Reflections on my First Trip to Israel
December 23rd, 2008I just returned from ten days in Israel. It was one of the most fascinating experiences of my life. It took my almost 35 years to get there, and only now that I’ve been can I appreciate what a special place it is. Of course that sounds clichéd, but I would recommend it to anyone – Jewish or not – who has never been.
When I arrived, I was immediately struck by the beauty of the scenery. The land is hilly and picturesque, the architecture regal. Homes are precariously perched on terraced hillsides, giving the illusion of tilting like miniature towers of Pisa.
Upon our arrival in Jerusalem on a Friday afternoon, we were taken to the bazaar to do some shopping. This was a memorable experience for two reasons: 1) the baklava – a gooey, honey-soaked, phyllo-encrusted bundle of cholesterol that probably took 3 months off my life (but was well worth it); and 2) the old woman who shoved me in the back when I lingered a bit too long for her taste at an artist’s stand. I realized quickly that the outdoor markets in Israel are not for the faint of heart. Indeed, they are a full-contact sport for which I might recommend pads to anyone not built like an NFL player.
As sundown approached, the hustle-bustle of the market and the noisy haggling between buyers and vendors was replaced almost instantaneously by the tranquility of Shabbat; we went to the Western Wall to pray. It’s hard to describe the scene we encountered.
Thousands of people were praying, the ultra-orthodox Jews bobbing their heads up and down, chanting in fugue-like states. It reminded me of a black Pentecostal church I attended during my first campaign, when the hypnotizing preacher approached my former staffer Artie Harris and came within an inch of Artie as he exhorted him to believe; Artie trembled before collapsing to the ground in an ecstatic religious fervor. Artie, my only Jewish staffer in that campaign, had urged me to go to Israel, telling me that I would only truly understand the Jewish experience after going. While I was there, I felt more connected to him than I did while he was alive. At the Wall, I put a few prayers in the wall for special people in my life, and then put one in for Barack Obama to help him make our country a force for good in the world again. Thousands of Orthodox Jews, with long braided hair framing their unshaven cheeks, chanted their prayers next to praying young army recruits with machine guns dangling from their belts. It was mesmerizing yet surreal. The contrast between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv was striking. In spiritual Jerusalem, you can hear a pin drop at 5 p.m. on Friday. In modern Tel Aviv, the heart of Israel’s technology and arts sectors, you can still hear the bass pumping at the clubs at 5 a.m. on Saturday.
Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum, was unspeakably sad and moving. In addition to the filmed testimonials from concentration camp survivors, I found the tribute to the “Righteous Among the Nations” particularly heart wrenching. This term of honor denotes a singular form of heroism; it describes non-Jews who put their lives at risk to save Jews from certain death. There were tributes to people such as Oskar Schindler, emorialized in the Spielberg film “Schindler’s List.” The museum contains his farewell speech to the 1,200 Jews whose lives he had saved from extermination – many of them elderly, children, or people with disabilities – by claiming that their labor was “essential” to the Nazi war effort. In fact, during the last year of its operation, Schindler’s factory produced not a single weapon that could actually be fired. He made no money; rather, he depleted his fortune entirely by the end of the war as he bribed officials to retain his workers and purchased black-market supplies to feed and clothe them. We had almost three hours there, but I could’ve stayed all day.
We traveled to the Dead Sea region to learn the story of the Masada, a beautiful fortress atop a plateau that affords hikers amazing vistas. The garrison was taken by Jewish extremists who were equallyant agonistic to both the Roman Empire and mainstream Jews living in what is now Israel. The Jewish zealots were besieged (and dramatically outnumbered by) the Romans, and, according to historians, committed mass suicide The siege occurred in 72-73 CE, when the Romans finally destroyed the fortress with a battering ram. When they entered the fortress, however, the Romans discovered that its nearly 1,000 residents has burned the garrison and committed mass suicide rather than face certain capture or execution by their enemies. Because Judaism discourages suicide, historians suggest that the Jewish extremists drew lots and killed each other one at a time, down to the last man, who would be the only one to commit suicide.
Photo: Masada, from halfway up
It’s an amazing story of courage and, well, craziness. Why did the Jewish zealots attack the Roman Empire in the first place when they were so badly outnumbered, I wondered. Regardless, it is a spectacular archaeological feat – and a hell of a jog.
Upon our return to Jerusalem, we traveled to the Old City and took a tour. I was surprised to find that arguably the holiest sites of three of the world’s great religions are all within a few yards of each other: the site of Jesus’s crucifixion, the Western Wall, and the Dome on the Rock.
As we belatedly discovered, one is not allowed to approach the Dome, a gorgeous structure that is the oldest Islamic building in the world, with uncovered knees. Some of us, like my good friend Trip, purchased a cloth from the Muslim merchant strategically perched near the entrance to the Dome; the more frugal among us improvised.
The proximity of these holy sites to one another is striking, and helped me understand why, year after year, century after century, millennium after millennium even, the battles wear on, in spite of the fact that the vast majority of regular people on both sides seem to long for peace.
That night I lay awake wondering the same thing that so many have devoted their lives to: how can figure out a way to preserve the integrity of the holy sites and neighborhoods and peacefully coexist? The next morning I woke up and went for a run, crossing over the Green Line that roughly separates East and West Jerusalem into the Arab neighborhood of Silwan. The hills could have made San Francisco feel like Kansas. It was beautiful and squalid at the same time; the juxtaposition was jarring. People were everywhere, some stared and others glared at the outsider in their midst. While we were in Israel, the tenuous cease-fire between the Israelis and the Palestinians had broken. Dozens on both sides had been killed the day before in a retaliatory attack, and the air was thick with tension. A cab driver honked from behind me as I huffed and puffed my way up a hill, startling me. I whirled with fear and he smiled and gave me a thumbs-up. It wasn’t the resolution to the Arab-Israeli conflict or anything, but at that moment, completely lost in someplace called Silwan and surrounded by suspicious strangers, it felt pretty good.
Our tour guides did an excellent job of maintaining balance in the way they presented the history of the region. I want to thank all of them, along with the many new friends we made in Israel who treated us like long-lost family (which, in a way, we are.) The trip was sponsored by Ron and Pam Rubin, to whom we are all eternally grateful. I know that those of us who were fortunate enough to go will be friends for life. Below, a picture of the group, planting a tree on a kibbutz.
