More random thoughts on Israeliness

June 13, 2005 - 6:21 AM by Israelity

Not being born in Israel, I struggled with the question of my identity all through my teen years and most of my twenties.

Why am I Israeli? Perhaps I am Israeli because all my life experiences have been Israeli since early childhood. I went to Kaytana (summer day camp) every summer where I partook of the most delightful of snacks ever – the eternal lahmaniya and shoko (a roll and a small plastic bag containing cold milk chocolate drink); I danced ‘rikuddei am’ (Israeli ‘folk’ dancing) for years; I knew all the Hebrew translations of the old Russian songs learnt sitting round the bonfire, without even realizing that they were old Russian songs; I acquired an intimate relationship with the paths and lanes and vegetation and smells of Israel on Scouts and Gadna (‘youth troops’ – a sort of preparation for the army) trips; I learnt my way round the smelly, humid, fascinating microcosm that was the (now long gone) old central bus station in Tel Aviv, before driving and car ownership made this unnecessary; I argued incessantly and quite hopelessly with numerous army cooks and drivers whose loud Mizrahi (Eastern) music kept me awake when I was trying to sleep on the base before my army night shifts…

But things have changed, and my daughters will probably never experience any of these things and are still far more Israeli than me because, well, because they just are.

So what is Israeli, and why do people who came here as adults seem to feel slightly out of things?

I remember sitting at home with my parents and brother once many years ago, watching the traditional Friday night chat show on the solitary state TV channel. The guy was interviewing singer and musician Matti Caspi, who years later was to place himself fair and square in my bad books by nearly running over baby Eldest in her pram and me as we attempted to cross Jabotinsky Street where it meets the western side of Kikar Hamedina.

Now Matti Caspi is known for his dry sense of humor, as dry as the Negev. He had this skit he used to do in a broad Moroccan accent about Sarah and her washing and Morris and his pigeons. He’d have them rolling in the aisles, but he’d always tell it with this serious, unsmiling, even melancholy face on him. I once was fortunate enough to witness history in the making when he did this skit in the lovely little amphitheatre in Ein Hod and actually cracked a smile!

Well anyway, we were sitting there watching Matti Caspi being interviewed on TV, before singing his latest song, and he was just so funny. R.T. and I were laughing hysterically, along with the studio audience on the screen, but our parents were sitting there, puzzled, quite unable to understand what was funny about what this rather sad looking guy was saying.

But then again, my very Israeli daughters often don’t get some of our old favorite skits either, so maybe humor is a generation thing.

To be continued.

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