The trip home, and the difference a kippah makes?

When I flew back from Israel earlier this month my journey was a gauntlet as usual; long layover, long flights, however one part was much easier than normal--the security. Whenever I've explained what the Tel Aviv airport security is like to an Israeli they always respond with looks of disbelief, because they aren't treated the same when they leave. One of my instructors this summer was herself a security worker at the airport during her military service. She said that part of her job was explicitly to profile people by their race and religion, and she disliked her job a great deal for this reason. People that have read my older blogs will recall that I've had some pretty rough encounters at Israel's airport security in the past. So this time I thought I would try an experiment. This time when I left I decided I would do exactly as I had in the past, pack the same way, and answer the questions in the security interview with same candor that in the past resulted in this. This time however, I put on a kippah (yarmulke in America), nothing flashy, just a little doily size piece of cloth. In America it's common for religious Jews not to wear one, but in Israel it serves as a strong indicator of whether or not someone is a religious Jew. There are actually not a few Christian orders that also wear a skullcap, called a pileolus or a zucchetto. I also like to wear strange objects as hats as a matter of habit. At any rate, when I came to the security interview I answered the same questions with complete honesty, regarding why I was in Israel, who I knew, how much Hebrew I knew, etc. and after about sixty seconds I was waved through every line. I didn't so much as have to open a single bag or send my checked bags through the x-ray. Exiting customs was equally fast, and the security officer behind the desk, rather than the usual stern attitude was, frankly, flirtatious. I get searched leaving the Harvard libraries more thoroughly than I experienced this time around at the airport. The airport security which had taken two to three hours in the past, took me all of twenty minutes from the first interview to sitting at my gate. Though I know this is but one experience, and only anecdotal evidence, I can't help but presume that I was treated so differently and presumed to be nonthreatening because I wore a piece of fabric on my head which served as a symbol of Jewishness. I'm not sure which part I find more interesting, that Israel's famously extreme security measures which take advantage of the most advanced technology available can be thwarted by a three inch diameter piece of knitted yarn, or that Justin the religious Jew would, because of that religion, be waved through, while Justin the Christian would be held and searched from top to bottom and interrogated.

Living in Jerusalem - Living in Bethlehem

Living on both sides of the wall, in Israel as well as Palestine, is a crucial part of gaining understanding about the differences and dynamics between them. I’ve spent nearly equal times living on each side and, like two sides of a coin, even a detailed portrait of one side still means you’re missing half the picture. The additional context one provides to the other is illuminating to several aspects of the situation, both in obvious ways and equally important nuances.

There’s no way to fully grasp these differences apart from doing it yourself, but I’ll do my best to shed some light on one thing from my own perspective, which I think is both interesting and important to know. The first thing that springs to mind are the different manifestations of the military tension between the two sides of the wall. On the Israeli side, the military action, the police barricades, the violence between Jews and Arabs, and religious Jews and secular Jews for that matter, is very much in your face. The tension in Jerusalem is constant, it’s active, it’s visible, it’s recounted in the international media, and sits constantly like a weight on the chest of the city for all to see. Every mall and McDonald's has armed security, every corridor of the Old City has soldiers posted in it during daylight, and it’s not uncommon for the police to literally divide the city in two during times of high tension and holy days, with blimps mounted with cameras monitoring everything from above.

Five miles away as the crow flies however, it is a different story. Once you are in Palestine and far enough away that you no longer see the wall, the area where the protests normally take place, or the Israeli military, the feeling of tension begins to change, and the further from the wall you get, the greater sense it takes on. The ambiance the tension produces on the Palestinian side is characterized by its passivity, its presence is constant, but crafted and groomed in such a way that at a superficial level it’s easily overlooked by visitors and outsiders. The populations of the Palestinian cities are not integrated with Jews, and merely walking down the street with the unabashed Arab life going on, not seeing any Jews walking the same streets, it’s almost as though a weight is lifted. The tensions can be forgotten, at least for periods of time. Contrary to media portrayals, there is a greater sense of safety in Palestine, particularly where there is no Israeli presence, the air is not thick with tension on every street corner, there is no armed security at every restaurant and no one fears violence from their neighbors. Living in Paidia housing, overlooking a beautiful yellow green wadi lined with homes, there is the same sense of peace as a house in the country in the US. Working at the Paidia center, working with my hands, sharing tea with our neighbors, talking about the weather and exchanging ideas about how best to plant our fruit trees…watching a shepherd pass by with his flock, one escapes to a simpler time, a slower pace of life, before these tensions existed. You are able to forget that just out of sight there is a tremendous barricade and a mechanized army with the latest military technology to defend against the very same people these harmless shepherds and farmers belong to. It’s only the occasional evanescent fighter jet on a training sortie high overhead, with its low deep rumble and the flash of its flares that there is a visible symbol of the occupation.

