What will I miss?

Our garden is in full summer bloom. Teardrop shaped figs hang in various stages of ripeness on the tree. Birds perch on the branches, stretch out their necks (do birds have necks?), and devour an impressive amount of fruit for such small creatures. Sweet, yellow apricots do not appeal to the birds so we get to enjoy the fruit. The tiny iridescent Palestine Sunbirds hover over flowers, bringing delicacy and beauty wherever they flit.

Our garden in Jerusalem is a little paradise. But I won’t spend all morning here. Tomorrow we leave Jerusalem after a ten-month stay and I have a few more walks to take, and coffee shops to visit, and friends and family to part with. I have a suitcase to pack. I want to watch the sun set over the city and turn the stone buildings a rosy, gold color that I’ve seen nowhere else. I have to stop by the grocery store if only to experience the lunacy one more time. I want to walk around my neighborhood and walk to the city center and to the library and feel the energy that has caused me to experience a stunning combination of anxiety, affection, hope, concern, hope, concern.

People here ask me what I will miss when I return. People at home also have asked me what I will miss. It is difficult to answer this question. I was a visitor here, but I felt at home immediately. The noise and pushing made me crazy. The warmth and openness of family, new friends, and even complete strangers made me comfortable and happy. I saw people working towards cooperation and peace and people working towards something else and people just trying to live their lives under the given circumstances. Hope, concern, hope.

What will I miss when I leave this insane, historical, spiritual, infuriating, magical, beautiful city? Let me think about it a while.

Shalom

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To read past entries, please click on "Index of posts" just below the calendar.

Posted by Ilene Weismehl  at 4:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

What a daughter-in-law

We have decided to stay a month longer than originally planned and will now return to Providence in late June. It has been wonderful to have a bonus month in Jerusalem. The longer I stay here, the more at home I feel, which may account for the increasing gaps of time between my reports to you. I don't think to write about my daily activities. I go to the grocery store, I go to a coffee shop, I get together with family and friends, maybe I go to a museum. Ho, hum, yawn….

But today is different.

It all started last week when I stopped by Gabriella’s, a tiny, hole-in-the wall hair salon in my neighborhood, to have my hair trimmed. When I arrived, Gabriella (or Gabi, as she is called) was sitting in a chair having her feet pampered and prettied by a young woman.

“Zot hi kalati. Ayzeh kalah yeshli!!!” (This is my daughter-in-law. What a daughter-in-law I have!!!”) “Have a seat. I’ll be with you when we’re done.”

Gabi, now having her feet massaged, appeared completely delighted and worry-free. I sat down to wait for her pedicure to end and my haircut to begin. Lots of women stopped by in the meantime. All were greeted with a rhapsody of “What a daughter-in-law I have!” and “You must try this!”

Who could refuse?

Today I show up for my pedicure. When I arrive, about six women, including Gabi, sit on chairs just outside the salon door. Two of the women sport mid-dye-job hairdos, their hair slick with color waiting to happen. Gabriella invites me to pull up a chair and sit with them until the floor is done. I peek inside and there I see the kalah energetically mopping the floor. So I sit outside and Gabi tells me about friends of hers who leave today for the U.S. She tells one woman not to worry; her hair will look great with the new color. She informs the others that I’m there for a pedicure.

“Oh, you do pedicures here?” they ask Gabi.

“Of course, my kalah.”

Finally, the kalah finishes mopping and joins us outside until the floor dries. When it dries, we all walk inside and those whose hair is being dyed prepare for rinsing and drying and I place my feet in a basin of water in preparation for my pedicure. Women come and go: some just stop by to catch up with Gabi; others wait to be trimmed and styled and dyed. The place is small so they hover close to where I sit. They watch the kalah work on my feet.

“That looks relaxing,” they muse.

"You should try it," replies the kalah.

“Maybe another time," they say.

“Look how dry her feet are,” the kalah tells them.

They look and nod.

But I don’t care what they say. All I have to say is, “What a daughter-in-law!”

A view of Jerusalem from The Botanical Gardens. I had been meaning to visit ever since spring arrived. It was wonderfully worth the visit.

A view of The Botanical Gardens, as is the next picture.

Posted by Ilene Weismehl  at 7:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Back so soon?

Recently, Elie and I traveled to northern Israel to explore the Golan Heights. We were just in time to enjoy the flowers and greenery before everything dried up for the arid summer months. It was completely gorgeous.

We stayed at the lovely Kibbutz HaGoshrim hotel for one night. The weather was unseasonably hot, thanks to the sharav (hamsin), and I felt inspired to take a swim in the inviting pool. I arrived in the locker room with my backpack and looked for lockers but found wall hooks instead. There was a woman, probably in her early seventies, heading for the showers after her swim. I asked her if it was ok to leave my things in the locker room.

“Betach! (of course!) Who’s going to take anything?”

I left my backpack and hoped it would be there when I returned. I took a refreshing swim and returned to the locker room. Then…

”Back so soon?”

There was the woman dressed and seated on a bench talking to another woman who was combing the hair of her little daughter. The one explained to the other that I had gone to the pool just as she was getting in the shower and that I’m out already.

My first inclination was to say: “I haven’t been swimming in nearly a year and those fifteen minutes were pretty impressive for me, all things considered.” But I fought this defensive inclination and said instead, “ It’s not that I was in the pool for such a short time, it’s that you have been sitting here for a long time.”

They both laughed and I knew that I had succeeded both linguistically (I said something in Hebrew that made people laugh!) and culturally (greet directness with directness. ALWAYS.)

But, the first woman wasn’t done with me. She recounted to the hair-combing woman that I had asked her if I could leave my things in the locker. They laughed again. (It is so gratifying to amuse people).

