The cockroaches in Tel Aviv are nuclear-apocalypse huge. How adorable, how terribly petite the roaches of New York seem to me now. In a million years, the spacemen who descend to this place will find only styrofoam cups and the hard-shelled family living under my sink. I am a coward. Afraid to get close, I kill them with a chemical spray. They fall from the wall or garbage bin, thud. They heave madly in tortured circles, stopped by convulsions that come at smaller and smaller increments, cramming themselves into the ground as if to disappear. Their stomachs bulge and seep out. After they die — or as they are dying — their feelers twitch, twitch, twitch.
This was the month for gas masks in Israel. Fearing that Assad might use his sarin-bearing rockets on Israel next, those who did not yet have gas masks picked one up at the post office. Every outlet reported it, and every lede was the same: “Long lines and high tensions in Israel today as civilians obtain gas masks from local distribution centers…” I don’t have a gas mask. I’m not a citizen, and therefore not eligible for a free gas mask from the post office. I can buy one for — 400 sheckels — a bit over $100 from a war profiteer. That’s a month’s worth of groceries, nearly, but not quite a prohibitive cost. Still, I don’t buy one. “Assad’s not that crazy, don’t give it another thought,” says my Hebrew teacher, rolling her eyes. Then almost as an afterthought, “But pick one up anyway.”
An American friend of mine, perhaps trying to console me regarding my lack of mask, tells me that the Israeli gas mask kits lack the antidote for the specific nerve gas — sarin — present in Syrian weapons. He also reminds me that during World War I, soldiers used alternate methods to survive gas attacks. He is right: it is a proud element of Canadian history that one of our own boys figured out you could survive a mustard gas attack if you covered your mouth with a cloth soaked in your own urine. I’m saved! He laughs. We are on a bus from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem on Thursday (Israel’s Friday) and the bus is filled with soldiers coming home for the weekend. Everyone is sleeping. Soldiers are always sleeping. And after the conversation, my friend and I sit in silence, and I wonder how small the gas masks come. Do they make them for toddlers? For newborns?
I have someone here. He is in the Israeli Army and so he is away a lot. Please get your mask, he begs me. If things get hot — this is how he talks — if things get hot you will not be able to reach me. He tells me if worse comes to worst I can go to his widowed grandfather, who now has an extra mask. What are you doing here? I want to ask him. You should be a camp counselor in rural Vermont. He is worried about his girlfriend jury-rigging a gas mask with her own pee; he is worried about the extra chemicals weapons training courses this new situation might entail. I am picturing him teaching children to canoe. I live in a country without civilians. Everyone I know has the same green khaki duffle bag. It’s usually sitting on top of her closet: out of the way but easy to reach. It is kind of natty looking, actually. Madewell would sell it for $278 as a Weekender Duffle in Hunter Green. But it’s the bag they take with them on reserve duty. I actually do not know what is inside because I am too embarrassed to ask. I would guess that it is a uniform, boots, underwear, socks, toothbrush, a few granola bars, maybe some expired pepper spray for the ladies. And under his bed, everyone has a cardboard box with a gasmask and antidotes. (...)
The State of Israel defines Jewishness as having one or more Jewish grandparent. My gentile mother is one hell of a lawyer, and has reviewed the terms of the Law of Return carefully with me. This law grants any Jew the right to live and work in Israel — immigrating or obtaining various visas. However, a substantial chunk of public life in Israel is overseen by an Orthodox rabbinate. This creates more than a little tension regarding who is Jewish and what being a Jew means. So, when I desperately need a work visa to stay in the country, I find myself in the Ministry of the Interior, biting my nails while a hard-faced Russian-Israeli named Anya or some such reviews my visa materials. She is reading my “proof of Judaism” — a letter from the rabbi heading the congregation where my father was Bar Mitzvahed. She is frowning. My shoulders begin to droop when her colleague, a traditionally-dressed Orthodox Jewish woman in a headcovering, leans in and read my letter over Anya’s shoulder. I breathe in sharp. “Give her the visa, Anya.” Exhale. Anya looks incredulous and starts to protest. Headcovering clucks in slight impatience, Anya prints out my visa on peach colored paper and sticks it into my passport.
