A Familiar Foreign Place

Hello beautiful people,

Last time I wrote I was in Boston, days away from leaving and embarking to Israel for my birthright trip and my extended stay in Tel Aviv. Being in Israel has created many interesting situations, conflicts, and challenges, but I think the one that has been most interesting for me is this feeling of being a stranger yet at home. I've had the opportunity to explore this in a number of ways and deal with this somewhat unique circumstance.

Taglit
The birthright program is actually called Taglit-Birthright, Taglit being the Hebrew word for it. I prefer that word because it is less politically charged. The concept of Birthright implies that as a Jew you have a right to visit Israel. I find that idea a little absurd. Taglit means something along the lines of discovery or exploration. In any case, the trip itself was pretty amazing, I admit to my surprise. The purported brainwashing element was pretty weak, and fairly subtle. It mostly consisted of things like taking us to the Holocaust museum Yad Vashem and arguing that Israel needs to exist so that the IDF can prevent a future Holocaust. But for the most part we just toured around and got to hang out with each other, hike around, and learned some ancient history. In my opinion the most important element of the way Taglit shapes the experience is in bringing all of us there and showing us the beautiful and thriving part of Israel and ignoring the ugly and oppressive side that exists in so much of it. Also, the program knows that many groups would be resistant to propaganda being shoved down their throat, and they are not interested in it. Most of what they are interested in is strengthening a bond with Israel through personal experience and personal connections so that when donation time comes around in a few years, various Jewish lobbies will be on our minds.

Part of what allowed the experience to be as tame as it was had to do with the group. The group of people primarily split between those who didn't know much about the situation and therefore were pretty impartial, those who didn't know much and were inclined to be sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians, and those who were more educated about the situation and were sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians. As a result, anytime some of the headier rhetoric came up, people mostly scoffed or argued back, and I think that led our guide to tone it down.

Political leanings and rhetoric aside, the trip was a lot of fun. We had a surprisingly amazing group. 39 participants and two American guides. The group was older, most people 25 or 26 and a few 27. Of course it's not possible to be best friends with everybody in a group this large, but there wasn't really anyone who I didn't get along with, a lot of people who I had a good connection with, and a decent number who I had a really great connection with. In the end, that's what really makes a trip like this, the people. Not only is there so much down time and bus time, but even walking around, looking, observing, and experiencing with people making frustrating comments is a painful experience, with people from whom I distance myself is boring, but with people who enhance the experience it makes it that much more entertaining and interesting. We had a fairly wide spread group coming from all over the country and in some cases the world. Most people were undergoing big transitions, starting new jobs, starting a new degree, about to finish a degree, or floating around with a less clear path. It created a supportive atmosphere of mutual appreciation and understanding.

The actual events planned for the trip were also pretty great. The number and extent of the outdoor activities was not thrilling, but enough to give us a break from the city and from ruins. Lots of swimming, sunrise in the desert, a little bit of mountain biking. It was a good mix of things and allowed me to get to know Israel that much better.

One of the most interesting elements was visiting Israel as a tourist and with a big group of folks from the US. In the past, I had always been in Israel with my family, spending most of my time visiting family and friends. Now all of the sudden I was with a massive group of people from the US, many of which had never been to Israel, and all of which viewed Israel as a foreign country. Seeing Israel through their eyes provided a new perspective. I always say that the best way to get to know a place you live in is to take a tourist with you, because they'll point out the things you never thought of. In the same way, my fellow birthright participants would be surprised, entertained, shocked, and impressed by things that seemed normal to me, that had been with me in some way all of my life.

Transitioning Out
The first week after Taglit was a crazy whirlpool of events, adjustments and attempts to settle from an unsettled position. I went to stay with some family who live in a small village only a few km outside of Kfar Saba, which is 20 some km away from Tel Aviv. In Israel terms these are distinct urban areas, but in the US it's about equivalent to the distance from Arlington to Mattapan, from Beaverton to 82nd. I didn't have a bike at first though, which meant I felt a little trapped. The first challenge was dealing with an overwhelming amount of stuff that I felt I had to accomplish in order to get settled: finding a bike, finding a job, finding a community to connect with, joining some sort of activist movement, meeting family and friends around the country etc. I would put in several hours a day and feel like I had more ahead of me when I finished than when I started. Then there were all of the events, planned and unplanned, that crowded things even more. My dad came to Israel for a visit. It was great to see him again. One thing I've started wishing is that I could see everyone in my family more often. As far as settling in, it made things much easier in some ways because he was able to drive me around to get places, but also it was a challenge because I wanted to spend time with him which split up my time even more. And between all of that I was trying to find time to hang out with the Taglit people still in Israel before they all left.

To add to the madness, my grandmother went into the hospital the day after my dad arrived, and I spent most of that day at the hospital. She passed away the next day. A lot of people were coming and making sure I was ok after it happened, where as really it was mostly a good thing. My grandmother was suffering from a number of illness, including Alzheimer's. For over a year now she hasn't really been able to recognize anyone are have any idea what's going on, and for a while now she spent most of her time unconscious, waking up usually only when she was suffering from pain or suffocating because of a breathing complication. It was generally agreed that it was better for her to rest. The funeral that followed was another weird ceremony. This was the third funeral I had ever attended, and though the first one was in Israel, I can't remember it. This one was strange because it collected a small amount of family that I don't know and that my family is not well connected with. No one was really sad. I felt like most people were there out of a sense of duty, some of them family friends who came to comfort and support grieving family members that were non existent because no one was really grieving. Her passing also extended my dad's stay and meant I got to see my uncle for possibly the last time since he is not on the best terms with my family.