While in Jerusalem it would be fair to say that the oppression of Palestinians is identifiable by what is done to them and taken from them, in the West Bank it is marked by what is not done for them or given to them. Having lived in both, simply being able to compare the availability of different things is key. As I mentioned in a previous blog, water is an obvious example. It’s no coincidence Israelis have water when Palestinians do not. The water does not run out for those in Jerusalem, and despite it coming from the very same sources, the water runs out regularly for Palestinians. The same issue persists in nearly every area of infrastructure throughout the West Bank. Medicines and medical treatment are another problem since the building of the wall. There are simply just a lot of medications and medical treatments that cannot be had in Palestine. Meanwhile in Jerusalem, any treatment or medicine you could expect to find in the best European country is there. You could die in Bethlehem because you are not allowed to go to a hospital just a couple miles away in Jerusalem where a life saving treatment or medication is available, but you would never know unless you yourself experienced a medical emergency where you could not get treatment, or know of someone with this experience. There is of course the greater problem of travel. Hundreds if not thousands of families have not been able to see each other since the building of the wall because they are either not allowed to cross, or would not be allowed back if they did. These, and numerous other issues which do not reach the high level of publicity like the clashes of violence, form the constant but largely subdermal tension that persists in the daily life in the West Bank.

I feel the less flagrant nature of oppression in the West Bank make the more blatant manifestations of persecution so potent. The Jews throwing their trash from above on Palestinians in Hebron, and of course the wall itself. In this way, the wall is both curse and blessing as it provides a physical manifestation for the otherwise less flagrantly visible abuses in Palestine that are so easily overlooked by those who do not or would not care to see them. No poetic metaphor could do equal justice to convey the gravity of the problem than actually erecting an eight meter wall covered in razorwire wall that literally divides families, imprisons communities, and exiles, dehumanizes, and humiliates an entire people group. It’s undeniable existence demands acknowledgement of the otherwise silent systemic issues for which the wall serves as a much needed exclamation point.

Safely Home

I’m 38,000 feet over Missouri as I write this. So far everything on the journey home has gone relatively well. Getting through Israel security on the way out was exactly what I expected; meaning it was everything. Upon entering airport security every person is assigned a number 1-6, 1 being for example the least threatening little old Orthodox Jewish lady who’s never left the country; 6 being someone extremely threatening and potentially dangerous, me for example. I received just about every test they could do that didn’t involve me taking off all my clothes (I was taking to a back room behind a curtain, where I had every inch of me patted down multiple times however). Every book I brought, which was in the neighborhood of 30 was opened and flipped through to see if anything was in between the pages, every item was tested for chemical weapons and explosives, etc. I even got a few interrogations, which I managed to make light hearted since I knew the security officers doing them were likely no older than me. After a couple hours I was through security and, having expected the worst from the security in advance, still made it on my flight with plenty of time. Whether you find it comical or something more, I thought people would be interested to see my bags stamped with 6, 6, 6.

I spent three days on the East Coast during my layover in JFK. My ticket was the same price if I took the next plane to Los Angeles a few hours or a few days later. Having never been to the East Coast, I thought it would be a good idea to stop off and see some sites and visit some of the graduate schools I’m applying to at Harvard and Yale. After purchasing my ticket, and as my arrival in New York City was quickly approaching I began to realize just how big of an operation accomplishing the East Coast adventure would be. Especially considering I was still in a mode of mental recovery I felt in over my head. But would you know it, the entire trip went without a hitch, and much better than I could have expected, thanks mostly to some family friends living in Brooklyn who took great care of me. My visits to Yale and Harvard went very well, I showed up at Harvard Divinity School without any kind of appointment, noticed a student tour passing by shortly after I arrived, and jumped right in. The student leading the tour was in the same program I'm applying to and is from Southern California so asking her questions was very helpful. I got a lot of great info from staff at Yale, and was able to sit down to lunch with some Divinity students; not at all the blue bloods I was worried about. I also had the opportunity to see a lot of sites before leaving NYC, Rockefeller Center, Time Square, Ground Zero, etc.

The Other Side of the Wall

I’ve been living in Bethlehem for about a month now (more on that later). Some 20 years ago, I was barely 4, and Berlin had some big wall come down. I hear it carried the momentum to finally end Communism in Europe. I don’t remember much about it honestly, I know a thing or two about walls here though. I’ve been the the Gaza border probably 100 times at least. If I walk 30 seconds down the street I can see the wall to the East in the distance, blocking off a certain hill the Israelis built on without paying a penny to the Palestinian land owners who were subsequently blocked by the wall (probably the most well documented case). A 10 minute walk up the hill to the North and I’m at the Bethlehem wall itself. They call it a lot of different things, the Apartheid Wall by Palestinians, the Security Fence by Israelis, and neutrally the “separation barrier” or similar moniker by the media. Not going to stick my nose out and say anything politically provocative, but I think everyone can agree that making giant concrete walls covered in barbed wire with guard posts are not the proudest achievements a progressive culture can make, whether necessary or not. I’ll let the politicians…politic. There's not much to say that doesnt involve getting into big issues, so here are a few simple thoughts this wall has given me from primary experience as I pass by it:

“wow, I am not wanted,”

“there must be some kind of minotaur on my side, these streets are quite labyrinth like, I’m kind of worried!”

