Chutzpah & High Heels

by Jessica Fishman

  We sit down side by side on two chairs with one laptop. The room is small, with the only window covered by bars. The florescent light is almost greener in tint than our uniforms. It is already dark outside.

  “Where should we start?” Bar asks.

  Bar arrived to the branch a few weeks after me. Until he joined, I had been the only soldier with three other officers in the Strategic Initiatives and Research Unit. When I first met Bar, he was sitting at Yoni’s desk. Excited to have another soldier in the department, I bombarded him with so many questions that he must have thought that I was part of the army’s security clearance team. Despite the intense introduction, Bar and I have become quite close.

  “It looks like we’ll be spending the weekend in the office. There has been another report that Arafat died, but it seems like this time it’s real,” Yoni says half-jokingly as he walks into the room. His bald head reflects the green lights from above.

  “He is like Kenny from South Park,” I joke, now that his death has been reported four times.

  Yoni laughs, exposing a jagged tooth, and asks “How are things coming?” Yoni looks at the computer to see our progress. “Are you two done with the contingency planning? The chief of staff wants to see it so we can get all the ground forces and the media relations prepared for Arafat’s funeral. They are saying that there will be a funeral in Egypt and then he’ll be buried in Ramallah. You know, depending on how we have prepared the army for this, Arafat’s death could be either a media disaster or a success.”

  There is hope in the air that this could be a turning point for Palestinian-Israeli relations and I’m excited to have some impact. I’m sitting on my hands, trying to act cool and composed. I can’t believe that I’m part of this major Israeli event. Going to synagogue or being in a Jewish sorority never made my Jewish identity feel this strong.

  On Thursday morning, Arafat dies. On Friday there is a funeral in Egypt and then he is buried in the West Bank city of Ramallah. The entire army is put on high alert. My new unit is camped out in front of the TV, switching between CNN, BBC, and FOX to watch the coverage, and to see if all of our planning prevents mass chaos or greater tragedy. With Palestinians mourning, wailing, and shooting guns, the scene in Ramallah looks like a violent version of Woodstock. But all of the planning is a success. There is no actual violence. The media, despite its typical tendency to do so, does not blame Israel for Arafat’s death. And I can’t wait to see what else we will be able to accomplish in the department.

  Pro-Choice

  Our small branch of five people is sitting at a table for twenty. As a new branch we don’t have offices, so we sit in the unit’s conference room. The room is meant to be used for media briefings, but since that rarely happens, it is used for the unit’s ranking ceremonies, release celebrations, and something called ha’ramat cosit, which means to toast a drink (usually for the holidays). To my American ears, this had initially sounded strangely close to ha’ramat cusit, literally translated to lifting up a hot girl—so I was quite confused and a little concerned regarding the sexual harassment policy of the army.

  Only a few weeks ago, in this very room, Yoni gave me my corporal insignia. This entailed him pinning a piece of cloth with two stripes onto my sleeves. The ceremony felt less formal than my AEɸ pinning. In the evening, after the pinning ceremony, most soldiers take their ranks back home and have their mothers sew it onto their sleeves. But people like me, lone soldiers, who do not have their mothers in Israel to sew on their ranks, end up looking like a mix between G.I. Joe and Raggedy Anne, with messy cross stitches embroidering crooked ranks. The stiches I made reminded me of the ones I had in my knee, which was a bit disconcerting, but so far I hadn’t had any pain or problems.

  Today we are again sitting at one end of the long table. I am sitting next to Bar. We have grown even closer since the night a few weeks ago when he had nighttime guard duty and was supposed to simultaneously finish a presentation for the head of the IDF Spokesperson Unit. I had volunteered to go in and help him. Knowing that we had each other’s backs made us feel like we weren’t completely lone soldiers.

  At the head of the table is Yoni and across from me, wearing a knitted kippah, is Yehuda, the other officer in our branch. We are all waiting for Yoni to make his announcement. He enjoys theatrics and keeping us guessing.

