Catch The Jew!
Page 18
Right by Rabin Square in the center of Tel Aviv there is a bookstore-slash-coffee shop called Tolaat Sfarim (Book Worm). I take a table, order boiling “opposite coffee” (café latte), and get ready to meet some Jews.
I start the day with Jonathan Shapira, the hero of the 10% – What Makes a Hero film I saw at the Cinematheque. Jonathan is also the brother of Itamar (of Lifta and Yad Vashem), and I hope he’ll enlighten me today.
“I was the model Zionist kid, he who read aloud names of the fallen in Israel’s wars or of those who died in the Holocaust. My dream was to be in the Air Force, just like all the good kids of Israel. I finished my army training and became a pilot in 1993, and luckily I was in a rescue helicopter squadron. I risked my life to bring injured soldiers to hospitals. I felt I was doing a clean and good job.”
These days Jonathan is no longer an Israeli army pilot. “Now I’m working occasionally in the USA, as a helicopter pilot on special flights for post-storm clean-up. I wish I could do the same thing here, in Israel, but here they wouldn’t give me such a job.”
Jonathan has an MA in conflict resolution, a degree he earned at a university in Austria. For a second I entertain the thought of talking to him about Tyrol, but immediately give it up. Talking about Tyrol in a bookstore somehow doesn’t look right.
I look at his figure and wonder how he’d look in Lederhosen, but I don’t think he’d go to the Western Wall. The man has changed. How did a man who risked his life for the Zionist cause turn into an Austrian conflict resolution person?
“I still risk my life here, but on the side of the oppressed and not of the oppressors.”
Jonathan uses harsh words when talking about Israel: “Everything I was taught was based on deception and self-deception.”
What made you change? What was the critical moment that turned you around?
Jonathan speaks softly, quietly, in measured tones and with comforting warmth. His change took place, go figure, during a peace initiative geared to spread love between Arab and Jew, when this Jew started to hate other Jews.
The initiative, taking place at the peace-chasing Arab-Jewish village of Neve Shalom, featured a Palestinian man talking about his sister being paralyzed from the neck downward, victims of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Deeply touched by this man’s speech, Jonathan started to reevaluate everything he had believed in. Up to that moment, he tells me cynically, he was like the average leftist, “shooting and crying,” holding a gun in his hand while talking peace with his mouth, but at that moment he changed.
How a story of a paralyzed Palestinian girl could touch him so deeply, he who has flown many Jews to hospitals with severed limbs or lifeless, is not clear to me. But according to him, the notion of his army causing that Palestinian’s injuries “drove me crazy.”
If luck had had it that the Palestinians had won the war, how do you think they would have treated your children? Jonathan doesn’t like this question and immediately goes on the offensive: “This is a classic right-wing argument!”
I tell him that this is not an answer. Does he have a better one?
Well, he goes on at length talking to me about history this and history that. Not good enough for me, and I try to bring him to the present, to be pragmatic with me.
What would have happened if Israel had lost in 1967? How do you think the Arabs would have treated the Jews?
“I have no idea.”
What do you imagine would have happened?
“I don’t know.”
Of course he knows. He has seen many enlightening samples from his cockpit.
Jonathan spends his energies criticizing Israel, not other countries. Is Israel really the only devil in the world? I remind him that Switzerland has just recently passed a law against building mosques with minarets on Swiss soil. Why isn’t he fighting the Swiss as well?
“I will join you if you open a BDS campaign against Switzerland for their outlawing the building of mosques in their own country.”
Yes, I have nothing better to do with my life than fight the holy Swiss.
How about the other righteous European nations?
“If you open a BDS campaign against Sweden for jailing Sudanese refugees in their country, I’ll join you.”
His sharpest comments he reserves for Israel: “If you ask me, hundreds of thousands of Sudanese should be allowed to enter this land. Such an eventuality will save Israel from its racist behavior and conduct.”
Jonathan and Itamar, the Royal Shapiras, are being serenaded by various critics of Israel, but it is Jonathan who has earned a song, titled “Jonathan Shapira,” in which the Israeli pop singer Aya Korem sings of her wish to have children by him. She is like the Israeli scholar from the Georgian restaurant. One is proud for having slept with an Arab, the other dreams of sleeping with a Jonathan.
Of course, not all Israelis have such a bad view of the Jews and of Israel.
***
Say hello to the new “Book Worm” comer, Mickey Steiner, who is the managing director of the German-held company SAP Labs, Israel.
Are you a Yekke potz?
“Not me, my dad.”
Mickey is a positive person who marvels at Israel’s high-tech achievements. “International companies come to Israel because of the technological inventions that are made here. Innovations made here are not made there.”
Why is that so?
“The character of Israelis is to find solutions to seemingly insolvable situations. It started with German Jews who came here to establish a state, long before the Holocaust, when there was no infrastructure here beyond the very basic, and they had to build things from scratch.”
How come Israel is so good at high tech?
“It is in our genes, already from the days of the destruction of the Second Temple.”
