Table of Contents
Island Israel
Part I
By Mitya Indursky
Emun-Trust
Nothing has changed. My “split personality” is perfectly in order, tearing my soul apart each and every time the lights of Island Israel start flickering in the night sky. Home away from home, I always think, not even trying to suppress excitement blanketing me with the honey-like thick warmth. The feeling sends me back to my childhood, when mom covered my shivering body with the warmest blanket on Earth, and put her palm on my forehead.
I have a self-invented routine, when a plane is approaching Tel-Aviv. Be it evening or night, I am stupidly glued to a window trying to catch a glimpse of Ben Yehuda or Zabotinsky streets or the Disengoff square or Rothschild Boulevard, or Derech Namir. And each and every time I convince myself that I have seen one of them from 5,000 feet up, being willingly self-fooled by the detailed images of the latter, forever embedded in my head.
The next step is to turn on Shlomo Artzi’s “Under the Mediterranean Skies” on my IPhone, and right before landing, switch it to “Returning home,” by the same Shlomo in duet with late Arik Einstein.
Released from the plane, I am “flying” down the long path of Ben Gurion Airport leading to passport control, passing a good number of slow-moving schleppers on the way. They are looking at me like an old lady in a cafe in Sderot, when told that her shakshuka is not spicy enough. Thank G-d they are speechless!
When finally outside, everything is as easy as finding a freshly squeezed juice kiosk on Shenkin or Disengoff. And, Disengoff is exactly the place where I would land…
…My friend’s apartment is close to the top floor, allowing me to inhale the view of Tel-Aviv rooftops, where any and all Anatevka fiddlers would find themselves a bit lonely. The City is free of self pity, an integral part of galut mentality that diasporas in many countries are sadly promoting as a true Jewish identity.
I dropped my backpack on the floor, grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge, accompanied by a shot of a short espresso, and my precious Partagas P2, and moved to the balcony to shake the plane and a good part of the jet lag off…
… When a couple of pieces of torn white tissue landed in front of me dumbfounded I held both the wind and the enemies of the State responsible. Almost a la Wolf Blitzer, a long overdue Emmy Award recipient-in-waiting for innovation. Mr. Blitzer has succeeded in creating and exploiting a genre of “metpol,” where his extensive knowledge of meteorology meets a sky high understanding of daily politics at viewers expense.
Successful landing of another batch of tissues made me pick them up, pondering about the nature of the message delivered, only to find the paper clear. The third tissue attack made me think about the shape of the balcony and the building.
Geometry was not my strong spot in school, thus it took my brain a couple of minutes to produce a 3D image, with an enchanting sound of the Tin Man’s rusty limbs. By that time, it was raining tissues. I finally looked up, and saw a face a deathbed would reject.
Imagine an off-white sheet of paper, with two overemphasized bleak blue dots constantly moving in all possible directions. The “Mad Sheet” (as I called him) was in a highly entertaining mood the day we met. He bent over the balcony railing, and started passionately yelling “cigaron,” spraying air with so much saliva, Bernie Sanders should be taking note of.
Most definitely, my cigar had turned on a very adventurous mechanism of his tender innerself, that hasn’t been unveiled to the world, yet. So, I became an unfortunate and lonely spectator of the world premiere.
While I was helplessly attempting to predict my excited neighbor’s next move, “The Mad Sheet” almost succeeded in making himself a posthumous name in a highly competitive and somewhat result oriented field of harness-free urban climbing.
He took a living-on-the-edge-of-the-balcony routine to the next level. Now, 3/4 of his body were hanging over the railing, while his facial expression came on par with Jack Nicholson’s one in an unforgettable “Shining.” I almost heard “here comes Johny,” (https://youtu.be/fLEdpDpoTTA ) but “The Mad Sheet” missed the moment, as he had probably missed the movie.
A thought of an amateur mimicking Alain Robert (who climbed harness-free the 1,483 ft tall Petronas Towers in Malaysia) with the face of Jack Nicholson’s character, didn’t sit well with me. Since there was no chance to ask for my money back, I decided to call a concierge.
–We have two mentally unstable tenants here, Shapira and Berkovitz, Misha, the concierge told me. What is this guy’s apartment number?
