11
The Next Step
“I have hamburgers, skewers, and steak ready. Who wants what?” Meydan yells to the large crowd of his family and friends in the yard of our new apartment in a kibbutz. In true socialist fashion, the yard is shared with everyone else living in the building, which was converted from the old communal dining hall.
Today is a day of celebration. Meydan and I are having a hanukat bayit, a house-warming party. We just moved into an apartment on the same kibbutz where we had our first date. It feels symbolic, circular. Last weekend, we painted the apartment and moved in all the furniture, but tonight will be the first night that we sleep here.
A real estate agent would describe the apartment as cozy, but it’s actually just small and cramped. The entire apartment is smaller than my childhood bedroom. It consists of one large room which serves as the kitchen, the living room, and Meydan’s home office. There is a small bedroom which is barely big enough to fit Meydan’s childhood bed and then an old Israeli-style bathroom that is basically a toilet, with a showerhead over it.
I still have my apartment in Tel Aviv . . . just in case. I know that as long as I have it as a safety net, it will protect me from becoming another statistic on the list of girls who made aliyah and then left after a breakup. I worked hard at establishing my life here before I got involved in a serious relationship and I don’t want to lose it. There is something inside me that won’t completely let go, relax, and take the leap of faith into this relationship.
“Jess, mammi, hun, your veggie skewers are ready. I’m saving them for you over here on the side,” Meydan yells over to me.
“Thanks motek, sweetie,” I yell back. Hopefully, I will be able to get to them while they are still warm, I think. I’m busy making a large Israeli salad of diced cucumbers, tomatoes, and onion.
The guests suddenly begin to scatter. Everyone runs for cover, but no one leaves. It is the first rain of the season. It is a blessing. The manly Israeli men keep barbequing, while the rest of us crowd under the awning to continue eating and talking.
I look over at Meydan and smile. He looks so content with everyone around him.
By sundown, everyone has gone home and Meydan and I are cleaning up. As I’m washing dishes, he comes up from behind and gives me a hug.
“Why don’t you go shower. You have work and school tomorrow. I’ll finish up here,” he says.
As the hot water is pounding down on my back, I think about how different my life is today than it was a year ago. Before I felt like an American living in Israel, but now I feel like an Israeli with an American accent. I have friends who are like family here. I have a boyfriend. I have a home for the holidays. I do Israeli things on the weekend, like barbeques and family lunches. I no longer feel like I’m alone here.
I turn off the shower and at the door is Meydan, ready to wrap me up in the towel that he thoughtfully warmed up on the radiator. He holds me in his arms.
I feel as if I can finally put down my guard that I have spent the past seven years building up.
You want to watch a movie together?” he asks.
“Sure,” I reply.
I feel as if getting through the breakup actually made our relationship stronger, as if we will be able to survive anything that life might throw at us in the future.
We both put on our pajamas. Meydan makes us some hot herbal tea. We curl up on the couch together. This is the first night that we have spent in an apartment all by ourselves.
I look around at the bare walls and wonder how we will fill them.
Meydan starts kissing me. I guess we aren’t going to be watching a movie after all. I try to forget that he found this couch on the side of the street.
I think to myself, maybe I should get rid of my apartment.
Oedipus Effect
“I’ll take the trash out. I’ll be right back,” Meydan says as I clean up after dinner.
During the week, I work hard at school and at the office, but during the weekends, Meydan and I play hard. I smile, thinking about our romantic weekends at bed-and-breakfasts. Our drives to the Golan Heights to see the flooding streams after heavy rainfalls. Our hikes and four-by-four driving along Jeep paths with friends. Our picnics in the fields and making tea and coffee on portable gas burners in the forest. Our walks through the alleyways of Jerusalem. Our visits with friends for dinner or dessert. Our walks hand-in-hand on the beach.
Ten minutes later, as I’m finishing the dishes, Meydan opens the door.