“it’s trying to keep inside,”

“man this thing is tall, they must really not want me to be on the other side,”

“there has to be something secret or valuable on that side,”

“it looks greener over there,”

“this is the world’s biggest canvas,”

“this thing has to be 30 feet tall, with barbed wire at the top, seems like a little overkill..,”

“I feel sorry for all these business right on this side with their brand new view of concrete and …more concrete,”

“I wonder, if we got enough people to march around this thing blowing trumpets for a few days..,”

“there are cracks in it, and it seems just as famous, maybe I should start sticking prayers in it”

“if they weren’t so…than this wouldn’t be… yeah but if they didn’t…no one would…”

“Jesus probably wouldn’t be too happy about this”


Crossing the border isn’t so bad, I’d take it over an LA commute for sure. Depending on the time of day there will sometimes be a line, and you have to go through a bunch of metal detectors…take off the belt and the shoes, put your hand on a handprint scanner, present an ID, walk by a bunch of heavily armed and very bored soldiers. Generally, I just do my best to look like some yokel tourist from America, patriotically flash them my US passport and they typically let me circumvent a lot of the security.

Perspectives

The last few weeks when I have done my Tuesday Gaza runs I’ve brought out one of the Gazan cardiac pediatricians. He has come along to learn from and talk with the head of the cardiology department at the hospital, where the children we bring out are admitted. It’s under this Israeli doctors leadership that all of the Gaza children we sponsor are treated. On the hour drive from Gaza to the hospital, the Gazan doctor recalled to me his boyhood spent in an Arab village outside where the now heavily fortified military border is, long before it was constructed. As we drove he would point out places where Arab villages once stood, where his father’s village and farm were, now demolished. One of my favorite ruins along the road, a lonely, one room stone building, seemingly plopped haphazardly in a rolling field, the doctor informed me was once a mosque. In the calmest way I've ever heard an Arab discuss the subject he told me how stupid he thought the Jews were for how they are treating the Gazan people. That day, the mother of one of the sick children got to see her sister for the first time in a decade. One sister lives in Gaza, the other I believe from the West Bank. When the sister from the West Bank heard that the other would be able to leave Gaza for a day, she traveled to the hospital in Tel Aviv to see her for the few hours she would be there.

After we made it to hospital and all the patients were treated and ready to go back to Gaza, I told the Israeli doctor that I would need to call a contact I have at the border to see if a protest was still going on. That day was the 3 year anniversary of the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit, a Jewish soldier still held hostage by Hamas, and exploited as a powerful gambling chip. When I picked up the families and doctor in the morning, protesters were standing in front of the gates leading into the Gaza border, and as I found out later, were blocking trucks with humanitarian aid (though the only one I saw while at the border, they let through). Walking through the midst of these protesters with a half dozen Gazan’s, children with severe heart problems no less, would not be possible. So as I was seated waiting for a return call to hear if the protesters had dispersed, the Israeli doctor told me that he had been listening to the reports of the protests all day on the radio. He, also remaining about as calm as I’ve heard a Jew talk about Gilad Shalit, expressed his outrage at how unfair and uncompromising the Palestinians Authorities are and how gracious and compromising the Israel government is to them. He told me to imagine being one of Gilad’s parents, or his brother, what it must feel like for them.

Crossing Jordan

I spend a lot of time waiting in this work; anxiously is an adjective that can typically accompany it. Now is not a particularly anxious waiting, I am sitting at the Beit Shean border crossing waiting for our Iraq coordinator to come across with his wife and her family. I anticipate them being held up perhaps not for having an Iraqi with them but for Americans to be living in and/or traveling from Iraq. But, I am sitting at the other end of the border and can say with a sigh of relief that for once this isn’t my problem. So I'm sitting here, and too under the weather to study, so I will write.

I haven’t had time to blog or send a newsletter out (working on it) due in large part because my responsibilities have been amped up, due both to necessity as well as to, at least what I'm told, is a confidence in my abilities. A few, couple,… time flies, it’s hard to remember, weeks ago was a test of this, when, on my own, I escorted two of our Iraqi patients Rasan and Bruska, and their mothers across this same border and delivered them safely to our Shevet house in Kerak, Jordan. The ordeal began about 7am and ended at 7…8…9 at night when we arrived at the Kerak house and got everything unloaded.

“Bureaucratic nightmare” is a term that continually comes to mind when talking about getting across these borders. There are perhaps a dozen windows to deal with to get into the Israel border itself, then the Israel border, then at the Jordan side, then getting out of the Jordan border. Vehicle wise, after a two hour drive from Jerusalem to Beit Shean one must get permission to bring their vehicle into the border to unload luggage (a particularly obscene amount in this case because Sheilan, mother of Rasan, had been in Israel for nearly a full year), then must park their vehicle outside the border after again securing permission to take the vehicle out of the border into Israel.

From there we go through Israel customs, get the usual confused looks as to why a young American man is taking two Iraqi women and their children into Jordan. All our paperwork is in order though so they haven’t stopped us yet…even though some of the Iraqis visas are months overdue by the time they leave. Saying something to the effect of “they were in the hospital having open-heart surgery they couldn’t make it to the visas office” has sufficed so far.

