Ok, first things first- yes, sometimes you do need to read the news. I, for instance, when planning my trips, search the name of the town I’m visiting to check for safety. When I heard air raid sirens in my apartment, I lit up my WhatsApp but I also checked news sites. News has a purpose when used effectively.
And most people do not use it effectively. For many years (and once in a while now), I just get caught up in the news. Reading- whether on Facebook or on the news sites themselves- just depresses me. I get that the media needs to make money so they focus on the most dramatic and often sad or offensive things. Today, I glanced through articles about anti-Semites boycotting Israel, anti-Semites attacking Germans wearing yarmulkes, Jeremy Corbyn being anti-Semitic, Natalie Portman’s mess, and the likelihood of war with Iran and Syria. I literally just cried.
It’s not because the words being written are untrue (although sometimes they are), it’s because they are true. And they suck. And they’re selective.
Because I’ll tell you what I did the past few days and was not in the news. I took a bus from my low-income stereotyped neighborhood to three beautiful rural communities just around the bend. I met an archivist who sat with me for an hour and a half to explain to me the history of his town. I hiked through a forest in northern Israel to the Druze village of Daliat Al-Karmel. When I asked some Druze women for directions, they sat me down, plied me with tea and coffee and salads and sweets. They gave me a huge container of leftovers. Drove me to the village and added me on Facebook and WhatsApp. Today, I went to Zichron Yaakov, discovered a beautiful hidden trail, hitchhiked down the mountain to Maagan Michael’s gorgeous Caribbean-like empty beach. Then, I walked on the sand to Jisr Al-Zarqa, a Bedouin village, where I was the only tourist visible. I got to hear some pretty cool Bedouin Arabic, talked with a guy about Arabic music, and spent a peaceful bus ride hanging with some friendly Bedouin women.
In the course of about three days, I had been to national parks, a kibbutz, a moshav, a suburb of Tel Aviv, a Druze village, and a Bedouin Muslim one. The main reason I write this blog is for me- it’s a record of my journeys, it’s therapeutic, and it’s fun. I like writing, I enjoy it. The other reason is because these kinds of stories- real and authentic- don’t make their way into the news. The nuanced, the complicated, the fun, the moving, the heart-warming, the sad. The full spectrum of the human experience. Instead of reading like a laundry list of everything bad in the world, I prefer to share something a bit more real.
Because the sad stuff- the anger, the extremism both left and right, the aggression- those all exist. And sometimes I touch on them. And I feel that the media, perhaps in the quest for eyeballs and ad dollars, only focuses on the negative. The things that make you click even though you (and I) don’t want to. We’re hooked.
Living in a country plagued by terrorism and war, I’ve learned something from my fellow Israelis. And I want to remind them of it- and teach my friends abroad. Faced with crazy shit, you have two options. One is to live in chaos. Either a constant state of panic or burying your head in the sand and pretending nothing is happening. The other option is to live in the here and now. To be present, to enjoy what you can, to be grounded and live your life with gratitude for every moment you have.
That second path is the one I choose and strive for. It’s the one many Israelis, both Arab and Jewish, manage to pursue much, much better than Americans during these difficult times. Perhaps because we’re a more communal society. Perhaps because we’ve been dealing with trauma for longer and know how to better cope with it. Either way, my gift to Americans reading this blog right now is that spirit of embracing the present. It’s not to completely detach yourself from worries nor to pretend that shit isn’t going down. Sometimes, it is.
It’s just that on a day when everyone was talking about Natalie Portman and Iran, a Druze kid was practicing English with me. I was taking selfies with cows. I was taking selfies with sheep! I was listening to the waves of the ocean as I walked towards a Bedouin village.
We all have choices about how we spend our time and energy. We all have a right to our feelings and we make choices about how we live our lives.
I have opinions about all the “news” items I shared. And I have a right to them, and maybe I’ll share them- and maybe I won’t. Because maybe, like tonight, I’ll be too busy meeting other young people in my neighborhood at our first block party. Organized by a friend I met in a sushi joint around the corner.
Shoot this, boycott that, yell this, scream that. I don’t really care. Because the music is blaring so loud around me that I just hope one day you’ll open your ears to listen.
Planting Roots Bearing Fruits 