East Meets West Jerusalem

One of the classes I'm taking this semester can be seen as a microcosm of the Kesher Hadash experience. "Diversity and Difference in Israeli Society" is a course at the David Yellin School of Education made up of American-Jews, Israeli-Jews and Israeli-Arabs/Palestinians. This class is intended to bring us into dialogue with different populations of Israeli society. For our final project, our class was divided into mixed groups of four representing the different backgrounds of our class. Our task was to introduce each other to our significant places in Jerusalem.

We started out in West Jerusalem at a restaurant near Shuk Machane Yehuda to have a lunch full of delicious hummus at "Hahummus Shel Techinah". We then made our way to Marzipan to experience their sweet rugelach. We rounded out our culinary tour by enjoying tea at "Café Nadi". Finally, we took the light rail to East Jerusalem to walk around Salahadin Street, which was described to our group as West Jerusalem's Machane Yehuda.

Our conversations between each location was what I found most interesting about our afternoon together. At the hummus restaurant, we discussed which culture had the best hummus- Israeli or Arab (American was obviously not a contender). Arab hummus was unanimously voted the best by our group. The culinary connections between Arabs and Israelis is quite significant, although often underplayed and denied. Most Jews think that hummus and falafel are Israeli foods when they are really Arab foods.

I asked our friend from East Jerusalem how she felt walking around West Jerusalem, and I did the same for our friend from West Jerusalem walking around East Jerusalem. They both expressed fear of the other neighborhood. They had never been in each others neighborhoods before today, yet they both lived in the same city just two train stops away. Jerusalem is really a microcosm of Israel. East and West Jerusalem residents rarely interact with each other in a meaningful way, much of which is rooted in fear. I don't know how this conflict will ever be resolved if we aren't taught to see each other as humans. And yet, our discussion over hummus felt like friends coming together to break bread.

Spongebob, Ramallah & Meah Shearim

Hanging out with Spongebob in Ramallah

 

Several weeks ago we met an awesome guy from Meah Shearim. He was certainly on the fringes of the community, while very much being a part of it at the same time. We heard about how he walks a fine line between his Jewish world and the secular world. When we toured Meah Shearim, another person from Meah Shearim started to fight with our tourguide, yelling at him for bringing us (non-ultra-Orthodox) to the neighborhood. Our tourguide began to defend his right to bring us to the streets of the neighborhood- a public place. After a little pushing and shoving, our tour guide moved us away from this man. That man does not represent my Judaism.

Jump forward to this afternoon. Another girl from my program and I took a bus to Damascus gate and took another bus to Ramallah. I didn't tell anyone in the U.S. where I was going, because I could anticipate the response- fear mixed in with a good dose of racism. In Ramallah we wandered the streets and finally arrived at our destination- Krabby Patty- a SpongeBob restaurant! This was a pretty ridiculous outing on many levels. The food was not so great, but the décor kept us laughing the whole time. At no point during my trip did I feel threatened, afraid or even disliked.

In Jerusalem, the place that is supposed to be the heart of the Jewish people, why is there a sect of Judaism that makes me feel unsafe? The irony was all too present today. I don't know that things will ever change.