Oil Lamp

Israel, 2004

I chose to celebrate my 50th birthday in Israel and Jordan, two places I’d never before visited.

Despite its awesome antiquity—or as a function of it—Israel was challenging, on many levels. There had been a bus bombing in Jerusalem the day before my arrival, and the country was on high alert. Israel, I quickly discovered, may be the only country on earth where you gladly stop your rented Hyundai to pick up a hitchhiker carrying an M16 assault rifle.

“It’s not an M16,” the teenage soldier corrected me. “It’s an A3.”
“What’s that?”
“An M16 with an Israeli upgrade.”

Nowhere in my travels had I encountered a dynamic more dysfunctional than the blood feud between the Israeli Jews and Palestinians. Another armed hitchhiker, this one a medic, told me of plan to discourage suicide bombings by returning the bomber’s remains wrapped in pork: “A sick solution,” he admitted, “for a sick society.”

It wasn’t all bad. There was the Dead Sea, which cocooned my body in a scarf-like gossamer of salt; the tiny rolls of prayer pressed into the crevices of the Western Wall; the Marc Chagall windows of Abbell Synagogue at the Hadassah University Medical Center; exquisite raw honey on the kibbutz.

II.

But in full measure, it was all too much. So I departed Israel and celebrated my actual birthday in Jordan’s astonishing Wadi Rum, exploring a familiar and beloved landscape: That desert was used as a location in Lawrence of Arabia, one of my two all-time favorite movies. So geeky am I that I’d brought along my Sony Walkman, loaded with the soundtrack from the film. Listening to Maurice Jarre’s swelling Overture, as our Willys bounced between the sandstone arches and hoodoos, brought me to tears. Though not religious, I recited what I believe is a beautiful Jewish prayer; a prayer of gratitude for having lived to reach this moment: sheheheyanu v’kiyimanu, v’higiyanu laz’man hazeh.

III.

The village of Beit Ummar sprawls over the grapevine and plum-covered hills just north of Hebron, in the West Bank. It resembles a hive of sandstone cubes, scattered across the undulations like weathered salt crystals. A group called The Christian Peacemakers Team
had arranged my overnight visit. I was hosted by the family of Ghazi Brigieth—a 42-year-old Palestinian peacemaker who had created an interfaith organization with the self-explanatory name of Bereaved Families.

As Ghazi and I conversed, his 3-year-old son Yusef played nearby. Ghazi told me a story about how, earlier, when Yusef thought he’d offended his father by saying a bad word, he pretended to take a gun out of his tunic and put the barrel in his mouth. “How clever he is!” Ghazi exclaimed drily. As the afternoon faded and the slow roll to dusk began, little Yusef picked up a black water bottle and put it to his mouth like a megaphone. “Mamnua a’tizjawol!” he cried out. “Mumnua a’tizjawol!” (Curfew! Curfew!)

IV.

Returning to Jerusalem, I faced a dilemma. What does one bring back as a keepsake from such an ambivalent journey? For myself, a beautiful silver kaddish cup, which I now use for the blessing over the holiday wine. And as an offering, this ancient oil lamp.

May there be light.

Note: You can read the full set of dispatches from my Israel trip at:
http://thingsasian.com/story/compromised-land-dispatches-israel-beyond