Catch The Jew!

by Tenenbom, Tuvia

  ***

  I’m going to pray to Jesus.

  At the entrance to the Nativity Church I see the Tourism Police. I’m not sure of their exact nature and mission, but I notice that they carry paper and pen instead of rifle and bullet.

  A group of tourists is about to enter the church, but a tourism cop stops them.

  The tourism police, Sakhar tells me, are here to gather statistics.

  “Where are you from and how many are you?” a cop asks.

  “We’re from Japan, and we are seven people,” one of them answers.

  “Ok. Markhaban, Welcome.”

  A man from this group goes to the cop, to talk to him.

  “I am with the Japanese,” he says, “but I am Swiss. Is that ok?”

  I look at him and I think. This is the biggest proof that God exists: Who else could create such an idiot as this Swiss? No Big Bang ever could.

  The cop, for whom this is not the first Swiss he has encountered, winks at me and smiles.

  The Nativity Church, in case you need to know, is divided into Greek Orthodox, Armenian, and Catholic sections.

  Like a good Christian, I go down and into a cave to bow at the exact place Jesus was born. Two feet back is the manger. These two tiny sections, I learn, belong to two different denominations. Oy to you, and the curse of the Lord be on your head if you, as a member of one of the two denominations, try to pray at the other’s.

  This is this land. Intense in every square foot of it.

  Talk of the conflict between the Arabs and Jews . . . here two Christians fight over a space two feet wide, a fight that at times turns violent, yet there’s a Kerry out there who thinks he can make peace between nations.

  A monk walks quickly past me, holding a tray with dollar notes. Lucky for him Jesus is dead. If Jesus were alive, this monk and his church would be dollarless.

  ***

  After prayer, Sakhar takes me to the Milk Grotto church, a white rock church. Today, I guess, the Palestinian government wants me to pray. The Milk church is where the Mother of God took her baby Jesus to feed and a drop of milk from her breasts fell on the ground. That’s why the rocks here are white.

  A statue of King David stands at the church’s entrance. “King David was a Palestinian,” Sakhar tells me, as she poses next to the king to show me the similarities. “He was born in my village. King David was my great-great-grandfather.”

  They look like Siamese twins, same height same age.

  Is there anything else special about this church?

  “Mothers who want to have children come here, even Muslims. They mix part of the stones with water and drink it, which helps fertility.”

  I thought for such a purpose you would need to eat Shikshukit at the Makhneyidah restaurant in Jerusalem. I guess I was wrong.

  ***

  We walk back to the Bethlehem Peace Center. Now that we have prayed, we can have true peace.

  There we meet Maryiam, who works at the center. Kindly, she allows me to smoke in her office.

  “You can’t smoke outside, the Muslims won’t let you. Until the year 2000 the Christians made up 95 percent of the population in Bethlehem, but now they are 1.5.”

  Why did the Christians leave?

  “The Christians left because there is no money here.”

  Why didn’t the Muslims leave?

  “They get money from the Saudis.”

  Christians don’t?

  “Saudis only give to Muslims.”

  After my cigarette, two or three of them, I’m going for a walk on the streets of Bethlehem.

  Here is a store where they sell, among other things, Jesus and Mary made of holy wood. Jack, the owner of the store, says of his little wooden gods: “Americans care about size, not quality. Germans care about quality, not size. Palestinians like color.”

  The Old City of Bethlehem, a miracle of beauty and a feast to the eyes, is being washed by development funds. Almost every house here, I notice as I walk, is being renovated by nice and loving countries from overseas. Norway, Italy, Belgium, and Sweden, for example, are just a few of the countries that catch the walker’s attention when passing through.

  In between the gorgeous houses there are tens of stores on the marvelous streets of this Old City, but almost none is open. I ask Sakhar why, and she tells me it’s the fault of the Israelis. “Occupation,” “Israelis,” and “Jews” are automatic responses to anything bad. Israel left Bethlehem decades ago, but why not blame them?

