Encountering Jerusalem’s finest

November 28, 2010 - 9:25 AM by · 2 Comments
Filed under: A New Reality, Crime, General, Israeliness, Life 

Most Israelis go through life without ever seeing the inside of a police station, which is probably a good thing. It’s not a very nice place – cold, impersonal, miserable people generally milling about, and surly cops.

I know this because I did get to see the inside of a Jerusalem police station last week – not because of anything I did, but because my teenage son had bear witness in a case.

It was a combination of circumstances that led to police involvement in the case. Among them was group of macho seniors playing ‘heavy’ with my son, a junior, in order to find out who painted some derogatory graffiti about them on a school wall. Another was a zero tolerance policy toward violence implemented by the school principal.

The result was, instead of an in-house investigation and punishment, a call to the local police and the opening of a ‘tik’. That meant a call home from the shaken boy to tell his parents to come get him and bring him to the police station.

First of all, nobody tells you where to go, so after 20 minutes of trying to find the right wing of the massive structure in Jerusalem’s Talpiot neighborhood, we finally located the ‘youth wing.’ There were no painting of butterflies on the walls, believe me – just a delipidated corridor facing a reinforced locked door.

Every once in a while, some scruffy adult individual or another would emerge – evidently a police man in plain clothes – leading an also scruffy younger person. Whenever I told one of them why we had been sent there, they just said, ‘stay here, someone will come get you.’

Within an hour, that did happen, and we were led inside the reinforced door into another neglected corridor with offices. After another long wait, we were ushered into one of them, where an officer, also in civilian dress, and with the personality of… a cop, sat us down and demanded to get a play by play of my son’s ordeal. He wanted names, places, who did what, who said what, and when my son faltered, he yelled at him that his time was being wasted.

Reminding him to differentiate between the victim and the perpetrator, I gently steered the investigation back toward civil territory, as the officer gamely typed the testimony into the computer. At the end of a the two-hour stay, he simply said, ‘you can go now.’

We weren’t even sure why we had been summoned. We hadn’t called the police in, and my son was now scared that there would be physical retribution for his testimony from the senior bullies. My wifw said later that the principal had done the right thing by bringing the police into the matter, because if she hadn’t, and it the situation had escalated into one of real violence, everyone would have said, ‘why didn’t she call the police?’

On the other hand, some parents were outraged that what they called a high school prank gone bad might now scar the records of these boys who, within a year, will be joining the IDF.

I didn’t really care either way, I was just happy to walk out of that police station, and like the vast majority of Israelis, return that aspect of our society back to the far reaches of my mind.

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Desert survivalist defies the odds a second time

June 17, 2010 - 10:38 AM by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, Environment, General, Israeliness, Life, Travel 

I’m not sure if he’s the tour guide I would choose for my wilderness excursion.

For the second time in nine months, famed desert survival specialist Nir Gur, went missing this week. And once again, following widespread searches, it had a happy ending of sorts. At least the circumstances were less sensational than the first disappearance.

Eight months ago the 61-year-old Gur, former director of the Ein Gedi field school and created a desert survival center, was found in the Golan, naked with a gun shot wound to his head. He barely survived and was unconscious for a month. When he awoke he had no recollection of how he came to be in that state and police have been unable to solve the case.

Gur recovered, and this week was due to attend a meeting at Seminar Hakibutzim on Tuesday but never arrived. His wife reported him missing Wednesday morning, sparking widespread media publicity and a national search. According to media reports, Gur was found on Wednesday night near Kibbutz Yagur after a massive police search which included use of a helicopter. He was reported to be in a confused state, slightly scratched but otherwise unharmed.

While he’s proven that he’s indeed a survivor, I’m not sure I’d want to follow him out into the desert – without a portable GPS system.

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Sidewalk vigilantes

June 17, 2010 - 4:19 AM by · 1 Comment
Filed under: General, Immigrant Moments, Israeliness, Life 

I love Israelis. I do. In fact, I am, sort of, Israeli, myself. I realize this when I’m away from Israel, and find myself getting a little too close to the person in front of me on the ATM line, or back home, when I tailgate a little too closely. I also point more with my finger than I used to, and probably don’t say ‘Excuse me,’ quite enough.

But one thing I don’t do is park on the sidewalk. Ever. Sure, if there’s a sign signaling sidewalk parking on some narrow little road which was never built for cars, and certainly not as a two-way street, then I will avail myself of some of the sidewalk. But only then. I just don’t get people who park on the sidewalk when there are many places available on the street. I know, they’re lazy. Yet how could they be so blatantly rude and dismissive of those who need the sidewalk?

And the woman standing next to her car...