Then all the luggage and people must be loaded onto a bus which travels perhaps 200 yards across the Jordan River and into the Jordan border. Everything must then be unloaded from the bus where the Jordan border customs nightmare begins; every bag x-rayed, opened, every passport examined, visas issues, etc. Once all that is finished one must take a taxi from the Jordan border about a quarter mile to where the Jordan ends. We had to take 3 taxis to fit all the luggage. From there we all piled into another taxi which then drives to Kerak. I haven’t even gotten to going the other way from Jordan back into Israel. An American with 4 Iraqis leaving Israel isn’t so bad, but coming in security is much tighter, and in my experience, involves some kind of interrogation, intimidation, even with all the paper work in order.

The scenery on the ride to Kerak was beautiful, passing through the rolling hills east of the Jordan which would have belonged to the tribe of Gad, then hugging the Dead Sea for its length, then climbing up through a parched gorge of sedimentary salt rock and potash which finally reached Kerak in what would have been Moabite country. Our taxi driver was an interesting character, a believer, very friendly and kind, made the ride very pleasant and interesting. On the long drive we listened to a sermon (English being translated into Arabic), he helped me work on my Arabic, and when we arrived at the Shevet house in Kerak he stayed for dinner. There is a pretty impressive Crusader castle in Kerak, but unfortunately I was too busy to go to it, maybe next time. I noticed driving on the way to Kerak and in the markets in Amman there is a communal atmosphere there that is worthy of envy. At dinner time, all the roads are lined with people picnicking, perhaps more so given that it was a Friday but this is the cultural norm.

The stay in Jordan from Friday until Monday was nearly nonstop work. After getting through the border Friday, Saturday was another four hour drive from Kerak to Amman to get Rasan, Bruska and their moms on a plane for Iraq. The details aren’t especially interesting. This was one of the more difficult goodbyes, Sheilan had been with us so long she was nearly promoted to staff, she was here when I first arrived and everyone has watched Rasan both be healed through his multiple surgeries and also grow and develop like the joy a father must have watching a son learn to recognize them, learn their first words, learn how to clap and hold your hand. Bruska was also a difficult goodbye. She was an emergency case that probably would have died if we waited even a day longer to bring her. She had surgery immediately and was put into a medically induced coma afterward. From the time she was released from the hospital until she got on the plane home to Iraq I was largely responsible for getting her to all her appointments and I spent a great deal of time playing with her and getting her to do her exercises to combat the cerebral palsy from which she now suffers likely due to the lack of oxygen to her brain because of her heart condition. We made all of her exercises into games and she would often begin doing them spontaneously whenever I came around because she enjoyed doing them with me so much. After doing the exercises for a few minutes she would be laughing hysterically and could keep going long after I was exhausted. I made sure to do them with her on Friday night one last time before she left. There was so much about her that tugged on my heart, it was difficult to see her go.

The rest of the weekend was spent running errands like buying live chickens in the market where I observed that every man selling his wares who saw a child walking past would pat them on the head and say hello, the communal love for children was pleasantly conspicuous. More errands, carrying and chasing our Jordan coordinators children around (easily the most exhausting), and dropping off a baby crib to a mother in one of the Amman slums; but there were a couple moments that were at least somewhat recuperative. I ate some delicious American style pizza, which you essentially cannot get in Israel because of kosher rules and a lack of American brands. Also, in the midst of running back and forth across Amman I was able to stop in one of their large Western malls for about 15 minutes to go to Starbucks. There are no Starbucks’ in Israel, so I got the largest coffee I could buy and relaxed just long enough to enjoy it.



At any rate, I successfully managed the entire process. Got them there and on their way to Iraq, and brought two new Iraqi children, Mohammed and Hamza, now in Jerusalem, here for heart surgeries.

Ala'a's Progress

Ala’a was a little girl I brought across from Israel to Jordan on her way home during the first week I was in Israel. We had to take her to the border by ambulance, and I wheeled her weak little body through the border in a wheelchair, all the while hooked up to an oxygen tank I had jury-rigged to her chair. I remember especially carrying the 75lb oxygen generator machine through the border which she would need in Iraq, and having it inspected by every supervisor and their supervisor to make sure it wasn’t a bomb. Special arrangements had to be made with the airline for the plane from Jordan to Iraq because they feared liability if she died on the flight. I avoided asking the other staff much about her because from the look of her she was a failed case. One of the children on whom the surgery hadn’t been successful and who would now have to be connected to a machine for the rest of their life. I felt too sorry for her at the border to take a picture of her directly; she was so frail and weak, but so sweet and happy in spite of it all. As we were crossing the Jordan river on the border bus, a great flock of cranes took flight from the bridge out over the river, just behind Ala’a.

A couple weeks ago some of our staff visited her and her family in their home in Iraq. They took this footage of her. She is up and walking around, and was strong enough to serve them tea and chocolate. The family has sold the wheelchair and she now only needs to be on oxygen at night when she sleeps. I could hardly believe my eyes, every time I look at this video of her I can barely believe what I'm watching. Seeing the video myself helped me imagine what it would be like to be one of the characters in John 9 who struggle to make sense of the blind man’s healing. Praise the Lord for the life of Ala’a.

