Unless you’ve been there, how do you know what’s really going on in countries and cities mentioned in news broadcasts? Who do you trust to give you the truth? In some cases, even if you’re there, you may never see the dark side of the truth.
I’m recalling my personal reactions on a day last December in the city of Jerusalem. The emotions stirred up by a bus ride into West Jerusalem left me surprisingly depressed. After four intense non-stop weeks of observing hardship and challenge in this land, I was unprepared for such an impact resulting from a simple journey to the Central Bus Station. But there it was – deep sadness and a profound sense of loss.
Haven’t you, like me, always thought of Jerusalem as THE International City of the world? It doesn’t seem to be international any more. I expected the bus driver to be Jewish, and he was. But then, some 95% of the passengers boarding my bus and the people I watched through the windows were Jewish as well. Still International, as these Jewish folks have come from all over the world to live here, but what’s happened to the diversity of culture?
I’ve never been one to pay much attention to the ethnicity of individuals I see on the streets. But the ethnicity of the folks I observed on that bus trip was no secret. Orthodox Jews abounded with their notable attire, including large black hats over long curled sidelocks. Nearly every other man wore a Jewish kippot, while the women wore their own distinct style of hats and clothing. There were almost no internationals around, and I was able to identify only one non-Jewish woman besides myself on the large, crowded bus.
At a stop where several people disembarked, I observed the bus driver staring at me in his rear-view mirror. He had often looked through the mirror at me, but now he was staring. Is that his way of telling me we had reached my stop, I wondered? As we lurched forward again, I was able to make out rather small lettering on the front of a large entrance: Jerusalem Central Bus Station.
Okay, so I had to walk back. Who knew the Central Bus Station had been moved to the other side of Jaffa Street since I used to live in this city? I fought the crowds as we went through metal detectors, then sent our handbags through ex-ray machines. And then, good heavens! It’s a mall! Store after store selling every kind of merchandize, every sign written in Hebrew, nothing that resembled a bus station in the least! After some bewildered roaming, a clerk with little English said, “Oh, go to third floor.”
At that level, the search continued until I eventually spotted the beautiful English word: INFORMATION. Gate number in mind, timetable in hand (all Hebrew), I left the window wondering what kind of a day had caused the agent to be terribly impatient with this foreigner who didn’t know the Hebrew language.
My mood remained glum as I walked back to the Old City. On the previous day, an Israeli rabbi had begged our group to take action. He repeated what famed American archaeologist Dr. Jim Fleming had regularly proclaimed while I was working with him here throughout the year of 1997, “this entire land is a treasure trove of ancient artifacts.”
Fleming said the law required every unearthing for new construction to be carefully monitored so that when anything at all turns up that has possible historical significance, the project must be frozen pending archaeological investigation.
That was then. Now, Rabbi Arik Ascherman, executive director of Rabbis for Human Rights, begs us to contact archaeologists who might bring influence on Israel to restore sanity to Israel’s policies and stop the widespread digging with reckless abandon for endless construction projects.
Jaffa Street itself is now one long construction project, preparing for a railway to run down the middle of the street. I watched bulldozers and jackhammers in a frenzy of destruction. The rail line will be one more separating agent to keep Palestinians from intermingling with Jews, even if they have a rare permit to live in Jerusalem.
I choked on dust passing one more non-Israeli building under demolition, to be replaced, I presume, by one more glass and steel structure reaching skyward. And I wanted to weep.
The famed city of three faiths is becoming modern, efficient, consumed with consumerism and purely Jewish. Now what was wrong with that? Why was I feeling depressed? Surely I understand the thrill of Jewish people to have a place rich in Hebrew and Judaism after suffering so much discrimination and oppression throughout centuries. And my personal theology cherishes the Jewish faith as the cradle of Christianity. So why the depression?
After a few days, the answer came. It’s just that most of these Jewish people haven’t seen what I saw morning, noon and night for 26 straight days. They don’t know what I know, as most Americans, Jewish or not, don’t know about the things I have seen and learned. A safe “cocoon” has been craftily constructed around the lives of Israelis.
I am reminded of the courageous expose of the South Bronx by Jonathon Kozol. In “Amazing Grace,” Kozol describes a wall facing the adjacent freeway. A faux scene of brightly curtained windows with brilliant blossoms in pretty flower boxes distracts the thousands of daily commuters from the devastation of a disgraceful slum on the other side of the wall, where curtains are an unaffordable luxury and hope is in very short supply.