I should have used this answer years back when I studied mathematics and computer science and my Haredi family, which did not condone any studies other than rabbinical, was furious at me. Too bad I didn’t know Mickey in those days.
In today’s technology, what’s made in Israel?
“Seventy percent of Intel’s revenue is based on inventions made in Israel.”
Give me some examples of inventions made here.
“USB stick is an Israeli invention. Voicemail is an Israeli invention. SMS. Computer chips that run laptops. Medical scanning devices, such as MRI. VOIP. Data security for cellphones. Flash memory.”
In other words, if not for Israel there would be no cellphones today, assuming, of course, that others wouldn’t have found this technology too.
“Yes.”
Do you really believe that there are Jewish genes?
“Yes, in the sense of the culture which influences those who are part of it, in this case Jews.”
So, do you think that the Jewish nation is the smartest, most innovative?
“Yes.”
How come the Jews have so many fucking problems everywhere they show up?
“Because they are too fucking smart and people are afraid of the Jews, suspicious of the Jews, and jealous of the Jews.”
I am God, and I’m offering you this: I’ll make you less smart, less innovative, and in return you’ll be like the rest of the world and you’ll be loved. Take my offer?
“No.”
Why not?
“I’d rather stay in my heritage and my roots even at the price of hatred.”
How come smart, innovative people with such genes follow Rabbi Batsri and Rabbi Yosef (a famous and divisive rabbi, Ovadia Yosef, who loves to curse anyone opposing him)?
“I don’t know. You have to ask a sociologist.”
***
Avi Primor, Israel ambassador to Germany from 1993 to 1999, is no sociologist, but he has come over to this book worm for a little schmooze. Avi has founded, and is the head of, the Center for European Studies at Tel Aviv University, which is in association with Al-Quds University and the Royal Scientific Society of Jordan.
Maybe Al-Quds
U could teach Tel Aviv U how to get funding for a hamam.
Avi, and others, teach MA studies at all three universities, where after one year of studies students from the three U’s go for another year at Heinrich Heine U in Düsseldorf.
Who is paying for all this?
“I am. I raise funds, mainly in Germany. It costs over one million euros a year.”
How many students are there in total?
“Sixty. Twenty from each side (Israeli, Jordanian, and Palestinian).”
Avi’s mother is from Frankfurt. She came to Tel Aviv in 1932, “met my father, fell in love and stayed here. None of her family who stayed in Germany survived the Holocaust.”
Would you like to have been born a Palestinian?
How the heck did I come up with such a question, I don’t know. I think I have drunk too much whiskey today, and maybe Avi has done the same because he is seriously answering my question. No, he says, he wouldn’t like this because the Palestinians are a “luckless nation” and because “I don’t appreciate their culture.”
How can you work with them if you don’t appreciate them?
“I’d be very happy if our neighbors were the Swiss and the Norwegians . . .”
I like Tel Aviv. It’s not as beautiful as Jerusalem – actually it’s quite ugly – but Tel Aviv has something special, an inner beauty, a certain atmosphere. Maybe it is its people, who for the most part are young and horny. Tel Aviv has another thing that Jerusalem doesn’t have: a beach. Why not go there? I pack up my iPad and do just that.
There’s nothing more comforting than the sound of the waves. Would Jerusalem be as tense as it is if it had a beach? Imagine that instead of its holy places there were a beach there, smack right in the middle of it. No Shkhinah, no holy tomb, no special airport to heaven; no wife of God, no son of God, no messenger of God; just water and bikini.
Somewhere along the way between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem there is a famous village, not a holy village and no bikinis. The name of the village is Abu Ghosh, and I go to see it.
Gate Twenty-Three
Gun-toting men in search of sweets and Germans.
FOUAD ABU GHOSH, OF ABU GHOSH, IS MY MAN TODAY AND HE IS WILLING TO show me around his village.
Abu Ghosh is a peculiar Arab village near Jerusalem whose residents have been friendly to Jews since the first days of the state. This village is a thorn in the behind of those who argue that Arabs and Jews can’t live happily with each other in a Jewish land.
“We, in Abu Ghosh,” Fouad tells me, “are Arabs. We get along with the Jews, but Israelis on the Left have a problem with us.”
I thought rightists wouldn’t like Abu Ghosh, but I guess I was wrong. I learn for the hundredth time today: When it comes to “Arab & Jew,” I must move logic off the table and reformat my brain.
Abu Ghosh is famous not because some leftists don’t like Arabs who get along with Jews, but for another reason: its restaurants. I ask Fouad to take me to his favorite restaurant in Abu Ghosh. In front of us, as we drive ahead, is a car with this sticker on its bumper: “Jews love Jews.” Must be a right-winger, though it could also be an Arab Yekke, like the one I saw the other day. You never know anything in this land.
When we get to the restaurant, Fouad introduces me to Jawdat Ibrahim, owner of this quite expensive Abu Ghosh restaurant, who says to me: “In 1948 all Arab villages around Abu Ghosh were destroyed, except for Abu Ghosh, because the Mukhtar [community leader] made peace with the [Jewish] government.” Jawdat likes to surprise his German listener: “Abu Ghosh is sister city with Bad Gastein in Austria. You know the name of the mayor of Bad Gastein? Abu Yussef.”
