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Smells Like a Jew

February 08, 2009               Man on a Tel Aviv street (Mor Levy)  I’m in the car, and we’re travelling along, Zahi, Karim and me, up to Yafa cafe. We’ve just been to a solidarity … Read More

By / April 27, 2009

February 08, 2009

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Man on a Tel Aviv street (Mor Levy) 

I’m in the car, and we’re travelling along, Zahi, Karim and me, up to Yafa cafe. We’ve just been to a solidarity meeting with Arabs and Jews where they read poetry in Arabic and Hebrew, and people from the Jaffa community came. It started with a minute’s silence for those who died in Gaza. Mohammad, who was leading, had to stop two or three times because he couldn’t talk, because he cried.

Jews and Arabs stood in a line on the stage and held each other’s hands. System Ali rapped their poetry without music, to mourn. 

And now we’re going for something to eat in Yafa cafe.

What no car, Zahi? What happened to your car? Zahi always used to come by and pick me up in a little white car. I don’t remember the make. He’d come by when he didn’t need to, even, just to be nice. Like, if I could walk there, if it wasn’t even far, he’d come by just to take care of me. But anyway, now we’re in Karim’s car, working out why Zahi doesn’t have his.

‘Did you write it off?’ I ask, turning to Zahi in the back.

‘No – it was stolen.’ Karim answers for him. Zahi’s slow off the mark, he must be tired.

‘Stolen–’

‘Yeah, stolen. By some Jews.’

What do you mean some Jews? I don’t say this. Because I remember the other day, the first day I met Karim, in fact, when we were sitting down to a dinner at Yafa cafe. A dinner with music and oud, and everyone gets up to dance, like Michel the owner and a beautiful girl. And Zahi’s asking me if I recognise that kind of dance, if I know what it means, and I say, Zahi, you know some things we have everywhere, and he’s, oh you have Arabs in London? And I say, no Zahi – some things are universal. Like what? OK, do I have to spell it out? Some things are universal, like sex.

Karim’s to my right at the table, and opposite there’s this Jewish woman with very short hair. It’s grey and short, and she’s always smiling with crinkly bits around her eyes. I think she’s the only Jewish woman there, apart from me. This woman asks if we’ll light the Hanukah candles. Michel looks around, and there’s a menorah, but candles are nowhere to be found.

‘Never mind.’ Karim leans into me. ‘Let’s burn some Jews.’

I’m like, what? I don’t know what to say. I need some time. Let’s burn some Jews.He has a merry twinkle, the kind of goatee you’d find in Shoreditch, and American hip-hop clothes. 

The conversation has moved on slightly. The Jewish woman’s spooning up kubbe and smiling again. And I still don’t know what to say. OK, now I do. ‘I think you meant that as a joke,’ I tell Karim, ‘but I found it offensive.’

‘Why? Are you Jewish?’ he says.

‘I am, but even if I wasn’t, you know, I’d still say it’s wrong.’

‘But I think it’s funny!’ the Jewish woman says. ‘Don’t you see? The power imbalance. Between our two groups. It’s funny because of that!’

OK. So you feel better if you get the shit ripped out of you. Somehow, that way, you pay.

Back in the car with Karim, and he’s still on his Jewish trip. I’m kind of tired. ‘Listen,’ I tell him, ‘don’t do that. You know it feels bad.’

‘Jews – yeah, Jews are everywhere. They stole his car.’

I turn my face away. We’re still driving, up Yehuda Hayamit. ‘Enough,’ Zahi says, but he’s laughing and it’s not enough, yet, for Karim.

‘There’s a Jew in the car! I can smell a Jew.’ He’s staring hard ahead. ‘Smells like a Jew in the car.’

I slam out as soon as we arrive. Karim follows me and we’re both pacing up the hill. We go into the restaurant and sit down – there are five of us at the table. Four men, and me.

‘You’re not still mad at him, are you?’ Zahi asks.

‘Why? What happened? What did he say?’ Abed wants to know.

So I’m sitting here at this table with these guys in the restaurant where they always go, and I have to say it. ‘We were driving in Karim’s car, and he told me … he said … Smells like a Jew.’

The whole table bursts out laughing. Abed’s laughing. Zahi’s laughing, Mustafa’s laughing. Karim looks around, then bursts out laughing too. I’m just sitting there and I really wish to be swallowed up by the ground. Instead, I push back my chair, and I go to the bathroom and all of it, Gaza, Jericho, East Jerusalem, the death and the killing, all of this hate, swells out of me, and I cry.

