This Time I take my Camera:

My Israeli Experience

 By Brad Jacobson

I wake up early in the morning and begin my walk around the Old City of Jerusalem. I have been to Israel many times and this trip is for seven months. This time I take my camera. I want to take photos of a land and people that I feel so close to.

A young woman walks into my Hebrew ulpan in the center of downtown Jerusalem. There are 30 students from 14 different countries and over half the students are Arab. We study Hebrew, Monday through Thursday, from 8 am to 12:30 pm. The young woman has not been in the class for a week because her cousin was killed in a traffic accident. Everyone looks up when she enters the classroom.

Our teacher goes to her and gives her a hug and a kiss. The young woman is Muslim and wears a white scarf covering her head and a dark suit. Our teacher is an Israeli-Jew. The teacher begins a class activity by whispering a secret to a student sitting in front. The student whispers the words to the person sitting next to him/her. The secret goes around the room to people from Syria, Mexico, Korea, Brazil, Germany, Holland, the U.S., Haiti, Hungary, Russia, Italy, Sweden, Australia, and Israel. The secret was, “We study Hebrew in Beit (house) Ha’am.” Yesterday the teacher sang a song. The words included, “The whole world is a very narrow bridge.”

A Hasidic (ultra-orthodox) man walks past me with his bicycle. I quickly take his picture. The man dresses in a black suit. He has a full beard and black hat. His appearance is like the Jews in Eastern Europe, hundreds of years ago.

I am sitting at the dinner table on Shabbat in Mea Shearim, a neighborhood of Jerusalem where the ultra-orthodox live. When I first entered the neighborhood I notice public phones dangling from their hooks. People are walking on the street. On Shabbat it is not permitted to talk on phones or drive in a car. Young boys have pa’as, strands of hair curling in front of their ears. We could be in Poland two hundred years ago.  An older Hasidic man greets us. I come with two others from Holland. He asks me my last name, where I am from. My last name is, “Jacobson,” I am from America. He wants to know where my family is originally from. I tell him from Russia and Latvia. He said people with my last name in Israel pronounce the name with a “Y,” like in, “Yacobson”.

He came to this neighborhood from Romania in 1950. He says that when he first came here, 20 yards away was the border and there were sometimes bullet shots outside. The house is full with family members and guests. The men sit on one side of the table and the woman on the other. Children are playing. He is a rabbi and speaks to us. He tells us one thing that is really obvious, but coming from a Hasidic old man the words strike like an arrow in my heart. He simply says “He does not know what we know but we do not know what he knows.” I understand him to mean do not judge them by how they look, do not make quick assumptions. He is talking to us like he is talking to someone who has been far away. When I walk out I have the feeling that this man is trying to make a connection to us, like we are his family.

The Hasidic Jews are a small percentage of the Israeli population. The men usually do not work, but study Torah. They do not go into national service or the military. They have many children. There is friction between them and many Israelis.

I travel by bus from the top to the bottom of the country. Today I wake up early to jog and can see Mt. Hermon.  I am 8 km from the Lebanese border. On the bus trip, I go by three seas- the Sea of Galilee, Dead Sea, and the Red Sea. During the first three hours of the trip, the land is hilly and green, but after the bus goes through Jerusalem, the landscape changes dramatically to desert. After 7 hours on the bus, I am by the border of Egypt on the Red Sea. Israel is a small country about the size of New Jersey. To drive the width of the country, from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, takes approximately one hour. Tomorrow I am going to scuba dive. The Red Sea is one of the most beautiful places to dive in the world.

I get up from where I am sitting in the Arab Quarter of the Old City and start to walk back through the Damascus Gate. Now there are many more people, almost all Arab.  I do not make eye contact with them. Across the street I see people sitting in the square. There are many small shops. I see a falafel stand, there is man selling bread, and I keep walking. I see a post office, hotel, hospital, bakery and small grocery store. This is East Jerusalem. Jews don’t usually come here but I am walking down the hill.

