“Not Jewish?! What Are You Doing Here?”

April 4, 2006 - 9:37 AM by Allison

I’m easily addicted to soap operas — the people who live with me can vouch for that. I’m probably the biggest Desperate Housewives fan in Israel, and generally a sucker for other forms of serial drama, whether it’s dressed up in medical seriousness like ER or “Gray’s Anatomy.” I’ve also been known to keep up with daytime dramas (shhhh…no one will ever take me seriously again)

My latest addiction, though, is a real-life saga being published on the Internet, because the content is so close to home — the adventures and travails of an English speaking woman living in Israel.

Jill Cartwright is a 31 year-old non-Jewish woman from England who lives in Tel Aviv, where she works as a sub-editor at Haaretz newspaper and lives with her boyfriend, the Israeli singer/songwriter Saar Badishi. On the One Jerusalem website, she’s been publishing, in installments, a mini-memoir that recounts how and why she moved to Israel in the winter of 2001, at the height of the second intifada, and what it’s like to be a non-Jew in Israel.

It’s beautifully written, funny, entertaining, and appropriately titled, “Not Jewish?! What Are You Doing Here?”

Here’s a sample, starting with her father’s face when he learned she had bought a ticket to Israel when the second intifada was at its height. She dubbed it the “What the hell are you doing?” look.

It was the first such look – but definitely not the last. From then on it was normally directed at me by one of those guys who stroll Tel Aviv beaches looking for unsuspecting single girls reading a book in a foreign language. They know foreign girls will be more polite to them than any self-respecting Israeli girl who would tell them exactly where to go (but more of that later):

Guy: “Where are you from?”
Me: “England.”
Guy: “What is your name?”
Me: “Jill”
Guy: “Are you Jewish?”
Me: “No.”

Then the eyes squint into an involuntary spasm of perplexity, the forehead wrinkles, the jaw drops loose, the shoulders shrug and the palms turn out, the head starts to shake from side to side and they just can’t help themselves: “Then what the hell are you doing here?”

And it’s not just them – taxi drivers, grocery store owners, doctors, shop assistants, employers, colleagues, guys in bars, friends of friends, parents of friends and just plain old random people you meet – when Israelis want to know something they have no fear of asking (once, a woman sitting next to me on a bus even asked how much I earned and how much rent I was paying). They all want to know what a non-Jewish girl is doing in Israel.

I don’t think I was ever asked my religion until I came to Israel. In England I never really thought about it; when I answer “Christian,” the word rings strange in my ears and when they ask “Presbyterian or Methodist?” I kind of mumble “Church of England” although to be honest I’m not really sure what the difference is. It never really seemed to matter in England, but in Israel it is always the second question out of everyone’s mouth.

Which is strange, because from what I can tell of most Israelis – at least in Tel Aviv – seem very confident in their Jewish identity. It seems to be one less thing to worry about in the age of ceaseless wondering and wandering – and yet only a handful of my Israeli friends fast on Yom Kippur. Last year, on this holiest of holy days in the Jewish calendar, a friend from work even invited me to a barbecue – with pork no less. When I asked how she could even think of such a thing and told her I would be fasting, her incomprehension throbbed down the phone line.

Yes, I fast on Yom Kippur. I eat doughnuts at Hanukkah and dried fruit at Tu B’Shvat. I eat Bamba and sunflower seeds all year round; I even sometimes complain about the service in cafes or push to the front of the queue. My friends say I’m becoming more Israeli than Israelis. Who’d have thought?

It’s beautifully written, funny, entertaining. So if you want to find out what the hell she is doing here, check it out.

Part One is here

You can find links to all of the installments on the One Jerusalem home page.

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