“I really want to be a sniper”
“Yo, I don’t think you can be a (word in Hebrew – name of an IDF position) and also be a sniper”
“Dude, you totally can. There’s this guy on base, he’s totally badass, he’s like (Hebrew word) and a (another Hebrew word) and also a sniper. The guy’s nuts.”
“How’s your shooting coming?”
“I don’t know, not that great, I really need to work on it.”
“Man, I really want to be a paratrooper [very well regarded position in the IDF]. Just so afterwards I can hit on Taglit (birthright) girls and be all like ‘Do you know what a paratrooper does?’”
(laughter)
As you can probably imagine, this conversation was not overheard at the Machon. This weekend, before I go home to Toronto for Passover, I’m taking a couple days to visit my good friend Shoshi on the kibbutz where she and her garin stay. For those who don’t remember, a garin (meaning “nucleus” in English) is a group of people who come together before the army to spend a year doing volunteer work around Israel. In Shoshi’s case, however, the setup is a little different, since she made aliyah about the same time as I came to Israel and is known as a “lone soldier”. This means she has no family to live with in Israel, and so she’s put up on a kibbutz for her ulpan with a number of other lone soldiers, who essentially become her family. So here I am on Kibbutz Lavi (my heart) nestled on a hill overlooking the Galilee. This place is hardly recognizable as the same continent as Ketura, never mind the same country – it’s overcast, moist and cool, the vegetation lush and almost tropical, reminding me more than anything else of the Lake District in England. Having left the desert just six hours before, I’m reminded again just how diverse Israel is at pretty much every level. Standing with Shoshi and looking over the green hills patched together with orchards, fields, and forest, I’m reminded of what Rabbi Michael told us about the desert and how the barrenness forces you to bare your own soul. It’s hard to place the feeling up here, but beginning with the conversation I overheard upon arrival, I can say it felt as complicated as the landscape, clothing me in complexity, context, contingency, but not in a burdensome way.
Coming from a place where the basic assumption is that IDF is an institution always on precarious moral footing, carrying out, as a branch of the state, the occupation of the Palestinian Territories, it was a slight mental shock to jump right into the conversations of these bright eyed Olim Chadashim (new immigrants) about the ins and outs of army life. The practical jokes and the hierarchical structure of command, the long hikes with packs and the crappy food, whose job is viewed as prestigious and whose as bitchwork, discussions about learning to use different weapons and different military tactics, which guns are badass and how boring guard duty is. These are great kids, full of life, energy, and humor – the kind of kids I went to summer camp with. And their experience sounds a lot like summer camp, with the new dialect they bring back to describe the distinct IDF culture: everybody makes fun of everybody else’s jobs, they talk about which commanders are cool and which ones are harsh, and they come back to the kibbutz after a stint in service beat and tired, ready to sleep for a week. I have to say that the prospect of the whole thing is pretty attractive.
Last week a group of representatives from Dalton Mcguinty’s Ontario government came through the Machon, scoping it out for a potential visit from the premier. As a Torontonian, I was of course invited to be on the little panel of students they brought in to talk to the group, and the meeting was a lot of fun. Hopefully Dalton will come through, and I’ll get to meet him! I told this to Shoshi, and she got pretty excited, so I invited her down to the kibbutz should the occasion arise. She mentioned she’d want to come in uniform, and meet him in her full IDF garb, and I didn’t know exactly how to tell her it wasn’t a great idea. It’s of course no secret that almost all of the Israelis in the Machon served in the IDF, some even as officers. In fact, last semester we had a special two PELS sessions focused on the IDF where students who had served wrote about their experiences and then a representative panel was chosen to answer any questions anybody had for a good four hours. Then a similar exercise took place on the Palestinian side, where Palestinian students shared their experiences with the IDF. So the issue’s not underground. But as you may recall from my post about last term’s Negev trip, the IDF uniform does something to the Palestinians, and makes it very hard to separate their negative experiences with aggressive soldiers from the person wearing the uniform, even a very close friend.
Last PELS session, I was talking to Yousre, a Palestinian student who not only loved the Machon enough to stay for two semesters when he’d only planned to come for one, but even stayed on as a program assistant after that. Way back when, Yousre landed a job in Israel just one day before the second intifada, and on his first (and only) day, he had slipped and fallen coming up some stairs. Immediately, two people in the office came over to see if he was ok and if he needed any help. The way Yousre describe it, he was totally shocked. Growing up, the only experience most Palestinians have with Israelis is with soldiers, and he hadn’t imagined that an Israeli would ever show such kindness towards him. Though the intifada cut his position short, this one moment of kindness was crucial in his future pursuit of opportunities to meet more Israelis and explore peace-building. It’s a lesson – you never know what effect one little moment of kindness might have somewhere down the road.
As the situation in the region crumbles a little bit, and the US and Britain both turn cold shoulders to Israel in response to careless slights on Israel’s part, I hear the laughter and humanity of the new soldiers, and I think back to Tuesday night, when the Machon got together for culture night. We all got together and everyone shared their culture (or adopted or chosen culture) in a fun way. The night looked like this:
Leora and Me – two Canadian songs – Ahead by a Century by Tragically Hip and Crabbuckit by K-OS
Hila and Me – A demonstration of Capoeira, a Brazilian dance-fighting style
Assaf K and friends – Israeli pop songs
Assaf C and Amber – ice cream making
Lauren and Justin – a presentation about North Carolina featuring old-timey dancing
The Arab students – a Jordanian wedding and a lively dabka session
Itai and Hadas – a quick Japanese language and origami lesson
Julie and Timna – though in different countries, they’re both guides and found out that the “mama shark” song is transnational
An assortment of amazing dishes prepared by different people
We had a ton of fun, and the humanity in all of us came out really strongly. It is a horrible shame that the political situation in the country causes the victimization of everyone involved – the soldiers who the day before were laughing and joking become hard and aggressive, largely out of fear, not hate, and the Palestinians who the night before were celebrating with their families and dancing dabka become stubborn and angry for the same reasons. If only everyone could experience the kind of connection that something like our culture night generates, feel the kindness and humanity that exists under the uniform or the keffiyah, maybe we could begin to heal.
As Passover approaches, a time of renewal, my wish is for those little moments of kindness to blossom and multiply exponentially, to light the way to a better future.
I know, I know. How Naïve. But we could do worse than to try.
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