Getting through Security

I just spent an hour in a check point coming out of the West Bank. Typically we leave from Jerusalem to circumvent the West Bank entirely on the road to Gaza, but because of the weather (raining) and the difficulty Erica has getting from Bethlehem to Jerusalem (through a checkpoint) early enough, we decided to try a different route. I've had somewhat invasive checks before, on par with airport security, and those are easy enough to laugh off. Usually the most embarrassing thing that happens is that I have to remove my belt going through the metal detector, and have to hold up my pants for 5 minutes while they send it through the X-Ray (yes the belt, no I don’t know why); but this one was bad, downright offensive. Generally anyone with an American I'd gets waved right through checkpoints, not many Californians bent on terrorist acts against the state of Israel I guess (the issue of legislated racial/gender/geographical profiling is for a different blog). As I handed the guard Erica’s ID (Jerusalem residing Palestinian) after mine, the guard’s expression changed, and he squawked something over his walkey talkey and directed us to turn around and get in line for inspection.

We sat in our van for about 15 minutes in a line with 10-20 other vehicles waiting for inspection; taxis, agricultural trucks, empty freight trucks, and a few other unlucky regular motorists, the others had clearly been there quite a bit longer. When a guard instructed the front vehicles to go we sped into a barricaded lot in a stampede of vehicles. We all parked, opened all our doors, trunk, hood, grabbed our bags and headed some 100 feet or so to go through security, while our vehicles were searched, checked for bombs with mirrors, dogs, etc… While I was waiting in line to go through the metal detector and have my backpack and our bag of medical supplies X-rayed, another guard called out for me after looking at our van. I walked up to him and he said in broken English to take the child and infant seats out of the van to be X-rayed as well. That was a new one, kind of frustrating but I complied. I had to take a couple trips because the seats in addition to bags were too cumbersome. When I got to the line they opened my backpack, flipped through the pages of my Bible and rummaged through the rest. Everything was then put on the X-ray. The inspector was very interested in our medical supplies, tubes, feeding syringes, and what not. I explained that we were a medical charity. My laptop had to be sent through alone, opened, and inspected as well. I cringed as my open laptop went back and forth naked under the rubber drapes, no scratches thankfully.

After going through security everyone was then corralled through a one way door into an outdoor pen to wait, about 20 Palestinian young men, myself, and Erica. The guards had apparently collected everyone’s cell phones to prevent anyone from making calls, they never asked me though. I was then called back to the van again. A guard had noticed there was a small blue container, mostly empty, in the back of our van, she asked me to take that to be X-rayed. After I was about half way to the security building she called me back again. I went back, and now she wanted to know what I had assumed they would ask about first, the 3 foot tall highly explosive tank of oxygen we keep stowed in our van. She said “what is this?” I replied, “oxygen.” She called over another guard that apparently spoke better English, he asked what it was, and I told him “oxygen” at which point he translated to the other guard “oxygeen.” To the X-Ray of course. I knew it didn’t really matter what I said was in it, I could have said it was full of Israeli flags and ‘free Gilad Shalit’ bumper stickers and they would still have X-rayed it. I loaded up the little blue container, and then the big tank of oxygen onto the X-ray machine. As it went through I explained to a teenage female guard doing her very best to sound intimidating what the canister contained and why we had it. Typically the best strategy for getting through checkpoints without being hassled and interrogated is to give the facts but acting like a dumb American that doesn’t speak a word of Hebrew; throwing in a California accent or a “Yee-haw!” for good measure always helps. I was then sent back out to the pen, leaving the oxygen tan inside, no doubt to have some superior officer decide what to do with the thing.

It began pouring rain while we were in the pen, again everyone’s doors were wide open, and everyone began shouting at the guards to let us out to close our vehicles up. After maybe 30 seconds of downpour we were allowed to go close our doors and come back. We spent another half an hour waiting, most of the men spent it smoking, drinking coffee, often both. It reminded me of the kids that got detention in high school, keeping mostly quiet, but telling jokes and goofing off as much as they could get away with. There was quite a lot of tension, not so much out of fear of the border guards but because of the guards’ perceived incompetence for taking so long. While I don’t doubt the quality of the training the IDF inductees undergo, the closest thing that it reminds me of back home is high school PE class. Israel’s military service is compulsory for every citizen, male or female, for two years typically ages 18-19, unless you are an Orthodox Jew studying Torah, or volunteer for humanitarian service. Because of this, there are soldiers everywhere, and their attitude toward their military service seems to be mixed in the same stereotypes found in high school gym class. You have the girls that dress out, but prefer to talk and don’t participate, the overweight ones with skin tight uniforms, you have some guys that are a little too gung ho and take their position very seriously, and almost across the board they act like normal teenagers when they aren’t tending to some immediate work. I pass them every day waiting at the bus stops to go home, and it’s all so reminiscent of high school. The primary difference is that many of these young adults are armed with m4 assault rifles, complete with extended ammo clips and scopes, even strapped over the shoulder they practically drag on the ground with some of the 5’ tall 100lb girls.

