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And now a memory in one draft, no revisions cause I had to get this down.
The trashcans situated under the shredders held state secrets, banking information, and strategies to either promote or quash the Oslo Accords, depending on who was reading the statements that day to the press. My co-workers and I, in fits of sheer boredom after spending countless days and nights in suites at the Mayflower Hotel, would dig into the piles of paper strips, fish them out, and tape them together in random bits and pieces. Taking on the voices and mannerisms of one of the key players, maybe Rabin or Perez, or Yossi Beilin, we would read the speech we re-created and no matter how mixed-up, the message was it was always the same. This track to peace (water, arms, air rights) is in process, desertification will take the land away before they can get it, desalination may give us water for crops but we aren’t going to share, and never will there be a real two-state solution, Israel will always control water rights, PLO this, PLO that. The message was always the same no matter how scrambled the words.
None of it was ever going to happen.
It was 1993 and I was a press officer at the Israeli Embassy in Washington D.C. (1992-1995). I sat on the White House lawn and witnessed ceremonies with Arafat and Hussein, which meant nearly nothing. We all knew that Israel was never going to cede an inch of territory to the Palestinians. It was painful to watch but rather cool to be in the middle of the circus.
And now, over 30 years later, this. After the horrific, unimaginable attacks of Oct. 7 and the horrific and unimaginable decimation of Gaza that has followed, I sink lower and lower. The shredded strips of paper came into my mind this morning as I was surfacing from a dream. I tried grasping at those shreds but they floated away. And I realized that they will always float away. I am hopeless about the situation but I can’t be. I have friends, ex-lovers, bosses, neighbors, and memories that will be with me until the day I die, in Israel. I hold an Israeli passport. I speak Hebrew. I love Israel so much it hurts. But it’s like a bad boyfriend, right? Sometimes he is the greatest and I can’t get enough of him, and then I sob on the bed until dawn because he broke my heart again. I moved to Israel when I was 22. Israel was 38. Israel could have been my boyfriend. I always liked older guys. But they nearly always let me down.
Now I’m 60 and you, Israel are 76. I was intrigued with you when we were younger, you were so beautiful, sun-tanned and buff. But now I’m mad as hell at you. You are no longer buff and tan, you are mean and spiteful. I’m so glad I didn’t marry you – I just hold your citizenship, but, hey, I can let that go at any time.
But you know I won’t. You know I won’t ever leave you. You have a hold on me that will never let go. I love you so much. I still have so much hope. Please please please, don’t let me down again. Because if you do it might be the last time. Who am I kidding. I’ll always be around. If only for those friends, ex-lovers, bosses, etc. Because I am a Jew. And you will always be my home. I want to open my home to all those who want to live there, but you are keeping the gates locked. Open up. Now or never. Please. We have to make this relationship work.
What a great piece. Truly enchanting, inviting, realistic and relatable!
I was in Israel for three weeks during the summer of 1980. I stayed with some distant relatives in Herzliya. The mother of three taught at University and took me to swim with her and for the first time I got how therapeutic it could be to swim laps. I got around, I saw many sites, but the other perhaps bigger memory was sitting on the floor in a bookstore in Tel Aviv and buying three or four paperbacks I had no business carrying around to then release for free to another because I was tired of carrying them in my backpack. But the bookstore was so comfortable and life traveling at 20 wasn't. When flying out to continue traveling on my own, an older couple sitting next to me asked, "You're American. When will you make Aliyah?"
"I won't," I didn't feel it.
"Well, then you're not a real Jew."
"I find it so interesting that Jews always feel persecuted and yet Jews are the most judgmental about their own."
End of conversation as I remember it but it left an uncomfortable taste in my mouth, to say the least.
I'm glad you are musing more!
Having never been to or desired to go to Israel, which, for a Jew, is a sin, I get this piece so much. I've never denied its right to exist, but your right to exist cannot equal a right to do unto others what has been done to you. That's not what every religion in the world teaches. Do unto others as you'd HAVE them do unto you.