  I get a different answer when I ask a local lady why the stores of her neighborhood are closed. “The [Palestinian] Tourism Ministry doesn’t want the tourist buses to stop at the stores in the road. If the buses stopped there, tourists would walk in these streets on their way to the Church and the stores would be packed. But government officials don’t want this.”

  Why?

  “I don’t know.”

  I enter one of the houses. It has five rooms, two bathrooms, a living room, a kitchen, all made of rock and marble. A palace made possible by European generosity.

  Do the Europeans fund Jewish projects as well?

  In order to find an answer to this question I drive to Jerusalem and hook up with Irene Pollak-Rein of the Jerusalem Foundation, one of the most prosperous foundations in Israel. Irene is the Director of the German-Speaking Countries section within the foundation. Irene tells me that she is worried about the various European-initiated boycotts of Israel, the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movement. “BDS is the result of many, many years of work done against Israel. In the German-speaking lands the ones who push for it the most are the Germans. In general, German foundations and German government funders will donate only for projects that are geared for Jews and Arabs together or projects that are only for Arabs. Germans will not fund any project that is geared only for the Jewish community.”

  ***

  I don’t want to hear about Germans anymore and I’m also starving. I go to a nice café in Jerusalem. As I enter I see a bunch of German journalists. Only God knows how all these Germans have landed here, I don’t.

  Well, no point running away from the Germans. If you can’t beat them, join them, the English saying goes. I sit down and order myself food fit for angels, and swallow it all in one sitting. This country, what can I say, is packed with the most delicious food there is.

  Outside, I see this sticker on a car: “I am a Yekke driver.” I go out and take a picture of it. Two young Palestinians approach me. They wonder why I was taking a photo of an old car. Do you know this Yekke Jew? I ask them. They laugh loudly. The car, they tell me, belongs to their friend who works in the restaurant kitchen.

  The old German Jewish banker I imagined is in reality a teenage Palestinian dishwasher.

  What a country.

  Somehow I’m reminded of “my” German, Gideon Levy, and shoot him an e-mail about our common trip to Palestine. He replies quite fast: “Dear Tuvia, We will do it after I get back from abroad. Gideon.”

  No problem.

  Gate Fourteen

  Germans in the Holy Land: dead and alive.

  A COUPLE OF BLOCKS FROM MY HOUSE IN THE GERMAN COLONY THERE IS THE cemetery of the neighborhood’s former residents, the German Templars. The Templerfriedhof is usually locked, but today it’s open. Should I go in? One of the dead here, a thought comes to me, built the house where I am staying. Perhaps I should pay my respects. Looking in, I see that these graves are intact, unlike those on the Mount of Olives.

  I enter.

  It’s a strange feeling, kind of a meeting with history, with a place and with a people once alive. Here goes one of the lines on a tombstone: “Hier ruht Gottlob Bäuerle, geb. den 17. April 1881. Gest. den 12. Juni 1881. Auf Wiedersehen!”

  What a short life! And what a sweet, touching end to a tombstone: See you again!

  Christoph Paulus, who lived for eighty-two years, has this engraved on his tombstone: “Ja, ich komme bald!”

  Religious, romantic people who lo
ved their families and Adolf Hitler. They came to the Holy Land in the late nineteenth century, hoping to welcome Jesus when he arrived for his Second Coming. Jesus didn’t come, but Hitler came in the twentieth century and so they waited for him. The Brits, who then ruled the land, arrested them and later deported them.

  They lived here, sweated here, built here, and died here.

  They are gone, but today other Germans are in the Holy Land taking their place. I see a bunch of them at the King David Hotel, which is not very far from the cemetery. Who are they?

  ***

  They are German journalists, who have gathered here to take part in a conversation that the German Federal Foreign Minister, Guido Westerwelle, has offered to have with them. Yes, it’s not exactly a press conference, instead it’s more of an attempt by the Foreign Minister to endear himself to the media, a gesture the meaning of which is: I will be kind to you and spend my time with you, and you’ll be kind to me.

