Jerusalem conditioning

so im off to london on wednesday, for a couple of weeks holiday, a wedding, shevah brachah and most excitingly of all the imminent arrival of my first nice/nephew.

I never imagined i would be returning under such circumstances as these. I have found that my reaction to the terrrorist attacks in london have followed the unfortunately familiar pattern that has become the norm living in Jerusalem.

I watched the news for several hours on thursday. I has angry, upset and disorientated by shock for a couple of hours. Girded by an inner resolve not to be defeated or more accurately a desire to move on knowing there was nothing else realistically to do I was ready to face the world again by that afternoon.

A couple of thoughts have struck me in the intervening time which i realise come as a result of living in Jerusalem for the last two years (two years yesterday as it happens). Its taking the security services and police so long to work through forensic evidence and subsequently clear debris( from the bus for example) in Israel, unfortunately through a great deal more experience, wreckage is inspected and removed within hours, with information on the deceased and injuried available usually the same day. Its been five days and the police have only named one victim. The wait for information must be agonising for relatives and friends.

The one thing that irritated more than anything else, however was the fact that other expressing their anger, shock, sympathy and resolve in the face of this 'new' threat all of the politicians and relief/emergency service workers congratulated the emergency services for implementing so efficiently the co-ordinated 'Post Terror Attack Strategy' they had been working on since 9/11.

It may well be true that the emergency services worked much more effectively because of this plan, but what struck me was that no body seemed to say anything about working harder to prevent such attacks. Tube stations and other transport links are not gaurded in London and neither are pubs, restaurants or buses. Having a gaurd outside such places and establishment is the norm throughout Israel. If people have been concerned about a credible threat of terrorism for almost four years or more then why isnt more being done in terms of ouvert prevention tactics. I realise that people will argue that it is an intrusion into their life but need not disrupte everyday life hardly at all and it would be fairly straight forwarrd to implement. These precautions are just an accepted part of life here and you forget that people elsewhere in the world consider the measures in place here excessive and certainly not something that they would like to see replicated in their own countries.

Disengaging?

So time to write this latest post one more time. It will be quickly followed with some reflections on the terrorist attack in London, but one iminent problematic issue to another...

Watching the news these days over here has become a traumatic experience. Wherever you stand on the political debate over the withdrawal from Gaza, pictures of Jews being hauled away and fighting with other Jews are pretty heart-wrenching. Its worth remembering of course that the Israeli government encouranged and paid a lot of money for its citizens to move there in the 70s and early 80s. To this end i have a certain amount of sympathy for the Jewish communities in Gush Katif (Gaza) who understandably do not want to leave their homes and the communities they have created there. This is particularly relevant as the government still doesn't seem to be entirely clear as to where its going to move all these people to.

In this country where political pidgeon-holing and stamping your political colours to the marst is second nature it has been an interesting and eye-opening experience to entire the political debate as i did recently. For the last two-weeks ive been walking around with a blue ribbon attatched to my right-hand walking stick. The society has quickly latched onto the colour coding that goes with the two sides of the political debate, Orange for anti-disengagement and blue for pro. Even shops are cashing in with extra stock of a swath of orange items, t-shirts, skirts, head-coverings, cycle helmets and the like. Its reached the point that people are no longer prepared to wear a favourite item of clothing as it may mistakenly identtify them with the 'wrong' side of the debate.

And this essentially is the absurdity of the situation. As i was walking along moments after having acquired and attatched my new blue-ribbon it occured to me just how readily so many people here seem to be prepared to subjectify themselves and others. I had become as 'blue' as the other people had become 'orange'. Seeing a 'blue-person' quickly translates into 'oh what a relief another sensible 'blue-person', just as orange becomes code for 'there goes that raving right-wing nutter' (ofcourse this phenomenon is easily reversed according to ones respective politics). This is nothing short of ridiculous! I began to think of many of my most respected teachers at Pardes, many of whom are politically to my right and anti-disengagement. Whilst i disagree with them politically, they are multi-faceted people whom i am still able to respect for so many other reasons. The other side of this coin, ofcourse is that it could quite easily be the case that many of the people sporting blue ribbons are in fact anti-Zionist Jews the kind of whom make my blood run cold.

On a slight positive, it was encouraging to see that the settlers who were removed from the hotel by the IDF the other day, surrendered peaceful without resorting to any kind of violent tactics.

One way or another this is going to be a long and difficult summer. Israeli society has not dealt well in its recent history with upheveal, i hope we as a nation will be able to look back on this coming summer with relief in years to come.

frustrated

ive just lost the promised update to the post below twice ,having wasted an hour on it- bloody internet connection!!

ill write again when my annoyance mellows- good night

Gog and ma'gog is coming

Its always difficult starting these post thingies, like with anything staring at a blank page or a blank screen is simply not inspiring. Its doubly difficult when you search for a wry and intriguing title to the post, particularly when you know that lurking behind this one is a much more disturbing issue (unsettling was the word i was going to use and it seems to communicate what i intended, but you'll see why i didnt use it).

A little encounter i had today is what you might call 'typical jerusalem' and yet it was so much more profound. So I'm walking in Jerusalem's main downtown pedestrian precinct this morning - the ubiquitous Ben Yehuda Street - when a man with an american accent and looking what i can best describe as middle-aged 'bedraggled hippy-frumish' with straggly hair and an old black pork-pie hat began talking to me in English (not sure whether this is because i might as well have 'I'm an anglo' tattooed on my foreheand, or because an extreemly high percentage of the people who frequent this area are tourists or teenage americans at 'Sem' or Yeshiva (i.e. learning Jewish stuff)).

As it happens, he was selling wooden back-scratchers for 10 shekels each. He needed money for food for shabbat he told me. As i faffed in my pocket for money a conversation began. He was keen to find out about my disability and wish me G-d's help for a speedie recovery. So, once i had purchased said back-scratcher he advised me that Gog and Ma'gog were coming and i should stock up on perishables so as to be on the safe side when the imminent war is upon us.

So gog and ma'gog i hear you say whats that all about? Heres the deal...according to Jewish Messianic theology, the coming of the Messiah will be heralded by two apocalyptic wars,''Gog" and "Ma' gog". (The massive destruction and proximity to eachother of the Two World Wars is one of the major factors behind the compelling popularity of the Lebavitch movement's conviction that 'Moshiach is on his way', a notion which took root in the calamity of the post war world).

So back in Jerusalem, the back-scratcher guy is basically telling me that i dont need to worry because the Messiah is coming very soon.

To be told such a thing is not so unusual round here. What was striking is what he said afterwards. Gog and Magog are going to be with us from the end of August he reliably informs me. I walk away tickled by a quintesential Jerusalem experience. Its only been later that I realised there may have been a sentiment lurking behing his words...

Indeed the end of August is the time when the pull-out from Gaza is scheduelled to take place. Im not sure that the Gaza pullout will be accompanied bythe gloal war and destruction my friend predicts but judging by the pictures on the news recently the next few weeks are going to be heart-wrenching difficult here.

To be continued after shabbat...shabbat shalom