Anyway, we were given back our oxygen tank, and after a few minutes more a guard began a roll call of IDs and passports, the lone blue US passport sitting at the top. A guard called out “Justin,” to which all the Palestinians repeated loudly so everyone could hear. It was like being called to get up from time out. Once called to get the passport you were free to go, and one by one everyone darted off to their vehicle and pulled out. I took much longer, having to reassemble everything, and load everything back up in the van, through the rain mind you.

I left feeling a little disgruntled and violated, and soggy socks didn’t help anything. All this took place while the Gaza patients were waiting for us at the border with the freezing wind and pouring rain, luckily a couple border taxis allowed our patients to sit in their cars while they waited for us.

What is necessary, what is justifiable, what is off limits, what is private, what is excessive? These questions require a great deal of input by analysts, lawyers, government representatives, in meetings, committees, and courtrooms, but there is a lot of necessary perspective which can only be gained once you have yourself been the object if interest, anything less is a fundamental handicap in discerning these questions.

A Day in the Life

I haven’t had time to update the blog in a while, given how busy I am I hope that you understand. Here is a snapshot of today:

Today after the 8:30 morning meeting I drove from Jerusalem to Gaza with Erica our Gaza coordinator to pick up several patients for the first time in about two weeks. The border had been closed to medical cases because of a bureaucratic stand-off, the details of which are hardly entertaining blog content. Out of a possible 7 children I was told that 5 had obtained all the necessary permissions, 1 to be taken by ambulance, and 4 to be picked up by yours truly; 2 for follow ups, 1 for heart catheterization, and 1 for urgent surgery. I was also told that some Israeli medical students would be meeting me at the border to tag along in order to make the entire process somehow more complicated. Because the border requires all people going through the border to shut off their cell phones, and because of the hoops everyone must jump through to get out, discerning when and if anyone gets across it is extremely unpredictable. After waiting approximately half an hour we had collected 3 of the 4 patients, but the one left in security was the most urgent case. In order to ensure that the 3 kids that made it out were able to be treated I left for Tel Aviv with just 3 of the 4 children expected to get out, and gave Erica’s cell phone number to one of the taxi drivers who sit at the border in case the 4^th child made it out. I squeezed two of the medical students in the van as well and they provided some welcome company on the road to the hospital. They were both fresh from American and Canada and were very interested to hear about our work. They have been living in Be’er Sheba, one of the primary targets of the Hamas rockets, and frankly I was surprised at the lack of bitterness toward the Gazan people. I thought it was perhaps because they had not lived there long, but they have lived there long enough to suffer a bit of shell shock after this latest war, and joked about how they jump at anything that sounds similar to the incoming rocket warning siren.

For some reason Israelis have become nervous about people from Gaza, possibly because of the daily rockets and bombings, so it’s routine that whenever I pull up in the van to hospital entry security with Gazans security likes to run our papers, check the bags, look at the van, check for nervous eyes, etc. All the guards recognize me at this point and I‘m able to joke with them about giving me a hard time every time I bring anyone to the hospital, a smile goes a long way, and seeing men armed with fully automatic assault rifles is something you get used to; I think it’s possible them knowing I'm from California has granted me a charisma they’re curious about as well. After everything cleared and the guard handed me back all the paperwork I said “thanks” and as I pulled away hung my arm out the window and held out a peace sign, the guard instinctively called back “peace!” as I drove into the lot.

Upon piling out of the elevator at the hospital with all the Gazan’s I was stopped at the entry to the pediatric cardiology department by one of the workers, very unusual… I didn’t find out why until about 15 minutes later, after watching a few people rush in and out. Yesterday, amongst the chaos of my own tasks at the hospital, I witnessed Maureen a 3-year-old from Tanzania having her chest sutures removed (one of the final things done before a patient’s release). I said a quick hello to her mother Sweetie, before I ran off to finish my work for the day. I have had several conversations with Sweetie in the hospital rooms, hallways and outside the ICU, and I’ve always been sure to say hello to bashful little Maureen. Sweetie has been here with her daughter, who has had 3 heart surgeries now, since December through Save a Child’s Heart. I found out that she was a Christian, and gave her my Gideon’s New Testament so she would be have the Scriptures handy in a pocket size to carry with her, and I was able to connect her with a local Christian congregation in Tel Aviv so that she was able to attend a much needed worship service. Today was a different story for Maureen, in the morning she had a temperature so as a precaution she was brought to the hospital to have some tests run. Suddenly, in the middle of being checked Maureen’s breathing and heart stopped. The technician immediately called (not exaggerating) the entire children’s ward staff and doctors and every machine they had to the small check-up room. This was why I was stopped at the entrance to the department, the workers didn’t want the 6 Gazans I had in tow to witness this frenzy going on around the corner. When I got the all clear I brought the Gazan patients into a waiting area and watched machine after machine being wheeled out of the check-up room, followed by Maureen. With 20 or so of the best pediatric doctors and nurses in the world surrounding her she was successfully resuscitated after a few minutes, and as she was wheeled by I was never happier to hear a child cry. It’s unknown whether or not she has suffered brain damage, I’ll get an update the next time I go to this hospital.