I walk by a woman who holds up a heavy tray on her head. An old man walks with a cane. I take a right and to the left I can see the Mount of Olives.  I walk for 20 minutes and reach the Dung Gate. Inside the Dung Gate is the Kotel (Wailing Wall).  The Kotel is approximately 2000 years old and it is in the location where it is said that Abraham received his covenant with G-d and is the site of the two temples. Many Jews come here to pray.

 I go inside and sit. I take out my camera.

Many people are walking to the Kotel for the holiday of Shavuot. Shavuot marks the time when the Jews were given the Torah in Sinai. In Jerusalem people stay up all night studying. Instead of going to classes I meet my friend Anat. She is my scuba diving friend. She picks me up at the Jaffa gate and we drive out of Jerusalem. We drive past an army check point. It is dark and we drive on a road in the hills. Anat stops and drives off the dirt road. We reach a spring. The night is clear so we see many stars. We take off our shoes and put our feet in the water. Anat was volunteering this year before her army service. Her job was leading deaf Arab children on nature trips. Anat is a secular Jew similar to the majority of Israelis. She has just entered the army, since my coming to the states. She wrote to me that her job in the army is important. She is going to help soldiers who come from poor or broken homes receive their high school diploma and help them get their life back on track. 

It is Purim and the atmosphere feels like Times Square, The Rose Bowl Parade, and 4^th of July all in one. I am on Rehov Dizengoff, a popular shopping street in Tel Aviv. There are singers in Hebrew, children clapping on parents’ shoulders, costumes. My friend said that during the last few years there were not festivals for the holiday Purim. Maybe this is what happens when there is a glimpse of peace. There is spider man, angels, cowboy hats, Queen Ester, balloons, street people on stilts, funny hats, and big sunglasses.

In Israel the cook, the bus driver, the plumber, and my barber all are Jewish. This may sound paradoxical but when I am volunteering, jogging, visiting friends, or going to the beach I forget that Israel is a Jewish country. But on holidays such as Purim when the whole country celebrates I feel an enormous sense of pride.

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The siren sounds. Everyone stops and stands quietly. The sirens sound off two days a year; one time for the holocaust and one time for Memorial Day for the war victims. Today it is Holocaust Day. I am standing by my friend Hadas. She is a medic and leads nature hikes. We are at my scuba diving school on the Red Sea.  Everyone stops. The people getting ready to dive stop and are quiet. On the road people get out of their cars to stand silently. Hadas usually laughs a lot and is full of life. When she stands I can see that she is very still and remorseful. Afterwards she told me that her grandmother and family were victims in the holocaust.

I am in Jerusalem during Memorial Day. The siren goes off two times.

I attend a ceremony given by the children of the Jewish Quarter of the Old City. They read the names of the fallen soldiers who have died and light a flame. On television I watch a memorial documentary of a soldier who has given his life. They show photographs of him hiking in the Golan and scuba diving in the Red Sea. These are the same activities that I love doing and I am pulled in closer to his story. Israel is a small country and every time there is a fallen soldier or suicide bombing it hits home.

The entire mood of the country changes because as the dark sets in, Independence Day has arrived. The atmosphere becomes festive; people dance in the streets. There are fire works. Like most Israelis I spend my day at a picnic. I am with Esther’s family right outside the walls of the Old City. Esther is my “rock” in Jerusalem. I often stop by her shop in the Old City to ask questions.  I am amazed by how quickly the mood of the country brightens from tears to celebrations.

My friend, Tamera tells me that it is difficult to be an Israeli. Tamara laughs at my silly stories. She is a student at Hebrew University, studying International Affairs and Chinese. She served in the army for two years. In the mall near her home in Netanya there have been suicide bombings. Tamera said the saddest part is that she gets use to them. She loves her country and she said it is because of the soldiers who have given their life’s that Israel is independent and she celebrates.  

