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Today, for the international day fo peace I want to share a personal selfish thought with you. If you’re not Israeli you can either sympathize with me or hate me for it (and if it really touches you, it should be able to feel a little bit of both).

Pumpkin spiced latte

It’s a Starbuck’s original. I’m having it almost every day for the past two weeks. It became part of my routine here and drinking it feels so foreign, exotic. It’s nice to get used to something that you won’t be able to have when you’re back home. In a globalized world where you get the same things everywhere; in the Internet era when you can be on facebook, twitter and skype with your friends and family, and experience the events back home – I hold on to those little differences that weave the sense of actually being in another place.

I’m in Hawaii, carrying out a routine of paradise on earth, and yet I miss home so much. I get to be in a fantasy setting and I find myself longing to just hang out with my dog again in that ugly square near my house in Tel Aviv. The Americans I meet feel lucky to be Americans. They always assume all of us Middle Eastern would rather be Americans too and be away from all of this war crap. I don’t blame them, they got long immigration queues that give them that idea, but I find it hard to explain to them why I can’t really make myself at home anywhere but in my home. Why I love visiting their country and all other countries, but no matter how many years I’ll drink it, that tasty pumpkin spiced latte will never “taste like home” for me.

Home is where ______ is

What’s that got to do with peace day? I’m getting there. You see, I happen to live in a place of dispute. My ancestors claim it was their promised land and wave their bibles, while some of my neighbors and web friends claim their ancestors were on that land too and hold keys to the old houses they fled from during our independence war. How would an American feel if a Native American will knock on his door one day and claim his ancestors actually owned this land before there were U.S property laws and he should just evacuate himself to Canada or something? (At least until the Canadian Eskimos will realize they can pull the same trick…)

The Native American (or in my case, Palestinian) may have a point there, but would you leave the house you were born in, the only place that you will ever call home, because the guy has a point? Furthermore, will that guy really feel like home in your house? I’ve talked to this Palestinian guy online and he told me his family is originally from the Israeli city of Safed and he dreams of coming back home.

Since he was born in Gaza and never saw safed, I was compelled to ask him: Are you sure it’ll feel like home to you? Safed is a myth to you as the vague Promised Land was to my biblical ancestors. I’ve been to Safed a month ago, it’s a very poor city living of its peculiar mystical tourism. Honestly, after you’ve seen the city I bet you wouldn’t wanna live there. A home is not just a construction or merely a location, it’s what was cultivated on it and in it and with it, and it’s the culture and the community that emerged in that space and has already merged with it. “And that, my friend” I told him, “isn’t yours. It can’t be yours. It’s foreign to you, and you’ll feel it”.

The secret formula of home

Many people ask me how come I continue to live and love Israel, why won’t I use immigration as a form of resistance to my government’s actions. Heck, I even threatened to do so myself, many times. But obviously I can’t. I mean, of course I CAN, technically, I’m a friendly educated person with a global consciousness that can take root practically everywhere. You can remove me quite easily from Israeli territory but you can’t remove my roots – the Israeli culture and identity – it is with the same roots that I go to a foreign land and although it will rarely be noted on the surface, my roots may never really fit in perfectly in the new soil.

Even if I wander as far as the north pole, I’ll always be asked where I’m originally from, I’ll always be held responsible to something by someone, I’ll always feel guilty about something, I’ll always care about everything that happens back home. *sigh*, yea, home will always be “there” even if whatever I had there didn’t exist anymore.

It’s not politically correct but it’s true so I’ll just go ahead and say it: as much as I am peace seeking and sympathetic to Palestinian suffering, and aware of the injustice that keeps me safe in my home, I am still grateful my home is unchanged, that the circumstances that make it my home are maintained.  Living in Israel you normally meet Palestinians who speak of an independent country in Gaza and the West Bank and that seems just fine and far away, but when abroad or online you meet many other Palestinians that speak of the entire land as Palestine, that want to return to Jaffa and Safed and hey, wasn’t Tel Aviv actually “Sheikh Munis” once?…

I fear that the concept of home, like love or identity, is a complex caotic fractal, a secret formula, that if I change one component I’ll lose it entirely. Tel Aviv just won’t be Tel Aviv under Palestinian rule, with a flock of new Palestinian residents or when its people and cafes and beaches are moved, as is, to Uganda. The geography and ecology create symbiosis with the community and the culture: it just doesn’t grow the same way in a different environment, in different circumstances.

