Mosaic

Steve being indecent on the Temple Mount

I have been in Israel for thirteen days now with my colleagues. Under the leadership of Professor Guy Ziv (and backup leader Steve Glickman), we have been inundated with the peoples, the cultures, and the conflicts afflicting Israel internally and outside the borders. We have visited so many sites and met with so many individuals that taking in all the information would be impossible. But if there is one thing people in Israel are not, it is shy. And this goes for their hospitality (which is genuine and welcoming-especially if they know you are American) as well as their opinions, which are as diverse as the people.

Some of the places we have been include: Temple Mount (including the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque), The Western Wall, Church of the Holy Sepulcher, Mount of Olives, Sea of Galilee, Negev Desert, and the Golan Heights. We have met with writers, politicians, peace activists, officers in the Israeli Defense Force, and Palestinians. There are so many places to see and so many people to meet that it can seem overwhelming at times. Being able to see Jerusalem (truly a strikingly beautiful city) and Israel from the many different perspectives and hear so many opinions is truly a blessing. But in the land for blessings, there certainly has been no shortage of tragedy.

People live politics and conflict on an everyday basis. There are a number of breaks in Israeli society beyond Israeli-Palestinians. A member of the Knesset, Israel’s Parliament, told us that she likes to focus on the larger picture because issues in the Middle East, and Israel in particular, can easily degenerate into a multitude of details that can be confusing. For her, this is a luxury she has as an elite member of the government whose job is to try to make sense of the larger picture although she no doubt has to struggle herself. But what I have realized is that for the majority of people here, their life is one of those details from which that they cannot run. In other words, they are living the reality of living in a fought-over land and the problems often seem intractable.

That being said, people go on with their lives. Last week, we went to a concert here in Jerusalem and saw the joy on the faces of the youthful crowd. It could have easily been mistaken for an American concert if the words were in English and there were not teenage Israeli Defense Force soldiers in their olive-colored uniforms mingling with the rest of the young people. Yesterday, we met with Bedouins in the southern desert, the Negev. The town of Rahat is actually the first Bedouin town established as a town because they are traditionally a nomadic people who lived out of tents. Interestingly, two of the Bedouin men we met with, both with good jobs and well-educated, stated that if they had a choice, they would return to the tent and the nomadic lifestyle. But the tidal wave of modernism has swept through even the Bedouins’ population and there’s no going back.

I hoped to give you, the reader, just a small introduction to and a glimpse at the Israel my colleagues and I have had the opportunity to experience the past couple of weeks. There is a lot going on here besides the politics but the tense political situation inevitably finds its way into every conversation and seeps into every aspect of the lives of the people. Now off to learn more in this land which has been contested for thousands of years.