“Look what I found!” he exclaims. Knowing that he inherited a bit of his mother’s hoarding habit, I turn around worried that it is probably another piece of junk that he thinks is a treasure.
But instead, a spunky, copper-colored, medium-sized dog darts over to me as if he is a self-guided missile. With what seems to be a smile on his face, the dog starts licking mine. For the second time in my life, I fall in love at first sight.
The dog keeps running around in circles. Sniffing everything. Looking for food. But he always comes back to give one of us a kiss. He can’t sit still for a second. He looks healthy, but without a collar it is obvious he has been abandoned, just like the many other dogs that people dump at kibbutzim.
Exchanging only a quick glance between the two of us, Meydan and I know that we are going to keep him. As I take our new dog to the shower to rinse him off, Meydan hunts through the cupboards to find food for the hungry dog.
After I dry him off, the dog returns to his spunky self and darts back and forth in the room until he finally settles down and curls up on our small beige bath rug.
Meydan hands him a can of tuna fish, which the dog eats in record time.
“Let’s name him Jinjy, redhead,” Meydan declares triumphantly, as if he had a stroke of utter genius.
“Well, it seems to fit his personality,” I reply with a smile. I’m reminded how his family has a weird thing about naming everyone with a name that starts with an M and it makes me happy that he doesn’t want to continue this tradition with our dog. The tradition made me feel as if I would have to change my identity to become a part of his family.
When we get into bed, Jinjy follows us into the bedroom. He slowly climbs into bed and curls up between us, as if that is where he belongs. It feels like we are becoming our own family.
I take a deep breath. Everything seems to be in place in my life. Having grown up with dogs, I’ve been waiting for the time when I could adopt a dog in Israel to really make me feel at home. I have always dreamed of living on a kibbutz. I speak Hebrew fluently. I have a high-tech job. I’m nearing the end of my MBA. I have a wonderful boyfriend, whose family loves me and has taken me in. I cuddle up under the warmth of the covers and for the first time feel completely content with where I am in my life. I no longer need to work towards something. I’m no longer concerned about struggling in this country. I am exactly where I need to be.
All I need is my happily-ever-after and I’ll be in the company of Snow White, Cinderella, and Sleeping Beauty. I hear the pitter-patter of little sabra feet in our future—but that may be the leaky faucet in the kitchen. I close my eyes and see my life roll out in front of me like a red carpet being unrolled at the Emmys.
My parents’ forged ketuba flashes in my mind.
My eyes snap open. My breathing is shallow. I look over at Meydan and Jinjy. They are both sleeping soundly. My mind starts racing. My jaw tightens and I feel a migraine coming on. I am living the aliyah dream that I have worked so hard to achieve. What am I afraid of? Why is there an awful feeling in the pit of my stomach? Am I so consumed by worry that I’ll eventually bring about my own worst fear?
I look back over at Meydan. He is still fast asleep. I wonder if he will be my Clyde? My Romeo? Will he be my Superman or my Robin Hood? Will he defy the stars? Will he be above the law? Will he rebel with me against the authorities? Will he still love me after I tell him about the forged ketuba? Will he care more about marrying me than being married by the rabbinate?
If he broke up with me just because he was stressed, what will he do when I tell him that I can’t get married in the rabbinate? I already told him that my mom converted, but I get the feeling that he doesn’t know what that actually means for marriage.
I think back to Lital’s bachelorette party when one of her friends told me that she had to get married in Cyprus because her husband is a kohen1 and she was a divorcée. They had found a way around the rabbinate. I hope we will too.
“Ugh, Jessica . . . did you eat too much dairy tonight?” Meydan blames Jinjy’s fart on me after he wakes up from his sleep.
“No, that was Jinjy. I guess that tuna didn’t agree with him.”
Meydan instantly falls back to sleep.
Yihyeh b’seder, everything will be fine, I reassure myself. Self-fulfilling prophecies are for Greek tragedies.
