Many Colored Mirrors

What is Israel?

Is it that place on the news, that Iz-reel country torn by war and scattered with brown, screaming faces? That place everyone brings up when they want to seem sophisticated, where all those strong-men in green (you know, with the big guns), are all over, glaring and beating up women right there on your TV screen?

Sounds like an ugly country.

Or is it a location of historical interest- that place where and myth and moral and blind belief blur so black that even logic struggles to pierce the morass? So much of society roots itself there- how fascinating for you! Even a walk in the streets is a history lesson. See here, the remainders of Roman architecture- over there, the Crusaders' battleground. So much to see, and photograph, and place in albums, and forget... wonderful.

Or rather dull. I think, anyway.

Well then, maybe for you Israel is modern. A thriving state of metropolis and shopping malls, of neon lights and stereos and crashing trains. People are rich, people are rude, people are pretty, people live! Just like anywhere else, right? Different language, of course, but hey- even the street signs are written in English. Oh right, they have that army thing. Great souvenirs, much better than Greece.

Bewildering.

So maybe it's the religious place. That place you want, mostly, and people want for you. And maybe you don't know why you want it, or what it is, or why you are really going there. And, maybe, it's not even something you feel- not when you land in Ben-Gurion, or when you walk around Haifa, or meet your first taxi driver.

And maybe you'll feel it at the Wall- maybe not. Maybe Tzfat will reach you, or at the foot of a mountain in the Negev. But maybe not.

But you'll feel it some time. So is that what Israel is for you?

Maybe. Anyway, it's a lot closer.