Shalom

Alright, so I guess this is the beginning--my first blog. I am not sure how this will develop, or if it will develop at all. Will this blog be something of a journal wherein I recount my daily experiences? Or a platform for explication of my political opinions and beliefs? Or perhaps a means to transmit nascent literary works? Or all of the above? I'm not sure. I expect that things will develop organically; I'm certainly not going to stick to any plans or schedules, any fixed rules.

Ideally, I hope that this blog serves as the basis for some type of artistic and personal growth and as the medium for a shared experience. I have always been very reticent and guarded, and maybe this blog will enable me to change that. Or maybe not. We'll see.

I suppose that some type of introduction is in order. My name is Benjamin Weisberger and for the past four years, more or less, I have been living on my own, more or less, in Jerusalem. I am nearly thirty years old--which I find somewhat frightening and hard to believe. I am also a graduate student in philosophy at Hebrew University--a graduate student who still needs to write his thesis.

I have experienced a lot in my life and (like everyone else) my character has been shaped by these experiences. But I don't want to dwell on the past; I don't want to recount the events and occurrences that brought me to this point. Frankly, a lot of it is painful and uninteresting.

I guess what I do want to talk about is my daily life here and now. What I think; what I feel; what I see; what I remember.

On a daily basis, one experiences quite a lot as a resident of Israel, and especially as a resident of Jerusalem. Things are very intense here, and there is more freedom of expression.

You can say whatever you want because no one is really in charge. It's simply a matter of who screams the loudest. You are free to shout at whomever you want about any issue, and there are no consequences. The Israeli mentality is, by its very nature, confrontational. This is very different from life in the US where politeness and political correctness are expected.

Today, in the middle of the street, I saw what appeared to be an Arabic taxi driver--whose car was parked immediately in front of the bus--screaming at the stopped bus driver for a good five minutes. He was incensed and repeatedly made threatening gestures, at one point opening up the driver's window. This caused traffic to stop, leading to honking, more shouting, and improvisational driving by other vehicles in order to get around the blockage. I thought almost nothing of it and continued walking.

I remember going to the supermarket and seeing an argument between two women develop into a physical altercation--they were slapping and hitting each other--as one woman refused to move and the other needed to get by. Things like this happen on an almost daily basis.

Once, when I was in a pharmacy, a woman, for no apparent or real reason, started shouting in Hebrew, at literally the top of her lungs, repeatedly, "This is terribly slow. This is terribly slow." Like all of the other customers, I watched as this continued for minute after minute. Then she started shouting at the workers, again demanding that things speed up. Things were resolved once the manager of the pharmacy showed up and convinced the furious woman that, in fact,
there was no real problem at all. Everyone in the pharmacy kept on going as if nothing had happened.

My purpose here is not to make a judgement about the character of life in the US or Israel, but merely to illustrate the profound differences between the two cultures in which I have lived. At least in my experience, none of the three incidents which I have described would ever happen in the US. It takes some getting used to.

At the same time, I feel that there is a genuiness, an openness, in Israel which is lacking in the US. If you ask someone in Israel a question, usually, not always, they will tell you what they really think. If you ask someone in the US a question, usually, not always, they will tell you what they are supposed to say. I am aware of the perils of overgeneralization, but I think that this holds true.

And I don't want to depict Israel as a country which consists entirely of people yelling at one another. There is a lot to Israel which is very meaningful and very beautiful. But I would say that this difference between Israel and the US is the most salient, the most striking.

OK. That's my first blog. It wasn't so painful. Maybe I'll blog again some time. But for now, bye.