Since coming to Israel, my perspective on living, on life, has been altered. The news I watch represents a different reality; my priorities have a taken on different values, and my outlook on life has transformed.
Lately
The last few months have been somewhat stressful. Searching for a life on the internet hasn’t created a sense of hope for me. The language and culture is a huge obstacle to finding the ideal job and apartment. The system in Israel is based on nepotism rather than meritocracy. To find a job, you must know ‘someone’ ... what do you when you have moved to country in which you don’t know anyone. My situation exactly. Lately, I have been spending most evenings searching on the internet for work, sending my resume to anonymous e-mail addresses, in the hope that someone will notice mine amongst the many other hundreds. Career wise, journalism doesn’t seem to be calling for me in Israel, so I have decided to take a career shift in the hope to actually find a job!
My new society
I live in a society in which, at times, the atmosphere can be cut with a knife. The reality here is different to the western societal comfort I took for granted whilst growing up. Life in Israel has been infiltrated by fear and terror. Israeli youths are committed to three years in the army from 18 years. Children grow to learn that death is very much normal and common; they grow into adulthood with a gun in their hand and learn to appreciate the sounds of firing as simply background rhythms to their teenage hood. Seeing a youth with a machine gun crossed against its back on the bus home from Jerusalem is something totally normal to me now. In London, this site would probably have shocked me somewhat; but now living amongst a generation that truly appreciates the meaning of life is my present reality.
Flip-side
“How bloody miserable”, you must all be thinking. Well, you can all rejoice in the fact the life here isn’t all doom and gloom. The other side of reality is one of joy and magic in Israeli culture. In a country where one truly learns to appreciate death, they learn to totally appreciate life (Mitch Albom). And this is what makes living here so much more exciting and real.
Last summer was filled along the streets of Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and across Israel with music, love, art, culture and atmosphere. There was a plethora of festivals, concerts and parties that continue on every year. It is surprising that in a country smaller than the size of Wales back in the U.K., they have more going on than what I ever experienced living in London. All I can say is that Israelis definitely know how to party. In September during the holidays, Effy and I danced along the promenade in Tel Aviv at the Love parade. On one side was the beauty of the sea and the sand. On the other side were the same young Israelis I see on the bus, those who spend there weeks in army bases with armory in their hands; this time were holding banners, drinks, and balloons, moving and singing along with the floats parading along the center of the street. The fears of terror and sadness were dissolved into the sounds of the beats and laughter. Israel felt very much alive.
In Jerusalem, spirituality suffocates the air, and beauty resides in the ancient dusty white lime stoned buildings along the cobbled streets. This city is totally incredible. There is no other place in which I experience such uplifting feelings, stimulated by something so invisible and unbelievable. Down the road from my residency exists a single view of Jerusalem, which incorporates the foundations of the three dominant world religions, Christianity, Islam and Judaism, on which the city was created upon. From the window of the building I live, at night I can see the wall of the old city light up (the remains of the Temple), alongside the glow of the golden dome. Jerusalem is truly breathtaking. Every turn you take, you blown away by yet another amazing magical view.
This is the beauty of Israel. The country has been blessed with a rainbow of colours, and a world of environments … green hills and waterfalls of the north, turquoise water and the desert of the south, religion, spirituality, ethnicity, music, and food. This is the country I live in, so even though life here can be unbearably tough, I have so much more to live amongst. This is my new reality.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment