Overheard in Jerusalem

We don't talk about politics

Friends with Words is a newsletter about language, culture, and identity, created by a Russian-born, Israel-based essayist, linguist, former world traveler, and single mom.

If you’re disillusioned by the current state of humanity, but still secretly hope that curiosity can fix the world or at least make it a less horrible place, this space is for you. Welcome.

The minute you leave the house around here, you step into a story. I decided that once in a while, I’ll record and share bits of conversations I overhear on the street, in coffee shops, and on public transportation. This is life without filters, if you like.

on the train

Everywhere I go, people are busy not talking about politics.

A woman sitting behind me on the train from Tel Aviv is talking on the phone:

“I don’t talk about politics anymore. I can’t. I don’t have the energy. Gil sometimes starts talking to me about politics, but I refuse. Because it’s everywhere, on the radio, on Facebook, on TV… and it’s so depressing…. But my mom — this crazy woman — she was roaming Paris and telling everyone that she’s Jewish and Israeli. So people asked her what she thought about the situation. She said that she is ashamed of what the country is doing, but on the other hand, she is a Zionist… She was chatting to Arab taxi drivers… Told me ‘I’m not willing to conceal my identity!’ I told her, ‘I’d rather you conceal it than something happens to you!’… She’s coming back tonight.”

on the tram

On a crowded tram in Jerusalem, the ticket inspector holds the scanning device over the QR code of my digital ticket, but the device is not scanning it. A bald man in a buttoned-down shirt right next to me takes his eyes off his phone and says to the inspector, “I think you need to place the red square right over it…”

“Patience, patience,” says the inspector, an older man with a grey stubble, “Do you think it’s easy?”

“Sorry for the answer, but yeah, I do, actually,” replies the bald man, simply, and smiles at me.

“Typical Israeli!” grumps the ticket inspector, but not in a confrontational way, “That’s why the whole world hates us!” He laughs, the bald guy emits a sad chuckle, and goes back to looking at his phone.

“You see? It worked!” Says the inspector when the device finally beeps over my QR code. He speaks with a heavy Mizrahi accent (Mizrahi Jews are Jews who came from Arab countries). He continues scanning people’s QR codes but keeps talking, seemingly to the bald guy: “You think you’re the smartest!” (he uses the plural ‘you’). “They fire missiles at you, and you don’t even respond! You need to know how to be smart! Need to know how to respond!”

“Whatever, bro…” sighs the bald man, in English this time, without raising his eyes off his phone.

on the bus

I took a bus from a train station in Tel Aviv to Jaffa that time when I went to Jaffa for two days.

I get on the nearly empty bus, and as soon as the door closes behind me, the driver starts knocking violently on the glass pane in front of him and screaming on top of his lungs WHY ARE YOU KNOCKING?? WHY ARE YOU KNOCKING?? DO YOU THINK I’M A TAXI?

I haven’t been knocking, he has… so I stand there dumbfounded for a few seconds, and then I realize he’s screaming not at me but at some people who are knocking on the door of the bus from the outside.

He does open the door for them eventually, but keeps screaming at them, “I’M NOT A TAXI! I’M NOT SUPPOSED TO WAIT FOR YOU, I STOP AND GO! IF YOU’RE NOT THERE IT’S NOT MY JOB TO WAIT FOR YOU!!!!”

The people (a man and two women) get on the bus and start screaming back at him, “YOU DIDN’T EVEN STOP AT THE BUS STOP!! IT’S YOUR JOB TO STOP AT THE BUS STOP!! YOU’RE NOT DOING YOUR JOB!!”

Nothing to see here. This is the Middle East for you. That’s just how we resolve disagreements around here. (Or don’t.)

They proceed to sit down, but they all keep screaming at each other.

“IT’S NOT MY JOB TO WAIT FOR YOU, I’M NOT A TAXI!!”

“WHY ARE YOU EVEN A BUS DRIVER ?? GO WORK IN CONSTRUCTION!!” The woman screams.

“YOU PROVIDE A SERVICE!!! YOU’RE OUR SERVANT!!” The man spits.

By this point, I wish I’d taken another bus. I know this is the Middle East and everything, but this is all too much for my delicate ears, which are ultimately here on vacation.

Also, I brace myself for a racial insult (the driver is an Arab). It might come or it might not.

It comes. “GO WORK IN GAZA! THAT’S THE BEST PLACE FOR YOU!!!” One of the women screams.

Ouch.

(Yes, some of us are racists. No, we’re not an apartheid state.)

I decide to get off at the next stop and go to the nearest art shop and buy myself new coloring pencils. But before I have a chance to get off, in a twist of plot, the woman who yelled the Gaza comment starts speaking in Arabic on the phone.

I have no idea what made her ‘other’ the driver. Or why she didn’t just yell at him in her native language in the first place.

at the market

On the Mahane Yehuda street market in Jerusalem, I found a stand that sells big, plump, red strawberries. The strawberry season is almost over, so I’m buying a whole big box. As I’m counting out the cash, and while the guy is wrapping my strawberries, he keeps yelling on top of his lungs, the way everybody yells here, “BANANAS STARWBERRIES LOQUAAATS!!! BANANAS STRAWBERRIES LOQUAAATS!! HALF THE PRICE!!!”

And then, raising his voice even higher — and even though I’m the only person at his stand — he screams, “NO PUSHING!! NO PUSHING!! THERE IS ENOUGH FOR EVERYONE!!!”

In this aching country, where everybody yells and where it’s impossible to tell what’s true, what’s exaggerated, and what’s completely made up.

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