For as long as I can remember I have been told this year is like nothing I have ever experienced nor ever will again. They were right. But not for the reasons I would have expected. When looking back on my time here it is the seemingly insignificant, relatively minor or everyday encounters that stand out in my mind helping to shape and define my year. The following is my “Top 10 Only in Israel Moments” list:
- It is a universal truth that when two Jews meet the first thing they do is play Jewish geography. There’s no such thing as six degrees of separation in Israel (it’s never more than three) and we seem to take great pleasure in trying to see just how few degrees we need to find a connection. My encounter on the flight to Israel was no different. No sooner did I mention that I was participating in a Young Judaea program that we discovered a mutual acquaintance. For him, a close family friend, for me, a former co-counselor from YJ conventions. By the time we had landed I had already been invited over to join his family for a Shabbat.
- One day at volunteering in Bat Yam our students were performing skits, the task being to illustrate a conflict between two groups. One skit I particularly remember was by a group of boys (who I could immediately tell were the classes’ trouble makers) who chose a conflict that was actually taking place in Israeli news. They acted out Arabs planting trees and then religious Jews coming in the middle of the night to chop them down. The "Arab" boys called some form of law enforcement and had the "Jewish" boys apprehended. I was seriously impressed not only by the fact that this was a subject matter being dealt with by 12 year olds but also that they did not take sides while presenting the conflict. The children showed an understanding of a world that is much larger than the sheltered bubble that so many kids their age in America grow up in.
- Israel excels in the department of bureaucratic shenanigans, a skill perfected most spectacularly by the Misrad Hapanim, Department of Interior. It took me a total of one taxi, two separate offices, three buses and over four hours of waiting to get my visa renewed, a process that only took five minutes and would have been even shorter if the woman would have stopped discussing with her coworkers what they were bringing to a birthday party. Congratulations Israel, you have beaten the New York DMV for the title of most ludicrously inefficient bureaucracy.
- On the train ride from Tel Aviv to Akko I was sitting across from a woman and her little boy, who couldn't have been older than three. As we were stopped at a station a whole crowd of chayalim boarded the train. Excited, the little boy began speaking to his mom about how one day he was going to be a soldier like those men. It is unbelievable that this boy didn’t even know how to read or write and yet he was bouncing up and down in his eagerness to be a chayal.
But even more mind-blowing is the reality that the protection of the State of Israel rests on the shoulders of a bunch of 18 year olds. And as fantastically insane as this concept is, it has become an intrinsic part of Israeli society. I no longer thought twice when my bus to Beer Sheva was made up entirely of young men and women in uniform or when a boy my age had a gun slung over his shoulder at a wedding. Unlike in America, where the army is something that most of us only know of through the news, this culture of required military service plays a powerful role in defining Israel's identity.
- All over Israel on any surface that can be written on can be found two phrases: "Am Yisrael Chai" with a Jewish star underneath, and the second, the slogan of the Breslov Jews "Na Nach Nachma Nachman Me'uman". Where else in the world would the most common words scrawled on walls be patriotic and religious phrases?
- They don’t have mops in this country. Once we grasped this reality we followed what every Israeli seems to do, be it in the restaurant, school or house: dump a bucket of soapy water everywhere and squeegee it down a hole in the floor. Ingenious.
- Every Monday in Arad without fail I would go to the olive guy at the shuk. By the fourth week I walked up to the olive stand and the man just pointed to the bin of olives we bought from and went “Usual?” He even knew that we always got ten shekels worth. Our short conversations with his broken English and my similarly choppy Hebrew always made the long shlepp back home weighed down with packs full of produce worth it. I’m always saying “I miss the olive guy”, but it’s more than that. It was interactions like this that made life in Arad so unique.
My time in Arad was also unforgettable in large part due to my participation in Garin Tzedek. Our work with the Sudanese community in Arad was substantial and exceptional and for that we should all be proud. Garin Tzedek gave our time this year, and in Arad specifically, purpose beyond the program’s structure. Here were a group of recent high school grads starting up English classes, renovating ganim and impacting a community in a very real way. The best part of my day in Arad was always when I would pass a group of Sudanese children on the street and they stopped to say hello or ask when the next English class would be or the next sports night or just give me a high five or a hug.
- Two universal facts about hospitals: that the patients are obviously ill, disabled, elderly or some combination thereof and the second, that hospital food is absolutely disgusting. However, the Israeli love of fresh produce combined with a lack of patience equals a breakfast consisting of a whole apple, a whole tomato or cucumber, and a hard boiled egg- breakfast items that are difficult to cut, peel, chew and swallow. Where’s my Israeli chopped salad when I need it?
2. In Israel, Chol Hamoed Pesach means hiking and camping up North. For the entire country. Where else would there be hours long traffic delays because of the sheer volume of vehicles trying to get up to a lake so that their inhabitants can then pack onto a rocky beach and sleep in tents? Barbecuing and camping on the Kinneret: who needs matzo?
- Israel is Bipolar: In a fashion only befitting a country as emotionally complex as Israel, the saddest day of the calendar is back-to-back with its happiest day. The celebrations of Yom Hazikaron and Yom Haatzmaut are a whirlwind of emotion that would make any non Israeli dizzy.
It is this resilience and determination of the people who make up this country that allows it to push forward despite all the tragedy it has faced. The sabra mentality of being able to remember the past while still being able to look towards and celebrate the future has been fundamental in shaping Israel’s unique personality.
To wrap up, whether my experiences spoke to you or not I hope you look back on your year here in Israel and not just let it be defined by categories like volunteering, classes and apartment life. I hope you remember your own “Only in Israel” moments that helped to make your time here the complete experience that it was.
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