Who Am I? (Who Are You?)

Haifa. I would have liked to enter the city alone, quietly, perhaps on foot. Starting up Ben Gurion street, walking through the German colony, pausing at the new shops, pausing longer at the old. Old thoughts, old smells, old memories. Memories. They fluttered in and out of my thoughts as the bus climbed Mount Carmel, passing through Ahuza and the Mercaz, through Carmelia and French Carmel: the Horev Center. Pasto restaurant where I once found a fly in my soup. The place I got my hair cut. Ophira’s antique shop. I was asked to give a little introduction to the Baha’i Faith before we reached the Terraces. I did, but again, I wish I could have been quiet and absorbed the homecoming. Because a great part of my heart did feel – despite my mental protestations – that I was, in fact, home.

That was yesterday. Today, sitting in a classroom in Neve Shalom – Wahat al-Salaam (Oasis of Peace), we were asked to reflect, share, decompress after the riot of the last nine days. I didn’t want to speak (again, feeling the need to be quiet), but as we began talking about identity and conflict, I felt compelled to put words to my feelings. For me, Israel entered my life violently, as a hostile force imposed from the outside. Well, actually that’s not completely true. I first encountered Israel on pilgrimage, the most sublime experience for a ten year old, for anyone really. It was only a year later, when my parents decided to move to Israel, that the country took on an oppressive pall. When we moved, my identity was still nascent, raw. Israel pressed down on me – the aggression, sirens, dust, anxiety, sleeplessness; the holiness, beauty, longing, loss – and as my identity hardened, Israel was left, like a leaf impression in wet concrete, or an insect in amber. I’ve tried for seven years to make peace with myself, with this foreign entity embedded in my Self, but I haven’t succeeded. This trip, this experience is another chance, not only to learn about “the conflict,” but about my conflict, about existential conflict – and how the two inner and outer conflicts are linked.

In fact, I have a sneaking suspicion that if I can find the link, I will have gone a long way toward a true solution. How can we possibly impose peace on others if we aren’t at peace with ourselves first?