By Coby Fein, #MyJewishIdentity Contest Entry
It was one of those bracing evenings that you only really get in Jerusalem. It wasn’t humid, like the streets of Tel Aviv, and it wasn’t hot, like the beaches of Eilat. The warmth of the afternoon was giving way to a cool, refreshing breeze, as the sun began to set. As the orange glow of falling sunlight touched down on the neighbourhood, a gentle gust of wind blew past me. It pushed back my shaggy hair, and played with my Star Wars T-shirt, as I stood on the balcony of my apartment building in Givat Tzarfatit. I had recently taken to calling my balcony the ‘mirpeset’, the hebrew translation for the word. My parents taught me this word just one month into our year long sabbatical in Jerusalem. I realized that dinner would be happening soon but I didn’t want to go back inside yet.
I wanted to soak up some of the sunlight, in these last few minutes before it disappeared behind the limestone buildings behind me. But my mirpeset was facing East, and I couldn’t see the setting sun. So I figured I could walk down to the playground on Aba Berdichev street. I had already spent my afternoon there, running around the monkey bars, scraping my knees against the granulated rubber surfacing that paved the ground. But I figured that this time, I would just sit down on a bench or a swing, and watch the sunlight fall on the flat roofs that crowned my neighbourhood. So I threw on some colourful sneakers, appropriate for my age of ten, and left my home. I walked past the terraced apartment buildings, leading down to the street. I checked for cars, and upon seeing none, I crossed. I had entered the playground.
I looked around, and found that the bench I was hoping to rest on was already occupied by a young man, clearly enjoying the evening breeze as much as I was. I chose not to disturb him, and instead sat down on the empty swing set next to the jungle gym. I looked up at my apartment building, as the sun was disappearing behind it. I gazed up at the lemon trees which encircled the park. They looked especially beautiful with the orange halo of sunlight around them. As cars passed by, I admired their license plates, all of them mustard yellow. I thought it was funny that Israeli license plates consisted only of numbers. Growing up in Virginia, I was used to seeing vanity plates on the highway, the occasional PB4-WEGO and the like. But in Israel, we had to find new fun with license plates. My brother Sopher and I would play that whoever saw a plate with three of the same number in a row, would get to punch the other in the shoulder. Whenever we were stuck in the inevitable traffic near Hebrew University, we would carefully eye each yellow plate, hoping to find our lucky combo. And so I sat on the swing, watching cars rush by, licence plates trailing behind them, wishing that Sopher had come outside with me.
Enough time passed, and the sun finally disappeared behind the apartment building. I hopped off of the swing, and prepared to go back inside. As I took a last look around, something caught my eye at the other end of the park. A baseball was lodged between the ground, and the bottom of the green metal fence that followed the east border of the park. I gave a little smile. I had been playing with a baseball the day before. I had lost track of it, and had searched for it to no avail. I was confident this was the same ball; baseball isn’t hugely popular in Israel. I walked over, and knelt down to grab it. As I gripped the ball and pulled it out from its hiding place, some of the olive paint chipped off the fence. As I got up off of my knee, I took a moment to look beyond the rusted metal fence. I looked down the steep hill that the park stood atop of, and looked at the tiny town of Issawiya, a Palestininan village in the central West Bank. Of course, at the time, I didn’t know any of that. I didn’t even know what the West Bank was. All I knew was that this place, whatever it was, was on the other side of the fence. It looked so far away from me, mainly because I was pretty high above it.
But I took note of the fact that the buildings in the town were smaller than the buildings that surrounded me. There was also a massive wall beside the town, nothing like the measly little fence I was leaning on. A huge white wall, ugly and imposing, made of what I saw as unassailable concrete slabs. I didn’t know much about this small town, but I had heard things from kids at my school, particularly about the people down there. They were labeled mainly as ‘Aravim’. I had known them to be ‘Muslims’, but I now realize that it’s best to identify them as Palestinians. Regardless, some of my classmates had nothing kind to say about Aravim. Through my rudimentary knowledge of the Hebrew language, and among my public school classmates, I could translate just bits and pieces of expletives pointed towards Palestinians. They made Palestinians out to be the enemy, and a particularly nasty enemy at that.
This always left me feeling unsettled. I had come to Israel from Charlottesville, Virginia. I did not grow up in a very big Jewish community. When I arrived in Israel I was overcome with the sensation of unity I felt, especially in my school. For the first time in my life, everyone around me was a Jew. Even though it was hard to understand their language, I felt so close to all my classmates. We kept kosher together, we celebrated Rosh Hashanah together, we did the Modeh Ani in school together. I had never felt more connected to Judaism. And that is why hearing such derogatory things come out of my fellow Jews’ mouths rattled me so much. My parents had taught me that to be a Jew, the most important thing was to be committed to doing mitzvot; to helping others. And I couldn’t understand how speaking so negatively about an entire group of people factored at all into helping anyone. However, as time went on, and I heard more and more about what I know now to be an obviously one-sided depiction of Israel’s history, I started to become wary of the Palestinian people. I didn’t ever think of them in such a derogatory manner, but I started to think of them as “others.” The people on the other side of the wall. I didn’t even know how to react if I encountered one. This was also the same year that a barrage of Palestinian rockets were fired into Jerusalem, This sent us into the bomb shelters at school, and furthered my confusion and fear. Regardless, I had never even knowingly met a Palestinian before.
