These days seem to last whole eternities, as if 24 short hours are somehow magically transformed to become some sort of weird twilight zone. It seem so so hard to believe all of the things I have done and seen in a few short days. Last night after finishing my post, I got ready for bed and went to our room in the home of our wonderful Jewish host family to find that one of the daughters, Amira, had left a tupperware of her homemade chocolate chip cookies for us. The unending hospitality of everyone here just amazes me.
After far too few hours of sleep, we were once again on our way........
Today's agenda brought us to Jerusalem, East Jerusalem to be exact (sometimes referred to as occupied East Jerusalem, or Palestinian Jerusalem). This morning we met with a very animated British man named Neil Lazareth. He described himself as a moderate Israeli Jew, not necessarily right or left. He granted us a short presentation follwed by a tour of sorts around the city, and then invited us in to his home for lunch. He was a wonderful man but.....it was his testimony that has left me with a whirlwind of feelings this evening.
You see, I found him to be not so moderate....and I became so so frustrated with our conversations. The reason for this being...all I want to get out of this trip is knowledge, all I want to do is learn as much as I can about this complex conflict and perhaps MAYBE begin to try to understand it, as I know I am far from reaching such a state of mind....I don't want to impose my beliefs on others, especially as I'm not even sure what those beliefs are...and I certainly don't want to accuse anyone or take sides...but Neil's enitre talk came off so defensively and isolationist it was hard to keep sight of the mission of the trip. After everything that one of our group might have said or pointed out, his response was either a statistic, or denying the truths of our statements because we were American.....he didn't give up any of his own opinions or beliefs..other than his belief in the fact that he was right on all aspects of EVERYTHING. I don't know.....after leaving his house, which he had brought us all in to and fed us a WONDERFUL lunch...it was hard to reconcile his two personalities of hostile and defensive, yet hospitable and warm....and this inner frustration sort of came over me in a wave, a very strong wave at that. As we left his home and traveled on to Yed Vashem....I was overwhelmed and completely overcome with the realization of all the pain and hurt and how I just didn't want to hear any more of it...I turned up my ipod as loud as it could go....but even that wasn't enough to drown out my thoughts..or my tears.....
I'm not sure how I finally reconciled the frustrations....but I came out of the bus ride knowing that while it is a struggle for me to go through the pain of others so meticulously...I have to believe it is to good ends.....and that was all it took for me to recoginize that I have what it takes to continue the dialogues we have started here, for the rest of our days in Jerusalem and beyond....
So I guess the point of this post was to explain how down I was, and yet in the course of the day, I feel more refreshed than ever....I guess thats what I meant at the beginning when I was talking about how time just seems to run a little bit differently here...everything seems to happen a little bit faster, as if the conflict is some sort of great catalyst....yet at the same time the days seem to stretch on for years....
But anyway...Yed Vashem (I think thats how its spelled??) ..is the Israeli Holocaust Museum...which was..heavy, after all of the emotions from the day earlier....but it was good...and necessary.....
And now we are at the Jerusalem hotel, gearing up to watch the Manchester U vs. Barcelona game and just try to giggle our worries away for a few hours as we prepare for tomorrow......
I wonder how much a person can change in two weeks?? I feel like I'm about to find out... :)
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