Rock the Vote
“So, who are you voting for? Are you voting for Bibi?” Meydan’s aunt uses Benjamin Netanyahu’s nickname as she yells to me over the commotion of twenty family members talking, eating, and laughing during one of the weekend lunches.
Unlike in the U.S., there are no topics that are inappropriate to talk about during an Israeli meal. With the elections quickly approaching, everybody is talking politics.
“Umm,” I mumble, “I’m voting for this new party that promotes the environment and religious freedom.”
After living here for seven years, this is going to be the first time that I vote in Israel. I can’t believe I’m still experiencing firsts here. I’ll feel like a full citizen. Cast my vote. Be a part of this democracy that I have defended and help shape the future of this country.
“No, no. Vote for Livni. We want Livni to win,” Mira, Meydan’s mom, says.
“I’m voting for them because they want to make marriage more pluralistic. They want to take the power away from the ultra-Orthodox rabbinate,” I say, but they have already started talking about who is going to take which leftovers home.
“Jessica, you can vote for whoever you want,” Libbi, Meydan’s sister-in-law, says to me. We have grown close over the past months.
* * *
On Election Day, I go to my designated voting location—a high school in Tel Aviv. It is bustling with people. I wander around the hallways until I find my assigned room. I wonder what it would have felt like to go to high school in Israel. I’m jealous that my future children will get to experience high school here.
I walk into the room and see four kids sitting at a table.
“Is this where voting is?” I ask, thinking that I must be in the wrong room.
“Yes, what is your name?” one of them asks.
“Jessica Fishman.”
“Jessie, Jessie, Jessie, Jessi-caaaaah ooh ah ooh ah! Now she is far away . . .”
I roll my eyes. After seven years, people are still singing that song to me. Don’t they get it? I’m not her. I’m here to stay, unlike the girl in the song who runs away after a heartbreak. People will probably sing this song at my funeral. “Is this the right place?”
“Yep. Can I see your ID?”
I hand them my Israeli ID card. One of the kids gives me an envelope.
“What am I supposed to do with this?” I ask out loud.
“You put the slip of paper in it. That is how you vote.”
I stare at the envelope in utter confusion and then look back at up them.
They point to a cardboard divider.
I walk behind the divider and see a bunch of pieces of cut-out paper with letters on them representing the different parties. I am supposed to pick a letter, put it in an envelope and bring the envelope back out and put it in a box. I feel like I am voting for prom king and queen—not the prime minister of one of the most recognized countries in the world. It is such an anti-climactic experience. It is so simple that even Floridians would not be confused.
After I vote, I hand them my envelope and with it my hopes that maybe things will change. Maybe my vote will make a difference. Maybe the conversion thing won’t be an issue. Maybe I’ll be able to get married in Israel without any problems after this election.
A few days after voting, a coalition is formed. The political system in Israel functions like a game of musical chairs. Every few years the leaders of the different parties swap positions. The new prime minister, Bibi, has already been prime minister before and he failed miserably the first time. The foreign minister is an outspoken racist. And of course there are right-wing religious parties in the coalition.
It doesn’t seem like this is the type of change we need.
Car Crash
This year, the spring holidays in Israel fly by more quickly than ever. I celebrate all of them with Meydan’s family. Celebrating Passover, the holiday that celebrates Jews being set free, feels so different when it is with people who I know will become my family.
On Independence Day, we celebrate by having a barbeque—just like every other Israeli. The small size of the country becomes abundantly clear on Independence Day, when every single Israeli is trying to find a spot to barbeque that some even set up on the grass median on highways.
During our barbeque, Meydan’s best friend announces that he and his girlfriend got engaged. His fiancée sticks her left hand in my face to show off her ring. As I tell her how beautiful it is, my throat closes up. I can’t believe that for the past few weeks, I have been celebrating the freedom of the Jewish people and of the land of Israel, when I’m still not free as Jew in my homeland. Trying to pretend that the tears I’m shedding are for their joyous occasion, I congratulate them, with an overly enthusiastic, “Mazal tov, congratulations!”
