Idle Musings

Military Mobilization?

On June 21, 2007, I woke up, like any other day. Although, I always feel that it’s a good day, when I wake up. However, I digress. We walked to our ulpan and immediately noticed that the city was filled with soldiers. In fact, I was actually somewhat alarmed. Had the problems with Gaza spread to Jerusalem? Had the rumors of war with Syria come to fruition? Mercifully, no. It was merely the annual Gay Pride Parade. However, this is not an event to be treated lightly. The relationship between the hostilely secular (though, in fairness, in this instance the marchers were merely seeking tolerance and equal treatment for gays and lesbians) and the oppressively religious is a ticking time bomb. Last year, in fact, the Gay Pride Parade in Jerusalem resulted in stabbings of marchers by a religious nut and bags of urine and feces being tossed at the marchers. Of course, the religious believe that it is better to stab a gay guy, than be a gay guy, or even be friends with one. This time the authorities were taking no chances. Over 8,000 border police were called up to maintain order. There were literally troops on every corner that was even remotely in the vicinity of the march. Fortunately, the march went off without incident. Melissa and I noticed that, for the most part, the soldiers were sitting around eating sandwiches. It seemed fitting that Jewish soldiers would spend most of the day noshing. Melissa surmised that there must be Jewish mothers somewhere in the border police hierarchy who insisted on packing sandwiches for the soldiers. They should go hungry?

Diversity

After all of our travels, Melissa and I have come to the counter-intuitive conclusion that Israel is the most diverse of the many nations that we have visited. Of course, this is counter-intuitive in that it’s a Jewish nation. Therefore, one might think that the country is utterly homogenous. However, it’s just not true. There is great diversity between the physical appearances of the Sephardic (dark Middle Eastern tone), Ashkenazi (white European) and Ethiopian Jews (black African). Of course, when you add the non-Jewish elements, such as Arabs, Druze, and others, you have a true societal cornucopia. Along with the obvious physical distinctions of these various groups, they each bring with them a rich and vibrant cultural heritage. Walking through Machane Yehuda (the Jewish outdoor food market) on Fridays before Shabbat is a truly colorful experience, and not just because of the fruits and vegetables.

In contrast, all of the prior places that we visited were largely homogenous. Tanzania has tribal diversity, some religious diversity, but really no racial diversity. No one ever confused me with a Tanzanian, and frankly, we stuck out like sore thumbs. Southeast Asia, of course, possesses great cultural diversity, but very limited racial diversity. In Laos no one ever spoke to me in Laotian, assuming that I was Laotian.

In some ways, this realization was slightly unsettling. How could it be that the Land of the Jews was the most diverse place we visited? At the same time, it was another element that spoke to the miracle that is Israel. During Israel’s two year War of Independence starting in 1948, Israel not only had to fight against a much bigger and better armed Arab military, but also had to integrate a massive number of refugees from hugely divergent places, many of whom were broken people coming out of Hitler’s camps or were desperately poor or the subject of intense discrimination in Arab countries. Most did not even speak the language. Indeed, modern Hebrew was only a few decades old at the time. To put some numbers against this; when the war started there were about 600,000 Jews in Israel, by the end of the war there were 1,600,000 Jews. An extraordinary integration by any standard, let alone one done in the course of a war that the Israelis should not have won.

Separate But Equal Revisited

Melissa has taken the time in Israel to catch up on all of the religious services that she missed over the past five months. Notwithstanding our renewed closeness, Melissa’s exploration of the synagogue options has been largely a solitary endeavor for her. However, I have gone a few times with her and we’re both somewhat surprised, probably naively so, at the ubiquitous presence of the mechitza. The mechitza is the divider that separates men and women from each other during services. The alleged rationale is that men are unable to pray in the presence of women. Put another way, a man’s constant preoccupation with sex, makes it impossible for him to concentrate during religious services amid the presence of lovely beguiling young women, or even old ugly ones. At this Shabbat, I also learned that a married woman should never be alone with a man that is not her husband and vice versa, because inexorably that will lead to adulterous relations. If only it were that easy. I came away thinking that the Rabbis who put together these rules must have been the horniest guys alive. Horny, and frankly, a bit arrogant (like it would be that easy for them to get laid).

But now that I think about it, the Rabbis may have been right and perhaps did not go far enough. I think that it’s just not sufficient to separate men and women during prayers, or to keep married women away from men (and vice versa), but there should be separate places for men and women to work (how are men supposed to work when they’re just a wink away from a passionate embrace), separate public transportation to prevent the rampant sexuality for which our subways are famous, separate schools (does this even require explanation?). From America’s own history, we know full well that separate but equal works just fine.

If it’s good enough for our horny dead Rabbis, it’s good enough for me.