Bad Gastein is a place I know, and where I have stayed on occasion. I have never heard about Bad Gastein being a sister city to Abu Gosh, nor have I ever heard of Abu Yussef. But Jawdat knows better than me.
Jawdat is a smart man, not just when it comes to politics. “My chef, in this restaurant, is a dentist.” Dentists, he explains to me, understand best about chewing and about eating, a process achieved by the teeth.
Before I get to chew the dentist’s delicacies, I have to listen to Fouad: “I cannot blame only the Jews for what happened here in 1948. I spoke to the people of Abu Ghosh and they told me that the Arab armies had told villagers to leave their homes. ‘Give us two weeks and we will wipe out the Jews for you,’ they told them. Arabs in other villages left, but not Arabs of our village. They told me: ‘Egyptian soldiers came in. They didn’t have maps and they pointed their canons at us.’ No, I cannot put the blame only on the Jews. Facts are facts, and you cannot change the facts.”
The food arrives. It is good, but you can get similar food anywhere else for a fraction of the price charged here. In general, the food in Israel, and in Palestine, makes me happy to be here. There’s no day I don’t think – or talk – about this. I don’t know how they do it. I have been to many countries, and God knows how much I have eaten in each, but nowhere is the food as delicious as it is here. Maybe it’s the ingredients grown only here, or a know-how gained in endless wars fought here. I don’t know. All I know is this: “Facts are facts.”
Abu Ghosh is an interesting place. The EU and European NGOs are not investing here, maybe because this place is a thorn in their behind as well, but this doesn’t mean that there’s no outside financial intervention here. Who gets involved here? Chechnya. Yep. The leader of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadiro, is building a huge mosque in Abu Ghosh with a gorgeous golden dome. Price tag of new mosque: ten million dollars, for which Ramzan donates six million.
How big is the mosque going to be?
“The second-largest mosque in the region, after al-Aqsa.”
Wow!
But this is not all.
Later on Fouad takes me on a ride to the soon-to-be-completed mosque. The street leading to the mosque, about a mile long, is also being fixed and shaped by the good Chechen uncle. New green fences with shiny white stones are right now being constructed, and the street will be renamed after this leader.
And then Fouad asks if I’d like to see soldiers who frequent a local café.
Yes, I say. I would love to witness this miracle of love between Arab and Jew, soldier and resident. And so Fouad takes me to the café. The “soldiers” he was talking about are mostly young Israeli girls, noshing sweets. I look at them and notice that there are no others to look at. In other words: no local people eating here.
How come?
“Locals don’t go to cafés and restaurants at this time.”
Will I see the locals later in the evening, if I stick around?
“No. They eat at home.”
Forget this café. How about other cafés or restaurants? I notice a sudden change in Fouad’s facial expression.
“Israelis, they are the ones who come to eat here. They come here to be served.”
Are there places where Arabs and Jews go together? Let’s say, are they playing ball together?
“This doesn’t happen.”
The two sides never meet – ?
“Yes. That’s the way it is. It all looks nice, yes, but when you look at the details there you see a different picture.”
Arabs love Arabs.
When I lived in Israel I knew of Abu Ghosh, every Jew did, and it comforted all of us. It was the proof, the one solid proof, that Arab and Jew could live together in friendship and harmony. I never went to Abu Ghosh, but I knew everything about it.
I thought I knew. What I knew was a myth; reality is very different.
I stare at Fouad, my host, and share a thought with him. You guys got it all: a beautiful country, best food on the planet, sweetest of fruits, tastiest of vegetables, and best spices available. But you kill each other. Why?!
“Adam and Eve were in Paradise, had everything, but then ‘had’ to do what God told them not to do. They had everything and they had to destroy everything. That’s what we do in this land.”
A myth is good until you touch it, and if you do hell breaks loose.
The brave, gun-toting Israelis you see on your local TV screens, the ones you read about in your local papers or watch on your tablets are nothing but little kids wanting to be loved and accepted.
Two music bands from Berlin are coming to perform here soon, I read on a poster next to me. I guess, just a guess, that some German foundations are sponsoring the event. But to better understand the flow of German money I go to meet Mark Sofer, president of the Jerusalem Foundation.
***
I let my feet rest in Mark’s comfortable office in Jerusalem and my lips start to move.
Who are you?
“One of my least favorite things to do is talk about myself.”
Please!
“I joined the Foreign Service in 1982, and since then was stationed in Peru, Norway, in New York, Ireland . . . I was also the foreign affairs adviser to Shimon Peres.”
Are you that smart?
“If you place a broomstick in the Venezuelan army, in forty years it will become a colonel.”
Are you a broomstick?
“No.”
What’s the budget for your foundation?
“Last year we raised over $30 million.”
Can you name German government money given exclusively for the Jewish community?
“To the best of my knowledge we don’t get any money from the German government, only from German states.”
Can you name funds given by German states for Jews only?