I have no idea, and he’s clearly not in the mood of sharing it with me. So far, he’s just above me, but barely, was my response.
— Probably Berkowitz, he’s been acting lately. I’ll go upstairs and talk to him, Misha replied.
You’d better hurry or we may totally lose him, I said.
Soon afterwards, 6.2ft tall and fit, Misha was in my small one bedroom apartment, taking almost all space and air available.
–I talked to Berkovitz, he is a good guy, he promised to behave, while you’ll be staying here, the concierge said smiling.
He was on a verge of falling from the balcony and killing himself, and you are fine with his promise? I exclaimed looking up at Misha.
– He took a pill and went to bed, said Misha. Berkowitz knows how serious I can be. I don’t think we’ll be discussing this issue anytime soon, he added, looking very much down at me. –Yom tov, he said, closing the door.
The following two weeks proved me wrong, and Misha right, bringing my level of trust in humanity one notch up. Berkovitz kept his promise to stay away from the balcony. I suspect he was quietly practicing his routine inside.
Island Israel
Part II
Endangered Species
By Mitya Indursky
Nothing has changed. My “split personality” is perfectly in order, tearing my soul apart each and every time the lights of Island Israel start flickering in the night sky. Home away from home, I always think, not even trying to suppress excitement, that is blanketing me with the honey-like thick warmth. The feeling sends me back to my childhood, when mom covered my shivering body with the warmest blanket on Earth, and put her palm on my forehead.
There is another feeling though, the one that comes from afar, and hits me at any airport of my departure to Israel. The feeling of an endangered species, that I am not, and don’t want to be. Even, if only to honor those who had been and will be wounded and killed for me to be proud of being Jewish.
There is no fear, and the endangered species feeling is not based on this healthy sense. It is based on an anger caused by knowledge of being hated and hunted only because of my ethnicity, that calls for necessary attention from a good number of law enforcement agencies. I need to be protected and guarded by G-d knows how many security layers to get to the gate, where armed soldiers will be on alert until all passengers board the plane!
It does not matter where you are flying to Israel from, the picture is largely the same, but it’s more than that if you live in one of the cities where wearing a kippah or speaking Hebrew or going to a Temple may cost you life.
The hate hasn’t disappeared, be it in (considered) civilized Paris, Brussels, London, Berlin, New York, Moscow, Buenos Aires, Delhi or Warsaw. I will not bother going through the names of (considered) less honorable Arab towns and cities since Jews aren’t (largely) there anymore, and the list is long, well-known and boring.
“Popular, profound, uplifting and contagious” – – antisemitism is very far from being extinct. It’s like a gun, an assassin will hide in an air vent, only to retrieve it when moment is right. The last Shoah, and victorious Israeli wars forced the “enlightened” crowd to hide but not for long…
…I never thought about it this way, but it’s true, Marina (who lives in Tel-Aviv for over 20 years) told me. It was a Miami-like hot and humid late evening just about to turn into the night. A good one to sit on the beach and talk. We were on Gordon Beach, watching freshly arrived and relaxed French speaking Jews, and unruly Russian tourists totally disregarding the “No Swimming” signs posted in… Russian…
Nothing has changed. The big, bold world won’t stop deliberating on the millennia old and highly practical subject of “What to do with Israel in particular, and Jews in general?”, giving hatred, thus my anger yet another good push.
It seems that almost each and every Government accompanied by a good number of political, religious and human rights groups, universities, and concerned citizens – – is eager to step into their predecessors shoes, and put their two cents into this productive conversation. Who cares if most of their expert analysis’ are as sincere as either Ilhan Omar’s and Jeremy Corbyn’s Holocaust Remembrance Day statements, or Neimar’s “near death” experience during the Brazil-Mexico match at the 2019 World Football Cup. (https://youtu.be/s41LU3oKpSc.)
I suggest William Hill or Bet 365 or Paddy Power come up with a betting chart on the “nerve racking” issue like the World Cup’s one. The most vocal and anxious countries, provinces, universities, political, religious and human rights groups as well as ordinary citizens should be teased to gamble, betting not less than 20% of either GDP or revenue. Just to put the money where their mouths are. It’s only money, brothers, right?
Though something tells me that the overwhelming majority won’t be able to walk the walk. Either they are too tight, or have an old expert or two familiar with the history of “endangered species” in, out, and back in Israel and in diasporas worldwide.