“Why would anyone steal anything?”

I said, “In the U.S. I couldn’t just leave my things out like that.”

“Well, that’s a whole other matter,” she replied. “Everyone knows how unsafe it is in the U.S.”

Her lesson was not yet complete. She proceeded to explain to me how here in Israel, but especially on the kibbutz, people get to know each other very quickly. But they don’t worry about names. (I had been advised before that many Israelis don't do the "Hello. I'm Ilene and you are?" type of introduction. They just start talking to each other.)

“She and I,” she pointed to the other woman and then to herself, “have known each other for a year or so. I don’t know her name. She doesn’t know mine. It isn’t important.”

Again I thought about my life in the U.S. where there are rules of etiquette and strategies for remembering names. But, then what? How well do we get to know each other? How long does it take before people trust each other? Long after they remember a person’s name, that’s for sure. There is often a surface surliness when you encounter Israelis, but there is wonderful richness and depth to many of those encounters. I will return to the U.S. in just over a month holding the suspicion that politeness is highly overrated.

I was going to share these musings with the women, but they were done with me and back in the midst of their previous conversation. I did say, “nice to meet you,” on my way out. It’s hard to break old habits.

Greenery in the Golan.

The Gamla Nature Reserve.

The breathtaking Tel Dan Nature Reserve.

Delicate navigation of a stone path in Tel Dan.

Posted by Ilene Weismehl  at 9:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Festivities

Last time I wrote, Memorial Day’s gravity was soon to give way to Independence Day’s festivities. On Independence Day (Yom HaAtzmaut), a great many Jerusalemites head to the parks of the city, set up their grills, and fill the air with the scent of cooking meat. Elie and I, party poopers and allergic as we are, wanted nothing more than to avoid the smoke. We drove around the city. We even drove through ultra-Orthodox Meah Shearim where the people do not believe Israel should exist as a state until the Messiah comes and where they do not grill on Yom HaAtzmaut.

(Needless to say, it was an odd way for us to celebrate; or, not to celebrate. I would do it differently next time.)

Finally, having somewhat avoided the smoke-filled air, we returned home, ate dinner, and started to watch a movie. At about 10:30, the doorbell rang. We looked at each other. We weren’t expecting anyone. We paused the film and answered the door. There before us was a young fellow, maybe twenty or so, very excited, speaking Hebrew very quickly, gesticulating madly with one hand clasping the handle of a large gray bucket. We were a bit slow to respond so he just looked to the right and to the left and sprinted to our kitchen sink.

Someone had, obviously, thrown out live coals (they were only mostly dead). Now the large plastic garbage bins outside our building were on fire. This fellow was visiting nearby when he saw the smoke. Our apartment is on the ground floor, and so he rang the bell for the use of our sink.

The fellow carried out his bucket; Elie ran out with another. One of the bins had melted to the ground; the other was on its way. Elie grabbed the hose from our yard. This was more efficient than buckets and Elie was able to put out most of the fire. Finally, someone from our building arrived with the key to the fire hose in the building. With this extra dousing, the final embers were extinguished.

The smoke lingered outside our building for an extra day. Go figure.

Families grilling and celebrating on Yom HaAtzmaut in the park near our house.

More of the same...

Meah Shearim.

Posted by Ilene Weismehl  at 4:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We stand

I have a secret I haven’t shared with you yet. I spend one day a week in the Reading Room of the National Library on the Givat Ram campus of Hebrew University. I read, I write, I enjoy the bookish atmosphere and exchange greetings with the kind librarians who know me by now.

This morning, I made my weekly journey to the library. I arrived early because today is Yom HaZikaron (Memorial Day) and the library would close at 1:00. When I arrived on campus, I saw, just to my left, two large torches and beyond those a large gathering of people. They were listening to a recitation of names, war by war since 1948. I hadn’t planned to attend a memorial service, but with this one in my path, I felt drawn to stand as one of many witnesses. Of the group, most were students, their army years a vivid memory of just a year or two past.

This was already a different kind of Memorial Day for me. In the U.S., unless you have personally lost someone, the holiday means a long weekend, busy highways, and a chance to cook out with friends and family. In Israel, people will also cook out and play, but not yet.

Following the ceremony, I went to the Reading Room for an hour or so before walking down to the café on the lower level for some tea. I was sipping my tea and then, at 11:00, the siren blared and there was stillness and silence.
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Suspended animation. Everyone in the café stopped what he or she was doing and stood up: the ultra-Orthodox man slouched in his chair talking on his cell phone, the two women gabbing over coffee and iced tea, the man who had been making espresso and taking money from the customers. They all stood. Had I been outside, I would have seen more of the same: people stop their cars on the roads and stand outside, they put down their work, they stop teaching and stop being taught. People stop and remember. In this country, nearly everyone has someone to remember. I haven’t felt so heartbroken in a long time.

When the siren ceased, two-minutes later, the orthodox man resumed his slouched, cell-phone conversation. The man behind the counter turned to his customers and the espresso machine began its grinding whir; the two women continued talking over their coffee and iced tea; I returned to my own tea. All returned to normal

Memorial Day will end tonight at 8:00 p.m. and immediately after the final memorial service and torch lighting, Yom HaAtzmaut (Independence Day) will begin. Tonight and tomorrow, people will cook out, they will throng out into the streets, and they will celebrate. There is a time for mourning and a time to rejoice and in Israel there is a ceremony for both. Without a doubt, we need both.

My husband, Elie, took this and the following picuture on the main street near our home.
The light is green; the cars stand still.

Posted by Ilene Weismehl  at 11:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)