This particular entry is one I have desired to write from the moment I arrived in this country, but just didn’t have my wits about me enough to actually write it. It only took me a month to find my wits; I never said I was quick (both literally and figuratively). At any rate I wanted to describe the demeanor of the Israeli people to the best I see it.
As a vague, preliminarily description I have found Israelis to be one of the most abrasive, touchy, loud, obnoxiously offensive groups of people I have ever come across in my lifetime. (I know what you’re thinking, and yes, it is much more severe than any New Yorker…) And one would think my description as accurate or inaccurate as it may be, is tied with a negative judgment. However, my actual feeling toward their attitude is quite the opposite to the point where I am almost envious of these what seem to be visceral traits. They portray on a daily basis only what Americans think of doing while in their car during rush hour listening to how the Eisenhower is so back-up they might as well just pitch a tent in the middle of the highway and pray they get to work within this decade…they scream. You see, we only think about it as we jester to another car with a sarcastic grin saying “oh this darn traffic”. An Israeli would motion you to open your window, so he could tell you how in some way during this cosmos’ epileptic seizure, you caused it and he’s mad about it.
Israelis are not grey people, maybe because their lives are riddled in and throughout an entire gray spectrum of cultural, religious, and political ambiguity. When their mad, their mad, but in the same token when their happy, content, or in love, they are all of that emotion and all ambiguity which riddles their identity is now nullified through their emotions in every person they come into contact with. It’s a beautiful and foreign experience to be in relationships with someone like a true Israeli. There are no monkey suits, geisha masks, or white-picket fences they hide behind. Their emotion is raw and pure. It’s not tainted by political correctness, or the urge to shove a chewy bar in their mouth before they say something that might be offensive. They say it, and as upsetting or self-fulfilling you may feel as the words effortlessly flow from their mouth, you can’t help but take comfort in the, raw, brutal, honesty of it all.
Even the way they greet you is something I would consider laudable. A kiss on the cheek, a hug, a squeeze. It’s the little things they do, which remind me everyday of their absent “personal bubble”. I love the fact that there is no question I cannot ask, and I can ask it as uninhibited as I want, while standing two inches from their face…..and the answer I will receive in return will be the truth.
According to the American timeline of my stay here, I barely know these people, I still should be treating them like perfect strangers. But instead, I’ve been kissed, squeezed, drive by tickled, and loved from the moment I got here. I have a handful of mothers, and God know how many grandmothers watching over what I eat, how I’m sleeping, my health, and especially my fertility potential. Yes, my fertility potential. If I’m around a babushka, she better for the sake of my life and my eggs not catch me carrying anything heavier than 7 pounds. She will literally grab whatever it is out of my hands then proceed to yell at every male within a mile radius of where I am because they didn’t carry the basket off full of onions, and now there is no telling what could happen to me….my uterus could just fall right out.
To a community, the most important aspect of life, is the creation of new life. Which explains why Israel is popping to the brim with pregnant women and children…..literally everywhere. And, every average Joe on the street will still interact with you as if he’s apart of your immediate family.
So, as schizophrenic as their emotions may seem, I am so grateful to know the complexity of their being is being shown to me in its most uncut form; therefore, every interaction is real.
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