 

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  • josephmutti

    I know Leila to be a person of a caring, sensitive nature who has made an attempt to work through a level of hatred that is hard to comprehend as a foreigner. She has done this by involving herself in two cultures, two peoples, two points of view.

    She has gone far further than any other freind of mine, Jew or Arab, who was born and raised outside Palestine/Israel. She has involved herself in projects both in the UK and in Israel/Palestine that seek to offer a way out of the daily prejudice that children witness.

    I believe she has taken a path that is commited and ethical. She writes from her heart and her experience. This may be perceived as naive to some, but she’s not attempting to be anything other than transparent in her reactions – tears or otherwise. Such profound hatred is hard to fathom when you are not brought up in it or have not lost a loved one because of it.

    And, for us all in this particular forum, she has set off an interesting debate that has made me pause and think. H5GT’s comment asking "was it a reactionary prejudice or a primary prejudice?" was especially pertinent.

    Thank you Leila.

  • ????

    This was well written and insteresting to read, but i can’t help to wonder why on earth you would hang out with ppl. who treat you, or any humanbeing, with such disrespect.

    Don’t you respect yourself enough to say "NO" when ppl. act this way?  After all, why accept staying in this company instead of just walking away when they obviously do not have enough respect?

    I hope you will keep to better company in the future, and realize you deserve better.

    Shalom

     

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  • Brian

    Isaac, I actually thought your initial response was half-decent and that, in light of my own jabs, a little harshness and distortion was appropriate.

    And you make a good point that Israeli policy and behavior and Palestinian policy and behavior (and the rippled relationship they have with Jewish and Arab attitudes and antipathies) might best be tackled as two separate problems, with separately contextual sets of expectations.  What I am still quite wary of, though, is the phenomena whereby a Palestinian commits a transgression anywhere along the spectrum from nasty comment to full-on atrocity, and this is used as an opportunity to alleviate some of Israel’s obligations (stop expanding settlements, stop blocking humanitarian aid, to name the least contentious…). This does not mean that I believe Israel alone must back up her borders and lay down her arms while the homocidal mania that grips so many dispossessed Palestinians is just an understandable foible to which any oppressed people are entitled.  It just means that failure acknowledge anyone’s humanity is the worst kind of debasement. That’s a standard that should apply to everybody, and I think the author of this article does a fine job of recognizing it.

    Now, from the top- Someone’s sleeping, my lord, kumbaya…

     

  • Zeevico

    Don’t hang out with douchebags, idiots, racists, or morons.

  • Isaac

    Your honesty is certainly appreciated, Ismail – regardless of the fractiousness of our squabbles.

    In fact, your graciousness here gives me the opportunity to admit that, in the spirit of advancing lively debate, I may have been more more harsh in responding to Brian than I had to be. I can certainly appreciate the apparently prevailing view here, which seems to believe that a change in attitudes among Israelis and Jews to a less defensive and more apologetic posture could indeed be helpful for all parties involved and for the cause of advancing peace. I can respect that view and don’t disagree with it out of hand.

    But as long as a debate remains, I should explain that the reasoning I chose to utilize is derived from the maxims of equity – social principles that might be seen as more fundamental and informal than a codified body of law. Now, you may feel that when it comes to the Palestinian-Israeli dispute, the Palestinian leadership has shown a sufficient good faith effort at fulfilling whatever obligations make it possible for Israel to deliver on their end for advancing a just resolution. But certainly arguments can be made that this has not been the case – that the willingness of their leadership to leave Palestinians in refugee camps, for instance, indicates that the propaganda war takes precedence over providing Palestinians with whatever housing the leadership should, but neglects to provide, while they enrich themselves in luxurious estates. This would understandably give Israel reason to pause when assuming that the motives of the Palestinian cause are pure and ethically feasible for all sides to accomodate.

    Of course, you could also make a similar argument that the Israelis have not been pure, and that their stated motives when engaged in pursuing a just and peaceful settlement have been disingenuous. But Israel is not the side claiming to seek justice; rather, it is merely seeking to have the rights that have already been accorded it in international law respected. 

    In this sense, your WWII analogy is useful. Assuming you are talking about the democides committed by Germany, in no instance did the victims take to suicide bombing German civilians or otherwise refuse to better their own circumstances (or even maintain the appearance thereof) in the name of promoting their own dignity – as the Palestinians can be argued to have done. They took justice where it was granted and they provided what they claimed to seek for themselves where they could afford to do so. 

