Isreal

An Englishman in Israel

On the weekend of the 23rd of October I was privileged enough to visit
Israel. You may of course ask the question - why on earth would I go on
a weekend trip to Israel? If I were you, I would ask that question too.
The fact is, the craziness of Israel is partly to blame for this insane
visit, along with the madness that seems endemic to my family.

I was infact in Israel to witness an authentic, and highly religious,
Israeli BarMitzvah. For those who don't know, a BarMitzvah is that
ritual that every Jewish boy must undertake when he reaches the age of
13. It is a symbol of the passage from boyhood to manhood, and
basically consists of the boy in question taking a very active role in
the usual Saturday, Shabbat (Sabbath), synagogue service.

Anyway, the craziness soon became apparent to me when I realised that
we were racing against the clock to reach the Kibbutz Hotel where the
BarMitzvah was taking place. We had to get there before nightfall on
Friday night, and the plane had landed forty minutes late. The
consequences of our failure were monstrous - the hotel would lock the
gates. If this happened, we should have to park the car at the gates
and then walk up a steep, winding and long path carrying all our
luggage. You may ask - what sort of a hotel puts that kind of a barrier
infront of its paying customers? Well, a religious hotel in Israel
does.

Luckily we made it, but were soon faced with more ridiculous rules
barring our enjoyment of the weekend. Firstly, I was immediately
frowned upon for smoking a cigarette. You may not think this too out of
the ordinary since most parents and adults frown on their youngsters
who have taken up the dirty habit. But no, the very people who frowned
were infact themselves heavy smokers - it was another religious rule,
that being - no flames lit by human hands on Friday night or Saturday
daytime.

Well, I thought, that's not such a bad rule - at least it helps to cut
down on smoking. The next surprise was a little more difficult to
handle. I was sharing a room with some cousins and a friend of theirs
in the Israeli army. His weekend was supposed to be a relaxed weekend
spent among friends. Being that this hotel had no bar, no night-club -
basically nothing for a young person to do - we thought we would relax
after dinner and watch a film on telly. We sat in our room, happily
sitting down to watch a thriller - Copycat. An hour into the film, we
are all engrossed, then suddenly, all the lights turn off, the air
conditioning stops, and the film is no more. "What the hell is going
on?" is the appropriate response, or maybe, "bollocks, there's been a
power cut!" But no, once outside, we are politely informed, as if it is
a silly question - something everyone knows - that there is a time
switch that turns off all the electricity in the hotel. We should have
to wait until nightfall the following evening to get any
electricity.

Well, what is one to do? Nothing whatsoever to do - it was impossible
for me to even pick up a book and read due to the lack of light. The
solution - simply to sit under the bright stars. Sitting quietly it is
easy to pick out the chanting from the nearby Arab town - "Allah ou
Akbah" - amplified using cheap speakers. Slightly more menacing were
the howls of the wily coyotes.

Next morning, the full ritual was underway. I had to sit for three
hours in a room full of chanting and singing men. No women, you may
notice, because they had to satisfy themselves with an adjoining room
not too dissimilar to a jailhouse. The mother of the BarMitzvah boy
could not stand next to him, proud, as his moment of truth unfolded.
No, she had to steal glimpses through the large metal bars separating
the sexes. Later on in the service the full role of the women became
apparent to me - hundreds of little chewy sweets were hurled through
the metal bars, and a sweet fight ensued. I was caught in the cross
fire and had little time to recover my senses and join in the hilarity
- one small child managed to hoard a huge number of sweets and
successfully defend his bounty before I had even picked up one from the
floor.

Later in the day, as the sun rose high in the sky, we felt it a good
idea to go swimming. There was a small but perfectly acceptable
swimming pool among the hotel grounds, and we thought - how better to
spend a lazy Saturday afternoon. Little did we know that swimming was
also forbidden. All gates leading to the pool were fastened locked and
bolted. The sweltering and sweating Briton, only just subjected to the
harsh cold winds and rain of York, was supposed to make do with the
sweltering, the sweat, and the painful temptation of a swimming pool.
"Not me", I thought, and we had soon found a means of climbing the
metal barriers and enjoying the cool swim I felt entitled to. Only
later were we forced from the pool when some nearby guests reported our
insurrection to the hotel Rabbi, who promptly sent two of his lackey
boys on buggies to evict us.

The festivities of the event were reserved for the Saturday evening.
Sitting down to a meal filled with the strange and wondrous charm of
the previous meal slightly rearranged and revamped (the constant being
of course - Schnitzel), we were subjected to the traditional speeches.
First, my uncle does the usual "isn't he a big boy now" speech, filled
with the adulation a BarMitzvah boy always deserves. Then my father
does the usual funny anecdote speech, (you know, "remember when
he&;#8230;.", followed by rapturous laughter). The final speech was
delivered by a Rabbi, and included, (as you might expect), lots of
religious advice - you know, the kind that tells you how to run your
life.

The evening ended with a band and dancing. Both were among the most
ridiculous things I have ever seen in my life - ranking along with
Hagues' "Hague" cap at Thorpe Park, and Jesse Ventura's political
career. The dancing consisted of two spinning circles side by side. One
(yep, you've guessed it) was made up entirely of men, the other -women.
It's hard for me to describe it as dancing because all it was really
was a bunch of silly, half drunk people holding hands and (as I said
earlier) spinning in a circle. Occasionally the male circle would get a
bit more interesting - younger members would inhabit the centre and
form strange shapes, or the BarMitzvah boy would be lofted high on a
chair. Later the band were allowed to play whatever they liked, (as
opposed to hits such as "Havva Naggilla" which is a requirement at all
BarMitzvahs). Needless to say, the sight of four ultra religious
18-year-olds, complete with tassel style side hair and big black coats,
playing Led Zeppelin, still brings tears to my eyes.

You may think I am terribly cynical, or zenophobically anti-religious,
but you would be wrong. I love the place really, I just happen to think
it is completely insane.