Sunday, January 23, 2011

Lies

I have always been scared by how easy lying comes to some people. Usually I just have to go with what my instinct is telling me. When an alarm goes off and says, "Ooh, that was a big fat lie," then I know I am usually right. After I got divorced I incorrectly characterized all Arabs as liars. I know, that sounds really, really racist and awful and just downright discriminatory. It obviously is not a practice common to only one culture. And I would really rail against lying emotionally, get all upset and bent out of shape, regardless of how minor the lie was. Then I learned to use it to my advantage. Perhaps it is a cultural thing to save face, no problem, let me see how well I can play at that game. It worked for awhile – worked when I had to make drama at work to get anybody to do the work I needed to, or worked when I really did not want to tell the school what I really thought of their teaching methods, so just smiled and lied to their faces.

But there were a few small problems with that. The biggest one is that it is not in line with my deep personal values on this subject. And I know that if I want honesty in my life, than I have to decide every day that I am going to live as honestly and openly as I can. (It also means not judging people and being very kind when the truth is revealed to you). The second problem is that I am sharing that lie-free life with my son. I can probably count on one hand the number of lies I have ever told him in his entire life….and those were mostly of the white lie variety. When I go through security at the Tel Aviv airport, I lie. And I tell my son beforehand that I am going to lie because in this one very important instance it makes my life easier for a few hours. I am proud to say that it was such a rarity for him to hear me lie, that when he caught me in the middle of telling a lie to the security agent, he attempted to correct me right in front of her. I was not amused…proud, yes, but amused, no. If he ever asks me a question where I really do not want to tell the truth, I turn the question on him and ask him why he was asking it, and what he thought was the right answer. I admit that I have an incredible fear that he will one day grow up like his father to break the heart of a woman through telling and hiding behind a giant lie. I would be so devastated if that ever happened. And so instead I try to teach him, by example, that it can be very difficult to the truth, but it is so, so freeing to be able to tell it. And usually the reaction and consequences to even the most difficult truths are not nearly as bad as the reaction to getting caught in a lie.

Now that my Arabic (at least the comprehension side) is halfway decent, I have had the pleasure of witnessing how adults teach children to lie. One day a colleague who lives in Jerusalem needed to pick me up before going to the office. This little detour for her meant that her children would most likely be late for school. In fact, they were 5 minutes late. As she was pulling the car up to the school she tells them quickly, repeatedly in Arabic, "Just tell the principal that there was too much traffic at the checkpoint, tell her the checkpoint was busy." I was wondering why it would have not been easier to just say, "Tell them your mother had to pick up a colleague for work, and it took too much time." Or just even, "We are sorry, we are late." Another friend has a pesky mother-in-law who is insisting her children go twice a week to the mosque to learn how to recite the Koran. The children really do not want to go and the mother-in-law is laying the guilt on my friend. Personally, I think the friend has two options – insist that the children go and help them to understand that sometimes in life we are required to do things we do not enjoy. Or second, to just tell the mother-in-law that the children do not enjoy this type of thing and they will not be going, and live with whatever grief she gets in return (the mother-in-laws ability to give grief is unlimited, so it would not be the first nor the last). Instead when she tells the children to go tell their grandmother they don't want to go and the children ask then, "What should we tell her if she asks why?" My friend replies, "Tell her it is too cold and you are too tired." Not only is she teaching her children to lie, but she is putting off the inevitable truth.

Perhaps these lies shock me in their outright audacity. However, it would only fair of me to reveal the ways I manage to lie without ever whispering a word, as lying is human nature. I lie when I don't like something somebody has said by keeping my mouth closed and not finding the grace to tell them that their words (or actions) hurt my feelings. I lie when I tell myself that something isn't really that important to me, and so it's easier to keep my mouth closed than to ask for clarification, or an explanation, or some help, or to actually take an action that would reveal how important that thing is to me. I lie to myself and others when I deny that my feelings are real, and often times they stem from some rather embarrassing deep-seeded insecurity about myself. And I have to admit, these are perhaps the most harmful types of lies that I know.

Saturday, January 22, 2011

Jerusalem and More cont...




Recently I was chatting it up with a few (international) lawyers who were trying to argue which borders of Jerusalem bore the most merit under international law, and what areas were in fact still contested and which were not.   I am slightly fascinated by the discussion, but not as much as I am fascinated by the myriad of ways life can be made difficult for the East Jerusalem resident.

