Wolfe Silver

From TLV, I take a taxi straight to my grandma’s apartment where my family are sitting Šiv’a on her. I hug my mom, change into shorts and sandals, and sit with them. Relatives, friends, neighbors, complete strangers; so many people come by to offer their condolences, make smalltalk, eat rugelach and bourekas and mixed nuts. The buzz of conversation is loud at first, then overwhelming, then physically painful, and eventually unbearable.

Everyone’s voice is so loud, they all need to yell to be heard over the background rumble of others’ conversation; and sometimes they just yell because they argue.

They argue when they disagree; they argue when they agree; they argue when they know the answer; and they argue when they don’t. Netanyahu is the worst thing that’s ever happened to this country; Netanyahu is the best thing that’s ever happened to this country; Europe and the US are falling apart; Europe and the US are stronger than ever. Everyone is sure of something, and no one imagines for a second that they might be wrong.

“Isn’t it scary living in Vienna?” a stranger asks me.

“Not really?” I hesitate a bit.

“No, because, I saw the protests on TV! It’s all full of Palestine flags!” he goes on, “Aren’t you scared to tell people you’re Israeli??”

He’s probably referring to the student protests across France. I answer, “Those aren’t where I live though. Not even the same country! Vienna’s pretty quiet, and I don’t feel unsafe.”

“Oh, yeah, see, you don’t look Israeli. But aren’t you afraid of all the immigrants? The leftist extremists? The Palestine flags everywhere?”

My uncle and my mom chime in, explaining how he’s wrong, but no one listens to anyone; they yell uninformed nonsense at each other. I try to talk some sense into the conversation, but eventually give up.

Exiting the supermarket, me and my dad walk to the car, put the bags in the backseat, and sit in the front. I plug in my phone, and tweak the settings to get it to connect. Someone stops their car next to us with their turn signal flashing, clearly waiting for us to leave so she can park there. I’m still scrolling through my music on the infotainment system while the car is in Park.

“Come on! She’s waiting for us to leave!” my dad urges me.

“OK? But we’re not in a hurry.”

“Ugh, stop spiting her. Wow.” he retorts disgustedly.

My dad can’t conceptualize of the idea that maybe I don’t want to fiddle with the infotainment touch screen while driving and in motion. He can’t imagine that maybe we’re just not in a rush; that the nice lady in the other car is an adult who can choose whether to wait for us, or go park in one of the dozens of empty spots around us.

At the end of the Šiv’a we all go back to the cemetery. A small sign on the fresh grave has my grandma’s full name on it; it starts to sink in; it’s real; she’s gone. She had told me not to cry, yet I do, just a little bit.

Israeli society is so aggressive and atomized, and I feel so out of place and out of my element here. Yelling, arguing, fighting for one’s place; never listening, never expressing oneself clearly; desperation bubbles within me.

And yet I look around me at the broken sidewalks, at the tropical plants, at the familiar buildings, and the sandy patches in between; and it’s clear to me that this, here, is the ground that sprouted me. This is where my roots first learned to absorb the things that would make up my being. As foreign as this ground feels now, it once felt familiar, it once was mine, and I once belonged to it; like the Sabra, the Eucalyptus, the Jacaranda, whose ancestors originally were brought from distant lands, but who like me, sprouted here from seed.

Today I will say goodbye to this place, maybe not for the last time, but almost certainly for a while. The chapter is over. Another link has been broken, and just as well; my roots have already begun grabbing hold of other, perhaps more fertile, perhaps more hospitable, but less familiar, ground. The landscape of so many years of my life will stay behind, and like many others in my family before me, it is now incumbent on me to forget the past; to look forward; to see a future, brighter or otherwise, in different pastures.

The Maker of peace in His heavens; He will make peace upon us.