Human Trafficking, or grandma to Tel-Aviv
Part III
By Mitya Indursky
Nothing has changed. My “split personality” is perfectly in order, tearing my soul apart each and every time the lights of Island Israel start flickering in the night sky. Home away from home, I always think, not even trying to suppress excitement, that is blanketing me with the honey-like thick warmth. The feeling sends me back to my childhood, when mom covered my shivering body with the warmest blanket on Earth, and put her palm on my forehead.
The plan
My teenage criminal inclinations were not powerful enough to develop into a successful criminal career. In other words, I terribly failed in a highly promising department, where Bonnie and Clyde (together with numerous copycats) had achieved their posthumous glory. If this was not enough of a confident boost for a young adolescent soul, I couldn’t even pick one particular “Bonnie” of the time to sing the “Song of songs” to.
Years passed and while in Israel, the playful thoughts of the past started bothering my curious mind yet again. The subject of human trafficking began pulsating in my head almost like ashes of Klaas knocked at the heart of one deeply disturbed Thyl Eulenspiegel.
It was a different kind of human trafficking, though still based on a logistical nightmare. More of a family oriented one, where main emphasis was on how to reunite with my 87 year old grandmother in Tel-Aviv, and show her Island Israel she missed during her one and only trip, dated sometime close to the Bar Kokhba rebellion. The major problem was to make sure that her fragile body (while carrying a very strong mind) survived the flight from Moscow to the Promised Land.
My rapidly created plan equaled a strike of a kindergarten genius. I decided to use a go-between – – my mother, a daughter of the family doyen. Ship my grandma to Tel-Aviv ASAP, I yelled into the phone. I will need a day or two to figure it out, was my Mom’s calm response.
Anticipation is a torture, especially given that I haven’t seen my grandma for a good number of years, and was itching to touch her hand. A self-inflicted grandson-in-waiting wound wasn’t an easy one for my mental surgeon to cure. I found it difficult to spend time facing walls and a damn glittering box, while constantly checking on my cellphone. Thus I decided to inhale as much fresh air as my lungs and head would take in.
Walking my lungs on the beach was an excellent idea for a couple of hours, until they started overflowing with oxygen the same way the New Orlean’s levees had been taken over during the infamous flood. To add insult to injury, the influx of O2 produced a highly unfortunate effect on my head, waking it up from an exciting scenery of sand and waves.
To put it in simple terms, continuous walking on the beach became as joyful as describing a mindset of some prominent U.S. House and Senate members, while lacking PhD in psychiatry accompanied by an in-depth understanding of Ken Kessey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
To shake off the first signs of madness, I moved away from the beach into the city, only to find that my cell phone died faster than a heartburn pops up with the first notes of the “I’m loving it” jingle. The premature death of the cellphone won’t be considered a big deal, if not for a Friday afternoon, when a majority of shops start rapidly closing in an anticipation of a long awaited Shabbat…
Shabbat Shalom
…Messiah’s name was Moti, and the Disengoff street was his place of landing, no matter what the Book says.
-Do you have time to bring the phone from the dead? I asked him.
Why the urgency? Moti inquired, prompting me to quickly unveil top secret details of my human trafficking operation.
(It is vitally important to understand that in Israel you must be ready to use a combination of vocal and hand language skills to explain the reason behind any request. It is some sort of an invitation to a social conversation, and a natural craving for a story to be dispersed later, thus lifting the word “Lama” (“Why?”) to the top of the most important ones in Hebrew. Responses a la “because” or “it’s none of your business” will send you back home or a bit further empty handed.)
Go have a cigar, and let me see what I can do, said Moti, arming himself with a tiny screwdriver necessary to conduct an autopsy. I crossed the street to Brill’s cigar store, where usual suspects were wrapping up their daily deconstruction of (the very much intertwined) Israeli and U.S. politics.
Highly cynical but friendly, Brill offered me a short espresso that I turned down. The “Molotov cocktail” of adrenaline, anxiety and hype in my body was sufficient enough to help me reach Damascus in no time, but this wouldn’t be a healthy option despite my natural curiosity.
Moti appeared on the other side of the street, when I’d used almost all of my lungs (beach replenished) storage capacity, puffing life out of Vegueros Mananita.
