Chutzpah & High Heels

by Jessica Fishman

  I stare out of the window feeling rejected by both the man and the country I love.

  I don’t understand what is happening. No one ever pays attention to any laws in Israel. When it became illegal to smoke in public places, police officers wouldn’t even bother coming to bars to hand out tickets. Nobody parks legally. People don’t even bother slowing down to the speed limit when they see a police officer. I can’t understand why all of a sudden people actually care about this law.

  We keep driving forward through the night in silence. The seatbelt around my waist tightens as if trying to protect me from a crash. My heavy, uneven breathing is the only noise either one of us hears. Each of us continues to look forward through the windshield, not daring to look at the other person. The red lights of the cars in front of us become blurry and the bright white lights of the cars coming toward us seem to get brighter like stars scattered across the night sky. I hold my breath, hoping for one of those cars to crash into us and change this ill-fated path we are driving down.

  However, the cars keep zooming past us. I look outside the passenger-side window. A car full of people laughing and enjoying their time together pulls up next to us. I long to be with them, but I am sucked back into the car, into this new reality. I do not know how to respond to him, I cannot find my voice. I feel my hands shaking and quiet tears begin streaming down my face.

  When I finally look at Meydan, I see his face, with his eyes fixed forward, showing no empathy and a stubborn, clenched jaw. It does not matter to him that I walked to synagogue in the freezing Minnesota winter every Shabbat, that I went to Jewish summer camp, that we lit the candles as a family every Shabbat, that I fasted every Yom Kippur, that we said the blessings before every meal, that I said the shema as a child before I went to bed every night, that my family kept kosher, that my dad was president of the synagogue, that I went to Jewish day school, that my mother was the chapter president of Hadassah and gave up her family and her past to keep a Jewish household, that my family had participated in Jewish Agency missions to Hungary and Romania, that I made aliyah to Israel, that I struggled to survive here, that I learned Hebrew, that I volunteered for the IDF. No, what matters to him is the opinion of some primitive male rabbis who are busy trying to get as much gelt as possible from the state by exploiting God’s name. I can’t help thinking about my sorority sisters, the girls who preferred Prada over Israel, and how they would be considered more Jewish than I am in this country.

  Meydan refuses to look over at me to see my tears that he caused.

  I want to jump out of the car, but the seatbelt holds me in place. With each tear, I feel my jaw getting tighter and breathing getting shallower. With all of the things I’d been through here, I think that this might be the thing that breaks me.

  It makes me think that my friends and family spent a lot of wasted time distressed about terror attacks, because all the major traumas in my life in Israel have not come from terrorists, but from Israelis themselves.

  I wrap my arms around myself, trying to hug myself, trying to calm myself down. I don’t think I have any energy left to survive this country. I thought that I was tough enough for anything, but I realize that I might not be.

  Meydan parks the car and we get out without looking at each other. When we shut the doors, it almost feels as if the conversation is left inside the car, like a rancid fart that has been contained. He takes my hand and we walk into the show. I try to forget what we talked about, but it feels as if my life in Israel will forever be changed by this night.

  * * *

  The next morning, I wake up in the same bed as Meydan, but in a completely different world.

  There is a piercing pain inside my left ear. My body must be trying to physically reject what it heard the night before. I look over at Meydan sleeping peacefully. I get out of bed. I don’t even want to be in the same room as him. I pack my things. I grab Jinjy and head to my home in Tel Aviv. I’m so happy that I never gave up my apartment.

  I’m in the same car as last night, but this time I’m in the driver’s seat. I drive down the same road as last night, but in the light it looks completely different. Everyone is going about their Shabbat as if nothing happened. Their world is completely the same. It’s only mine that has turned upside down.

  I call Bar in Paris.

  “Baaaaarrrrrr,” I cry into the phone. “You won’t believe what Meydan said to me last night.”

  “Jessica, I can’t understand you when you cry. Calm down and speak clearly.”

  “Baaaaarrrrrr, it’s the worst. I can’t even say it,” I’m weeping so hard that I can’t even see in front of me. Thankfully, I’m at a red light now.

  “Oh, Jessica, don’t even say it. I don’t want to hear.” Bar knows that Meydan asked me to convert without me having to say it. He knows it’s my worst fear, because it’s his worst fear also.

  “What am I going to do?” I ask.

  Neither of us have an answer.

  * * *

  At my apartment, I sit down with Orli on her balcony. I’m stroking Jinjy to calm myself down.

  “Jessica, don’t take it personally. It’s not about you,” Orli says.

  “How can I not take it personally? He’s asking me to convert! Why can’t he just realize that the rabbinate shouldn’t have a stronghold on religion? I don’t understand why he wants their approval? He isn’t religious!” I weep.

  “Listen, I know you don’t want to hear this, but I’m not religious, and I still want to get married in the rabbinate. It’s important to me,” she says. “Listen, you can get married in Cyprus, just like Lital’s friend, the divorced one who married a kohen.”

  “Why should I have more rights in a country where I’m not a citizen than in a country in which I live, served in the army, and call home?” I ask, but still thinking that I’ll mention it to Meydan.

