Hi everyone, I'm a little late in sending this; it has been quite a week. On Monday, a friend, a fellow botanist, was hit by a car on the Hebron Road as she was standing on a traffic island. A driver, 8 months pregnant, had found herself on the wrong side of the divider in this road and facing oncoming traffic; made a U-turn in a panic to get in the proper lane, and drover right over her. She was in a coma for two days and mercifully died on Wednesday.
Had she lived, she would have been severely crippled, a terrible fate for someone who spent her life in the field.
We buried her on Friday mornining; the community of field biologists came out in force, botanists and zoologists alike. Made me realize we are in fact a kind of community.
On Wednesday, an Arab bulldozer driver ran amok on Jaffa Road, one of the main arteries of Jersalem, killing four and wounding scores more. This was only a few blocks from my office, and I had in fact been there on a bus the day before. Jerusalem attacks leave many of us feeling "someone is walking on my grave", because the city is small in area and we know it intimately. Both the last two attacks were in walking distance of my office.
I'm not sure whether to call this last a terror attack or simple a massacre, like those people who shoot up schools in America. This seems to be one crazy acting alone, but investigations will find out more about that. It does underscore the violence in our society here, which was not so evident when I first came to Israel 25 years ago.
In the midst of such events, life goes on. I am preparing for the visit of a scientist from the American National Parks Service in Washington, that I knew 15 years ago as a graduate student down in our desert research station in the Negev. I've been instructed to listen carefully to what he has to say.
Human nature being what it is, that will take a mental switch; the last time we met, I was his teacher! I shrug; this highlights the difference between America and Israel. There is more upward mobility in America; I've been in the same job for the last 13 years and it is a job without an option of promotion.
In this country, people cling to stability and security; there are so many people without jobs and the job market is small, especially for specialists. A professional person who loses his job often has to contemplate leaving the country to get another job in his speciality (as I did last year), or do something else for which he is less qualified (as I did 13 years ago). It is one of the prices we pay for living here; the other is recognizing we get paid about a third what the equivalent job pays in America. By now, Israel is home and I don't really ponder any more why I am here. The plus side is that something is always happening; it's a very dynamic place to live, never boring. (Okay, half the time it's bad stuff, but not always.)
The key questions for living are asked here on a daily basis. Love your enemies? This is GREAT place to practice that one. Don't consume yourself with worry about material problems, and learn to trust God to provide? Equally a great place; you can't plan anything in the midst of chaos anyway. Israelis are always forced to examine what we are living for; the answers vary from joining a religious seminary to retreating to the beach in Goa and living on drugs for a few years. But at least at some level everyone has to think that through, and I have yet to ask an Israeli who doesn't have a considered answer to that question.
This is a place where the tough stuff is in your face all the time. It keeps you alert and fast. I have a hunch that had I stayed in America, I'd be fat and stupid today; at least here I'm just fat.
So, I'm 55 this week, and spent nearly half my life in Israel now; in another five years it will be half. Where did the time go....at least I'm not stuck in a boring job; not with a European collaboration for the next four years and some tough questions being asked about our own work as we have to overhaul our information and monitoring systems. I wanted to do informatics, and I'm doing all the informatics I can handle today.
Had a birthday garden party at my house yesterday, inviting all kinds of people. Arab neighbors, a taxonomist from Hebrew Univeristy, people from my congregation. We ate chicken wings and salmon, humous, tehina, stuffed grape leaves, Bukarian bread, corn on the cob, bean salad, potato salad, cake and watermelon. Not exactly fusion cuisine, but our favorites East and West.
Kids running all over the place squirting each other with water, cats running in every direction, dogs barking, adults talking and trying to balance plates and getting dirty anway. Perfectly decent party. Since I got anemia, I've only had people over once a year or so; just don't have the energy to host something like this very often, and have to rest the next day when I do. But I don't want to become a complete recluse, so this is at least one commitment to host people. Beyond that it is just one or two over for dinner from time to time, about all I can handle.
So here it is the morning after my annual party, and actually the house is clean. I've got one cat on my left elbow, one cat with his chin my right elbow, and a kitten curled between my chest and the keyboard. This makes writing a little awkward, so I'll stop.
shabbat shalom
Linda
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http://shabbat-shalom-jerusalem.blogspot.com/
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