Chutzpah & High Heels Read online

  1

  The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly . . . Israeli

  It’s 3:00 a.m. It’s August. It’s boiling outside.

  I’m driving home from another bad date with another Israeli guy who has a big ego and a small—THUD! CLANK! BANG! The car starts making noises. Seeing that the normally busy city streets are empty, I panic. I know nothing about cars. I don’t even like driving in this country. Wearing high heels and a revealing summer dress, I get out of the car. The heat from the street seeps through the soles of my shoes. I’m not worried about being raped, attacked, murdered, or robbed. In Tel Aviv, we worry about a different type of violence. But I don’t have to worry about terrorism now. With just me in the street, the body count would be too low.

  Hoping to fix the problem, I open the hood. I burn my fingers in the attempt and stare hopelessly at the engine. It might as well be an open heart.

  I look around to find someone who can help me. Even though the streets are normally crowded, the only person I see is a man wearing a black wool jacket, black pants, a whitish-yellowish, button-up long-sleeve shirt, and a furry black hat walking past me on the sidewalk. I don’t bother calling out to him. It’s Friday night and I’m breaking the laws of the Sabbath in the Holy Land: I’m driving. I’m wearing a sexy, but appropriate-for-the-weather summer dress. I stare at him as he continues to pass me. He, dressed devoutly for a nineteenth-century Polish winter, looks through me, as if he knows the secret I’ve been trying to hide.

  I know that as an ultra-Orthodox Jew, he avoids the gazes of all women, but it still feels personal and degrading. I cover my shoulders with my hands, trying to hide the truth. I shouldn’t care what he thinks of me. I remind myself that there is no way he can tell just by looking at me. Maybe he is the reason that I’m in this country, but who is he to judge me? He isn’t perfect. Besides, what is he doing walking around at this hour? Friday-night prayers were over hours ago and he isn’t returning from a family dinner or Torah discussion in secular Tel Aviv. Did he spend the evening with a hooker? I wonder if he wore his kippah1 for that.

  I can’t ask him for help. He won’t touch a machine on the Sabbath. And even if it wasn’t, he wouldn’t help a stranded woman lest it cause him to have evil, sexual thoughts.

  I stop looking at him and grumble to myself, “Only in Israel.”

  Before I have a chance to become distraught, a taxi driver pulls up like a knight in shining armor.

  “Are you okay?” he asks as he gets out of the car.

  Thankful, I say in Hebrew, “The car is making noises. I don’t know what to do.”

  “Turn the car on,” he orders and I obey.

  After hearing the noise, he exclaims, “It’s exactly what I thought. I’ll fix it.”

  Typical Israeli man—thinking he can solve a problem before he even knows what it is. After he asks me to turn off the engine, I walk to the front of the car.

  He pulls out a knife.

  I don’t flinch.

  With the knife, he yanks at something in the car and cuts it loose. Like the Prophet Elijah, he proclaims, “Your car is fine. You can drive all the way to Haifa, but get it checked first thing in the morning. That will be fifty shekels.”2

  “Are you serious?” I balk and think to myself that this man has chutzpah.3

  “Of course I’m serious. I’m a mechanic by day and taxi driver by night.”

  I should point out that it is the middle of the night. With my hands on my hips, I ask, “If you charge for being a Good Samaritan, are you still one?”

  He holds out his hand. Palm up.

  Rolling my eyes, I growl, “Only in Israel.”

  I get back in the car and start driving.

  Thirty seconds later, BOOM! THUMP! KURPLUNK! The noises are louder and scarier than before. I pull over and look around. The roads are empty. The taxi driver and my fifty shekels are nowhere in sight. I start to cry.

  Who should I call? I can’t call my dad; he is across the ocean. I’d needlessly worry him. Besides, what American Jew understands cars? If I need medical, legal, or financial advice I’ll call an American Jew, but for car advice . . . I need an Israeli. I don’t want to call the guy I was just on a date with because I’m afraid he won’t pick up or would refuse to come.

