May 21, 2004

Alison on Aliyah:  What a Shock

            Starbucks.  Drizzly, 40-degree weather in May.  What seems like thousands of magazines with Brad Pitt on the cover.  Mint ice cream!  Being able to speak English without people looking at me twice.  African Americans in droves.

            As I stepped off the plane into the Newark airport last week, I was assaulted by America.  I walked to my connecting flight to Seattle in a daze, not knowing what to buy first – but wanting to buy something more than I could stand.  Muffins, doughnuts, Doritos, Skittles – I had forgotten about these things in Israel.  Or rather, I had forgotten how good they are in America.  I finally settled on a big hunk of Breyer’s mint chocolate chip ice cream, at 5:35am.  It was the best ice cream cone I think I’ve ever had!  It just isn’t the same in Israel – most of the time the green ice cream here is pistachio, anyway.  Yuck.

            I’d never really understood what people mean when they refer to “culture shock,” although I do remember returning back to Seattle once after four months in Israel, and thinking that the 2-liter Coke bottles looked extraordinarily strange.  I surmised that I had become so used to the thinner Israeli 1.5-liter bottles that I had forgotten the American style entirely.  I remember wondering, at that point, whether this was the famous “culture shock” everyone is always lamenting.

But no, I can tell you now that I am officially “shocked.”  I would never have believed that I could have become so accustomed to Israel in just seven months, but apparently I have.  Even though I am just barely fluent in Hebrew, it would continually fly out of my mouth instead of the customary English, before I was even aware of it.  Some of the little phrases and expressions are so automatic now – I frequently had split-second trouble remembering “Thank you,” “Come on!,” and “Let’s go” in my mother-tongue.

On the other hand, I was very conscious of hearing English everywhere.  It sounded strange to me to be surrounded by it so fully, rather than hearing only a smattering of it amongst the Hebrew.  Billboards, commercials, and television news were all continually fascinating to me.  As I sat in the airport waiting for my next flight, I heard the newscaster say, “And all of us Americans felt…”  It took me a few seconds to remember that I was one of them again, for at least a short time.

And the shock continued throughout the week.  Every time I saw a bus I couldn’t help but shudder with the familiar split-second of wariness I always feel.  Every time I heard an ambulance siren I felt that same dread I always do in Jerusalem, wondering if there will be more sirens, and if I will have to check the news.  But then I remembered that I was in America, and that there are other problems to deal with there.

            I kept hearing about this new movie, “Super Size Me,” and about the lawsuits against McDonald’s.  I hadn’t heard a thing about any of it, and I realized how far removed Jerusalem is from popular culture, American popular culture.  Israel shows American movies, but only months later than their release in America.  Israeli media focuses on Israel, America’s response to Israel’s actions, and political happenings all over the world that are significant to Israel.  We don’t hear much about (what is perceived as constant) American lawsuits, celebrity divorces, or even a great deal about America’s daily dealings in Iraq.  When I left Jerusalem, we were still reeling from the shooting deaths of a pregnant woman and her four daughters in the settlements here.  It was all over the news.  When I touched down in Seattle, however, the news was saturated with the beheading of the American soldier in Iraq.  I heard nothing else for the entire week I was in the States.  As tragic as this event clearly was, I had nonetheless forgotten how skewed the American media truly is.

            I had also forgotten a number of things about American society.  I forgot that you have to pay for a suitcase cart at the airport ($5 in Newark; $3 in Seattle, $0 in Israel).  I forgot that you don’t have to pay for a grocery cart at the supermarket (5 shekels to use one in Israel, but you get it back when you return the cart to its dock).  I forgot that it only takes about 45 minutes to wash a load of laundry in the States, as opposed to the grueling 2 hours (at least!) here in Israel.  I forgot that I am considered an American at all; in Israel, we are “Anglo-Saxons,” or the more popular “Anglos.”  Indeed, I will never forget the first time I was referred to as an “Anglo,” and was told, “It doesn’t matter,” when I protested that I’m not English!

            Most shocking to me was the reminder of the presence of African Americans in the world.  It’s not that I thought they had vanished; it’s just that I had not realized that they do not exist in Israel.  It’s a strange thing to realize what you have become accustomed to, beneath your consciousness.  I went to high school in a 70% non-white population, and most of my friends at that time were not white and certainly not Jewish.  We all grow used to our atmosphere and the types of people that fit into our natural schemas.  Not until I touched down in Newark did I realize that my daily schemas have changed dramatically.  It would be no less shocking to see an African American in Jerusalem than to see the Dalai Lama walking down the streets of Providence.

            I suppose it takes being confronted with the old to realize how much one has changed.  It was only after I saw my old life that it hit home that my new life is so different.  We certainly live in different worlds now, you and I, and it certainly is a shock when they collide.