If you sense venom or hatred in the following entry it is because , I admit - I have these . No excuses , no explanations - I am a person with dark corners , but the good news ,is that if I harm someone - it is usually myself ,and a few cockroaches ,and some flies - (and even that is only if they threaten my little family)
It happened 7 years ago . I started my degree at the late age of thirty three - I didn't want a degree really ,but I did it so that I will not loose my mind .
I lived on my own in a tiny flat with a few plants ,and a guitar - my orthodox friends were too busy with their children , my single friends who were part of the "single swamp" of Jerusalem didn't seem to go anywhere. I was tired of Shabbat miels with the same faces . tired of coffee talks with spinsters like me , who dated guys like my next door neighbours. I wanted to break free, . So I went to college . Some rebellion...
On my second year in college ,she appeared in class. She had a provocative ,yet meticulous look. That is to say she wore a nose ring ,but you could tell she had really spent some time in front of the mirror thinking what to wear , so she would look like she didn't care what she was wearing. She had tattoos too.
A teacher with tattoos? - Oh well , I guess it's the heart that matters.
To begin-with , I had wanted to become friends with her.
The lesson began by introducing ourselves ,and what she had said was a bit disturbing. With great pride she said "My boyfriend is Norwegian ". It seemed to me that she drove all of her self esteem because she had a European boyfriend. Now ,there is a small trend in Israel of Israeli women., mostly of Sephardi origin ,and it seems almost a racial thing;,these women like European men as mates , preferably with blond hair ,and blue eyes...
I spoke to her a little about it, how it is fobidden for a Jew to interdate , and she said ,that she had had a German boyfriend in the past. The more I spoke to her , the more frustrated I became . The girl was doing whatever she could to disengage from Israel and the Jewish people. The minute she had finished her army service so she said , she had done everything she could to escape Israel. She said that -upon her trips abroad ,she used to say she was not Israeli,and what offended me most was what she said about being Jewish , and this is what she said in these very words : "I do not consider myself a Jew ,and the only thing that connects me to the Jewish people is the Holocaust". It was like someone stabbed me in the heart and then twisted the knife around. Then she added ," It was important to me to take my boyfriend and his family to "Yad va Shem". (The holocaust museum ) . Her name was Ettie.
Now let's leave Ettie for a while and talk about some Non-Jews ,who happen to be Christian. Some. (Not all thank heavens). These people go to Yad va shem, where they shed a warm tear . They are deeply moved ,and feel for the poor victims of the Holocaust. "How dreadful ! the poor ones." they would say in shock. It makes them feel so damn good hearted and righteous ,and humane. ..Because they care! It's called catharsis . you need for this inner process a tragic hero ,and Jews are a great choice , as far as these people are concerned.After all Jesus was a tragic hero and that is what made him Jesus and not Moishe . In a little dark corner of their hearts ,they think the Jews deserved it ,because they supposedly killed their prophet - but they may deny it even to themselves ,because it is politically incorrect . There is one thing that these "humane" people cannot stand ,and it really upsets them - the settlements . How dare the Jews betray the good old part of a tragic hero ,and instead live guiltless in the land of Israel , and what's worse , these Jews kill their enemies without remorse , instead of walking proud with sadness in their eyes to the concentration camps ! How dare they!? It was so nice coming with the Red Cross and helping the poor refugees - after World War 2 was all over . That is to say , while it was going on, the Norwegians , the Dutch and all these good moral people stood deaf and dumb and watched ,and that was in the best case . The truth is many of them cooperated with the Nazis . They didn't like the Nazis really ,but that latant hate for the Jews prevailed . I think they could never come to peace with the fact that in Jewish eyes Jesus was and is a human being - flash and blood. . So these people are really angry at all the beautiful Jewish people who live in cities and villages in Judea and Samaria ,and they will not forgive us Israelis for not supplying them their dose of tragedy in 1967 . Back then too , they stood and watched ,and really hoped for a touching story of a young state trampled by Arab armies - but it never happened . Sorry , the game is over guys .So they go to Yad va shem ,and G-d they suffer, shed their crocodile tears ,and have a great time in that fine dark Jewish Disney World of death and morbidity . They may buy a T-shirt on their way out ,and maybe a nice book of Amos Oz ,and here they are- good people , shocked and appalled.
