There is turmoil in Israel, in Jerusalem, and I suppose I'm in the middle of it. The newscasters are tearing the action apart, the hourly radio report has become more and more frequent, yet I'm isolated in the Hebrew University in Mount Scopus amongst English, Portuguese, French, and Russian speakers, all seemingly unaffected by what's going on. I keep the radio on, though, hoping to catch phrases that might give me an idea of what's happening outside the gates of the university, but this only results in frustration with my lacking Hebrew knowledge.
I hear sirens and loudspeakers; I know that whatever sparked on Friday after Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount hasn't yet ended today. My first indication that something out of the ordinary was happening in Israel was on Friday. My American friend's Israeli boyfriend called her frantically warning her not to spend Rosh Hashanah in the Old City because there was trouble between the Palestinians and the Israelis: one man had been killed.
We turned on the radio and searched for a station that might convey news in English, but we had to resort to our poor Hebrew skills to discern what might be happening. I walked out through the university security gate that night, and was mildly surprised to see an army van, parked outside, filled with soldiers. I have grown used to soldiers. It does not stun me to see guns anymore. I was only taken aback that there were more than the usual one or two soldiers parked outside my dorm.
I got inside my cousin's car to go to her house for Rosh Hashanah dinner, and was greeted by a strained "hello." Her eyes were red. She had just returned from a classmate's funeral: he had died in a bomb attack in Gaza. In her house there was some talk of the clashes in the Old City, but overall dinner conversation was geared elsewhere. It concentrated on the New Year. Invariably, conversation turned to the army. A foreign student joked the other day that anywhere else conversation within the 20s age bracket veers toward sex. In Israel, conversation habitually concentrates on the army or religion.
My cousins, a year younger than me, talk about how I have it easy: here I am traveling and learning while they must go to their army base or else stand trial or go to jail. Yet when they are with friends, they leave me behind in a trail of Hebrew words, and then return to me to make sure I understand what each patch on their shoulder means, where their base is, what their exact job is, and what it all means in their world in the army.
It is important to them that I understand their military terminology. They are continually tired, complaining of lack of sleep, yet they go out with friends every night. They explain to me: "I promised myself that I would not let the army take over my life. When I come home, the uniform comes off. If I just go to sleep and then to the army every morning, I let my life become the army. I can't let that happen."
Meanwhile, I have grown accustomed to soldiers in bottle green uniforms sitting next to me on the bus, their gun rubbing against my knee. I have grown used to opening my bag for a security search whenever I enter or leave my dorm, a shopping mall, or grocery store. At night, when I am unsure of whether I'm hearing fireworks or gunshots in the distance, I have learned to shrug my shoulders rather than wonder that there is even the probability that those are gunshots outside my window.
Meanwhile, there is fighting at hand, only 15 minutes outside my door, but seemingly countries away. My fingers go numb as I leaf through my English/Hebrew dictionary and strain to make sense of the news on the radio. I listen for sirens and can only guess what might be happening when there is only silence beyond students' voices outside the insulated gates of my dorm. A friend yesterday was telling other students not to worry. "I know someone who was studying here during the Six Day War. She says you almost couldn't tell there was a war going on. They'd hear a siren go off and they'd hide somewhere with friends. They couldn't do anything, so they smoked from the Nargillah and talked. She said it was even kind of fun."
It is possible that some students still don't know what's going on. Some only found out that they were in the middle of the clash through a frantic call from their parents asking if they were okay. Most students cannot believe that they are in the core of the seemingly perpetual Middle Eastern conflict. Some parents are sending their kids money from abroad so they can travel around the city in cabs instead of buses for fear of a terrorist bombing. Some parents are pleading for their kids to come back home. Many students are canceling their planned vacation trips to the Sinai, Cairo, or Petra and looking into backpacking in Europe instead.
Suddenly everybody has a political position. Israelis and foreign students do not have political discussions very often, somewhere along the conversation they each lack something that goes beyond vocabulary and language; it extends to experience and culture. This gap between Israeli soldiers and foreigners leaves a vacuum among their relationship and understanding of each other. I could never fathom losing a classmate in the army before I came to Israel, I could never imagine seeing my friends train with weapons out of a necessity to defend themselves and protect their nation. There is a separation between Israelis and foreign students whenever they step into a uniform or talk about their army duties. At a certain point, though, foreign students and soldiers do cross this field in which they are alien to one another.
At some stage, among security checks and weapons, both sides are affected. Both are forced to reevaluate their values and to grow up sooner than they might have been prepared to, both might have to shed some idealism through their association to each other and to the country.
Keren Blankfeld is a junior majoring in English and international relations. She is currently studying in Jerusalem.
