What Has Happened to Us?

Today was such an intense, incredible day. It feels like today was several weeks, like nearly every hour was at least a day's worth of experiences. But even more than that, like each of the day's worth of experiences was the type of epic day that in our normal lives, we experience only every several months. I'm only going to be able to write a little because it's now 10pm and we're leaving for Masada tomorrow morning at 3:45am. Last night I thought that yesterday was such a big day that I had to capture it and get my notes and photos organized before I turned in or I would lose the opportunity to capture the energy I felt. Siena's birthday, all of East Jerusalem, the Conflict, the Settlements inside East Jerusalem, the history of three great religions, the Wall, the Dome, the Sepulchre. So, I sorted photos, posted Hasmig's blog entry then wrote my own. Hasmig wanted to get up early to see the Sunday Mass at the Armenian Church in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at 6am, and I wanted to go with her, so by the time I finished what I was doing, it was after 5am, too late to go to sleep. I actually pulled my first all nighter in years. I often get by on 2 -3 hours sleep, but 0 isn't enough even for me.

Our guide met us after breakfast and took us on a deluxe walking tour of West Jerusalem, including the diverse neighborhood that he grew up in, the one where his grandmother lived as a baby, and where she lives now. The most beautiful and expensive houses throughout West Jerusalem are those built and formerly owned by Arabs. In 1948, they were taken away and now are owned by Israelis. We ended up in a local open market that was for some, the highlight of the trip so far. We ended up wandering in small groups exploring, browsing strawberries, juices, fish, meat (including goat testicles), chocolate and all types of produce, all locally grown, caught, raised or produced. Our guide pointed across several stalls, and said to us, "See that guy running the juice bar? He's my doctor. He cures anything." Leib exuberantly jumped forward and said, "I have a sore throat, I have a sore throat! I want to be cured!" We rushed over to the stall, our guide told the big burly juice man of Leib's ailment. He asked no questions, but immediately grabbed Leib with one hand by the back of the jaw and squirted several droppers of something against the back of Leib's throat, then gave him a small cup of something yellow and told him to drink it. The other three of us ordered cardamon/cinnamon chocolate or ginger apple juice. As Leib noted tonight, it was the first time that we weren't in a group of 20 among five other groups of 20, doing things that only tourists would do. After the Juice Doctor, the falafel stand was everyone's favorite event. Can a falafel stand by inspired? Let's just say the condiment options were creative and expansive.

Next to the falafels, The Halvah King seemed to be the second most amazing find so far:

After lunch the day moved into a much more serious phase. We took a short bus ride to Mount Herzl, named for the founder of the Zionist Movement, and among other important sites, we spent quite a long time at the grave of Yitzhak Rabin. It felt a little like visiting JFK in Arlington Cemetery.

Remembering his assassination and the end to the possibility of peace that it represented was painful for those of us old enough to have a political memory.

From there we walked to Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Museum. Most of us didn't like our tour guide much, and interestingly, most of the group came to the conclusion that although it's easier just to tell someone what you want them to know, feel and believe, it's much more powerful to let people arrive at their own feelings and conclusions. Our guide, who apparently had somewhat traditional interpretive training and an important story to tell, often told us how we should feel, and for many of us, that had the unintended opposite effect making it impossible for us to feel it. At one point, she told us that Warsaw Ghetto was so crowded that there were 8 people to every room. Leib commented, "Wow. The Muslim Quarter is almost that crowed now, about 4 people to a room." The guide, missing the opportunity to grapple with a challenging comparison, ignored him, as if she had not heard, but Leib was standing directly in front of her. The opportunity for an authentic, meaningful, learner-centered discussion was lost, and the scripted tour continued. The narrative of the Holocaust is so profoundly disturbing, so intellectually and emotionally challenging, I felt compelled to discuss my thoughts and feelings, craved the chance to make sense of what I was learning, to construct my own tenuous understanding. The scripted tour precluded that level of depth. Nonetheless, facing the reality of the Holocaust was devastating, absolutely devastating. Callie told us late tonight that she couldn't get the image of hundreds of emaciated bodies being bulldozed into a pit out of her mind, and was still disturbed by it. Eli and I were disturbed by the fact that when we arrived, the museum grounds were filled with hundreds of Israeli soldiers, each with a pistol and a huge automatic rifle. I get the connection between the Holocaust and the need or perceived need for a strong army, but it seemed so ironic. It made us all uneasy to be around so many armed young men and women, many younger than those in our group.

Back at the hotel, we moved into our new rooms, then came down for pizza dinner with the SCG Arab Israeli Home Group from last summer. There were four Palestinian young people who I had met in Colorado at the Building Bridges for Peace Retreat last summer. They told us a little about their lives and how the homes of family members have recently been taken away and given to Israelis. They showed us a multi-media project they've put together depicting their "Roots in Israel." Bravo! Then we were joined by two members of the Bereaved Parents Forum who told us their stories and a little about the organization. This was crushing, horrifyingly sad. Ben, an older Israeli father, told us of his extraordinary daughter, Yael, who he so deeply loved; a Captain in the Army, she was murdered by a Palestinian suicide bomber at a bus stop on her way home for an evening meeting. His words burned into me like a white hot branding iron, "People called me to say they wanted to help me, to take some of my grief away. I was so angry, I yelled at them, 'Yes! Come over here and get your two kilos of grief and take it away. What the hell are you thinking?.'" He planned for three weeks to take his two guns down the street to where he was certain he could kill five Palestinian workers before being stopped. Siham, a Palestinian woman, told us of her brother, who she felt so close to and so bonded with that she called him her sister. He was shot in the head at point blank range by an IDF soldier who judged him guilty and condemned him to death after a two-minute altercation. He died instantly, and she swore to her mother that she would find that soldier and kill him. Ben and Siham have somehow found an inner strength that awed and honored and aged us all, and now they are working together for peace and reconciliation.

At the end of the evening, our guests all left, and we went around our now intimate circle to do some debriefing, and the most profound comments, along with many tears fell from the mouths and eyes of our 18 member family. It has been two days. It feels like two months. We are not the people we were when we arrived. Our group is not the group we brought off the airplane. What has happened to us?