  “Hey! What’s up?” Hadas, one of Orli’s girlfriends with whom we used to go dancing on Friday nights, walks in. “What is wrong? Why are you crying? Why are you holding your face like that? Did you get hit?” she asks as soon as she sees me. Her boyfriend walks in right behind her.

  “Oh, it’s nothing. I think I have an ear infection,” I respond.

  “I know what will make you feel better,” she says, smiling and pulling out a joint.

  “You should ask their opinion about this,” Orli suggests.

  I tell them about Meydan’s ultimatum. Orli looks over at Hadas’ boyfriend and says, “Don’t you want to get married in the rabbinate?”

  “I don’t think I really care. But if there was anybody causing that much pain to the woman I love, I’d say fuck them and throw a Molotov cocktail on their front step,” he says as he stands up and makes a throwing motion with his arm.

  I look over at him and smile. I wish Meydan would say that. I wish Meydan would have that desire, that strength to rebel against the authorities, and stand up for me.

  * * *

  When I get back to our apartment on the kibbutz, Meydan and I barely say hello to each other. The pain from my ear has increased and radiated out to the entire left side of my face. I can’t touch it without being in pain. I can’t chew. I can’t smile. I can’t kiss. Not that I’m interested in doing any of those right now.

  Meydan, fixated only on my physical pain, insists that I go to the doctor the next day.

  The doctor tells me that it isn’t an ear infection. “Your jaw is inflamed from clenching. Has anything stressful happened that would cause you to clench your jaw?” the doctor asks in a heavy Russian accent. And I burst into tears.

  Gotta Have Faith

  I stare at my computer screen at work. I can’t get any work done. I open Google and type in “Conversion and rabbinate”

  I’m holding my jaw. It still hurts, even though I’m taking anti-inflammatory pills. I wonder what would happen to me if I actually went through a conversion. I would probably get lockjaw.

  I read article after article about the monopoly the rabbinate
has over religion and their crooked, corrupt, and criminal actions. I read an article about how women were refused a get, a divorce certificate, because in the Orthodox system, husbands have total control over divorces. I read articles about how the rabbinate blackmails organizations and accepts bribes. It seems the only difference between the rabbinate and the Vatican is that Dan Brown has yet to write a book about the corruption of the former.

  I read horror story after horror story about how the rabbinate humiliates American immigrants by doubting their Jewish identity and demanding unattainable proof. About how the rabbinate has begun retroactively revoking women’s conversions, making their marriage and all of their legal rights null and void. About entire families whose lives have been destroyed because of political rifts between the rabbis in the rabbinate. About women being thrown out of conversion programs for being seen wearing pants on the street.

  Friends have suggested that I go through the Orthodox conversion and just pretend. But if I refuse to fake orgasms, then there is no way that I’m going to fake being ultra-Orthodox. Orthodox Judaism is against everything that I stand for as a feminist and as a free-thinking, intellectual human being. They make women sit in the back of buses. They don’t even count women as human beings for prayer purposes.

  All of a sudden, I have an idea. This is Israel; everyone can be bought, especially the religious.

  I type into Google search: Bribe the rabbinate

  No search results.

  I type into Google search: Deceiving the rabbinate

  No search results.

  I type into Google search: Lying to the rabbinate

  No search results.

  I guess I found the one thing that Google doesn’t have the answer for.

  As I’m deep in thought trying to find a solution, my phone rings. Maybe it’s Meydan, apologizing, realizing that he made a big mistake.

  “Shalom, Jessica.”

  “Shalom”

  “This is Rivka, I’m calling about the graphic project that you asked us to work on.”

  “Yes, thank you. Will it be done by the deadline?” I ask, looking at my watch.

  “B’ezrat Hashem, with God’s help,” Rivka, one of the multiple religious women working at the company, responds.

  I’ve been in Israel nearly a decade and I still don’t know if this means things are good or bad. “Well, is it going to be done by the end of the day, per my I request?” I ask, getting annoyed.

  “B’ezrat Hashem,” Rivka responds again. Probably looking at her watch, because at 4:00 P.M. on the dot she will leave and go back home to make dinner for her eight kids and her husband who refuses to work because he is too busy praying all day.

  “Rivka, I don’t want God’s help! I want your help! I’m paying you to get it done, not God! I want you to work on this, not God! God hasn’t done anything for me lately! It isn’t like we’re talking about the messiah!” I erupt, misplacing my anger. “So, is it going to get done?”

  “B’ezra . . .” she stops before going any further, “I’ll make sure of it.”

  I try to imagine what would happen if the IRS responded to tax refund questions or if FedEx answered package arrival questions by saying, “with God’s help.”

  I go back to looking for a solution, knowing that as long as I’m dealing with the primitive rabbinate, I’ll need something a lot stronger than God’s help.

  Facebook:

  Not Just for Jewish Geography or Stalking Your Ex

  The same people who don’t even know I’m alive are ruining my life. They’re taking over my life. Every conversation I have is about them. Every thought I have is about them.