    Again, thank you for your respectful and reasonable tone. Certainly honest debate need not be vitriolic or unduly personal and I commend you for pointing this out on my behalf, despite our other contentious instances of discord. You are an astute reader and deserve the same from me should I perceive that someone else has misjudged or mischaracterized your motives in future conversations. 

  • Isaac

    I think my comments were directed quite specifically toward the protaganist of what I’ve come to learn is apparently an ongoing fantasy novella, who obviously doesn’t size up a group of young ruffians with violent tendencies toward certain groups of people for what they are before she regrets the experience of it. It had nothing to do with chastizing someone for fraternizing with others based solely on their ethnicity.

    "This over-eagerness to point out how horrid Arabs can be, how pathetic
    their statecraft and sense of justice is indicative of a deep fear to
    confront the very real possibility that Israel’s sins aren’t just the
    fiction of Arab propaganda, but something real that needs to be dealt
    with whether doing so invites exploitation or not."

    In your smorgasbord of love-as-the-answer-to-everything, you might want to consider the idea that Israel’s shortcomings and the Arabs’ shortcomings are actually different and worth addressing as separate problems. But that would take accepting that everyone should take some portion of responsibility for their problems. Nowhere near as much responsibility as you think Jews should bear, but some basic, minimal standard. Of course, even that might be too much to ask of you. 

    Since my moral rectitude makes me so inferior to you, I humbly await your instruction in historical illustrations whereby justice was implemented absent the responsibility on the part of all parties to it for pursuing it. 

  • hunter14

    Leila I’m sorry for your pain but there are some things you should realize and I know these are politically incorrect. The main point is that no one really cares about the Palestinans as a people. Use the Palestinans to bash Israel? yes. Do something to help the Palestinans to build a country? No. This is especailly true of their Arab "brothers". The other thing you have to realize is that most Arab men have very oppresive views of women. As to Jewish women who are on their side they are viewed as "loose" objects of derision. As to all this hate you are referring to I don’t know what to say. I live in a rural area of Israel around Arab villages. Our Arab neighbors freely enter our village and vice versa. Most of the time people are too busy going about their daily lives to be hating each other. I am a Jew originally from an Arab country and I can tell you that the Arabs in Israel will never be happy living under in a Jewish state. After the Jews lived officially as 2nd class citizens  in various Arab countries subject to the whims of any passing Moslem it is too humiliating for them to contemplate being ruled by Jews.

  • Brian

    Chicken Littlers like Isaac and A-1 Steak Sauce here are trying to help us understand that implacable hatred of Jews is not merely confined to Islamo-Fascists, but apparently to any Arab who speaks unkindly of a Jew, particularly Arabs brazen enough to do that to the face of a Jew who has already mentioned that she doesn’t like it. 

    So why don’t more of us heed this dire warning?  Why don’t more of us lefties and peaceniks outgrow our naivete and realize that existential threats are on the march, and rather than placating or shrinking the growing army of Jew haters out there, all attempts at sensitivity, interaction or apology for Israeli transgression (what transgression?!) are merely softening the resistence that we will need very badly to save ourselves from the gathering threat?  What is lacking in the left’s intellectual vigor that makes us get love of justice and self-hatred so confused?

    What bother’s me about Isaac and Steak Sauce’s comments is how irritatingly they smack of "I told you so."  This over-eagerness to point out how horrid Arabs can be, how pathetic their statecraft and sense of justice is indicative of a deep fear to confront the very real possibility that Israel’s sins aren’t just the fiction of Arab propaganda, but something real that needs to be dealt with whether doing so invites exploitation or not.

    But what’s really galling is that a reader of these comments is expected to reconcile the moral correctness of Isaac and Steak Sauce with their zealous kicking of someone who is already in pain. 

    Grow up, fellas.

  • Isaac

    Joel, since you seem like a pretty well-intentioned guy, perhaps you aren’t well-acquainted with what is and what is not a threat – let alone how one arises.

    Now, perhaps you find a comment posted by an avatar of Moses - which identifies a Western habit of pretending to understand the purported mindset of the "other", and judges overly sympathizing with that purported mindset to be a bit naive – to be a bit harsh or misdirected. But to then make an accusation of a threat from that is a bit ridiculous.