I am standing in line at the pharmacy. My eye is red and swollen. A woman steps in front of me in the line and talks to her friend.  Finally I make it to the front and talk to the pharmacist; I ask him if he can recommend a doctor. The man beside me says he is a doctor and tells me that he will drive me to his clinic. We walk to the parking lot to his car. He takes out a medical bag and examines my eye. He writes a prescription for me; my eye clears up in two days. Israelis are usually less formal then Americans. Keeping your place in line can be a challenge. But you can count on Israelis to help when you need it.

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Na-amah sits besides me and tells me that she will miss me. I am a volunteer on an Israeli army base between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Shai is our boss but most of the time I work with four female soldiers testing batteries. My first impression of the soldiers is that they remind me of the “Sweat Hogs” on the old TV sitcom, Welcome Back Kotter. Their behavior is similar to the soldiers my friend Anat works with that come from broken homes. One soldier seems to be angry yet she works the hardest. She reminds me of Rocky when he is chopping wood in the movie. She is only a small girl but she gets in the crates of batteries and lifts heavy bag after heavy bag.  This is Na-amah. She is rude at times to me and we bicker.

One time she says something and I walk away. She apologizes and I come back. I work on this base for six weeks, and after a while, I begin to get close to these soldiers. I realize that we come from separate worlds. I come here from America as a volunteer. Almost all Israelis are required to go into the military at age 18. The men serve for three years and the women for two years. Before I leave Na-amah tells me I was her best volunteer. Others have come and gone, she says but I was the one that put my heart into being here. I feel like I belong here.

Volunteers come from many countries. In my groups are volunteers from New Zealand, Australia, Holland, Switzerland, England, France, Russia, Brazil, Canada, and the United States. Their ages range from 17 to 82. Our madricha (counselor) is an Israeli soldier and is in charge of the volunteers. I am with Yael, my madricha, for 12 weeks. I call her my little sister.

Chanan, the officer on the base who helps the volunteers, tells us that we always have a home to come back too. This time I am at a base in the south near Ashquelon. There is a bus to everywhere in Israel but here, I think.  Actually, a bus does come by here twice a day but we are in the middle of farm country and sometimes the wind brings the smell of the cows, but there is something special about being here. Maybe because the volunteers bond together because it feels like we are on our own little deserted island.  Four volunteers including myself work with Avi. He has been in the army for twenty years. He works with us and talks to us about all kinds of issues. He shows us photos of when he was a combat soldier in Jenin. But his greatest wish, and what he talks about most is peace. He hopes that someday his children will not have to go to the army.

I am raising the flag. My madricha, Joanna asks me to. This time I am on an air force base where the pilots are trained but to me Joanna is Top Gun. The wire cuts into my hand as I pull down the wire rope. It hurts but the other volunteers and soldiers are watching and I feel proud. The soldier standing besides me asks me where I am from in Hebrew. I reply in Hebrew, Ani gar b America.

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Everyone is clapping. Everyone knows the words. I am at a Shlomo Artzi concert right outside the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem. Shlomo Artzi is one of Israel’s most popular rock musicians and I have his CD’S in America. Now I can’t believe I’m here.  I was taking bus number 38 from the Old City to Ben Yehuda Street. I usually walk and go another way but I feel tired, so I take the bus. I see people walking towards an outdoor entertainment area. I am curious and after spending a little time on Ben-Yehuda Street, I go back to check out what is happening. It is Shlomo Artzi. I try to pay, but they will not take my credit card. I don’t have 169 shekels (40 dollars) with me. The man tells me I can see if I walk straight and then go to the left up on the hill.  I follow his directions. I can see the concert but I am too far away. I go back to the entrance and with a little chutzpa (nerve); I manage to be in the middle of the crowd listening to Shlomo Artzi. I tell my friend Ester about my experience the next day. She tells me that I am becoming Israeli.