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May 15, 2007

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

Posted by: john de roo at June 3, 2007 02:42 AM

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