  “We have a new addition to the branch,” Yoni says with great pride.

  In walks a girl straight out of a Moroccan Abercrombie and Fitch catalogue.

  “This is Tali. She will be my secretary.”

  Tali smiles shyly. I expected someone this beautiful to be more outgoing.

  Bar and I welcome her in our differently accented Hebrew.

  Yehuda pauses and thinks before he says anything, as if the weight of the entire world is on his next sentence, or God might strike him down if he says the wrong thing. “Shalom Tali,” he finally says.

  Yoni is beaming with pride at the growth of the new branch. “Now everyone should make Tali feel welcome,” Yoni declares. He turns to Tali, “If you need anything, come to me right away.”

  After a month, Yoni found offices for our branch. Unfortunately the offices are not in the “S” House, where most of the Spokesperson Unit sits and army rules only partially apply. The new offices are inside The Campus base, which has real guards at the gates, who check our IDs before entering and military police who make sure our uniforms meet requirements.

  More unfortunately, Yoni decided that this move would be a good gibbush experience for the now four soldiers in the branch—by painting the offices. A gibbush in the army is usually a physically strenuous activity that forces soldiers to bond. Most of the time the bonding is formed over complaining about and cursing out the commander behind his back. So far we have been working in silence and the only bonding has been over the toxic paint fumes.

  We are all in our work uniforms, which, as jobniks, we haven’t worn since boot camp. Bar and Chagai, the new male soldier who recently joined the branch, have plastic grocery bags around their boots that are closed at the ankles with rubber bands so that they won’t be stopped by the military police for spots on their shoes. We hypnotically paint the walls with industrial-sized brooms. We look like soldiers who have escaped a mental ward.

  Just as I begin to think that this gibbush doesn’t seem to be working out so well, Tali puts down her broom and takes of off her button-down army-issued shirt. Exposed and stripped down to a grey tank top, she breaks the silence with barely a whisper, “My dad died when I was four months old. I never met him.”

  Surprised by this confession, we all stop sweeping the walls with paint and turn to her.

  “My parents met when they were soldiers. Our age. They fell in love and got married. It was a fairytale romance. When I was only a few months old, my dad was on his way home from the base one night and an Arab terrorist saw that he was driving an army vehicle and intentionally crashed into him. He died at the scene.”

  None of us knows what to say. The only thing filling the room is the paint fumes.

  “I’m proud to be in the army, but it is strange. That’s why I’m so quiet,” explains Tali.

  I walk over and hug Tali.

  “My mom converted to Judaism,” Bar says quietly.

  With my arms still around Tali, my head turns towards him. Why is it that saying your mom converted to Judaism is like coming out of the closet? When I was younger I would announce with pride to everyone that my mom was a Jew by choice. My mom had consciously chosen to be a part of the Jewish faith, where everybody else had just been randomly born into it. Is that why he moved to Israel? Is that why I did?

  After hesitating, I say, “So did mine.” It was the first time I had admitted this to anyone in Israel.

  I let go of Tali. Bar’s and my eyes catch for an instant. The white paint in his hair mixes in with the grays. I look at his uniform and think that I never would have known. He does a good job of hiding it.

  Come and Knock on Our Do
or

  After a few weeks in the new office, things finally fell into place. We worked long, hard hours on different types of operations. Bar, Tali, and I worked together seamlessly. Bar was the research specialist. I was the strategic specialist, and Tali was our native Hebrew speaker who double-checked all of our documents. We became the IDF’s version of Three’s Company. I never thought that my best friends would be a French man and an Israeli girl five years younger than me. We knew everything about each other’s lives, our history, our likes, our dislikes, our families, and even the most private and embarrassing stories. During lunch, we would make a finely-diced tomato and cucumber Israeli salad1 with handmade tahini. On the weekends, Tali would invite us over for Shabbat dinner and then we would go out to the bars together.

