After Israel

Name:
Location: Long Beach, California, United States

We moved to Israel thinking, rather naively that it was our true home, but after many months of trying to assimilate, learn the language and seeking employment we were forced to face the TRUTH! Israel is a bit backward, they still tend to mix religion with government and they are gravely biased by the belief of the Ultra religious who make it difficult for secular, everyday Jews to get along.

Wednesday, November 30, 2005

After the Israel Experience

Well, here we are back in downtown Long Beach and happy to be I might add. We really didn't realize how much we had missed it until we came back!
The last weeks in Safed were intense, once I wrote the Rosa Parks article, articulating a cultural problem that everyone knows exists but prefers to ignore, I became a persona-non-grata in our town. First it was just a matter of friends telling me that I shouldn't write such things, they don't see such things, and more importantly that "It just isn't done! One just doesn't write anything ill about the Ultra Religious! or for that matter about the Jews!"
Sorry I said in my own defense but the truth needs to be told and there are things happening here that are just not right! In fact there are things happening in all of Israel that need to come to light. There are not just saints living there as one would think.
Then came an early morning when I happened to walk to the post office alone because Theo was down in the shop working, and when I came out of the Post and started down the stairs to the street I was accousted by a group of five men in black...yes the ultra religious in all their glory! They walked up on both sides and in front of me and took my arms roughly and started to push me toward the street in a hurry, they were headed toward a Yeshiv that is close to the area, they were hurting me and saying mean things to me in Hebrew and in English, I struggled to break free but would not have gotten away if some young Ethiopian men and another older secular man had not come to my defence. What they had in mind for me I can only imagine, but that I was going to be hurt physically and emotionally was evident in the way they pushed me toward the street.
Shortly after this incident we left Safed and returned to Long Beach...have I other things to say about such incidents, and about the fact that a neighbor in Israel let me know that people who write things like I do, sort of DISAPPEAR in Israel should tell you that I have much to say and that I intend to speak out in any way possible while I can still conjure up the spectacle of the pious men of Safed who were out to beat me!!!
Watch here for more blogging on this subject and to read other items of new worthy note that I will share over the months to come!