The Other Wall

Petach Tivkah [Written while Saul joined David Feldman's Maccabi Israel baseball team practice] Today we saw the other wall. The one Israel erected to protect its residents living over the Green line. It appeared as we headed out of Jerusalem, our sights set on Hashmonean, where our Los Angeles friends the Feldmans moved when they made aliyah.

I hadn’t thought through the geography of where the wall ran in relation to Hashmonean. To be truthful, I hadn’t understood that the Feldmans moved to what would be considered a settlement until I copied their address from a mutual friend. She distinctly said ‘Yishuv Hashmonean’ and I wrote it down dutifully. I wanted to see our friends. Saul especially wanted to see his childhood friend, David.

In fact, the wall has not reached Hashmonean. Once we arrived in the neat little town, David’s father gave us a driving tour. We could see the bright red crease opened on the hill to the north of Hashmonean where the road would go; a yellow back hoe rumbled forward, extending the path.

We could not miss the sections of the wall that do currently separate Jew from Arab only a few miles west and north of Jerusalem. The wall, a tan line in the distance, was not as distinct as the fresh black asphalt road running at its foot. Outside of Jerusalem it did not match the severity of the images that had been broadcast to the United States. Missing were the corrogated steal rising like a shark’s spine or the triangulated cement base. In fact, where it ran directly against the highway, it looked like any of the walls along the 405 in Los Angeles. Only when I saw the top of the wall, the way it folds over to prevent anyone from climbing over it, did it look severe.

We also had to pass through two checkpoints before we finally arrived at the Feldmans. The final checkpoint was a guard both and gate at the edge of their neighborhood. The smart aleck in me thought, “Well, this is one way to live in a gated community.” But my true feeling was a sense of sadness at what it takes to make Israelis safe.