After making sure the nurses were ready for the kids and waiting for the panic to settle down it was well past lunch time but after a minute of debating whether or not to get food or wait longer with the patients we received a call from the taxi driver that the 4^th child had made it across, and back we went to Gaza. Thankfully this took place without incident, we picked up the mother and child, welcomed them, strapped them in, and back we went again to Tel Aviv.

Back at the hospital now two of the three patients brought earlier had finished their check-ups and the third was being worked on, which gave us thirty minutes or so to eat lunch. Now 3:30, I was ready to stuff my face with something huge in a hurry, McDonald’s fit the bill. I order a small combo to the tune of 42 sheqels (a little more than 10 US dollars (no that’s not a typo)). After shoving the food down we returned to collect the two families that came for follow up in order to take them home to Gaza only to find the hallway empty. Not knowing where Gazan’s are in a city like Tel Aviv was a big security booboo, but we quickly tracked them down quickly, and I joked with the doctor about her losing my patients. We found them, called out “Yalla” (the Arabic catch all for, “let’s go,” “come here,” “are you ready,” etc), had a bit of a laugh about them eluding us, and piled back into the van.

The sun was setting as I drove in the middle of the Israeli rush hour, now the third time to Gaza today. It’s no surprise that the traffic thins the closer you get to the border, though even the bumper to bumper tedium isn’t so bad if you can just enjoy the beautiful countryside along the way, especially at sunset when the rolling hills turn golden on one side of the highway, and dunes with desert blooms chasing the sun on the other. We made it to the border once again, unloaded our happy little patients and their mothers, shook their hands and made sure they got through the security gate. Our day was finally done and we were prepared to head to Jerusalem when, wouldn’t you know it, I got a knock on my driver’s window…

I let Erica do the talking (she’s fluent in Arabic). This fellow had gotten out of Gaza and was looking for a ride to Jerusalem. While hitchhikers are very common in Israel, Gazan’s getting permission to go to Jerusalem are not at all. We asked him what he was doing, to which he replied he was going for peace talks. Erica and I were very skeptical of the possibility and needed to check him out before unintentionally aiding an international criminal, but sure enough, he produced the paperwork. He was granted a travel visa to be in Israel for more than a month, and was permitted to travel almost everywhere in Israel; both the length of time and the areas he had permission to were shocking to me frankly. He gave us a business card which titles him a Political Commissar under the Palestinian National Authority – The Chairman of Supreme Committee for Negotiation and Peace Process Suppert (sic).

Call me superstitious if you like, but it’s not every day that The Chairman of the Supreme Committee for Negotiation and Peace Process Support of the Palestinian Authority ask for a ride from a random van that so happens to be occupied by two people at the bleeding edge of this work, who also happen to be going exactly where he needs to go, and from the Gaza border no less. So, after being scolded by a frustrated taxi driver for stealing his customer we headed back for Jerusalem.

I stopped to load myself up on some coffee for another long drive at a restaurant and coffee shop about 5 minutes from the border. There are two spins for how you can be surprised at this place, either that such a nice place could exist in such close proximity to the Gaza strip granted the constantly falling rockets, or that such a ravaged place as the Gaza strip could exist in such close proximity to a fine dining restaurant. For the price of a McDonalds meal you can get essentially a 3 course meal, I seriously hope no one in Hamas hears about this place, not that I wouldn’t like them to enjoy it, but because they’d probably want to blow it up. This place is one that gives me that unexpectedly normal feeling, it shouldn’t feel normal there, but it does. You never know what will give you some perspective in this place, in this case it was a restaurant.

We made it back to Jerusalem around 7:30, dropped off our new friend, ate some dinner which was waiting for us, and got to work on things needed to get done around Jerusalem. I imagine we’ll try to make contact with the political commissar sometime during his stay, perhaps have him over for dinner. We can always use more friends on both sides.

A Fond Farewell at the Jordan

The third day of non-stop driving was to the Jordan border to sent off Azhin, Vanya, Donya and their mothers. This was my first real experience saying goodbye to kids and moms that I had gotten to know very well. Everyday, Azhin would call out my name incessantly, “Justiiiiin, Justiiiiin,” wanting to play. Um Donya (“Um” means “mother of”) had taught Donya (the baby) how to blow a kiss during her stay here, and all the Kurdish moms would laugh and joke with me because Donya would often blow kisses on command to no one but me. Azhin, Vanya, Donya, and I had many opportunities to bond through playing games and giving them attention in general, going with them to their doctor’s appointments, eating meals with them, and simply experiencing family life together. While I am sad to see them go, I am overjoyed knowing with full confidence that they will live normal happy lives and have been changed forever in many ways because of their stay here and that I personally had a part in it. I will cherish these memories of them, and will certainly ponder from time to time how they are getting on, and what they will be like when they grow up perhaps 10 or 15 years from today. When we loaded them on the bus to the other side of the border the mothers were crying but the last I saw of them they and their children were waving with smiles as the bus pulled away, certainly one of the most rewarding things I have seen so far.