Now that all of the holidays with the family are over, tonight, Meydan and I are planning on spending some time alone. We’re on our way to see a show together. In the passenger seat, I look around the car and think back to how I felt when I first got it. I remember how getting a car in Israel felt like a symbol that I’d survived here and that this country was really my home. The car had given me the freedom to go wherever I wanted. I was no longer stuck to the confines of walking distance or public transportation. The car had already been through an accident and had a throw-up stain in the back seat from the dog. I looked over at Meydan, who always drove my car whenever we were together.
“So, I was thinking that once the contract is up on the apartment in the kibbutz, we should move into another apartment together,” Meydan tells me.
“Well, you know how I feel. I don’t want to give up my apartment until we are engaged,” I say.
Whether it is the intimacy of being close to one another in the car or the detachment of being able to look out the windshield and not having to look the other person in the eyes while talking or the combination of both, we often have serious conversations while driving.
“I know. But listen, my grandfather bought me an apartment years ago in Petach Tikva. We could live there and not have to pay rent. Plus we would be right across the street from my parents and grandparents,” he says, incorrectly thinking that somehow this last point might convince me.
Even though I love his family, I think we should live more than walking distance away from them. And besides, Petach Tikva! Ick! Even though it means Gateway of Hope, it symbolizes the exact opposite to me. I have no desire to live in bleak, dreary, overcrowded, shoddy, and religious Petach Tikva. There is a Facebook group of Israelis that calls for the city’s destruction. Recently, the religious families of the city protested against having their children study with Ethiopian children. If I had wanted to live in a racist city, I would have married Chris, my high-school boyfriend, moved to the US South, and hung up his Confederate flag. I want to live in vibrant Tel Aviv, where I can smell the sea air, where there are young, liberal people.
“Well, I don’t know how I feel about that. I mean, are we planning on getting married first?” I ask. He knows that I’m afraid to leave my apartment, my only home in Israel, before our future is set.
Meydan doesn’t answer. In
stead his whole body tightens up. He stares straight ahead and grips the steering wheel. “Well, there are a few things we need to work out,” he says, uncomfortably adjusting his bodyweight in the car seat.
When he says this, I’m transported back to the first night that I met Meydan’s cousin and her boyfriend. After a lovely dinner at a café in Tel Aviv we said goodbye to them and Meydan turned to me and said, “You know, he isn’t really Jewish.”
I let go of his hand and froze. Not wanting to hear the answer, I forced myself to ask him, “What do you mean?”
He nonchalantly replied, “His mom converted, so he isn’t technically Jewish.”
I had snapped back at him, “What do you mean? Of course he is! He was in the army. He speaks Hebrew. He has lived in Israel his entire life. He grew up Jewish. He knows nothing else than being Jewish. His identity is Jewish. And if his mom converted, then they both are Jewish. Don’t you, someone who prays every morning, know anything about halacha? You are never supposed to remind a convert that they weren’t born Jewish!”
“Yeah, I guess you are right,” Meydan had quietly conceded, maybe trying to avoid a fight.
I didn’t have anything else to say. I was too busy choking back my tears. I could not believe his ignorance, the blatant discrimination. How could one Jew whose grandfather had survived the Holocaust say such a thing about another Jew? Didn’t he know that Jewish converts were gassed, burned, and tortured right along with other Jews? All of these questions had stormed through my head as I wondered to myself, what will he think when I tell him the truth about me? Will he reject me?
As we drive around a curve, I’m jolted back to the present, into my car, which used to feel like my freedom mobile, but is now suffocating me.
“If you want to marry me, then you have to go through a rabbinate conversion,” Meydan stipulated.
Every little girl dreams of a romantic marriage proposal from the fairytales. No one ever dreams of getting a marriage ultimatum. Hamas has made better proposals to Israel than Meydan is making to me.
Chutzpah & High Heels Page 24