This was the month for gas masks in Israel. Fearing that Assad might use his sarin-bearing rockets on Israel next, those who did not yet have gas masks picked one up at the post office. Every outlet reported it, and every lede was the same: “Long lines and high tensions in Israel today as civilians obtain gas masks from local distribution centers…” I don’t have a gas mask. I’m not a citizen, and therefore not eligible for a free gas mask from the post office. I can buy one for — 400 sheckels — a bit over $100 from a war profiteer. That’s a month’s worth of groceries, nearly, but not quite a prohibitive cost. Still, I don’t buy one. “Assad’s not that crazy, don’t give it another thought,” says my Hebrew teacher, rolling her eyes. Then almost as an afterthought, “But pick one up anyway.”An American friend of mine, perhaps trying to console me regarding my lack of mask, tells me that the Israeli gas mask kits lack the antidote for the specific nerve gas — sarin — present in Syrian weapons. He also reminds me that during World War I, soldiers used alternate methods to survive gas attacks. He is right: it is a proud element of Canadian history that one of our own boys figured out you could survive a mustard gas attack if you covered your mouth with a cloth soaked in your own urine. I’m saved! He laughs. We are on a bus from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem on Thursday (Israel’s Friday) and the bus is filled with soldiers coming home for the weekend. Everyone is sleeping. Soldiers are always sleeping. And after the conversation, my friend and I sit in silence, and I wonder how small the gas masks come. Do they make them for toddlers? For newborns?
I have someone here. He is in the Israeli Army and so he is away a lot. Please get your mask, he begs me. If things get hot — this is how he talks — if things get hot you will not be able to reach me. He tells me if worse comes to worst I can go to his widowed grandfather, who now has an extra mask. What are you doing here? I want to ask him. You should be a camp counselor in rural Vermont. He is worried about his girlfriend jury-rigging a gas mask with her own pee; he is worried about the extra chemicals weapons training courses this new situation might entail. I am picturing him teaching children to canoe. I live in a country without civilians. Everyone I know has the same green khaki duffle bag. It’s usually sitting on top of her closet: out of the way but easy to reach. It is kind of natty looking, actually. Madewell would sell it for $278 as a Weekender Duffle in Hunter Green. But it’s the bag they take with them on reserve duty. I actually do not know what is inside because I am too embarrassed to ask. I would guess that it is a uniform, boots, underwear, socks, toothbrush, a few granola bars, maybe some expired pepper spray for the ladies. And under his bed, everyone has a cardboard box with a gasmask and antidotes. (...)
The State of Israel defines Jewishness as having one or more Jewish grandparent. My gentile mother is one hell of a lawyer, and has reviewed the terms of the Law of Return carefully with me. This law grants any Jew the right to live and work in Israel — immigrating or obtaining various visas. However, a substantial chunk of public life in Israel is overseen by an Orthodox rabbinate. This creates more than a little tension regarding who is Jewish and what being a Jew means. So, when I desperately need a work visa to stay in the country, I find myself in the Ministry of the Interior, biting my nails while a hard-faced Russian-Israeli named Anya or some such reviews my visa materials. She is reading my “proof of Judaism” — a letter from the rabbi heading the congregation where my father was Bar Mitzvahed. She is frowning. My shoulders begin to droop when her colleague, a traditionally-dressed Orthodox Jewish woman in a headcovering, leans in and read my letter over Anya’s shoulder. I breathe in sharp. “Give her the visa, Anya.” Exhale. Anya looks incredulous and starts to protest. Headcovering clucks in slight impatience, Anya prints out my visa on peach colored paper and sticks it into my passport.
by Rebecca Sacks, The Millions | Read more:
Image: Rebecca Sacks
[ed. From the comments: Thanks for an entertaining and thoughtful piece. I urge you to continue to explore the question of the refugees, and why Israel won’t take them. Having lived in the ‘the territories’ myself for a year and a half, I believe that this question will lead you to address deeper questions, and some fundamental problems inherent in founding a state on an identity of religion and ethnicity (ironically enough, in answer to persecution and murder on the basis of religion and ethnicity.) I believe that this idea is deeply and fundamentally flawed, and as bad for Tutsis and Hutus as it is for Bosnians an Serbs as it is for Palestinians and Israelis. But like all newcomers to Israel, you’ll have to make up your own mind.]
[ed. From the comments: Thanks for an entertaining and thoughtful piece. I urge you to continue to explore the question of the refugees, and why Israel won’t take them. Having lived in the ‘the territories’ myself for a year and a half, I believe that this question will lead you to address deeper questions, and some fundamental problems inherent in founding a state on an identity of religion and ethnicity (ironically enough, in answer to persecution and murder on the basis of religion and ethnicity.) I believe that this idea is deeply and fundamentally flawed, and as bad for Tutsis and Hutus as it is for Bosnians an Serbs as it is for Palestinians and Israelis. But like all newcomers to Israel, you’ll have to make up your own mind.]
