Broken Hearted in Be'er Sheva

I went in to volunteering an hour early today, so I was sitting alone at the bus stop. An older man walked by and stopped to ask me if everything was all right. I felt fine, but my face must have looked somber or distressed. I thanked him and assured him I was all right.

This is not the first time that a random stranger has expressed concern about my well being while I waited at a bus stop in Israel. It happened for the first time at the Be'er Sheva bus station three years ago. It is one of the more touching aspects of Israeli society.

That was where the touching aspects ended today, however. I waited for the bus for about a half hour, and the whole time, there were a few boys climbing on top of the little bus stop structure, making a ruckus and frightening me.

The reality of the place hit me as I watched the world pass by from the bus window. The apartment buildings here are raised, so as to let air circulate underneath. People congregate under the buildings sometimes. Today I saw an old woman sitting alone there, her walker set out in front of her. She was just gazing ahead. I have no idea if she was content or if she was lonely. I have no idea about her life whatsoever. But that image cut through me.

I even had a thought that the women at the shelter where I work are happier than that woman, because they have things to do and people to hang out with them. And then I felt guilty about trying to put an order on sadness, or trying to organize what's worse and what's better.

The whole horrible reality of everything hit me today. During my research on women's shelters in the US, I found a shelter that has kennel services on site. "Nearly half of the women entering the shelter say their pets have been threatened, injured, or killed by their abusive partner." Somehow, I had been putting information into boxes in my mind and making sense of domestic abuse, however difficult that was. Women can walk out, they can call hotlines, they can come to shelters. But when I thought about the animals, I hit a wall. I couldn't fit this into a box. I couldn't make sense out of the cruelty.

Last night, the volunteers from the women's shelter went to a pub with our volunteer coordinator, a 28 year old angel on earth, Shiran. We had maintained distance at the shelter and it was important to everyone to break down some barriers so we could connect on a more personal level. After gossiping a bit, exposing everyone's love lives, and battling an enormous caterpillar, the conversation turned to politics. Shiran is very left wing. She absolutely hated the army, where she served as a sort of social worker for soldiers (she had to do house visits to determine financial need and she visited the homes of some very poor, very disadvantaged people). She spoke openly about her opinions about the army in general, how wrong it is that the army is glorified and how terrible it is to make 18 year olds guard borders and jump out of planes, and that the army is not a great equalizer, because the rich Ashkenazi (white) Jews enter certain elite units, and everyone else goes into other units. And she spoke about racism in Israeli society, and how she views Zionism as being connected inextricably with racism.

I had always been so proud to call myself a Zionist, but I had never heard Zionism described like this. She told us gently and without a tone of debate, she was just expressing her own opinion and telling us about her personal experiences. I really valued this conversation because I realized I had mostly come into contact with right wing, privileged Israelis.

Shiran told us that when she was a senior in high school, one of her teachers was killed as a result of the Second Intifada. Instead of becoming vengeful and right wing in response, she went in the other direction. She felt that people said meaningless things to her for comfort ("Everything happens for a reason," and, "Only the best die young," and other silly things that don't respect the trauma or depth of this death). And she began to see systematic oppression and racism in Israeli society.

In no way is this post a declaration of "anti Israel" sentiments (I still consider myself a Zionist, even though I have a deeper understanding of what that term means to some people now). Rather, it is a declaration of reality. In some ways, it is a submission. I have known that these issues exist in Israeli society but I have chosen to not give them the weight they deserve. Today, I cannot ignore them any longer.

I am in a safe place this summer in terms of my relationship with Israel. I have my feet on the ground here, and I know that the country isn't going anywhere. I am not surrounded by potential detractors at school. I do not have to constantly be on the defensive. I do not have to counter every allegation of racism or terrorism with a bright, sunny statistic about democracy or technology or gay tourism. I have the space and the time to take in these criticisms, view the oppression with my own eyes, speak with Israeli Arabs, Druze, Ethiopians, and other populations that are discriminated against, and make my own conclusions.

These conclusions are still in the works. The process is painful, though, and I feel as though my heart has been laid open on an operating table and the surgeon has forgotten about me. I am exposed, I am open, I am vulnerable. I have not felt this way in a long time, and I know that ultimately, it is a good position to be in when forming opinions. But it's not easy. It feels the same as a broken heart.