Barriers

I am pretty insecure about my intelligence in most areas, with the occasional exception of emotional intelligence. I decided at a very young age that school was not really for me. I could see who it was for. There were always students around me who clearly cared a lot about learning and doing well in school. While the other kids listened intently and took notes, I worked on my daydreaming skills.

I was sent to pretty demanding private schools, I think mainly just because my parents wanted me in Jewish schools. I don’t know if the level of education was as important to them as the bubble of Modern Orthodox Judaism they wanted to keep me in. Since I didn’t really appreciate the type of education I was being provided, and even resented it in a lot of ways, I picked and chose what I was going to let my brain absorb.

I enjoyed stories and writing, so English was okay. My parents were math and science folks so I was inclined to learn at least a little bit about their interests. History seemed absolutely pointless to my young mind. In retrospect I can see that I put myself at a disadvantage in some ways there. Then there was Hebrew.

I was taught Hebrew for all 12 years of elementary and high school. I did not give a shit about learning Hebrew. I had no plans of living in Israel. I didn’t care about understanding the sounds I had been reciting by heart in prayers I had been singing throughout my life.

In high school my Hebrew teacher told my parents that I was incapable of learning Hebrew. She was a pretty shitty teacher and my parents did not take what she said seriously, so I didn’t either, but it stuck with me like a curse. Cut to 2023, I’ve been living in Israel for 17 years and still struggle with Hebrew.

How did I end up here? It’s a very long and personal story but I will tell you I did not want to be here. In short, I decided to move here for a year or two to see if I’d like it. Living in New Jersey felt devoid of meaning and purpose to me at the time. I thought maybe living in Israel would help fill a void inside of me.

I quickly realized my desire to be a “good” Zionist Jew was directly at odds with what made me happy as an individual. By the time I decided I needed to move back to America it was too late. My marriage was falling apart and my kids were already in school in Israel. Due to a messy stew of circumstances, I considered myself trapped. Biding my time till a day when I could eventually go back to the States, I focused on being the best mom I could be while never actually letting myself become immersed in Israeli living.

If I had difficulty learning Hebrew before, my new circumstances made it absolutely impossible. My brain would literally shut off when someone started communicating with me in Hebrew. Being forced to deal with documents like bills, notifications from my kids’ schools, etc., sent me into complete panic.

Thankfully, I had an amazing therapist. Good therapists are like god’s gift to humanity. My therapist knew there was one thing I wanted more than to move back to America. I wanted to be a good mom. She helped me find ways accept my fate, stop seeing myself as a victim, and start taking responsibility for creating my own happiness. I was a pretty spoiled American, so I had my work cut out for me.

I have finally, for the most part, come to peace with living here and have even begun to appreciate it (although I’m currently terrified by what is happening in the government here). These days I’m actually really grateful that my kids have been growing up in Israel, but I have a lot of shame about how bad my Hebrew is. It is a constant struggle, especially because I work entirely in English and my friends are all English speakers.

Recently I joined an Arabic speaking class at the neighborhood community center. My son did not understand. “Why would you try to learn Arabic when you still don’t even know Hebrew well enough to feel comfortable speaking it?” He had a point. But I’ve been trying to learn Hebrew my entire life. I’m not going to go back to Hebrew classes. I know enough Hebrew to get by. Meanwhile, something like half of the population living in Jerusalem are Arabic speakers and I can’t even exchange pleasantries with them.

I’m not even going to touch the insanity happening in Israeli politics right now, and I have no interest in getting into the nitty gritty details of Israeli/Palestinian relations. At the beginning of this post I mentioned emotional intelligence. I didn’t learn emotional intelligence in classrooms. I learned from interacting with people.

Now, here I am living in one of the most conflict-ridden regions of the world. I am entirely incapable of addressing any discord here through a historical lens, a political lens, or any kind of academic, intellectual lens. I only feel comfortable attempting to look at it through the lens of emotional intellect.

I don’t know how wide an audience my writing here will reach. I know that, for now, the majority of people reading this are Jewish, probably Zionist, and grew up with similar backgrounds to me. Some of my readers have fought in the IDF, some of them have lost family members in terrorist attacks, some of my readers have been victims of terrorist attacks. I myself was really only inclined to become a runner because between the stabbings, bus and car rammings, missiles, and wars I realized it was probably wise for me to make sure I was capable of running for my life if need be.

The issue is when people like me start to think that terrorists represent the entire Palestinian population, we are bringing ourselves further and further away from peace. When Jewish people commit atrocious acts, and especially when they do it under the guise of acting out for the sake of the nation or god, I become afraid of the way these things reflect on the rest of us. Let’s not even touch politics or how nations relate to one another on macro levels. Let’s talk about your average individual.

I don’t have to be a scholar in Middle Eastern Affairs to know that %99.9999 of people here just want to live their lives in peace. Even if they are people who whole-heartedly believe the land “belongs” to one group of people or another. Even if they believe that god’s desire is for them to possess the land, they don’t want to spend their days on this earth in a war zone. Nobody wants to live in a war zone. But the more we segregate ourselves the more we risk moving towards extremism on every “side.”

Suspicion of strangers to the point of fear brings out the worst in people. It brings out the worst in the person who is fearful as well as the feared person. It’s a dark and dangerous energy.

I’m still kind of resentful of the whole “stranger danger” campaign in America in the 80’s because I think it hindered my ability to be a generally friendly person. It’s a reflex I’m still working through. I feel like it’s especially important to be aware of here in Israel.

We need to normalize interacting with people who are different than us. Even if they have directly opposing ideas, we have to find common ground. The world is evolving. Historians like Yuval Noah Harari note that humanity is evolving away from dealing with conflict with violence and towards resolving conflict with dialogue. Sure, there is still plenty of war and violence, but on average, compared to the entirety of human history, we are evolving.

I am having a really hard time absorbing any of the Arabic I’m learning which really makes me want to just give up. But the great thing about this class that I’m taking is that once a month, our group of Israeli Hebrew speaking women learning Arabic get together with a group of Arabic speaking Palestinian Muslim women who are learning Hebrew. We switch off every month going to each other’s community centers.

Recently I went to the community center in an Palestinian village called Tsur Bahar. It is a village on the hill right next to the hill I live on but in my 17 years here I have never gone to there. Being welcomed into the community center and spending time with these Muslim women brought me so much hope.

As I had suspected, they are regular people like me. They were warm and easy to talk to. They joked around. Some were friendly, some were shy. Some wore makeup, some were fresh faced. We were given topics to discuss like art, music, sports. There were plenty of areas on which we could connect. Especially when it came to the valuing family and tradition, it seemed like our communities were actually more similar than different.

While some are learning the languages faster than others, we are all in the same boat of intellectual insecurity. We are all vulnerable and so we approached one another with humility, kindness and whatever support we were able to provide one another. For those 2 hours we focused on trying to learn and communicate with each other, politics and religion aside.

In truth, it doesn’t seem like my brain is plastic enough to absorb another language and sometimes I feel completely mortified in these classes, but I don’t care. Gathering with this group of women in our community centers is such a powerful source of hope. We must (and by “we” I do not only mean Jews and Muslims, but rather any people, or any groups of people with opposing beliefs) must, must, must, continuously create spaces to exchange energy and communicate with those who (we think) are so different from us.