October 29, 2003
Well, I made it. Per usual, the flights kicked the shit out of my allergies, and I hardly slept. Upon arriving at Tel Aviv, I was quickly singled out for interrogation at passport control, and gave my dodgy/vague answers about what I was doing in Israel, where I would be staying, etc. Ultimately, when I mentioned that I was interested in gay culture in Israel, the tone changed dramatically, and for whatever reasons, they let me in with little further discussion. Lelia, please hold onto the receipt for that Gay Travel Guide... I never once really opened it, and I'd love to get the $30 back!
This is the part none of you are going to like hearing (and believe me, I don't like telling it, either). My first interactions with Israelis were horrible. Really fucked up and heartbreaking. Brian Duss (who DC folks will remember) had invited me to stay with him in Jerusalem until my ISM training started, so I called him up to find out how to get to where he was. He has been staying in the guest house at the Augusta Victoria Hospital, and had suggested I hop in a shared cab and have them drop me there. Well, as soon as the words "Augusta Victoria" came out of my mouth, in conversing with any Israeli outside the airport, they immediately stopped talking to me, and turned their backs to me. One cab driver finally blurted out (quite angrily), "I'm not going to that place. It is an Arab place!" - and that was the end of the discussion. So, basically, my first interactions with Israelis were characterized by outright racism and a rather explicit Apartheid-style exclusion. It was really fucking sad. I actually sat at a bus stop, in shock at how caustic and hostile they were. I can't really describe the way this set the tone for me.
Finally, I walked back over to the shared cabs, and asked someone again to take me to Augusta Victoria, and he refused, but offered to take me somewhere near there. I told him I didn't know where that was, and it wouldn't help me any unless he would actually take me to the hospital. Finally an American who'd immigrated here from (of all places) DC, 16 years ago, intervened and talked him into taking me there. Nice as this was of her, she was no real departure from the standard Israeli attitude thus far; totally condescending toward me for having any relationship with such a place, whatsoever. Obviously, I didn't talk about why I was there, and played up that I was some dumb American tourist, so that I wouldn't be treated to any more verbal abuse. I queried her about some rather benign information about Israel, and she began to wax poetic about its various climates, landscape, etc, wrapping it up by saying "...And we are surrounded entirely by enemies who want us to disappear, but we're not going to disappear because God is on our side.". The rant seemed seamlessly timed with our arrival at Augusta Victoria, where our driver charged me twice as much as he'd charged all the other passengers. I kept my mouth shut and shuffled into the front gate of the hospital.
By the time I made it to where the guest house was, there was shouting and commotion from down the hill, on the very street the cab had come down, and kids about my age and younger were running up, and then back down the hill carrying bricks, sticks, and something that resembled a bowling pin. Apparently, it was some sort of fight between two groups of Arab youngsters, and I watched, in utter awe that I was seeing such a thing no sooner than I'd set foot in Jerusalem. There really isn't any describing it.
Duss had a basketball game in Bethlehem, and I opted to stay put and crash, reflecting on all the awful shit I'd seen in just my first few hours in Israel. My heart was literally aching at the virulent racism I'd encountered from every person I'd spoken to. It's the sort of thing you just would never believe until you'd seen it. It was something I really wasn't prepared for, to say the least.
This is the part none of you are going to like hearing (and believe me, I don't like telling it, either). My first interactions with Israelis were horrible. Really fucked up and heartbreaking. Brian Duss (who DC folks will remember) had invited me to stay with him in Jerusalem until my ISM training started, so I called him up to find out how to get to where he was. He has been staying in the guest house at the Augusta Victoria Hospital, and had suggested I hop in a shared cab and have them drop me there. Well, as soon as the words "Augusta Victoria" came out of my mouth, in conversing with any Israeli outside the airport, they immediately stopped talking to me, and turned their backs to me. One cab driver finally blurted out (quite angrily), "I'm not going to that place. It is an Arab place!" - and that was the end of the discussion. So, basically, my first interactions with Israelis were characterized by outright racism and a rather explicit Apartheid-style exclusion. It was really fucking sad. I actually sat at a bus stop, in shock at how caustic and hostile they were. I can't really describe the way this set the tone for me.
Finally, I walked back over to the shared cabs, and asked someone again to take me to Augusta Victoria, and he refused, but offered to take me somewhere near there. I told him I didn't know where that was, and it wouldn't help me any unless he would actually take me to the hospital. Finally an American who'd immigrated here from (of all places) DC, 16 years ago, intervened and talked him into taking me there. Nice as this was of her, she was no real departure from the standard Israeli attitude thus far; totally condescending toward me for having any relationship with such a place, whatsoever. Obviously, I didn't talk about why I was there, and played up that I was some dumb American tourist, so that I wouldn't be treated to any more verbal abuse. I queried her about some rather benign information about Israel, and she began to wax poetic about its various climates, landscape, etc, wrapping it up by saying "...And we are surrounded entirely by enemies who want us to disappear, but we're not going to disappear because God is on our side.". The rant seemed seamlessly timed with our arrival at Augusta Victoria, where our driver charged me twice as much as he'd charged all the other passengers. I kept my mouth shut and shuffled into the front gate of the hospital.
By the time I made it to where the guest house was, there was shouting and commotion from down the hill, on the very street the cab had come down, and kids about my age and younger were running up, and then back down the hill carrying bricks, sticks, and something that resembled a bowling pin. Apparently, it was some sort of fight between two groups of Arab youngsters, and I watched, in utter awe that I was seeing such a thing no sooner than I'd set foot in Jerusalem. There really isn't any describing it.
Duss had a basketball game in Bethlehem, and I opted to stay put and crash, reflecting on all the awful shit I'd seen in just my first few hours in Israel. My heart was literally aching at the virulent racism I'd encountered from every person I'd spoken to. It's the sort of thing you just would never believe until you'd seen it. It was something I really wasn't prepared for, to say the least.
posted by Joshua | 9:15 PM
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