There’s no clear right or wrong, both sides have rightful claims. Palestinian grandmothers should be allowed to return to the homes they fled from and at the same time Israeli children should be allowed to live in the homes they were born in. It doesn’t matter that it’s a small territory barely spotted on the world map while vast fertile lands wait to be inhabited someplace else. This is the fu**ing home for both of us and that’s that, i guess. Go figure. May we find a more peaceful and creative way to share it in a way that maintains those secret ingredients that make it a home for all of us.

The people of Israel live, homeless

As I was wrapping up this post a miraculous thing happened. I overheard the Israeli hymn, the tikva (that means “hope”), coming from downstairs across the street on waikiki beach, played by a homeless violinist. I left the computer and went down with a video camera. By the time I crossed the street he was already playing the popular “Jerusalem of gold” and I managed to capture him with the finale of the patriotic chant “am Israel chai” (which means “the people of Israel live” and is often sung by religious people in hard times, to cheer us up and remind us of the liveliness of our people and what we accomplished after all that we have been through).

The mixed nationalities tourist audience cheered without even realizing what they listened to. During the break he took after “hava nagila”, the homeless violinist told me he wasn’t even Jewish, he just knows many popular violin tunes from different cultures and he was playing there for hours before i heard him.

Tears came to my eyes as I realized this was just a message from the universe, from God to me, a manifestation of the ability of my culture to follow me everywhere, even in the most unexpected places like Waikiki beach, and always strike a chord (pun intended this time) weather I like it to matter for me or not.

The people of Israel indeed live and they live practically everywhere in the world, but only few lucky (?) ones can come to terms with calling another place home. I am continuously amazed to meet Israeli people living in the U.S and Europe for many years, seeing success and wealth there and yet giving it all up, settling for much less, only to return home again, to Israel.

Before you have any dialog with us, I think you should understand this about us. It doesn’t justify occupation, it doesn’t justify anything. I suppose even the most serious left wing activist feels this dissonance as he or she still live here and not just write an angry blog from their NYC residence… it’s just how thing are and that’s what I wanted to talk about today. Happy peace day to everyone. I still blog for trust!

What is home to YOU? Is it a distant cultural memory or the actual smells of your mom’s cooking, the flower bushes outside your house, the angry salesman in the local grocery store….?

Entering the stretch zone in Luxembourg*

Read this post in Hebrew

On the second morning of the ALF bloggers intercultural training, the Luxembourg abbey was turned into a casino: we were seated arbitrarily at 5 tables, and Xavi, our non formal education trainer, taught us to play “Barga” (which is Whist with a twist). After every round, the winner moves to the right table and the loser to the left, thus two people are replaced at each table. Oh, and we aren’t allowed to talk during the entire game. What we didn’t know is that every table got slightly different game rules that were taken from the table when the game officially started.

Identity politics, decaffeinated

I lost the first round, and as I walked towards my new table, I realized the game must be a metaphor for immigration to a new culture. Indeed, this new table culture was weird. When they claimed I won, I laughed and showed them they’re crazy in sign language but I was happy to go back to my original table. I was zigzagging between winning and losing so I visited only two tables besides my original and the vibe there was weird. I played calmly without even understanding the rules by which I was playing, letting others lead and assuming different interpretations in different tables. When I got back to my table I was received with hugs and laughs and I was so happy to come back “home” I was almost sorry I was winning again.

At the end of the game we broke the silence and broke down the metaphor. We perceive ourselves as liberal and global but “Barga” proved we all fall into our unaware cultural stereotypes when we encounter uncertainty. I was the classical Jew, turning her home-table into a happy sticky Jewish family, focused on the community rather than the laws, and although I seemed assimilated at other tables I was clueless, I wasn’t having fun and I couldn’t wait to be back home. Deep down I think I even believed my table had the real and right understanding of the rules (the chosen table? Mmmm).