  Through my tears, I scan my cell’s phonebook. I stop at “Bar.” He has been there through thick and thin. Like me, he is a new immigrant to Israel. Well, after nearly ten years here, we aren’t really new anymore.

  With a French accent, Bar answers with a groggy, “Hello . . . Are you okay?” Through my sobs, I explain that I’m stuck.

  “I’m already coming,” he says, using the Hebrew expression.

  New immigrants always stick together.

  While trying to calm down, I look up and see a young man in his car pulling up next to my car. He sees my chest heaving and tears rolling down my face. He asks me if I need help. Alone and panicking, I quickly explain that a friend is on the way.

  “Yihyeh b’seder! Everything will be okay!” he says. During my years in Israel, I learned that a broken bone, heart, or bank account warrant this same predictable response from an Israeli doctor, therapist, or investment banker.

  After asking me again if I need anything, he drives away.

  Twenty minutes pass and Bar still isn’t here. I look around. The roads are oddly deserted. The street light above the car suddenly burns out. My ears begin buzzing from the silence. I squeeze the wheel. My breathing speeds and gets shallower as I feel more and more stranded. My hands become tingly. I look out my window, hoping that I’ll see Bar, and right next to me is another car. I didn’t even hear it pull up. It isn’t Bar. I begin to panic. I try to start the car again, but it won’t turn over. The tinted window of the car next to me slowly opens. On the other side is the smiling face of the guy who, twenty minutes ago, told me, “Yihyeh b’seder.”

  “I couldn’t stop thinking of you crying on the side of the road,” he says as he reaches out the window and hands me a box of tissues, a bottle of water, and a chocolate bar. He then drives away, disappearing as quickly as he appeared.

  I may not know his name, but he makes me feel like I have a home in this country. I can’t help but wonder if he would still treat me as if I belong if he knew my secret. With a smile, I sigh and think to myself, “Only in Israel.” And before I have a chance to further question my place in Israel, Bar pulls up to save me from the loneliness of the night and my thoughts.

  Member of the Tribe

  Ten years ago, while I was in college, the thought of moving to Israel hadn’t occurred to me. I pictured myself living the typical Jewish American life. I was well on my way to fulfilling this dream one cold January day in the middle of Christian Indiana.

  Sitting on a pink floral couch and wearing my cutest outfit, I was trying to impress the girl sitting in front of me. My face hurt from smiling all day, but I hid it because I really wanted these girls to like me. The college rush process felt like speed dating.

  “Where are you from?” the sorority sister asked me over the commotion of fifty other girls being interviewed in the same room. This wasn’t an innocent question. She didn’t actually care where I was born. She wanted to know if I was a member of the Tribe. I needed to be careful answering.

  “Minnesota, but I have friends in Chicago and New York.” I said, mentioning Jewish hot spots. As a freshman at Indiana University, I was finishing Greek Rush Week. After narrowing down the houses from eighteen to three, I had to pick which house to join. I wanted to be in one of the Jewish sororities: Sigma Delta Tau (SΔT) or Alpha Epsilon Phi (AEΦ). The former has a reputation of being nice Jewish girls, but everyone cruelly calls them Stumpy Dumpy Trolls behind their backs. The latter is k
nown as the snobby, rich house and everyone calls them JAPs (Jewish American Princesses) to their faces.

  I looked at the AEΦ pin on the girl’s dress. She didn’t seem like a JAP. She seemed really nice.

  “Really? My cousin lives in Minneapolis: Lisa Goldenbergerwitzman. Do you know her?” the sorority sister asked. Since rush rules forbids blatantly inquiring about religion, she was playing a game of Jewish Geography.4

  I didn’t know her cousin, but I wanted the sorority sister to know I’d fit in. “Her name sounds really familiar. Maybe we went to Herzl Camp together or participated in the same USY (United Synagogue Youth) programs.” I knew Jewish organization name dropping would do the trick.

  Another sorority sister swapped positions with the one I was talking to. She looked familiar, but I couldn’t figure out from where.

  She looked at me as if she recognized me and asked, “Have I seen you at ZBT before?” ZBT was one of the Jewish fraternities.