On another not so happy note, during this week I also went on a tour with a group called Breaking the Silence. I highly recommend it for anyone visiting Israel. The tour takes you into the West Bank, either into Hebron or the South Hebron Hills, and explains about much of the crazy things that go on there that are difficult to even comprehend, and that are the make up of day to day life for many Palestinians. There wasn't much new information for me, but there were many new specific details, many new ways of piecing together information I already had and the powerful experience of seeing the destruction first hand and hearing about the conditions from Palestinians themselves. I think it is crucial to have these experiences in order to truly understand what is happening in the occupied territories today.

Integrating in Tel Aviv
 The past two weeks or so I've started getting integrated and settled in Tel Aviv. I got a bike and am starting to get to know the city. I managed to get a job at a restaurant at the Tel Aviv port (no longer a functional port, just a tourist area). I make pizza, sauces for pasta, and salads. Finding the job was great. I was very concerned because Tel Aviv is not know as a place where it's easy to find work and I'm staying for such a short time. But since then I've seen help wanted notices on every other food service place. I guess minimum or near minimum wage service jobs are easy to come by. I am now convinced I could have found something else had I not taken this job. The job is for the most part alright. The bosses were kind of assholes at first but I think I have proven myself sufficiently competent that they have started treating me more nicely and with more respect. The coworkers are not the greatest, most of them are in their last year of high school or straight out of high school and I'm getting a little too old to enjoy mingling with the average 17 or 18 year old. My main coworker is a guy from Eritrea. He's alright for the most part, but his Hebrew is a little shoddy so we have a hard time communicating at times and can't really converse. The hardest part is that during this holiday season they are asking me to do a lot of hours, more than 40 a week, and sometimes in 12 hour shifts. Between taking up a lot of my time, it is also exhausting so I've been struggling to accomplish anything else. But on the bright side many hours means more money which will help me balance the negative that I built up re buying stolen items and paying my way to the US from Chile, and even to build up a little bit of funds for my next destination.

I have made some headway in reaching out and meeting people. I found this cool vegan coop that I am staying at right now, and some of the people in it run a bicycle coop-like thing across the street. The main things I need to work on are connections to activism, and on being present and deliberate about spending time with people so I can get to know them and get to know the community.

A challenging element that I've been faced with here and am now trying to find different approaches to is the difficulty of being simultaneously foreign and native. By appearance, I pass for Israeli right away. As for my Hebrew, although I have somewhat of an accent and make weird mistakes, it sounds natural enough that most people assume it's a speaking problem or bad grammar instead of assuming a foreign upbringing until well into a conversation. This creates a lot of weird situation where I talk to someone and they will make a geographical reference, a pop culture reference, a reference to something political, something in the army, some recent historical event, something that any Israeli would know and understand right away, and I just sit there clueless. Or someone might ask me to read or write something not understanding how much more difficult it is for me, how bad the spelling errors in the writing might be, how slow I am at reading. None of it is detrimental, and I am not particularly embarrassed to tell people about my situation, but it creates an awkward disconnect. I am reminded by the movie At First Sight. For those who haven't seen it, the main character is blind since the age of 2 and sometime in his 30s or 40s he undergoes surgery and regains his vision. The problem is he remains functionally blind. He can see objects but doesn't know how to recognize them by sight. He can't read. He doesn't understand the concept of transparent objects like windows. He complains that while he was blind, he didn't have to explain anything, everyone could tell he was blind and although he had to deal with discrimination against the blind, at least all services and interactions accounted for his limited ability. On the other hand, once he regained his vision everyone treats him as a fully capable and able person but he's not quite there. I feel somewhat in the same situation. When I was in Ecuador, Chile, Panama, China, etc. everyone treated me as a foreigner from the minute they saw me. The different treatment often bothered me and frustrated me, but it meant that my needs were generally catered to, and when I took on certain challenges of reading something or got a reference, I was complimented on my abilities. Here I don't get the annoying different treatment that foreigners receive, but I also can't integrate as smoothly as I would like.

In other words, I don't know how to think of myself. How to define myself in this context. I am stuck somewhere in the middle, somewhere between foreigner and local. It will be interesting to see how much this identity will shift and in which directions during my time here.

The Future
 I like to include this part every time so that if any of you will be near by and overlap with me we can make plans to meet up. Currently the thought is to stay in Tel Aviv until the first or second week of November and then to head to a port city and start looking for water passage to South East Asia. I have to leave Israel one way or the other by mid December, so it gives me a month to find my way out to whatever destination I end up at. The hope is that I find something that will take me to South Eat Asia and that from where ever I land I can make my way to Thailand and spend some time there. If that works out, I plan on going up and spending some time in China after, and in all likely hood I will be on the West Coast of the US, mostly in Portland, during the summer of 2013. I hope to see you somewhere along the way.

Much love and good luck with your journeys