Israel’s intense.
Every time I go back, it’s like a slap in the face saying “Shamir, wake up – this is what reality is really like”.
Waiters don’t ask you every two minutes whether you’re “finding everything alright”. People you casually pass on the street and make eye contact with don’t smile. There’s no such thing as driving without getting a serious honk from a road-raged driver. Oh yeah there’s also that whole “surrounded by enemies who are either preparing for, or engaging in war” thing…
Being polite is not considered a virtue but a weakness…
And obviously – all the above intertwine and spiral in a way that breeds more of the above…
So every time I go back to Israel, after I get that slap in the face – I change. Just a little bit. I’m still me, but a different me. I don’t smile as much. I honk my horn. I listen daily to the news. I stop being so polite.
And while I can’t say I like that version of me any better – I can say that there’s something oddly liberating about that version of me. Almost like that slap slaps off an invisible cloak of (politically-correct, liberal, polite, optimistic…) american conditioning I constantly wear without realizing.
And I feel lighter.
Food tastes better, conversations feel less bullshitty, relationships feel more natural, I see things as they are.
It’s less pleasant, but more real.
Every time I return from Israel to the US, I suddenly see that cloak everywhere. Like a superficial layer that helps people feel good about themselves by distancing them from what truly is.
At first this annoys me, then I accept it, then I don’t see it and before I know it… I’m wearing it again too.
And everything’s back to being more pleasant, but just a little less real.
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