'When you come to Jerusalem, you'll find you hate Israelis for the first year, you'll hate Palestinians for the second, and in the third, well, you'll probably just hate everybody,' an expatriate explained to me in a bar in East Jerusalem last week. 'Make sure you get out often. This place will drive you crazy after a while.'
Right oh.
In the book 'How to live' by Sarah Bakewell, based on the writings and philosphy of Montaigne, she explains how one of his life lessons was to question everything. And another, to guard your humanity. This is a well timed moment to heed his advice.
'I need a map,' I thought, 'and not just a physical one,' as J and I sat in a cafe sheltering from the torrential rain outside, squinting at a menu in Hebrew only half a mile from where we'll be living, where everything is in Arabic. I scrunched icy toes inside my wet socks, inside wet boots, and we watched Haredi men tentatively shuffling along the snowy pavement, with plastic bags fastened tightly over their black hats.
Here in Jordan, plastic bags are the ubiquitous ground covering wherever there's no real estate. But in West Jerusalem, they're put to good use it seems. Though East Jerusalem is still pitifully full of them. Sad versions of randomly coloured Arab flags.
Out of habit, I said: 'Shukran' (thank you in Arabic) to the waiter. I received a blank look, and no answer. We said good bye in English and left.
We visited two schools. Each was impressive in its own right, but with plenty of staff who had evidently moved here for a reason - the light of God shining brightly from their eyes. My mind harked back to a paragraph from Montaigne, and I summoned its powers.
'Among the small but endlessly abundant and therefore very effective things that science ought to heed more than the great, rare things, is goodwill. I mean those expressions of a friendly disposition in interacitons, that smile of the eye, those handclasps, the ease which usually envelops nearly all human actions…It is the continual manifestation of our humanity, its rays of light so to speak, in which everything grows….Good nature, friendliness, and courtesy of heart…have made much greater contributions to culture than those much more famous expressions of this drive, called pity, charity and self-sacrifice.'
I wondered about the difference between the divine rays I'd seen, and Mongaigne's rays of humanity.
J had a meeting and I waited for him in a small reading room. I finished an old copy of Haaretz newspaper which was full of news of more settlements mushrooming, and illegal demolition of houses in East Jerusalem. My eyes scanned the books on the shelf. 'Perfect phrases for dealing with difficult people'; 'I'm not crazy, I'm just not you.' 'Modern weapons and warfare.' 'Casting with a fragile thread.'
We went back to what will soon be our house, and lay on the bed made of 2 singles tacked together, and we gazed upside down at the snow falling on the garden outside and listened to the muezzin calling people to Thursday afternoon prayer.
In the house, there must be at least 40 pieces of solid, brown furniture, not one piece of which fits in the place it should. J and I spent much of the time, when not wading through snowdrifts, dusting off and wrenching the wardrobes, tables, chests of drawers and bed frames to other positions around the house.
We drove back to Jordan after a couple of days. We handed our papers at the first booth in the complicated border process, to an 18 year old Israeli soldier, with an M16 and acne. He stroked the window lovingly and asked me in french: 'C'est anti-balles, le vitre? Oooooh, qu'est ce que c'est beau!' As we drove off, he stood with another soldier (pre-pubescent?), whose gun was noticeably longer than his arm, complaining about the cold.
Right oh.
In the book 'How to live' by Sarah Bakewell, based on the writings and philosphy of Montaigne, she explains how one of his life lessons was to question everything. And another, to guard your humanity. This is a well timed moment to heed his advice.
'I need a map,' I thought, 'and not just a physical one,' as J and I sat in a cafe sheltering from the torrential rain outside, squinting at a menu in Hebrew only half a mile from where we'll be living, where everything is in Arabic. I scrunched icy toes inside my wet socks, inside wet boots, and we watched Haredi men tentatively shuffling along the snowy pavement, with plastic bags fastened tightly over their black hats.
Here in Jordan, plastic bags are the ubiquitous ground covering wherever there's no real estate. But in West Jerusalem, they're put to good use it seems. Though East Jerusalem is still pitifully full of them. Sad versions of randomly coloured Arab flags.
Out of habit, I said: 'Shukran' (thank you in Arabic) to the waiter. I received a blank look, and no answer. We said good bye in English and left.
We visited two schools. Each was impressive in its own right, but with plenty of staff who had evidently moved here for a reason - the light of God shining brightly from their eyes. My mind harked back to a paragraph from Montaigne, and I summoned its powers.
'Among the small but endlessly abundant and therefore very effective things that science ought to heed more than the great, rare things, is goodwill. I mean those expressions of a friendly disposition in interacitons, that smile of the eye, those handclasps, the ease which usually envelops nearly all human actions…It is the continual manifestation of our humanity, its rays of light so to speak, in which everything grows….Good nature, friendliness, and courtesy of heart…have made much greater contributions to culture than those much more famous expressions of this drive, called pity, charity and self-sacrifice.'
I wondered about the difference between the divine rays I'd seen, and Mongaigne's rays of humanity.
J had a meeting and I waited for him in a small reading room. I finished an old copy of Haaretz newspaper which was full of news of more settlements mushrooming, and illegal demolition of houses in East Jerusalem. My eyes scanned the books on the shelf. 'Perfect phrases for dealing with difficult people'; 'I'm not crazy, I'm just not you.' 'Modern weapons and warfare.' 'Casting with a fragile thread.'
We went back to what will soon be our house, and lay on the bed made of 2 singles tacked together, and we gazed upside down at the snow falling on the garden outside and listened to the muezzin calling people to Thursday afternoon prayer.
In the house, there must be at least 40 pieces of solid, brown furniture, not one piece of which fits in the place it should. J and I spent much of the time, when not wading through snowdrifts, dusting off and wrenching the wardrobes, tables, chests of drawers and bed frames to other positions around the house.
We drove back to Jordan after a couple of days. We handed our papers at the first booth in the complicated border process, to an 18 year old Israeli soldier, with an M16 and acne. He stroked the window lovingly and asked me in french: 'C'est anti-balles, le vitre? Oooooh, qu'est ce que c'est beau!' As we drove off, he stood with another soldier (pre-pubescent?), whose gun was noticeably longer than his arm, complaining about the cold.
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