We've been busy this week setting up an office/studio in Efrat, a wonderful suburb of Jerusalem. It's been difficult to pay attention to the internet websites, which is usual for us; however, we've spent a lot of time on the road between Efrat, Jerusalem, Netanyah (home of IKEA), and the Galil. Lots of time to chat with people in lines and traffic jams as well as overhear what a lot of different people are saying and are not saying.
Regardless of what the MSM is saying, Israelis are not talking about Obama. Although the Jerusalem Post online website (okay, we logged in whenever we could) regularly changed its frontpiece photo of Obama and some talking head. One gag moi shot of Obama with Peres walking together along a white colonade with Obama's hand on Peres's back? Another, ten minutes later, with Netanyahu; thirty minutes later with Livni or Barak or Shlomo the Pickleman (only kidding).
But, Israelis could
n't care. They know in their kishkahs that Obama isn't here for Israelis. Obama is here for the American Jewish vote. The rank and file Israeli knows that Obama is an outsider here as well as there. There is no connection. There is only coldness and calculation. The AP picture of Obama with Olmert in the Jerusalem Post was a joke--the Two Yo-Yo's, a good buddy called it. Obama isn't even attempting to look at Olmert.
Is Adam Sandler writing the script for these things? "Hi, boys and girls; see, I'm wearing a flag pin! In Israel; with a real Jew."
There is an acid test Israelis give to visiting dignitaries--a way to watch and measure. Everyone goes to the Yad Hashem to bear witness to the Shoah. Everyone goes to the Western Wall to bear witness to the vortex of Western Culture and Spirituality. The former is a private confrontation with enormity. The latter is a public experience of personal faith. It is the person at the Wall that Israelis watch--How does the stranger come to the perimeter of the sacred space?
For Israelis, the measure of a person is how they handle themselves in strange and awkward situations. At the Wall, there is a culture of response and a way of behaving that is both personal (a manifestation of what is within) and reverential (respecting the externalities). Every individual approaches the Wall from public space, through a barrier into an enclosed section in front of the wall. People in the public open piazza can see into the enclosed space in front of the Wall and monitor the dignitary's response.
The critical moment, the transition if you will, occurs at the barrier, not at the Wall. Everyone who enters the enclosed sacred space before the Wall must cover their heads: men wear a kippa or a hat, married women wear scarves or hats or wigs. If you are religious, you wear a kippa or a hat at all times--so you wear your own through the barrier to the Wall. If you don't have one, men reach into a box at the barrier and put on a rayon "skullcap", white or black. The meta-message is clear. The latter group of guys are wearing the kippa because they have to--sort of like a flag pin--returning it to the box when they leave.
Back in March, I wrote about McCain's tour of Israel before Easter. He went out of the way to learn about Israeli culture and customs and to understand what Israelis were experiencing. He convinced Israelis he was interested in Israelis. It was not how he talked with officials and notaries. It was how he went to the Wall. He didn't need a "have-to" beanie. He came prepared. He wore the Kippa Sruga of the Modern Orthodox, or central observant Jewish parties. Symbols are serious stuff. He knew he was an outsider, an not a Jew, but at the Wall, he tried and he watched how people responded to the sacred space.
Obama?
He reached into the box and took a white kippa. No matter how serious he appeared, lost in reverent prayer, he wore the "have to do it or you can't get in" hat. [AP photo; Jerusalem Post]
In the Global Village, the Medium is the Message, and there is no clearer medium in Israel than the cut of a man's kippa. From Efrat to Galil, Obama appears as another Carter--an outsider with no interest in Israelis.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Against the Wall
By Daniel JacksonCategories: Current Events, domestic politics, Humor, Israel
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4 comments:
It should also be noted that Obama's proxies set up campaign posters in the public plaza outside the barrier at the Wall. See here'
It looks to me more like Sen. McCain had been "coached" and assistend by his friend, Sen. Leiberman. As they were leaving you can see the Democrat Senator in the lower left of the frame wearing an identical kippa. This is not said as a bad thing about Sen. McCain, but rather an acknowledgement that he actually does have Jewish friends.
I can't fail to notice that Muslims wear white kippas.
Re: JFM comment on 7/25/2008; "I can't...Muslims wear white kippas." That is just the start of how Muslim's intersect with Judaism in many areas:
They have Kosher laws
They follow the lunar calender
They circumsize their males
They prohibit graven images of their g-d....
And they still want to kill us!
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