23/5/97

Nitty Gritty City

Jer(USA)lem, Ir Hakodesh or Al Quds: What you call it is not so much a matter of semantics as semitics.

    Yerushalmi slipped into his Gap shorts, wriggled into his Chicago Bulls T-shirt, put on his Nikes without bothering to tie the laces, and said goodbye to his Harvard girlfriend. (She came here to experience Israel.)
    He drove his Chrysler downtown, parked right in front of Tower Records, and crossed the street to Blockbuster Video.
    A tourist stopped Yerushalmi outside McDonald's. "Excuse me," said the visitor, "I seem to be lost. I'm looking for --" he pulled out a map, and pointed to a location "--this place here."
    Yerushalmi looked at the map. "You're looking for 'Jerusalem'?"
    "Yes, that's right!" said the foreigner excitedly. "That's where the driver said we were going. Obviously he made a wrong turn, and now I'm lost. Can you tell how to get to Jerusalem?"
    Yerushalmi shrugged. "Down this street, past the New York bagel store, keep going straight. Yashar, yashar. Can't miss it."
    The tourist smiled, waved and scurried off. Yerushalmi watched him go, smirking disdainfully. "God, I need a Coke," he muttered.
    At The Second Cup cafe, Yisrael and Benzion were sipping Nescafes. "Nu, it's past noon already, where is he?" Benzion grumbled.
    "Probably living on Eastern Standard Time," Yisrael retorted.
    Unfortunately, Yerushalmi's Swatch was running a bit slow. While his friends waited impatiently, he was gazing wistfully at the Ziontours window display next door. A poster of the Statue of Liberty. Yerushalmi sighed. Ah, to be in the Big Apple, or even the Big Orange, Tel Aviv. It was just his luck to be stuck here in ... in the Big Etrog.
    Yalla, he said to himself, snapping out of his stupor. He stepped into the cafe, sat down with his pals and lit up a Marlboro.
     As soon as he ordered -- apple pie and a Bud -- they got down to business:
    How to celebrate Jerusalem Day.
    "Maybe we should do something, you know, Israeli," Yisrael suggested.
    Yerushalmi snapped his fingers. "Good idea," he said brightly. "We could go to a bar and get piss-drunk."
    His friends glared at him.
    "... on Maccabee beer," he added hastily.
    Benzion had a thought. "We could do something really wild, you know what I mean?"
    "Streak naked through Mea Shearim?"
    "Acid party in front of the Supreme Court?"
    "No, wait, I have it: sneak into the Moslem Quarter and take hostages. Yeah!"
    Benzion squirmed. "Actually, I was thinking of something really nutty: getting a bunch of people together and dancing the hora in Independence Park until dawn."
    Yisrael whistled. "Wow. That's nutty."
    "It's dumb," Yerushalmi interjected sharply. "First of all, the last time anybody danced the hora in this country was about 1949, except maybe tourists pretending to be Israelis. Second, have you been to Independence Park recently? There is no Independence Park anymore. It's been bought by Harry Wilf and it's now Harry Wilf Park. We could celebrate Wilf Day instead if you like. And third, if you want to be really Israeli, we should dance until dawn in a disco."
    "But --"
    "Okay, okay, they could play only Israeli disco music."

MENDEL WAS perspiring, and he was sure everyone in heder noticed. Gevalt, he thought, they'll guess for sure.
    Maybe he shouldn't do it.
    But ... who would know?
    God will.
    Now Mendel was perspiring and trembling.
    Avrumele put down his Gemara, got up, and walked to the door, giving Mendel the silent signal as he passed. Mendel waited a minute, then left the study hall too.
    The two boys met in the bathroom, checking to make sure no one else was there.
    "I can't do it," Mendel whimpered, twirling his peyot nervously.
    "Sha," his friend snarled. Avrumele pulled out of his pocket a nefarious substance, and young Mendel saw his life flash before his eyes: for this he could be expelled from the yeshiva, excommunicated, banished from his home and forced out of Mea Shearim.
    A secular newspaper!
    "It says here," Avrumele whispered breathlessly, "that on Wednesday there's going to be a celebration, right here in the Holy City, not two blocks past the mikve! Mendel! We could go!"
    Mendel was stupefied. Beyond the mikve was more kinds of evil than he could imagine. "But -- but why can't they have the celebration on this side of the mikve?"
    "Because it's a special kind of celebration."
    "Special? Like a bar mitzva? Maybe a new sefer Torah? Reb Berl's son's first haircut?"
    Avrumele rolled his eyes and then fixed them hard on Mendel's. "Jerusalem Day!"
    Mendel blinked. "But it's forbidden! My papa says so. The rebbe says so."
    "And I say it's allowed. And I say we're going beyond the mikve, and we're going to have a helluva time, we're going to sing and dance and wave flags and maybe we'll see a parade."
    "And maybe we'll see women," Mendel raged.
    Avrumele winced. "It's a chance we'll have to take."

"MAHMOUD, SUPPER time!"
    To his mother's surprise, Mahmoud raced home on the first call. "Father has something to tell you," she said as the young teenager loped in.
    "And I have something to tell him too!" Mahmoud exclaimed.
    The father kissed his son on the forehead, then stepped back to size up how big the lad had grown.
    Although he was bursting with pride, Mahmoud held back his news until his father had presented his.
    "Our city is going to have a celebration, and we are going to join. We should have a wonderful time," the elder said. Then he smiled warmly. "So. What is your news?"
    Mahmoud gaped. "A celebration of our defeat? Father!"
    "This is my city," his father answered carefully. "When my city has a party, I consider myself invited."
    Mahmoud roiled. Respect for his father, yes, but ...
    "Am I living with an Israeli patriot?" the teenager asked hotly. "Is my father a Zionist?"
    "I am an Arab Jerusalemite. The rest is negotiable. And you are my son; that is not. I say we will attend the celebrations, and that is that."
    "But father," Mahmoud said with a smirk of rebellion, "I plan to. That is my great news. I have been recruited to be present at this happy occasion. As a martyr."

"FROM WHAT I can tell," the mayor said, "everybody in town will be there."
    "And why not? Everyone loves Jerusalem."
    The mayor looked over his checklist. "From 11 a.m. there's the marathon lecture on 'Jerusalem, Pride of Modern Man.' How are ticket sales, councillor?"
    "Sold out, sir. We've got a closed circuit hookup as well, at the university conference hall, and that's sold out."
    "Wow. The film festival?"
    "Unprecedented response," the city councillor said, beaming.
    "Fine. What else have we got planned?"
    "Downtown will be closed for the parade. Every resident has received an 'I Love Jerusalem' bumper sticker. The city will be covered in flags and posters and bunting. And of course, there's the 'Why I Love Jerusalem Song Contest' and the Jerusalem arts and crafts fair."
    Another councillor cut in. "The TV stations, radio stations, newspapers -- everyone is participating, everyone's enthusiastic. Even the opposition, sir."
    The mayor smiled with satisfaction. "I can only say it makes me mighty proud of our citizens, proud to be mayor of Mobile, Alabama. Yesterday I phoned Jerusalem's Mayor Olmert to tell him about what's going on here. I'm sure hundreds of other cities are doing the same thing, but he said our success deeply moved him."
    The councillors applauded.
    "And then he said the darnedest thing," the mayor of Mobile continued. "He suggested a sort of cultural exchange. Half our population for half of his."