Until that day in the park. As I turned around, baseball in hand, ready to return home, I saw two boys climbing over the olive green fence, and entering the park. One was older than me, and extremely tall, or at least he looked extremely tall to my 4’6 self. In actuality he was probably only 5’1.The other was shorter, about my height, and looked to be my age as well. They had dark olive skin, short black hair, and short sleeves. I watched the tall boy jump down from the fence, and land on both feet, and saw his worn grey sneakers. And I’m ashamed to say that at that moment, the first feeling to surge through my mind was fear. Not because the boy was older than me, not because he was tall, but because he was from the other side of the fence. Because he was Palestinian. I still feel abashed every time I remember the stupid, irrational fear that permeated my mind at that moment. I stood there, rigid, watching the smaller boy struggle over the fence. As he climbed down, with much less speed and grace than his friend, I noticed something particularly shocking about him: He had no shoes. This boy had just climbed all the way up a decidedly steep hill, consisting mainly of thorn bushes and rocks, with
nothing on his feet. I was astonished. As he got to his feet, he looked in my direction. I quickly avoided his gaze, and looked down at my shoes. My stupid, colorful shoes, adorned with Spider-Man, or the Ninja Turtles, or some other flamboyant display of youth and privilege. And the next feeling to surge through me was guilt. Guilt that I had these stupid shoes, and that the boy 15 feet from me did not.
After what I remember to be a very awkward few seconds, I raised my eyes once more. The two boys were already playing amongst themselves, walking further into the park, laughing loudly and talking in a language that I did not understand. As I started to leave the park, I kept sneaking glances at the two boys. Although I did not know what they were saying, I could tell that they were having a good time with each other, the tall boy saying things, and the short boy cackling at them. It was disarming, and I felt whatever residual fear inside me washed away by a sense of elation. My face broke into a little smile. The way they were interacting reminded me of my brother. I figured that they might even be siblings. I guess that the taller boy noticed me smiling at them as I walked by, because he looked at me, and waved. I waved back, but didnt say anything.
“Shalom,” he said, with a confident voice.
“Shalom,” I replied. “Ani lo medaber ivrit mamash tov.”
He seemed to understand what I meant when I said I didn’t speak much Hebrew. He then appeared puzzled as to how we should proceed communicating. He and his friend looked at me for a moment, smiling, but unsure of what to do next.
“Kadoor!” I blurted out, holding up my baseball. “Rotzeh lesachek kadoor?” I did my best to ask in Hebrew if they wanted to play with my baseball. The smaller boy nodded quickly, and they both approached me. I threw the ball underhand to the smaller boy. He caught it with both hands. He threw it to the taller boy, who caught it with his left hand. He then threw it back to me, who caught it with my right. I smiled again.
We continued this pitching cycle for a while, as the sky got darker and bluer. It became harder to see, but I could still see the boys smiling. I wondered if they had ever played with a baseball before. The tall boy threw the ball back to me, and I wound up to try an overhand throw to the smaller boy. As I extended my hand, the ball slipped, and flew far above the boys head. I watched it fly over the field, past the green fence, and fall somewhere down the hill.
“Sorry,” I said in English, forgetting about the language barrier. I looked back at the two boys, signaling with a dejected face that our fun was over. I mean, I wasn’t about to scramble down a thorny hill in the dark to try to find one baseball. But not even five seconds after the ball had landed, the two boys sprinted across the field, over the fence, and down the hill. For a moment, I just stood there like an idiot. Then I ran to the fence, and started to climb over it. By the time I had put my feet down on the other side, the two boys were already running back up to me. The tall boy reached me first, and the smaller boy a moment later, a dirty baseball in his hand. He stretched his hand out to hand me the ball. I was so dumbfound, so amazed by the kindness that I had just seen, that for a moment I didn’t even take it. When I finally reached out and grabbed the ball, I noticed that there was a thorn sticking into the skin of the ball. I pulled it out, brushed the ball off against my pant leg, and gave it back to the boy.
“Take.” I said it in English, because I didn’t remember the Hebrew word. I just hoped he would understand.
He did understand. He smiled at me, and nodded. I looked up, as if to point out that it was quite dark out now. In silent accord, we all agreed to call it a night. They walked down the hill together. I hopped the fence, walked across the park, across the street, up the stairs, and into my home. I smelled something delicious on the stove. I removed my dusty shoes at the door, and went to dinner.
I carry this story very close to my heart, because it’s a vital part of who I am as a Jewish person. I love Israel. I have studied the country’s history in school, and have returned many times since that sabbatical. I became a Bar Mitzvah there, on Givah Tzarfatit, near that park. I love and cherish the idea of a Jewish homeland. I’m joining the IDF in 2022 because I feel that I owe a debt to the land of Israel. And I am aware that this is paradoxical, but I do not want to see a world in which Israel drives Palestinians out from their homes. I truly believe we can coexist, because even my twilight game of catch revealed that in many ways we are more similar than we are different. It scares me that I used to think differently. Looking back, I wish that I had given that boy my shoes instead of that baseball. I wish that I had asked them for their names. I understand that one game of catch does not reflect the entire geo-political scope of the Israeli Palestinian dispute. However I think that as Jews, we need moments like that one to illuminate the very human stakes of the conflict. At least I did.
