Here I am in Jerusalem. I don’t think I have been here since 2004. I lived in Israel from 1989-2000, the first year in Jerusalem but then I moved to Tel Aviv.
The start to this trip was not auspicious. I got one of those obnoxious Israeli cab drivers. Are they a thing or was I just unlucky? I don’t know, but there’s no denying that this guy was downright rude. Here’s how it went down (the whole conversation was in Hebrew):
Me: The Kings Hotel in Jerusalem, please.
Driver: What’s the address?
Me: I’m not sure. I think it’s King George Street.
D: You think? How am I supposed to get there?
Me: Don’t you have GPS?
D: Yes, but what if there are two hotels with the same name? There are 500 hotels in Jerusalem.
He gives me more trouble, so finally I say that if he doesn’t want to take me he can bring me back to the airport.
D: How do you think I can bring you back, lady? In reverse?
Me: Please, have mercy on me. I have been traveling for 24 hours.
He didn’t, though eventually he did shut up for most of the way, so maybe he did.
Anyway, it is weird being here because I lived here before marriage and kids and I keep walking by places that remind me of old boyfriends. I half expect to see them in these places, looking as they did 30 years ago!
I went poking about some shops yesterday and had some interesting conversations:
—One guy tried to convince me how great Trump was.
—Another guy, who I spoke to for an hour, I think, asked me my name and then proceeded to do gematria on it (According to Wikipedia: “Gematria is an alphanumeric code of assigning a numerical value to a name, word or phrase based on its letters. A single word can yield multiple values depending on the cipher used. Gematria originated as an Assyro-Babylonian-Greek system of alphanumeric code or cipher that was later adopted into Jewish culture”). Also he told me all these really accurate things about me and my kids based on our names. It was fascinating! And then we spoke politics too, but we were on the same wavelength.
—With my friend Jody, we went into a tiny boutique. I commented on two old photos of women that the owner/seamstress had up on the wall. She said they were of her grandmothers, one of whom was murdered with two of her children in the Holocaust. Then her friend came as I was telling her that my work involves non-Jewish Poles preserving Jewish memory in Poland and said friend started saying how horrible the Poles are and how horrible the Germans are and did not want to hear any of our arguments to the contrary. I did not even manage to say that it doesn’t make sense to make a blanket statement about an entire group, and that we did not and do not like it when people do that to us as Jews—she was too closed to hear it. The owner of the store, however, was gratified that we had noticed her grandmothers. She said that she always knew that if she ever had a store she would put those photos there.
It’s so much fun to go out and talk to the people! I feel myself channeling my father as I do that. He loved meeting people and had an intuitive sense about them, often “guessing” how many children they had, what ages they were, etc…Also, he spoke so many languages (Russian, Polish, Yiddish, Hebrew, French, English, Belorussian, French, German, Italian, Spanish (in the present tense) and some Arabic) that he was able to connect to many people. I love speaking other languages as well. I went to a taco place and when I went to order I was tongue tied and said to the guy in Spanish (I heard him speaking native-speaker Spanish) that I did not know if I should order in Spanish, Hebrew or English. He said any of them was fine so I went for Spanish. How fun!
It’s Christmas in Jerusalem and my Yad Vashem Seminar for tour guides who bring groups to Poland starts tonight. I will report back.