  “The talks with Livni were very good,” he says, referring to Minister Tzipi Livni, head of the Israeli team to the peace negotiations with the Palestinians. Guido talks about the political issues in this part of the world as if they were his own. He wants the two troublemakers, the Arab and the Jew, to shake hands and be good friends.

  Orange juice, hazelnuts, and chocolate cookies are offered to the assembly here, and I try some. I’d prefer falafel balls, but I’m not complaining. Sweet stuff goes well with a Guido speech, to be honest. Once Guido said what he did, a Q&A starts.

  Given the obvious history between Germany and Jews, I ask him, how does he feel the Jews and the Arabs view him? Also: Is that history part of his motivation for getting involved in a conflict that is not his?

  In a longwinded answer he asserts that nearly all German teenagers view Israel as the only democracy in the region. It will take more than hazelnuts and chocolate cookies to convince me of this absurdity, and when I just open my mouth in a follow-up question he asks me if I’m recording him. I say that, yes, I am. He tells me that this meeting is not to be recorded.

  Oops. This means that I cannot quote him directly, but I can write “in general” what he says.

  What does His Honor want to share with us, which, however, is not directly to be quoted?

  He tells us, for example, of a trip he made to Gaza and the little kids he met there. They were so sweet, and he was touched so very deeply. Whatever he is doing in this area, he gives us the impression, he does it for the sake of those kids.

  He also talks about Iran’s nuclear program, which he thinks is dangerous not just for Israel but also for the rest of the world. If Iran is to have nuclear weapons, he says, six other countries will get the same as well.

  I have not been following all his public pronouncements, and he may actually have said these same things in public as well and before, but it looks good when it’s “us together” sitting here talking.

  Auf Wiedersehen.

  The German ambassador, sitting at Guido’s right, looks a bit bored. At one point he even takes out his smartphone and gets busy with it.

  ***

  The German Foreign Minister is not the only German working for peace in this land. The Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (KAS), a German foundation, is hard at work at peacemaking as well and they want to implant peace in the hearts of both Arab and Jew. The Arabs and Jews they have in mind are not journalists but teachers, people who are more into children than hazelnuts. The question is how to get this done, and they have come up with a magic idea: Make the two antagonists meet, have them fall in love with each other, or at least befriend one another, and they will, in turn, instill their newly found love or understanding in the hearts of the children they teach.

  Since the people KAS has in mind are both Arab and Jew, the reconciliation they are planning for them cannot take place on territory that is being fought over by both sides. Some neutral territory will have to be found, a country none of the teachers will claim as their own and a place where KAS can organize a multi-day Peace Conference to host them. Thank God there is Jordan, and KAS rents a Jordanian hotel for this purpose.

  It will be interesting to see what happens when the two meet.

  Gate Fifteen

  You are heartily invited to attend three days of romantic German-inspired dances in Jordan performed by Germans who are in love with peace and Arabs.

  KAS IS IN JERUSALEM (THE ISRAEL BRANCH) AND THE WAY TO JORDAN IS ABOUT thirty minutes of a joyful ride if one crosses the Allenby/King Hussein Bridge. This would make things easy, but the Middle East is not known for making anything easy. The Jordanians, long story, don’t allow Israelis to cross this bridge into Jordan. Instead, they make them use another bridge way up in the north. This means that we must go all the way up to the north of Israel, enter Jordan there, and then come all the way back south on the Jordanian side. Trip duration: nine hours, instead of thirty minutes.

  KAS has hired a nice bus for the ride and I’m happy. I talk with this and that fellow participant when the phone of the KAS person in charge rings. One of the participants, actually the key speaker of this peace event, is calling to say that she is not coming. Her Palestinian Catholic school has ordered her not to come; they don’t want her to meet Jews and they don’t care for the German peace effort. I eavesdrop on this conversation and wonder if the rest of us will be informed of the lovely reason for this cancellation? No.

