O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!
(Matthew 23:37 KJV)
Six days after re-entry into the Eastern time zone, I finally feel as if I am sloughing off the intense jet lag resulting from a 7-hour time change and a grueling 20+ hour journey home. Time now, then, to begin to digest the overwhelming experience that was an extended stay in Israel and in particular Jerusalem. I think my incessant FB postings and photos provided the tourist version of the experience, so I intend to dig a bit into this beautiful, complex, and conflicted country's psychopolitical aspects. As an ardent Zionist and someone who fell in love at first sight with Israel, I was surprised to find that my observations during this visit left me frequently troubled. I will start by quoting my old friend Jim Teeple, a Voice of America journalist who did a two year stint in Jerusalem, and once commented: "Jerusalem is a vortex of negative energy." While I disagree vehemently that Jerusalem's energy is negative, it is undeniable that it is a vortex of complicated, conflicted, often contentious, and inarguably competing energies.
As a non-Israeli, I am clearly not inured to the ubiquitous militarism that is present on every street corner, to wit, fully armed young men and women on buses and trains, at the grocery store, and at all tourist sites. However, you do begin to get used to this after a day or two and in a perverse way to take comfort in it. What took me aback more emphatically this time in Israel was the bellicosity I encountered in many--although certainly not all--Jerusalemites who I shared meals with, both in our apartment and in their homes. The free-floating aggression that I perceived stemmed, as many individuals put it, from living in a country with barbarians geopolitically situated at every gate. I could not help but note that this bellicosity, inherent in the "Earthly Jerusalem," the living reality of a Jerusalem of stones and houses and people, contrasted starkly with the image of "Heavenly Jerusalem" as the Jewish people's central symbol of peace of wholeness. Literally, Jerusalem means "City of Peace." But Jerusalem and the greater Israel today are anything but peaceful.
The Israeli author David Grossman (his novel "To the End of the Land" is a must read) has written and spoken extensively about the difficulty Israelis have imagining peace, having been exposed to constant war not to mention the ongoing threat of terrorism. Moreover, as a country resurrected from the ashes of the Holocaust, I recognize that Israelis struggle, on a subconscious if not a conscious level, with the constant and often immediate threat of annihilation as both a people and a country. Recognizing both the conscious and unconscious drives at work in the contemporary Israeli psyche, as well that as the fact that I am not Israeli and do not reside there, I am aware how presumptuous what I am about to say is: the current situation is simply not sustainable. I spent only two weeks immersed in the prevailing psychological attitude I encountered in the people I came into close contact with and it was draining beyond description. I cannot imagine how exhausting it must be to sustain, on an unrelenting basis, that level of unyielding de-legitimization and, yes, contempt of the perceived and actual enemy. And I simultaneously extrapolate this conjecture inversely, that is, to the Arabs' perception of the Jews.
Both sides, Jews and Arabs alike, must at some point reach a mutual recognition of the other's rights and a willingness to compromise their own claims. I can only imagine the enormous mourning that will need to take place should such a compromise ever occur, as each side relinquishes its respective guiding myths. The Israeli Jungian psychoanalyst Erel Shalit says it well when he urges his fellow countrymen to "listen to the whisper of the "soul" (in Hebrew, ruah) that otherwise might be carried away by the "wind" (ruah), unheard; the soul that here in Israel, if not attended to, may be swept away by darkness at noon." (Shalit 2004, 168).