Another blogger from my   original table, Greek Orthodox from Cyprus, took upon himself the missionary/imperialist role and spread our rules to all other tables, confusing players even further. The “world” gave in to him until he met resistance from the Palestinian blogger, who was sick and tired of being confused. Later she confessed no table felt like home and she was angry and felt deceived by everyone. I felt great compassion to this “trust no one” refugee consciousness that we share in our cultural genes, although we employed different strategies to deal with it.

The Lebanese blogger confessed the game felt like Lebanon for her, when every group plays by different rules and the only way to survive is to form alliances. She indeed formed an alliance with the British blogger and they were showing drawings to newcomers socializing them to the rules they’ve established. Finally, kudos to the Egyptians that were adapting quickly everywhere, having fun and winning, bringing back new integrated methods from other tables.

Tolerance means stepping outta the comfort zone

We went back to our study room, confused and troubled, to get some theoretical explanation for what we felt. Xavi explained people do everything to get back to their comfort zone but real learning occurs in the stretch zone only. However, if you stretch too much you’re in the panic zone, where anger, hysteria and frustration kill learning again. When one is able to endure the stretch zone, growth happens and one’s comfort zone expands.

When we encounter Otherness most of us become ethnocentric. Even if it doesn’t normally get to the point we deny the Other’s humanity or defend ourselves from their danger, we all minimize. Minimizing the Other is a sublime daily ethnocentrism in which we come with good intentions (or just politically correctness) to respect others but we are pretty fixed on our views and think their interpretations are lesser than ours. Xavi asked us to entertain the idea we are rarely in real dialog. We rarely listen when we are truly open to accept and integrate.

This intensive training actually provided numerous opportunities for me to dive into the stretch zone. The farther I’ve stretched was probably the culture night, as I had to witness the Palestinian blogger present Jerusalem, Jaffa and Nazareth which to me form part of Israel. When she joked even Jesus was Palestinian, I couldn’t find my sense of humor to remark that Mel Gibson must stand corrected and do another movie to get off our Jewish backs.

Honestly, I didn’t expect I’d be bothered but this training proved the Jewish gene comes uninvited; channeling through me that ancient fear of being homeless again, losing that little piece of land that comes without the peace of mind anyway, after my ancestors paid such a heavy price for it. My voice was still a bit shaky as immediately afterward I started my presentation, thanking God I went for stuff like Bamba snack, Ilan Ramon and the Israeli high tech creativity rather than retreating into the state city of Tel Aviv, my comfort zone.

Being strong means becoming comfortable with the stretch zone

That night I cried. I couldn’t’ sleep and I wasn’t even sure why. After two days of reflection I think I can offer some explanation, though. I cried because the stretch zone isn’t necessarily a fun place to be in and growth is a painful process. I cried because both our people are nomads nobody wanted around, and instead of embracing each other we duplicate and mirror the exclusion.

I cried because we fail to break the magic cycle of victim/aggressor, celebrating the panic zone or rushing back to the comfort zone at any cost. The Israeli public opinion is too edgy to be stretched these past few years; it looks away and pretends it didn’t notice the price paid for restoring comfort zone ASAP.

I cried because I am constantly attempting to ground myself within a vortex, when half of my community consists of dark souls, disgusting racist morons, and the other half consists of amazing, sensitive and creative people who bring so much light and knowledge to the universe, who can turn swamps into a heaven with a research institute beside it. And all and all, that’s all I got, that’s my home-table. I cried because the things I’m ashamed of and angry about in my country equal the things I’m in love with and proud of, and even if I resent my family I still love it and depend on it for my safety, like a tree can’t deny its roots.

On that culture night, the Palestinian blogger brought bracelets as give-aways with Palestine’s flag colors. I took one home because I feel uncomfortable to look at it, but every time I look at it I’m stretching out a bit, experiencing that little sting of real encounter with Otherness and the threat to the ego that comes with a competing frame for my reality.

And by looking at it I’m reminding myself that being strong isn’t about arrogance or defensive attack. It’s about taking deep breaths, feeling and containing the anger and anxiety and taking baby steps towards feeling more comfortable with that.

* I find this title ironic since Luxembourg is peaceful to the point it puts you to sleep.