Shalom. Ma shlomekh?
Shalom. Hi, sorry, I don't understand you. I don't speak Hebrew.
Where are you from?
The U.S.
How long are you in Israel?
4 months.
(Requisite second, third, or fourth question in the conversation) Are you
Jewish?
No.
Well, then what are you doing here?
I was somewhat surprised the first-couple of times that I was asked this question, with direct questions about religion a social taboo in the United States. I have never really looked at myself in the context of my religion – I was raised culturally Catholic and now consider myself agnostic – and these questions only further reinforced my outsider status in Israel.
Although being an outsider is a status I am all too familiar with (in fact, it is one of the reasons I came to Israel in the first place!) the question remains: What am I, a 20 year-old agnostic goy, doing in Israel?
When the Arab Spring took shape and the Palestinian plan to approach the United Nations for recognition of statehood was announced, I decided that I would take the semester off from school and spend the fall living in Israel and interning for Haaretz.
In a year that is looking more and more like a contemporary reenactment of 1968, I wanted to be in the Middle East and at the epicenter of what could be a revolutionary moment in Israeli, Palestinian, and even world history.
I wanted to approach the Middle Eastern Gordian Knot as an outsider, observing one of the world's most intractable of conflicts as events unfolded. I didn't want to see the conflict on CNN – I wanted to see it in conversations on the streets, in coffee shops, and at the dinner tables of Israel.
I wanted to step out of the classroom, leaving my books on political philosophy behind to see their teachings brought to fruition. I didn't want to just read articles about the Arab Spring and impending change in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I wanted to see them happening before my eyes.
When I came to Israel in late August, however, the conflict I encountered most was not the one I had anticipated.
I had gotten wind of the summer’s social protest movement launched by the Israeli middle class, through mainstream media. Reports were saying that it was a large-scale response to the exorbitant cost of living, a widening gap between those-who-have and those-who-have-not, inaccessibility to government, and a deterioration of the social safety net.
But I did not grasp the magnitude of this reality until I saw it before my eyes and started talking to people, asking questions and listening.
I met Israelis sleeping in tents on Rothschild Boulevard, students, parents, citizens young and old, cab drivers, rabbis and bankers; it was an eye-opening experience as I came to realize that there is so much more to the social reality of contemporary Israel than the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
While media coverage abroad shows the Israeli nation almost exclusively through the lens of the conflict, I discovered Israel's citizens are not only dealing with the security of their borders, but also with the security of their socio-economic reality.
On September 3, one week after I arrived, the Million Man March rocked the streets of Israel. Walking with a sea of people toward Kikar Hamedina, I took a moment to look up and take in the scene around me.
An activist donning a Socialist International shirt and waving a Che flag, a group of mothers with strollers, a shirtless dreadlocked roller-blader, a Hasidic Jew walking with a cane and I were all marching side-by-side, all for a common cause.
I may be an outsider in Israel, but at that moment I was part of a movement that transcended national differences and tapped into a humanity that knows no borders.
The sense of solidarity was tangible, and an air of revolution, though not the one I had expected, had indeed arrived.
The collective power of citizens on the ground, worldwide is engaged in dynamic discourse and debate, contemplating the status quo, taking to the streets and demanding change; 2011 is proving to be the year of people showing up.
Perhaps my fellow Americans, members of a nation wallowing in economic woes and with a populace that seems increasingly disillusioned and disenchanted with the partisan politics that shape it, could take a page out of the Israelis' book, and demand their own social justice.
Showing-up matters. The value of face-to-face debate and discussion should not be underestimated. If we got with the program, opened our eyes, and engaged in a dynamic dialogue with other citizens, we might see a more informed, reflective, and plural America take shape – one whose people listen to different opinions, question the contemporary state of affairs, and create solutions for problems the political leadership has failed to address.
If 2011 has taught us anything, it is that democracy is born from questioning the status quo and is a product of discourse and debate. I may be an outsider in Israel, but the process it is undergoing is far-reaching and universal, giving promise for a better tomorrow both here – and abroad.
Emily Gogolak is a Haaretz intern studying at Brown University.