Not surprisingly, this subject is coming up because I recently had occasion to call the police when a driver was blatantly parked on a local sidewalk, and standing next to her car. I’m not usually so….civic-minded, but it was a last straw situation. I was walking along, when I came upon this car and had to go into the street in order to get back to the sidewalk. And there was the driver, a young woman, standing next to her car. When I asked her to move, she said she’d be moving in a few minutes. I told her that wouldn’t help me at that particular moment. When I asked her why she couldn’t park across the street, she said, “Ooh, nu, lady, just leave me alone!”

At that point, I was seized with the need to see justice done. I took a picture of her car on the sidewalk, and then called the police, who, surprisingly, were completely respectful and took all the relevant information. I didn’t stay to see if they came or if she finally moved. But hey, I figure that maybe she won’t do it again.

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Israeli Oscar nomination imitates life

February 10, 2010 - 10:37 AM by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, coexistence, Crime, General, Life, Movies 

A scene from 'Ajami'

The good news – another Israeli film, ‘Ajami’ – the third in three years – has been nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.
The bad news – if it wins, some of the actors might be in jail instead of at the ceremony in Hollywood.

The film, about the lives of Arabs and Jews in the impoverished, crime-ridden neighborhoods of Jaffa, uses amateur actors to capture the gritty realism that prompted its nomination. However that realism spilled over into… um… reality last week when two brothers of the film’s co-director were arrested for fighting with police in a scene that could have been pinched directly from the film.

According to an AP report, Yaron Shani, a Jew, and Scandar Copti, an Arab — shot “Ajami” on location in the rundown, scrappy neighborhood of the same name in the city of Jaffa, and used local residents to play the main roles in the film. One of them was Copti’s brother, who along with a third brother, was arrested in the skirmish over alleged drug use.

Residents said that on Saturday evening, two teenagers were burying a dead dog when police arrived, suspecting they were hiding drugs. When they questioned the youths, Arab neighbors, who generally distrust law enforcement, came to the scene, some scuffling with police.

Tony Copti, 29, who appeared in the film, told The Associated Press that police are often harsh with Arab residents. After confronting police, he and his brother Jiriass were handcuffed and sprayed in the face with pepper spray before being taken away for questioning, he said.

Police said they briefly detained the men for attacking officers, releasing them after questioning. They gave no further details.

In the ‘Ajami,’ police enter Ajami to arrest a drug dealer and neighbors protest, allowing the dealer to slip away. In the next scene, Jewish police blame Arab residents for preventing them from cleaning up the neighborhood.

“The story in the film, that’s how it really happens in Jaffa,” Tony Copti told AP.

While the whole incident was greatly unpleasant for the principals, it may inadvertently drum up better publicity for the film than a full page ad in Variety.

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Sheikh Jarrah in your face (book)

January 28, 2010 - 11:27 AM by · 2 Comments
Filed under: A New Reality, Blogging, coexistence, General, Life, Politics 

YouTube Preview Image
For a few Fridays now, there have been demonstrations in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in east Jerusalem against the move by Jewish settlers to remove Palestinian residents from homes they claim are Jewish-owned.

Over 20 protestors on the Israeli Left were arrested at last week’s demonstration, which drew over 300 people. And tomorrow, sparks are expected to fly when a counter-demonstration by members of the extreme Right like Itamar Ben-Gvir and Baruch Marzel takes place opposite the Left demo.

While the media in Israel has been covering the protests, most of the information coming out – both in terms of mobilization for these events -as well as the play by play of what’s going on there – have been disseminated through social media sites like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, along with a slew of blogs.

Rather than waiting until the nightly news to watch footage of arrests of protests, viewers can go straight to YouTube and watch the unedited action.

According to a story in The Jerusalem Post, activists and journalists both described a situation in which protesters were relying on the Internet to try and affect change on the ground and raise awareness of the arrests made during demonstrations in the neighborhood.

“It’s all Facebook, e-mails and Twitter,” said Didi Remez, a human rights activist, who has become noticeably involved in the Sheikh Jarrah protests as of late. Remez was arrested during a protest there last Friday.

Remez also said that distant audiences, like American Jews, who might be deprived of Sheikh Jarrah coverage due to the mainstream media’s lack of interest, were instead staying abreast of the situation via social networking sites.

“The American media is for some reason refusing to cover this,” he said. “Even though it’s becoming a major issue in Israel. And still, despite that, there’s a lot of awareness [of this issue] among Jewish Americans, the reason being that they are increasingly connected through Facebook, Twitter, blogs and so on.”

Sure enough, this morning, my Facebook page was full of posts calling on people to mobilize against the Right demo tomorrow.

Hagai El-Ad, the director of the Association for Human Rights in Israel and one of the protesters arrested two weeks ago, said that the use of new media was a driving force behind the success of the Sheikh Jarrah protest organizers. But, he added, that’s only part of the battle.

“Yes, the mobilization happens online,” El-Ad added, “but the end result is the most classic form of civil protest.”

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