-I fixed your phone, do you want to pick it up now or on Sunday? he yelled, smiling. I “flew” across Disengoff faster than Superman takes a shit, and it was my turn to produce a Joker-like smile, barely believing that my cellular “fossil” could breathe again.
-How much do I owe you Moti?
Nothing.
-Why nothing? I insisted
.-You will have time till your grandma arrives to find an answer. I need to close in ten minutes. See you around, and kiss your grandma when she comes!
I left the store and rushed to a pastry shop round the corner, grabbed a kindle cake and rushed back to Moti’s place.
-Shabbat Shalom Moti, I said passing the cake to him.
I see you found an answer, he replied. Shabbat Shalom.
My mother called in an hour, while I was at my friends place devouring Shabbat dinner. Your grandma’s arriving on Monday. Get your act together and take a very good care of her, she warned me.
To be continued…
HUMAN TRAFFICKING, OR GRANDMA TO TEL-AVIV
PART IV
Continuation
By Mitya Indursky
– Stop being stupid. It could be a serious issue. I wonder what they were looking for?
Did you ask them?
-What kind of a question is that? Of course, not!
She went silent afterwards, the streets of the sunset blanketed Tel-Aviv got her attention. I checked her into a hotel, and left soon after, allowing her to rest and digest a short but exciting journey.
When I came back, she was ready for me and dinner. She definitely wasted no time changing the room to her liking. The Denalis of colorful pills (peaking on a nightstand) would make an experienced rock climber thoughtful, while raising the status of the author of the FDA’s Natural Disaster Preparedness manual from “average” to “genius.”
-Are you taking any of the mountain tops with you? I politely asked.
Live to my age! I have everything necessary in my bag, so don’t underestimate me, she proudly responded.
We took a cab to my favorite Israeli flavored French restaurant, where neither she nor I had time to discuss the latest results of the place’s participation in the everlasting Jewish competition, otherwise called FOOD. She wanted me to talk as much as I wanted her to fill in the Great Plains of blanks, emerging after our brief and rather cautious phone conversations over the years.
I’d like to see the Med, she told me after the last pieces of tarte tatin lost a bleak hope of survival, and shared news and thoughts filled the Great Plains somewhat. The Med was happy to see us that night. We spent about an hour on the beach, mostly in silence, looking beyond sand, water, night skies and the restless wondering minds of the Capitol Hill asylum dwellers.
Decline and rise of the Jewish soul
Our day trip to Jerusalem confirmed to me that seventy years of communism had succeeded in shrinking her Jewish identity to a dwarf sized shtetl, but failed to deal with her curiosity. She was trying hard to find her inner voice, walking more than I’ve ever seen her moving, while gulping the scenery of the Old City sites, and the history behind them.
I think that she was also stunned that everything related to the Jews and the Jewish history could be discussed loud enough for other people to hear, and sometimes intervene to add to or comment on. Don’t point a finger at them, they couldn’t help it!
The search for the Jewish sole continued few days later. Back in Tel-Aviv, we placed ourselves on Rotchilde Boulevard enjoying people watching, while making an owner of the coffee and pastry kiosk more excited than the lovers on the next bench. The lips of the latter were pressed against each other with an eternal force that would make the owners of the Gorilla Glue jealous.
Tall and short, blonds and brunettes, olive, dark or light skinned, laughing or crying, with a dog and without, straight or queer – – people were passing by in front of my grandma’s eyes for a couple of hours. She was silently enjoying the show, chasing it with coffee and burekas, until the moment came when she touched my hand.
Yes, Grandma, I said.
-Tell me, are they all like us? she asked.
What do you mean, like us?
-Are they all Jewish?!
Most of them are, yes.
She looked away, trying hard not to show me her watery eyes. I never asked her what triggered it, but suspect that an understanding that she is in a very real and free Jewish country, where her people are trying to make the best and the worst out of themselves on a daily basis, had finally hit her. She turned her face back to me and asked to take her to the hotel.
Next morning we met there for breakfast. A hostess, a nice blond girl, asked for grandma’s last name and room number in perfect Russian. She obliged.
Are you Jewish, the girl inquired?
I surely am, my grandma responded. The question is, whether you are?