  After meeting with Tali, from the army, for a cup of coffee last Shabbat, I’ve become more outraged with Israeli society.

  When I was telling her what I’ve been going through and my outrage with the rabbinate, she stopped me and said, “This is a Jewish country. I think that the rabbinate should have more control.”

  “Are you serious?” I asked.

  “Yes,” and then she tried to connect religion with the security of the state. She sounded like the Taliban to me.

  “You know Tali, if the rabbinate had more power, then we wouldn’t be able to sit here right now drinking coffee on Shabbat. You wouldn’t have been able to drive here. And you would certainly not be able to wear that shirt with your boobs hanging out,” I said.

  She didn’t even try to button up her shirt after I said that, in fact she arched her back a bit more.

  The only reason I could think of for these obvious inconsistencies in Israelis’ logic is that they have been brainwashed by the rabbinate. The fact that they are sanctioned by the government gives them the type of legitimacy that the ultra-Orthodox are not afforded from Jews in the United States.

  I start posting a new Facebook status every day to express my outrage with the rabbinate and how they’re corrupting Judaism.

  Jessica Fishman: “Absolute faith corrupts as absolutely as absolute power but absolute power is corrupt only in the hands of the absolutely faithful.” —Anonymous

  10 Likes

  Jessica Fishman: “I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires.” —Susan B. Anthony

  5 Likes, 3 Comments

  Jessica Fishman: “With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.” —Steven Weinberg

  12 Likes, 5 Comments

  Jessica Fishman: “Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.” —Blaise Pascal

  7 Likes, 1 Comment

  Jessica Fishman: “The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this.” —Albert Einstein

  3 Likes, 6 Comments

  Jessica Fishman: “Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions.” —Albert Einstein

  2 Likes, 4 Comments

  The last one is for Meydan, hoping that he’ll realize that he’s stuck in his thinking because he grew up in a country where there is limited religious freedom.

  I hope he’ll see that the reason he’s stuck thinking that there’s only one true form of Judaism is simply because the state sanctions and supports only one form. Just as I had wanted to understand what it was like to live here as an Israeli, I find myself wishing that Meydan will also come to a broader understanding. I wish that he would understand that there is a more progressive form of Judaism and that he doesn’t have to be held captive by his surroundings, his family, or by his family’s history. I wish that he didn’t have to cling onto this faith to make sense of the world, to make sense of the atrocities during the Holocaust, or to make sense of the threats against Israel. I wish that he could find the strength to break free from this oppression and his self-imposed pressures to be the ideal Jewish son and grandson, and be strong enough to be my partner.

  Double Standards

  “I prefer not to say my name,” I say, afraid that the rabbinate might have wire-tapping capabilities or a black book of names of people who aren’t allowed to get married in Israel.

  I’m searching all by myself for a solution. Meydan isn’t helping me. We’ve grown apart. I cry every day and a few weeks ago I began sleeping on the couch with Jinjy. Our apartment has grown quiet. We barely speak to each other anymore. But I’m still desperate to make this work. My future is at stake. I’m certain that if we overcome this, everything will work out.

  “That is fine,” said the rabbi of ITIM, an independent non-profit that provides information and advocacy for the Jewish lifecycle.

  While hopelessly looking for a
solution, I remembered the article that I’d read the day I caught Meydan putting on tefillin—the article about the American woman who had to prove to the rabbinate that she was a Jew by providing a photo of her grandmother’s headstone. The article had mentioned ITIM as the organization that helped her.

  “Just so you know, we’re completely confidential and are even going through a process of increasing our security system,” he said, ineffectively trying to comfort me.

  I told him my story. I told him of Meydan’s demands.

  This rabbi offered three different solutions: converting, having a civil marriage abroad, or having a religious, non-Orthodox marriage abroad. None of these were helpful. I knew of these options. I was fine with having a religious marriage abroad, but Meydan refused.

  “I have a forged ketuba. I want to know what else I need to prove to the rabbinate that I’m Jewish,” I said.

  I don’t even know why I’m searching so hard for a solution to getting married with the rabbinate’s blessing. I no longer want to be married by a rabbi in the rabbinate. Not after what I’ve learned. I don’t like that the rabbinate’s wedding ceremony is not a mutual agreement. In their ceremony, the man is actually buying the woman and I’m certainly not for sale. Deep down, there had been a part of me that used to want the rabbinate’s acceptance, but now, I just want Meydan to accept me.

  “I don’t really think that fooling the rabbinate is the route to go,” he says hesitantly, but continues. “There is a double standard for Israelis and immigrants. Israelis need two male—not female—witnesses, to say that the woman is Jewish and a single virgin.”

  Wait! Women can’t be witnesses either? Is their eyesight worse than men’s? And a virgin? What era are we in? Is this Taliban-ruled Afghanistan? Or is this supposed to be the only democratic country in the Middle East?

  He continues. “Immigrants need a letter from a rabbinate-approved rabbi abroad who knows you and your family. If you can’t get that, then they might ask for the ketubah of your great-grandmother and great-great-grandmother,” he replies.