  I began working in Hebrew, writing documents in Hebrew, and conducting meetings in Hebrew. I still needed somebody to review and edit everything, but as time went on, the mistakes became fewer and fewer. It was as if I had found my place in the Israeli army. I even mastered typing in Hebrew without looking at the keyboard instead of having to peck at each letter.

  With an open-door policy in the branch, I worked closely with all of my officers. Yoni was always challenging me with interesting projects. Yehuda would call me into his office to ask my opinion about different missions and how to conduct them. I was treated like an officer among them, and respected for my motivation.

  I saw the impact that the department was making when I went home and watched Israeli and international news. I saw how operations were covered, based on recommendations we had made. I heard the chief of staff saying quotes that I had written for him.

  Yoni took me under his wing. He would call me into his office and ask me how I was doing, if I was enjoying my work, and he’d make sure that things were not too difficult for me as a lone soldier. I would chat with him as if he were a friend. He seemed sincerely concerned about me and my welfare. I was finally living the life that I had dreamt about when I decided to make aliyah. I couldn’t imagine it getting any better.

  It is early Sunday morning and we are sitting in front of Yoni’s desk for our daily meeting, in which we will be updated on new projects. Looking forward to the meeting, we look like kindergarteners at snack time.

  “I’m glad everybody could make it.” Yoni is sitting behind his desk with his foot rest hidden underneath so that his feet won’t dangle from his chair. “I have an announcement to make,”

  He waits to build up anticipation. “Jessica will be receiving the award for excellent soldier.” He looks at me, beaming with pride.

  I can’t believe it.

  “And I am recommending her for Officer’s Training Course,” he adds. “But either way, from now on, Jessica will be considered a captain in this branch and the entire unit. She will attend officer meetings, she will no longer have to do kitchen or guard duty, and she will receive an army phone.”

  Surprised by the announcement and slightly embarrassed, I look down trying to hide my smile.

  Everything I have been through has been worth it just to get to this point. Nothing is more Jewish than being an officer in the IDF.

  “Mazal tov,” Bar says to me while giving me a hug. He knows how much this means to me.

  “Guess what!” I scream into the phone while lying on my bed at the end of the day.

  “What?” my parents ask simultaneously, each on a different phone at home. They just woke up. They are used to hearing my disappointment and complaints about the army.

  I tell them the good news.

  “That is great,” they say.

  “So that means you will be serving another . . . how many years?” my mom asks hesitantly.

  “Three,” I burst out in excitement.

  “Oh, okay. I’m really happy for you,” my mom says.

  “We both are,” says my dad. “We love you and are so proud of everything you are doing.”

  I’m so thrilled that I don’t pick up on how much they miss me.

  “Thanks! I love you guys too,” I hang up the phone, impatient to get up tomorrow and go to the base.

  Engaged

  We are all gathered in Yoni’s office again, but this time it feels different. He is not joking around. The air is tense, but I am still on a high from getting a recommendation to become an officer.

  Earlier this week, guard and kitchen duties were handed out and now that I am an officer, I didn’t get any. This morning, I went to the officers’ meeting to be debriefed.

  “We just got handed a big project from the IDF spokesperson,” Yoni announces. “This project is going to be the only one we work on from now until the operation ends in another five months.”

  No one speaks. No one moves. We are all waiting to hear what the new assignment is.

  “From this day forward we are going to be planning Israel’s disengagement operation from the Gaza Strip. While this is a politically controversial operation, it is one that the army has been tasked with implementing. It is our branch’s duty to decide everything from the name of the operation to which type of uniforms soldiers should wear. We will plan contingencies for every single situation so that the army can be prepared for anything. It is our duty to make sure that the IDF is ready to carry out this operation, does it in the best possible manner, and gets positive media coverage. This is an historic operation and you get to be a part of it.”

  Wide-eyed, Bar and I look at each other, intimidated and excited to have the opportunity to take part in this daunting event. We were going to be a part of, not an observer to, Israel’s history.