Later on , they'll use the information , to compare Israel to Nazi Germany ...And they have good Jewish souls to help them with it .
Now let's go back to Ettie . Sure enough her whole mindset was putty in her boyfriend's hands . Little by little I learned of it. She admitted she did not like religious people,and one day in class she said Israel was a primitive country because the shops are closed on a Saturday . In those days I worked as a cashier in a supermarket . I was so thankful for the Shabbat- a day where I make my humble declaration of freedom - by not working, by simply resting from a long tiring week . Now Ettie did not have to pay her rent , because her Norwegian sugar daddy payed for everything . And so , I felt Ettie was selling her Jewish soul to the Devil for free trips to Europe and miserable lonely Christmases in a very cold land , with a crummy weather and insipid food .
It was the time before the summer of 2005 , when the Israeli government destroyed bout 21 villages and towns in the Gaza strip ,and deported their Jewish inhabitants to hotels and temporary housings. Ettie gloated at that . She was so happy to announce that the "disengagement" will happen.I know many Israelis with left wing views , who believe that peace will come if only we give the Palestinians the land ,and let them build a state. Yet everyone I know, even people who believed it was the right move to make , in order to have peace , were heart broken. . People have planted trees, plowed fields and built houses on a land that was not stolen from anyone . No Arab lived on that land . Infact the Arabs called that area of Gaza strip a cursed land - so even if you are a left wing Israeli - and you believe in "compromise" - if you are a bit connected to the land and the people - you cannot stay indifferent . But not our Ettie - she was happy about it . Happy about families with children loosing their homes . Happy about dead people being taken out of their graves. Happy about Gaza being Judenrein (Clean of Jews) again.
Behind the show of love for all people , lay that old inner hatred for people who actually lead a more or less Jewish life like myself. My conclusion was that Ettie was a self-hating Jew.Sure enough Ettie spoke about her boyfriend being so kind to the poor Palestinians.. .and I wanted to ask her , how many Kassams were bought thanks to Norwegian support of the Palestenians?, How many Jewish children owe their death to her "Tzadik"? (Tzadik-means some one with an extremely good heart , a righteous man in Hebrew)
Our college was a teachers' college ,and one day the teacher told us about a student who wanted to teach Israeli children all about Christmas. My wild guess was that it was Ettie .
"Goodness ", I thought," for more than 2000 years we managed not to assimilate , not to mingle with these people , whose religion had in it murderous seeds to the point that researchers see the Holocaust as an result of Protestant Lutheran Christian ideologies ,and here comes a Jewish Israeli teacher (!) and wants to lure our children into celebrating x-masss!!" I prayed to G-d that she will never be a teacher in Israel. May she have all the money in the world , but will never get to be a teacher here in Israel .
But the thing was , I really wanted to become friends with her, so I asked her one day , why aren't she and her boyfriend getting married . she was nearing her thirties , I think .She obviously liked children How can a woman do this to herself? Ettie said she was waiting to finish her degree. I found her answer a little odd ,as all around us , half of the students were pregnant or with small babies , or pregnant + small babies .
As I have mentioned , the "disengagement " from Gaza was behind the corner ,and it was like a dark shadow for the 8000 people there ,as the government was about to destroy their homes , take the dead people out of their graves, and drive the people away (some "peace"). Ettie was on her small disengagement cruise of leaving Israel and becoming ,what she had always wanted to be , a citizen of a western country, anywhere other than Israel . I felt I had to stop her. I honestly thought she was on her way to hell.
(to be continued)
