Jerusalem — It wasn’t just the suicide bombings that made me apprehensive about my recent first trip to Israel. A Saudi visa on my passport, from a 1999 trip to meet my father’s family, worried me as well.
In addition, a co-worker who had lived in Israel said I should expect some harassment or strange looks. Although I was raised Jewish, I am half Arab and resemble my father’s side of the family.
Israel let me in without a hassle. Because of my dark skin and curly dark hair, most people thought I was Israeli. If my Hebrew were better, I would have fooled everyone, including myself. But I also look Arab.
A man on my trip said I could go either way. And as it turns out, that mattered. I saw Israel through different eyes from those of the other 13 Jewish journalists who joined me on a week-long tour sponsored by the Israel Ministry of Tourism, El Al Israel Airlines and the Dan Hotels.
Certainly, I was not the only one in our group who was nervous. The day after I agreed to go, I woke up after dreaming I had died in Israel. My husband, who didn’t want me to go, was even more anxious.
But with the reassurance of my co-workers, who had all been to Israel umpteen times, and from trip organizers, I believed the only trouble I might encounter would result from my appearance — and my Saudi visa.
And after so many years of imagining what Israel was like, of seeing pictures and hearing stories, I needed to see and feel it for myself.
Getting a lift
While I felt safe riding in the mini-tour bus on the crowded highways and walking through the Old City of Jerusalem, the possibility that I could get blown up at any second always lingered in the back of my mind. Like the Israelis, I just became more aware of my surroundings. But like the Arabs, I felt somewhat like an outsider, fearing that because of my looks I could be perceived as a terrorist.
Others I met along the way shared their feelings about safety and Arab-Israeli relations, which helped me understand the situation.
“Hopefully all you have to worry about is bad falafel,” said Danny, a tourist from Edmonton, Canada, whom I met poolside at the King David Hotel. Danny, who is Jewish, was part of a solidarity mission made up of Christians and Jews.
He and his brother, Hal, took one of my colleagues and me to their nephew’s house in Jerusalem as the sun was setting on Shabbat. He wanted to give us a picture of how the locals are living.
Jay, the nephew, is a doctor in a Jerusalem clinic. He shares a three-bedroom apartment with a roof that looks onto Gilo and the West Bank.
Sometimes from that vantage point four stories high he can see gunfire in the distance, and hear the sound of guns and fighting. Nothing happened while we were there.
Jay works with Arab doctors and medical technicians at the clinic every day. He’s friends with them. His relationships have not changed, he said, since the intifada erupted 21 months ago.
Not long ago, he said, an Arab doctor offered him a ride home. His friend’s stereotypical rundown car was loaded with family members in kaffiyehs and head scarves, speaking Arabic a mile a minute. Others watching Jay get into the car told him he was crazy, that he shouldn’t go. But Jay arrived safely at home.
Despite the camaraderie Jay shares with his Arab co-workers, some things have changed. Though he and his roommates carry on with their lives, they are aware of who is walking or standing next to them. They start conversations with strangers to get a grasp on their accents. They are suspicious of everyone who looks like a teenage or twenty-something Arab.
They weren’t suspicious of me. They didn’t know I was half Arab.
It wasn’t just in Jerusalem that I was aware of the divisions I was feeling within myself. As we drove through the Negev, I saw Bedouin villages and shepherds dotting either side of the desert highway. I was saddened to find that bigwigs in Negev cities want these tribal people to establish roots in cities, forever altering their nomadic way of life. Such a move would virtually extinguish an ancient people, dissolving them in a melting pot.
I saw Israeli Arabs, whose faces were expressionless. They were ghosts, serving as busboys and bellhops and maitre d’s in the five-star hotels and fancy restaurants we visited. I saw hollowness in their eyes and indifference in their actions.
I’d walk by them, take a glass of wine off the tray they were holding, and I’d want to speak to them. I wanted to know what life was like for them. I thought because of the way I looked and with the little Arabic I know, I could easily talk with one of them along the way.
But something held me back. I looked at them from a distance and wondered about their lives. I felt closed off from them. I felt they were there to serve. Not to talk. And I, too, was tongue-tied.
Of all the talking heads the trip sponsors set up for us, none were Arabs. Though no one else on the trip seemed to care, I felt cheated and as though I was only getting half the picture.
I paid close attention to Israelis and Americans I was traveling with when they would mention the word “Arab.” I tried to pick up on intonations, to figure out if there was a heightened sense of racism. But I didn’t find any.
Arabs and Jews are different. They coexist but live separately. It’s a strange dichotomy that is reminiscent of the black-white tensions that exist in the United States today. It exists. But it is subtle.
I felt it at the Western Wall. I felt it all, the thousands of years of struggles, war, conflict, racial and religious oppression and tension. I felt the ridiculousness of it all flood through my half-Arab, half-Jewish veins as I placed my hand on the wall. I wondered if this conflict could ever end.
I slipped a prayer I scribbled on a scrap of paper into the cracks of the wall, hoping for compassion, tolerance and humanity. Tears welled up inside me and I realized there is no answer. There are ebbs and flows, but there will never be true peace in this land.
Elana Drori, our chaperone from the Ministry of Tourism, an Israeli living temporarily in Dallas, was the first to ask me about my last name. Jews, especially Israelis, are fascinated by tracing lineage through last names. I knew the question would come sooner or later. I was just surprised it had taken three days to surface.
“It’s Saudi,” I said. “My dad is from Saudi Arabia.”
“And your mom?”
“Eastern Europe, Russia, Poland,” I said.
“You’re mom is Jewish,” Elana said. “Then you are Jewish, and that’s all that matters.”
I smiled. Here, it matters.
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