Learning to Drive on the Road to Gaza

There probably aren’t many people in Israel that can say their first day driving was to the Gaza Strip or that they would cover some 1,000 km in their first 4 days driving, but I managed to do just that. Again, the pace at which things have been going is obviously quite rapid. The Shevet team has been undergoing some reforms in an effort to strengthen the group and give each individual more clear-cut responsibility. Through this process we each had a private discussion with Jonathan Miles (the founder) about our gifting, passions and where we would like to serve…Apparently this was used as an opportunity by about half the team to express their frustrations, issues with the administration, etc. When the dust settled, one of our central team members was dismissed/quit, two were given 2 weeks break to assess their feelings and sentiments and decide if they would stay on, and one other member coincidentally (perhaps not, I don’t know) got sick and has remained so since this falling out. This has essentially cut our team in half, and as two of them were our main drivers, I had had little time to cut my teeth. To pick up the slack I have been doing most of the driving for the last week; in just a 72 hour period I have gone to Gaza 4 times, through the West Bank twice, and to the Jordan border once, not included countless times to hospitals all of which are themselves an hour drive.

Coming from Los Angeles you would think I would be prepared to drive anywhere, but it’s really a whole different story here. Whereas in Los Angeles everyone more or less cooperates out of recognizing the necessity for it to get anywhere and respects at least certain rules like red lights and parking, in Israel people would much rather fight for every inch of road, make their own lanes, run red lights if they think they’re close, laying on the horn is as common as shalom, and they are quite creative with their parking. Driving aggressively is the only way to really get anywhere here, and with defensive driving knowledge under my belt I’ve been learning the ways of the road here quickly. If you were wondering, anyone with a US license can drive her for 3 months before needing an Israeli license, which is yet another expense that I will have to anticipate in the coming months.

The highways across Israel and the West Bank have made the driving less of a chore. So much of the country is farmland and undeveloped country side that it makes for quite a nice scenic tour of the land. Rolling yellow green hills, green farmlands, abandoned cobblestone buildings in the distance beckon to be explored, towns with real character nestled in the countryside, their houses placed at just the right angle to catch the best view with none of the soul stealing uniformity of the cookie cutter streets and houses found elsewhere. The road to Gaza is no different, even at the border (Disclaimer: I am not anti-Israel or pro-Palestine, the following are just observations). Facing toward the border itself, against the 15 foot barbed wire wall every few meters there are guard towers, cameras hanging over the road, watch dogs with their own area they are fenced in to guard, military jeeps about… There are even blimps high overhead mounted with cameras, notorious to the residents of Gaza as a symbol of oppression, that big brother watches their every move. The blimps are very unassuming, dead silent, flat white, but they see every centimeter; frankly if I were to brainstorm about what I could use to be a subtle reminder of vigilant oppression over a group of people I could see myself arriving at “hmm, how about a silent blimp painted flat white that slowly patrols overhead that could be filming any one of them at any moment!” its practically out of a movie. But even in the face of the perfect picture of control there is the aforementioned scenery, because if you do a simple 180 degree about face at the border there is yet another delightful open grassy field fit for a picnic. Waiting there for a few hours the other day for a family to come across I sat in the car facing it, the sun was warm and there was a gentle breeze in the air, it was very cozy, a perfect picture of serenity and freedom. Perhaps it’s only in the context of their backdrop that the other seems so extreme, but the juxtaposition creates a vivid portrait.

Bombs over Bet She'an – A Trip to Jordan

Went to Jordan last night, it’s not much to write home about. We were getting 3 kids across the border to go home into Iraq, altogether the journey was an exhausting 13 hours. It was quite an ordeal, lots of red tape and a bureaucratic nightmare. One of our beautiful baby girls going across, Alaa, is required to be on oxygen almost all the time, and we (I) had to lug an 80 pound oxygen machine through the border. We had quite the time explaining what it was to the border guards, but you would be amazed frankly at the compassion and grace the guards on both the Israeli and Jordanian side had on us because of the children. It’s not every day they let a massive machine through the border, let alone tax free. We were worried about getting Alaa across in time as she is reliant on her oxygen supply, we brought two tanks worth that had to last her whole journey into Amman. To not pass in time was quite literally a matter of life and death.

The ride there across Israel was beautiful as we parted the kibbutzim of northern Israel through the Sumerian hills, a flock of large birds flew off the railing as we crossed over the Jordan river on a border bus. What was on the radio on the Jordanian bus you ask? Johnny Cash of course.

Standing outside getting luggage together for the mothers while Dorothy (another volunteer) handled the visa negotiations inside I realized some deep pops I was hearing were not fireworks. Most of the attention on the war going on now is on Gaza but there have been rocket attacks coming from Lebanon as well and I can't imagine what else but mortar and rocket fire could produce these noises. The border was probably the safest place to be as any ordinance would fly overhead to the respective sides rather than in the middle. During the hour or so I was alone packing luggage on the Jordanian side I was serenaded by the sound of hounds baying at every thump in the distance.