. I was in Jerusalem a few hours before it dawned on me that I hadn't seen a skirt above the knee, and very little decolatage -- not that I was looking; just observing -- even among non-orthodox cosmopolitans (or at least not ostensibly religious). There was something oddly refreshing about those hemlines, I must confess; there was something appealing in that modesty. 


8. ARAB/ISRAELI COMITY
I expected to see Israeli-Jews and Israel-Arabs (Muslims) behaving like Jets and Sharks (minus the dancing), particularly in Jerusalem, but it seemed to me that they got along pretty well. I don't mean to imply that I saw Jews and Arabs yukking it up together (I don't think the orthodox Jews yuk it up too much to begin with, and when they do, it's with other orthodox Jews, likely cracking wise about lightweight Conservative/Reformed "Jews"). But no knifefights broke out on the buses I rode, no rumbles in the back alleys of Old Jerusalem. I didn't even see open snarling or growling. 


Jews and Arabs and everyone in between just seemed to do what all normal people do: go about their business. Call it benign neglect, maybe, but from this outsider's perspective it appeared as though Jews and Arabs were getting along, and could get along more if they had to.
 
9. HOLY SITES
At the Jewish Diaspora Museum in Tel Aviv, the audioguide made the claim that the reason why Judaism was able to survive despite the expulsion of Jews from Babylon is that Judaism is tied to no place. It is a religion that resides in a system of ideas, housed in the mind, not in things external to the faithful. I believe this to be a sound accounting of all sound religions, Judaism, Islam, Christianity, etc. Reason: To claim a place is holy is to simultaneously claim that other places are not. That seems to be overreaching on the part of humans. If this whole shooting match -- Earth -- is god's creation (however you name god), how can anything or any part of it not be holy? If this computer at which I sit is no less the work of god than the First Temple, than why don't we treat everything as holy? That would certainly change our relationship with the world. 


That said, despite the fact that I claimed we should acknowledge holiness globally, I propose that to settle the issue of Jerusalem, the Dome of the Rock, the site of the First Temple, we (not quite sure who this "we" is yet) bulldoze the whole thing, all religious totems to which Judaism, Islam, Christianity lay claim. If the religions are strong, they will stand without them. Then, we should turn the empty lots upon which they stood into playgrounds where little Jews and little Muslims and little Christians can play, and learn the secular religion of fairness, cooperation, compromise, sharing -- all the things many of their parents never learned.


10. Shalom.