  On one of our rest stops I hook up with an Israeli teacher, a smoker like me, and ask him why he is here and what is driving him. He tells me, how stupid I am not to have figured it out on my own, that the Palestinians are right in claiming that this is their land, since they lived here before the Jews, and he wants to meet them and tell them his thoughts. He’s also very excited to visit an Arab country such as Jordan, something he has never done before.

  This guy already likes the Palestinians, and I wonder what the purpose of having him here is. I share my wondering with him, and he wonders at my wondering.

  “All of the Israelis here are like me. Why would we come if we didn’t think as we do?”

  He’s right, when I come to think of it, only now I don’t understand what the point of the conference is.

  Perhaps the idea is to get Palestinians to like Jews.

  Could be, could it not?

  The person in charge of this event is a German who first heard about Israel from an Israeli friend of her parents who suggested to her to come to Israel when she was a young girl. She didn’t have anything better to do and she came to the Jewish State; fell in love with it and with a nice Arab man as well. They live in a neighborhood where no Jews live, and where no Arab will sell or rent to a Jew. This is such a touching love story that I’m sure Eugène Ionesco would have appreciated very much if he had lived to hear it.

  Time moves and at long last we arrive at the Jordanian side of the border.

  One of the Israelis in our group, I notice, has a Hungarian passport in addition to his Israeli one. There’s not a single stamp in his passport, and he doesn’t really use it. He got it just in case. If Israel disappears from the map he wants to have a place to live. Many Israelis, he tells me, acquire European passports just in case.

  Peace is this man’s god, but I think he’s an atheist.

  We wait for hours at the border. It must be a very busy crossing, I say to myself, and I look out to see how many cars are crossing in and out of Jordan and count them, one by one. Total number coming out of Jordan: Two. And now I count the number of buses going into Jordan. One. Asian tourists. Wow.

  In the waiting room a border official looks at the list of the KAS people who have come to this Kingdom to make peace and he crosses out every Jewish name with a blue pen. He counts the Jews, and his face is quite serious. He goes out, he comes back and the visas are given. The Israelis, the Jews of them, get a group visa, meaning none of them can walk anywhere on their own. I get a normal visa; I’m no Jew.

  And just before we enter the bus that is going to take us back us sou
th on the Jordanian side, we are told that there will be no stops on the way, unlike what we had on the Israeli side. No ice creams, no colas, and no toilets. Go to the toilet now, we are advised, as it will be some time before you’ll see a toilet again. Nobody tells us why, and nobody asks for an explanation. The reason is simple: Jews in an Arab land are not safe, but nobody wants to hear this, least of all the Jews themselves. We’re on a peace mission, not a urinating mission.

  It is interesting to see the people on this bus, great teachers of tomorrow’s leaders: the Arabs stick to Arabs, the Jews stick to Jews.

  It is the first step in making peace, German style.

  But I shouldn’t belittle them. The truth is that KAS has pulled off something very big: the Germans are paying for this trip, the travel agent who has been contracted for this journey is Jewish, the travel manager and the bus driver are Palestinian, the toilets are empty and the hotel we soon to arrive at is Jordanian.

  To date, even American president Barack Obama hasn’t pulled off such a miracle.

  We drive through Jordanian cities and villages. Through most of the ride I see half-constructed houses, an untold number of King Abdallah’s face on posters, and a poverty that screams in horrifying pain. Most of the people here are Palestinians, and I ask myself why Catalonia is not erecting gorgeous white mansions here as well. Would be a really great help.

  We arrive late at the Jordanian Dead Sea Spa Hotel, and the opening session is taking place the next morning. The real peace talks between Arab and Jew, which Secretary of State John Kerry is organizing, and of course unrelated to our efforts here, will start tomorrow. As an introduction to Kerry’s peace talks, a rocket was fired into the city of Eilat; it was intercepted by the “Iron Dome” anti-missile system.

  ***

  When time has arrived for our proceedings to start, we meet again. On our chairs there we find a printed schedule, on which it says that this project is funded by the European Union.