Today I went to visit a friend in a neighborhood called “Ras Al-Mud.” Truth be told it is kind of a rough neighborhood.  There were plenty of clashes there a few months earlier, so I’m always a bit hesitant when I go in.  Last time I went to her house, I made the mistake of pulling over the car at the side of the road directly in front of a Jewish settlement that takes up about one and a half blocks of this so obviously Arab neighborhood.  I had no idea why people were looking at me so funny, until my friend jumped in the car and said, “Why are you parking here, hurry up, go before everybody gets suspicious!”  I couldn’t understand how settlers would feel at “home” on this strange block.

To get to my friends house, you turn down these extremely narrow, bumpy roads that meander up and down hillsides with barely enough room for 1 car and a pedestrian to get by between the houses crowding the roads on either side.  There are plenty of houses with floors and rooms left in the midst of some stage of building….I’m guessing because building permits were denied or orders by the Israelis came down to demolish by the entire structure, and families gave up on building.  Children dash in and out of cars, and even in the cold winter weather, you see residents sitting outside their houses, in the tiny courtyards, smoking their sheeshas.  I feel so sad when I drive through this neighborhood – an area that feels a bit like a dying refugee camp, except most of its residents have actually held their family homes here for centuries.

As my friend gets lunch ready, I stand in the kitchen trying to help, but always drawn to the view out the kitchen window.   My friend catches me staring out the window and makes a comment, “Nice view, huh?  Every time I see it, I remember my time in Germany during the green summer where everything was so clean and fresh.”  I chuckle and try to explain to her why I find the view so fascinating.  Directly out the window is a beautiful lemon tree (now in season) and beyond that into an open garden area with a concrete slab, a series of family olive trees (now past harvest).  Then the view overlooks a series of houses, again with makeshift additions added at odd angles to houses, then into a rambling valley where an Arab village sits, threatened by extinction for the sake of a zoo that Israel wants to build on the land. Then further off to the near horizon where one can follow the gray slab barrier wall north to south as far as the eye can see.  And beyond that, the hills of Jordan glow yellow in the far distance.

My friend’s own house, approximately 100m2, has a demolish order on it for what the Israelis claim is an area of 70m2 that is illegally built.  My friend tells me how she dreams of escaping this life, of just running away and running off, spending a year somewhere completely different.  I tell her that I don’t think she should take that voice lightly, that we all have dreams that whisper to us (or shout at us and slap us across the face!) and we should head their voices.

Oddly enough, on this particular day, my friend asks me to describe to her what my life was like directly after my ex-husband left me.  I don’t talk about this period of my life with a lot of people, and nobody ever really asks.  But, this is a dear friend, we know so much about each other’s lives, and if she is asking, I must share.  So I tell her that I remember spending a lot of time sitting on the floor crying and that’s most of all I remember about that time when my marriage had disappeared on me so suddenly, I found myself jobless and I feared I would lose my son, my house and my sanity.  And then I tell her, “People here think I am American, so I must be wealthy, and I couldn’t possibly have any worries in the world.”  But the battles I have fought for 7 years internally, trying to get back my sense of self, have been the hardest things I’ve ever had to do.  What people don’t understand is that all of us are given challenges to overcome in life.  Some are more visible than others.  And what I truly believe gets us through those challenges, is listening to those small voices, which sometimes sound a little nutty, but which essentially call from our hearts to move beyond the real or imaginary boundaries of our current situations.

Monday, January 17, 2011

Jerusalem – Home of Peace




Recently, a wise companion on my life journey begged me to define what I thought was my life's mission. Why am I here, for what purpose? Is my life really just about collecting one pay check after the next? If it was really about that, would I have taken the bold step of uprooting my life as I knew it and moving half way across the world with my son and a few suitcases in tow? No, clearly only an insane person would do that for a mere paycheck. Looking back through my life and the very early lessons I was called to witness, it became clear that my mission is to somehow bring peace, wisdom, teaching to others as a bridge-builder, as somebody who breaks down traditional barriers. And to do so through what I consider my pretty mundane way of life and the choices I make every day (not by picketing with a colorful Peace sign on the street).



When I got clear on that mission (although that clarity is still only coming to me in bits and pieces), I decided to figure out why it was that I was so pulled to this place from my very first visit (after ironically resisting visiting Palestine and Jerusalem for a number of years. So, I started where I normally start, searching for meaning. What is the meaning of the word "Jerusalem"? Home of Peace or "to teach peace." (The Arabic name for Jerusalem "Al Quds" means holy place). At last, I could relax knowing in fact that what I thought as some accidental stop on my journey of life, was in fact a clear choice to step foot into a place, into the home of peace, where peace in fact is very much in short supply.