    I assure you that I have no connection with any of the youths whom Segal described. Nor do I have any connection with anyone, Arab, Jewish, Martian, what have you, in Segal’s area of correspondence, who would for some reason see fit to carry out violent acts against her. I, furthermore, can assure you that I do not have the power to transmit messages to such people via telepathy, clairvoyance, or other extrasensory forms of perception. Nor do I practice mind control. Nor do I assume such people would even be reading Jewcy, let alone this thread.

    But then again, I never formally studied (aside an odd course or two) religion, divinity, theology or the like.

    According to any standard, legal definition, what I wrote in no way constituted a threat. It is still permissible in the world in which I live, and according to the laws of my country, to tell someone who has exposed herself to obviously frightening and possibly dangerous circumstances that it might be wise to avoid those situations - without myself being affiliated with those circumstances. In fact, parents do this all the time. And to most thinking people, and to responsible, professional people, to do so would be considered a kindness or even a duty.

    But you feel free to view the innocent advice of a stranger as a threat. Assuming Segal’s story is based in a real-life experience, I would think your words to her about that – (assuming you’ve dispensed any, for there is no evidence here that you have) – would constitute a better framework for judging how accurately you perceive threats, let alone realistically deal with them. Because to pounce on a canary in the proverbial coalmine strikes me at the least as a bit misguided, and possibly worse.

    If the kindness of strangers is deemed a threat at Zeek, by all means – let me know. It will allow me to more thoroughly put the mindset on display in the article into context, and to get on with better things. So, advise accordingly.

  • nillyo

     Isaac wrote: "Neither salvation nor The Kingdom of Heaven run through your self-immolation, Ms. Segal. That’s someone else’s crazy belief system. No one can stop you from sympathizing with it, however. And you appropriate it at your own peril". 

     the thing u Isaac, and alcove one,  probably dont get is that everything that was said in the car and after, as wonderfuly described by Leila, is a parody on stuff said regularly about arabs by most israeli jews. the car theft, the smell, these r all regular Israeli jokes about arabs, I know because im a jew who lives in israel and i hear it daily.

     Its actualy good u find what Leila described terrifying, because it shows she suceeded in passing her emotion about how tasteless and horrible these jokes r. for the life of me i dont get where in the text Isaac foung Leila sympathising with those jokes, unless he thinks crying from something is a sign of sympathy for it. However, i wonder, when told from an opposite point of view, will such jokes b alright by u, Isac and Alcove one? for us, with our history, to be speaking like that about other people is a-ok? will the collective jewish post trauma pop up its head in your minds if you heared such jokes told about arabs? or are u just extra sensitive when it’s told about jews?

     the problem is that its a vicious circle, this hatred. and soon enough getting used to seeing others as your enemies, through a rifle sight, unables u to see them as people, and u turn less sensitive, more stereorypical, more hating, more racist, and much more finger easy on your rifle’s triger. which in turn makes the other side exactly the same, and so the bloody circle goes on. and does it really matter who started it, when thousands of people on both sides loose their lives, and the bloody fiesta goes on?

     Two days ago here in Israel was memorial day in which we commemorate the way-too-many lives taken in this blood bath we r dwelling in for the past 4 decades, at least. it was extremely sad, but even sadder is knowing many more lives will be taken if both sides will keep on going at this vicious soul deforming circle. the only way to stop it is by becoming more sensitive to the other side, on both sides. seeing each other as actual people, and not just as enemies, and admitting the true awful effects of one’s actions against the other. Im sure u demand that of the palestinians, but what about us? do we not need to do it too? 

    so calling Leila names and blaming her for all thats wrong in this world is basicly killing the massanger so that u wont have to listen to and absorb her message. this is quite an easy thing to do, especialy when one is part of the bloody circle and used to the killings, but i dont think its the samrtest thing to do, really. and when coming from jews who’s most sacred day is all about self examination, just shows how deep this desensitisation runs, and i find it very very sad.  

  • Isaac

    Sounds like someone isn’t feeling very fireproof these days.

    Such wonderful company you keep. Wherever do you meet such lovely individuals?

    Pity and hate may be universals. But when the object of your pity hates you, I’d say that’s a problem.

    Unless you hate yourself, of course.

    Neither salvation nor The Kingdom of Heaven run through your self-immolation, Ms. Segal. That’s someone else’s crazy belief system. No one can stop you from sympathizing with it, however. And you appropriate it at your own peril.