  Disengaged

  “Everyone is released. Get back to work!” commanded Yoni after another daily meeting. “Jessica you stay here and shut the door.”

  I solemnly sit down and wait. I already know it is bad news.

  “I heard back from the spokesperson. Despite my recommendation, you did not get accepted into Officer’s Training Course. It was purely politics,” Yoni tells me.

  Unable to respond, I just stare at him.

  Trying to reassure me, Yoni reminds me that even though I won’t have the rank, I will still be considered a captain for all other purposes. I’ve gone through so many bureaucratic ups and downs since I’ve been here, I’m not surprised. Despite being disappointed, I head back to my desk to begin working on our new operation. It is almost enough for me to feel useful. I don’t need to be an officer.

  After that, the entire department begins working twelve- to fourteen-hour days. As we are dedicating ourselves to the mission, Yoni’s personality suddenly changes, as if he was transforming from Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde before our eyes. We are all taken by surprise. No one understands why. We speculate that it might be because the new spokeswoman doesn’t believe in our department.

  One morning, I walk into the offices at 7:00 A.M. and Yoni is standing in front of my office door with his arms crossed, ranks shining on his shoulder, eyes squinted, and red in the face. Without raising his voice, he says to me, “You’re late.”

  Not sure if he is joking, I take my phone out of my pocket to look at the time. “I’m a minute late. What’s the big deal? Did a war break out?”

  He reaches inside the room and shoves the floor squeegee in front of me.

  I look at it and laugh. “You’re joking, right?” I haven’t had to clean in months.

  “The bathroom needs to be cleaned. If you don’t do it, then I’ll make the entire branch do it. It is up to you. Do you want the entire branch mad at you?”

  After the squeegee incident, Yoni starts demeaning everyone in the department. He begins every day with cleaning rituals, screaming ceremonies, and degrading orders. He isn’t doing anything that is specifically illegal, but he also isn’t doing anything that is worthy of a medal of valor. He is manipulative and cruel.

  He begins using against us all of the personal intelligence he had gathered about us when he was nice to us. We all feel betrayed and completely alone. He has isolated us from the rest of the unit, both
physically and mentally. He keeps a close watch on us, not letting us communicate with anyone outside our branch. He holds early meetings and late meetings so that we have as little contact with the outside world as possible. He makes us feel like we have no one to turn to for help.

  And even if we could turn to someone for help, what could we say? That he makes us clean? That we work hard, long hours? That we are far away from our friends? There is nothing that we can specifically point to that he has done wrong. These are all things that are typical of the army. But he seems to be doing it with a different intention.

  One morning, while I am sitting at my desk looking for something in my purse, Yoni walks into my office with two other soldiers and blurts out, “Jessica! Stop looking for your vibrator!”

  I freeze. I stare at him like a deer caught in headlights. I know that I didn’t misunderstand him; my Hebrew is too good for that now. What should I say? He crossed the line. This was completely inappropriate. I almost want to tell him that his wife asked to borrow it, but considering the fact that he has a gun and the authority to throw me in jail, I decide to not insult his masculinity.

  I can’t understand what happened. One day he was a benevolent yet sarcastic garden gnome, and then the next he was living proof of the Napoleon complex.

  The harassment and abuse continue to get worse. He yells at us more and more, treating us like we are insignificant. Calling us names. Insulting our work. Giving us dirty looks. He pulls us into his office to try to gather information on other soldiers in the branch. He tries pitting us against one another by punishing the entire group if one person screws up. He asks us to do demeaning work. Clean up after him. Get him coffee. He even tries to manipulate us into refusing orders so he can punish us more.

  Facing this daily psychological warfare, our Three’s Company bunch falls apart. Tali asks to be transferred. Bar pulls into himself and begins befriending the two doves outside his window. Until that is not enough and he turns to religion. He begins wearing a kippah. He stops going out with me on Friday nights and won’t answer my phone calls on Shabbat. He thinks that religion will help him cope with the stresses of being abused in an army that we had so desperately wanted to be a part of.