Even though I have only physically lived in Jerusalem now for a little more than 6 months, it is starting to grow on me. One of my favorite aspects of Jerusalem is watching so many cultures and religions rub shoulders with each other. If an alien from some unknown planet was to land in Jerusalem, they would say, "Hey, look at all those men in beards dressed in long robes." What they would be observing are men from all of the three main faiths. Or, if the aliens happened to spot the women, "Hey look at all those women dressed in so many layers of clothes with those head coverings on." And yes, they would be observing women from the three main monotheistic faiths. How is it that people who have such familiar cultural and religious roots find the need to define themselves in this place only by emphasizing their differences?


My answer to that question is fear. And fear manifests itself in the mental and physical barriers that are built to separate, define, dehumanize, and highlight the differences. In my perhaps skewed or uncommon understanding of religion, I find it very hard to believe that God (of the monotheistic religions) has called his followers to "divide", to separate, to understand their religion through the voices of hate for other religions. And so, I find myself often in the streets of Jerusalem feeling absolutely no sense of spirituality, and often times many powerful feelings of injustice. I can't believe this tenuous situation that surrounds the old city walls and seeps under the doorsteps of family homes can continue at the pace it is, but looking back in history, I am perhaps one of many to believe the same thing. There is nothing to prophesize here. There can only be hope that at some point, peace will come as the obvious answer to everybody's solution.

Saturday, January 15, 2011

Where the Road Ends

Throughout the West Bank, the Israelis have carved out swaths of land to be used as roads for people according to their national identity. I have never witnessed something more unjustified, frustrating, racist and undignified all in the name of security. All despite the fact that on a daily basis, according to the numbers (UNOCHA) the physical attacks perpetrated by settlers against Palestinians and their land seem to point to the fact that somebody should be providing more physical protection to the Palestinians than the illegal settlers.

When I travelled across the West Bank extensively in my previous position here, I had a colleague who had no fear of driving down a Palestinian road, finding a road block, and finding a way around that blockade off road and going exactly where he wanted. The first time he did that while I was in the car, I totally freaked out and was not pleased at all. The more we drove together, the more I would look forward to these adventures: discovering where the road ended, and driving beyond it.

When I was in the most darkest, difficult hours of finding myself completely on my own, taking care of a cranky infant, completely sleep deprived, with a heart that had been split wide open, I had fantasies of getting into my car and driving myself right out of my life, far, far, far until the road ended. But somehow, I knew, the road would always end…and there I would be with the same broken heart, in a deeper darkness and maybe only be soothed by some numbness. One time I did get so angry that I grabbed the keys, locked the house, and got behind the steering wheel of my car….to go no further. A flood of tears (and I suspect swear words) came, and then it was over. I got out of my car and walked back into that imperfect life.

I no longer find the desire to drive out of my life in search of some ideal end of the road. And I've happily discovered that there are plenty of roads that already exist that I can navigate a pretty amazing, interesting life through. An end of the road is not in site yet…thankfully.

Sunday, January 9, 2011

Where Peace will be Made: A Grocery Store


Rami Levy grocery store with settlements in background
 
I had been in Palestine for over a year and a half before a friend introduced me to the Rami Levy grocery store chain. I'm all about convenience and having to visit 3-4 different places for my weekly grocery shopping was not quite as efficient as I needed it to be. So it was a Palestinian friend who introduced me to this store insisting that it was the cheapest store around, PLUS it had everything. So, why hadn't I heard about it before this? Because it is a store that mainly serves settlers and has a large quantity of goods produced on Israeli settlements. Any good principled supporter of the Palestinian cause boycotts these goods. I am not a good principled supporter. However I can say in my defense that I rarely buy the products produced in the settlements because I cannot read the Hebrew on the packages. I felt terribly guilty about my choice to patronize the store, until I kept bumping into Palestinian friends there, who looked just as embarrassed as I was to be seen there. 

The particular store my friend introduced me to happens to be located behind a gated settlement area, but one that is freely accessible (with just a minor security check) to both Israelis and Palestinians. And now that fact is what accounts for all the weirdness of the place, and the fact that I become convinced that perhaps this is a place where peace will be made. The workers at the store are predominately Arabs - the stock boys, the guys at the meat counter, the baggers, etc. The only exception is the cashiers who consist uniquely of that class of rude, Israeli women who stare with all customers with contempt, which is common in all grocery stores throughout Israel. Oddly enough, they save their smiles and joking for the Arab men bagging the groceries.


In this store, filled with American products and all these settlement-produced products, you find settlers with their 3-4 children under 5 thrown into their grocery carts, shopping side by side with the Arab families. It is an amazing site to see. Nobody is yelling at each other. Nobody is threatening each other. They are just simply coexisting. Of course, as I've come to experience as so common, everybody does give each other a once "up and down" look, trying to tag them into their mental categories.