  The three forbidden topics during rush were: boys, booze, and partying.

  “Probably . . . I’m a bit of a groupie.” Damn! I shouldn’t have said that! I clammed up, afraid that she’d think I was a loser.

  “I’m there all of the time too. My boyfriend is in the house.” She smiled. “Are you interested in any of the guys in the house?”

  I shyly smiled, but before I could answer it was time to go.

  With mathematical equations to statistically match up sororities’ preferences with rushees’ choices, rush process at Indiana University is more complex than winning the US Presidency. Thanks to some algorithms, I ended up in the JAP sorority.

  When I got my bid, I couldn’t wait to be friends with all the Jewish girls in the house. It would be nothing like high school in Minnesota, where I stuck out in a sea of blond-haired Lutheran and Presbyterian Norwegian descendants and guys who wore wife-beater tank tops and Confederate-flag belt buckles as big as trash can lids.

  * * *

  Pledgeship didn’t go as well as the rush process. I quickly realized that I had nothing in common with my Jewish pledges. My dreams of finally fitting in were crushed. None of my sisters wanted to do anything with me. The inherent kinship that I expected never materialized. Unlike me, they had grown up in communities so full of other Jews that the schools would be closed during the Jewish High Holidays. To them, our Jewish bond wasn’t important. The only things they cared about were their Kate Spade diaper bags, Prada wallets, Diesel jeans, Steve Madden shoes, and shiny-but-boring Michael Star shirts. They always said how everything made them naaauuuuseous. They walked in flocks. I felt like an outcast, but hoped that once we all lived together sophomore year, they would accept me.

  In preparation for moving into the sorority house, I did everything I could to fit in. I invested in a new purse and wardrobe. I tried to describe everything as “naaauuuuseous,” but it was such a limiting characterization. I even tried to develop an eating disorder, but I was just too hungry.

  A week before sophomore year started, all of my sorority sisters arrived at the AEΦ house with their designer purses, expensive jeans, brand name shirts, new Lexuses, and Long Island accents. I never had any of those in Minnesota. I realized that no matter how much money I spent, or how much I tried to change my vocabulary, I didn’t fit in. But only when the Jewish High Holidays arrived did I realize how out of place I was, despite being surrounded by fellow Jews.

  On the eve of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, I prepared for synagogue. I put on a nice but fairly modest dress. I pulled my tallis bag out of my drawer, which also held my knitted, feminine kippah. My family always went to services on holidays—not to see and be seen, but to pray. We were active Jews. My synagogue back home was progressive, spiritual, and observant. I hoped for the same experience at the Hillel service, especially since the rabbi was female.

  After getting ready in my room, I walked into the hallway to see my sorority sisters running around wearing more makeup than clowns, straightening their hair with contraptions that looked like torture devices used at Guantanamo, and donning designer outfits. It looked more like preparation for New York fashion week than services on a Midwest campus.

  At synagogue, I stood next to my sorority sisters, but in a completely different world. During a prayer for repentance, I thought about how I’d felt at home the last time I visited Israel. I remembered meeting Tzipporah Porath, an elderly American woman who recounted studying abroad at Hebrew University during Israel’s War of Independence. She had struggled to get food during the siege on Jerusalem. She had rejoiced during the UN’s resolution to create the State of Israel. She survived daily terrorist bombings, smuggled weapons under her skirt, and became a medic in the underground Haganah Force. After a terrorist attack in the middle of Jerusalem, she had pulled out her red lipstick and drew the six-pointed Star of David on a shop window to signal to the injured that she was providing medical help.

  With a thump, the congregation sat down. As I took my seat, wishing I had done more this past year, I saw out of the corner of my eye the sorority sister next to me pull out her hand mirror and reapply her bright red lipstick.

  In that moment, I knew that I was going to follow in the footsteps of Tzipporah Porath to study in the Holy Land verus the Jimmy Choos of my sorority sisters.

  Only a week after deciding to study in Israel, I was finalizing my application process, my living situation, getting my passport ready, and buying my airline tickets. At the same time, Arafat was leading the Palestinian people into the second Intifada. Jerusalem was suddenly full of stone-throwing terrorists, Molotov cocktails, and exploding buses, but the media blamed Israel. Sitting alone in the sorority cafeteria, I stared in disbelief at the TV as the images of two Israeli soldiers being brutally lynched by a Palestinian mob in a Ramallah police station flashed on the screen. I saw a Palestinian raise his blood-covered hands in victory out a window and heard the crowd below him cheer. The other sorority girls were busy gossiping. When a gaggle of my Jewish sorority sisters—who didn’t normally acknowledge my existence—walked in, they accosted me with questions.

  “You aren’t still going to Israel, are you?” they asked in singsong unison, faking concern for me. They must have heard of my plans through typical sorority gossip.

  I rolled my eyes and said, “Yes, of course,” knowing that their Jewishness was pulling them to Italy, Spain, and France to worship their gods known as Prada, Louis Vuitton, and Diesel.

  Switching subjects like they change fashion, one of the girls asked another girl who was only eating boiled egg whites, “Should I eat another sandwich? I think I’m still hungry, but I don’t know . . .”

  To her, it was a decision that could change the course of history. After considerable deliberation, she grabbed two pieces of lettuce and a thin slice of turkey, sprayed it with bottled butter, and then ate it without bread.

  I was amazed that it took her longer to decide about her two-calorie meal than it took me to decide to go to war-torn Israel.

  * * *

  My time in Israel that semester flew by. On its surface, it was just like any other study abroad program—classes during the day and cultural outings in the evening. But there was more to it. I wasn’t just discovering a country; I was discovering myself. There was something magnetic about Israel, from the Jewish soldiers in the streets to the bearded religious men, and from the women in their revealing shirts to the history at every corner. The streets are named after famous and historic Jews. The money has pictures of Jewish politicians. The language is the same one used by our ancestors two thousand years ago. Jewish holidays are celebrated where they occurred thousands of years ago. In Israel, I didn’t have to tell people that I’m Jewish; instead, the country told me.

  But it wasn’t all a fairy tale. Terrorism was no longer simply a news item. The pegu’im, terrorist attacks, were not daily, they were twice daily. There were terror attacks so close to my Jerusalem dorm room that I had felt the sound boom move through my body. However, just like
the Israelis, I and the other students on the program didn’t let the terrorism stop us from living. We would go out to dance clubs, malls, and markets. Everything we did was a reminder of the solidarity of the Jewish people—from dressing up for Purim instead of Halloween to the quiet that fell over the entire country on Friday nights. I felt as if I was with my people, but with the semester ending, my time in Israel was about to come to an abrupt close.

  At 11:30 p.m. on a typical Saturday night a man wandered through the crowd of laughing teenagers in line for a Tel Aviv night club.

  I was supposed to leave Israel in a few days.

  “Something is about to happen,” the man yelled.

  Waiting for the night of fun to begin, everyone in line ignored him.

  BOOM! The man blew himself up and everyone around him. The sound was heard throughout Tel Aviv. The entire country felt the blow. Twenty-one teenagers, who just wanted to have fun, were killed. One hundred and thirty-two were injured.

  I was safe in my dorm room when I heard the news. I called all the other students to make sure they were safe. I’d just walked past that night club last weekend with a group of friends. We’d almost gone inside.

  I was packing to leave, but questions swirled through my head. How could I abandon Israel? Why should I be safe in the US while my fellow Jews risked their lives here? When a country is under attack, most people flee, but it made me want to stay.

  I stared at a picture I had taken a few months ago during a trip to Ein Gedi, where King David is said to have sought refuge. In the picture is a typical Israeli man on a hike with his young family. He looks like a modern-day David. On his right shoulder rests the curly-haired head of his two-year old daughter with a pink bottle in her hand, and slung over his left shoulder is a rifle. It’s as if the future of the country rests on both of his shoulders.

  I looked back at the pile of clothes on my bed and the half-empty suitcase. I didn’t want to go. I wanted to stay and . . . do something. Like join the army. But instead, I just returned to packing.

  * * *