One day last summer, I made a quick stop at Rami Levy and as I was packing my bags into the car after finishing my shopping, I heard the sound of a baby crying. Actually, the baby was wailing. I don't know what in that particular circumstance drew my attention to investigate the sound, but I told my son to stand by the car while I went searching to find where the sound was coming from. I discovered it was coming from a large, spanking-brand new black SUV, and the child was about 5 months old, sitting in a car set (trying to wiggle her way out) in the back seat of the car. A front window was cracked about 3 inches. I looked around, and noticed there was not a single person in sight. I then noticed the baby was dressed in at least 3 visible layers with a fleece blanket covering her and she had sweat dripping down her face. Amazingly, all the doors to the car were unlocked. I realized (albeit slowly), that I needed to do something.


But wait, this could get complicated….I had heard stories of ultra-orthodox families rioting against Israeli police when they came to arrest a mother for starving her child. And if it was an Arab child I could be mistaken as an Israeli woman doing something to this child, and maybe really be in trouble. I checked the license plate….white Palestinian plates. Then my heart really sank into my stomach….now I was about to get a Palestinian into some real trouble on Israeli territory (or more accurately…occupied Palestinian territory). Well, the child's welfare comes first, right? So, I climbed into the car, found some bottled water and plastic cups on the floor and began to give the baby some water which she took readily. I then ran to the front door of the grocery store and tried to explain to the Israeli security guard that there was a problem, pointing to the car. He immediately called over one of the Arab workers. By the time I arrived back at the car, an Israeli settler woman had taken the baby into her arms and was undressing the baby. She didn't speak English, I don't speak Hebrew, so we were gesturing our way through our communication. The Arab workers arrived and I explained to them in my limited Arabic what I found. They became quite agitated, grabbed the baby and ran back into the store. A few minutes later I saw what must have been the father holding the baby and the Arab workers were yelling at him, "This child could have died? Are you crazy? Leaving a child alone in the car? Dead, she could have been dead!!" I felt a huge wave of relief that others were just as outraged as I was. Outraged by the possibility of the loss of another life….so yes, maybe this is where peace will be made.

Saturday, January 8, 2011

Tuning into Positive Frequencies

Coming attuned to my own inner dialogue (writ: excuses, bad theories, mental bantering with self-lobbed abuses), makes me oddly well tuned to hear the frequencies of others' self-limiting beliefs.

Given my current choice of residency, I find myself regularly seeking out the frequencies at which people describe their experiences in this atmosphere so imbibed with conflict. First comes the body language. Stepping off the plane in Tel Aviv, I find myself always greeted by a sea of unsmiling faces. How sad is it to be in a place where people don't smile? I thought it might just be an American thing to smile so much, but friends of various cultures agree that it is an oddity here. I remember it being the same way in Russia so it certainly isn't unique to Israel either.

Next come the bad theories. Ones that dehumanize (they don't want peace, they are all out to kill us) – on both sides. Ones that justify a person's inability to strive for things greater than their unhappiness over their current conditions ("I am a refugee", " My family are holocaust survivors"). Ones that people use in order to express their internal conflicts via external conflicts ("We have to protect ourselves against all threats", "They are constantly trying to kill us"). When whole nation-states are caught up in these bad theories, it never really bodes well for the future.

Bad theories limit, disempower, and stagnate. They don't allow for transformation, for improved conditions, and worst of all they don't allow for that beautiful human emotion of possibility called hope.

I have difficulty finding patience and compassionate for the bad theories that I hear from the parents of my son's classmates. The majority of families are households with one non-working spouse. A few weeks ago I bumped into the parent of one of my son's classmates. I had not had more than a 5 minute conversation with her before that, so we decided to have dinner together. We were having our getting-to- know- you conversation and she starts describing to me how difficult her situation is because her husband travels overnight about once a month to a neighboring country. She proceeds to detail out how emotionally debilitating this is for her 8 year old son, how difficult it is for her to do things on her own during those two days without her husband there, etc, etc. She then asks me, "What is it that your husband does for work?" With all the compassion I can manage for myself at that moment, I look her straight in the eyes and say, "I don't have a husband, just me!" And she stares back speechless before commenting on how good her pizza is.

There is another non-working spouse of Omar's classmates who begins every sentence with the phrase, "Because I have a two year old, it is difficult…" I wonder what will happen when her child turns 3…or 4….or 5….or 18. Or another parent who I've heard many times says, "I really cannot take on a job responsibility, because I have to be anywhere at any time for my children."

The problem is not that I don't fully understand how easily it is to adopt these bad theories, the problem is that I hear echoes of my past-self in those theories and still question if I am any happier having combated them. I am pretty certain that tuning into a better frequency means silencing the static of those bad theories.