27/5/96

(For Election Day Supplement)

Seeking a Herd to Graze With

In this town, individuality is politically incorrect.

    Hillel asked: "If I am not for myself, who is?"
    Our greatest philosophers have tried to answer that. "I yam what I yam," hypothesized Popeye. Woody Allen said he wanted to be someone else. Garbo vanted to be alone, Groucho didn't want to be with anyone who would have him. Isherwood was a camera.
    Everyone wise and glib exhorts us away from the herd, or to its front; none of them tell us it's noble to be a nobody within it. That's the nature of Western philosophy, though apparently not too many people pay much heed because there are still more followers than leaders.
    Jerusalem is so much a city of herds that even the leaders are led. Maybe that's because most of us immigrated from political cultures -- socialism, communism, totalitarianism, fundamentalism -- that don't exactly glorify free thinking.
    I figure if I'm going to remain in this meshugga town, it's time I joined a herd. A belief, a stream, a politic, a leader, something or someone I could demonstrate for, vote for, even throw stones in the name of, a group  whose principles I could promote on a bumper sticker in a traffic jam. At present, the only Israeli logo I burnish is that of my garagenik -- who in any case has since emigrated.
    With the elections coming up, finding a niche has become a vital issue, because in this country, voting for the Knesset is a form of mass group therapy.
    The process of elimination doesn't help much, as I'm not religious, Sephardi or an Arab, which in this town reduces my belongability very narrowly. I'm extremely moderate, which knocks out not only all of the above, but everyone else as well. I'm neither a new immigrant nor an old-timer.
    Working from the other direction is not much more helpful: I'm a left-handed, blue-eyed Canadian with a perfect driving record, which not only does not entitle me to a sizable discount on my car insurance, but  leaves me all the more ungroupable.
    Somewhere in this town there must be some association, organization, institution or affiliation I could get attached to.
    The Temple Mount Faithful? Nah. I'd sooner join the Wakf.
    The Histadrut would have me, but I'd sooner join the Temple Mount Faithful. Women in Black would probably prefer I join Women in Green, and vice versa.
    The Committee for Concerned Citizens sounds nice, but I'm too apathetic -- so much so that I wouldn't even join a Committee for Apathetic Citizens.

IN A SENSE, I have been grouped, though not exactly as a card-carrying, flag-waving, bumper-sticker-pasting joiner. Rather, I am like a helplessly vulnerable bit of turf at which herds come to nibble.
    Not long after I came to Israel, I became known as Scrabble Sam. That gave every player someone to whom to describe, in glorious detail, their finest plays, their best games, their most loathed opponents: "I had this word, that word, I made something from the worst letters imaginable, giving me this score or that score, and in my next five turns I did this and that, and I just had to call you right away because I knew you'd want to hear all about it."
    Then I landed a job at this here Jerusalem Post. Everyone I'd ever met in this country now had someone to whom to describe, in passionate detail, what they think of the paper. This writer stinks, that writer is an idiot, how could you publish this or that.
    Then, while I was still everyone's emergency hotline for vignettes and opinions on Scrabble and the Post, I became the father of triplets, and somehow I had become a great expert on babies. I can't begin to tell you how many baby pictures I've had thrust at me, how many tales I've heard of gurgling cuties, squalling unfortunates, or geniuses learning to say "Mama" ahead of schedule. What woe and wonder I have heard, of poor parents up all night with a puker or a teether or a head-banger, or how triumphant it was when Junior rolled over on his right side for the first time.
    Then I had cancer. You can imagine. I became a Wailing Wall. The agonizing details of experiences, treatments, side effects, operations, the gamut of emotions. I understand that people need to talk; unfortunately, my chosen method of recovery was to think about my affliction as little as possible.
    The solution, I decided recently, is to let it be known that I am an expert on sex.
    The drawback is I still wouldn't know who to vote for.

SINCE EVERYTHING in this country is political anyway, that's where I should probably seek an ilk, pay a fee for the right to belong, and say "yay" and "boo" in solidarity with others just like me. A political party, say, or a lunatic fringe.
    Solidarity is a natural bond among all but the mythic majority -- because, I think, when you set aside all the minorities, no one remains to comprise a majority.
    That is why we have thriving political parties representing Arabs, haredim, orientals, settlers, peaceniks; unsuccessful but undaunted parties giving voice to taxi drivers, income-tax payers, prisoners and pensioners; political influence for Yemenites, Georgians, the Druse, the North, the poor, the rich; parties on the right, far right, extreme right, left, far left and extreme left, everywhere on the spectrum and representing every conceivable type of Israeli -- except for the hypothetical majority at the middle. There is no middle: the Center Party, which served this most fringe of political segments, vanished years ago. I, of course, used to bestow my treasured vote on them.
    It would be easier to choose if I weren't so determined to stick to my political conviction. I could join both mainstreams, but not either: I am right-of-center emotionally and left-of-center intellectually; impractical sympathies, unsavory solutions.
    My political dilemma is, on reflection, also my religious one: the Conservative and Reform streams are most enlightened, yet the shul I don't attend is strictly Orthodox.
    It is not easy being non-religious in Jerusalem. Religious lifestyle here is, paradoxically, liberating; it's secularism that is restrictive and confining.
    It is especially not easy when you're also disenchanted with secular lifestyle values: I mean, when one side battles the other over the right to operate discos throughout the city on Friday nights, which side do I root for, the coercionists or the inconsiderates?
    Therein might lie the crux of my conundrum: in any issue, I can see where both sides are essentially wrong, and right. Can you think of any Jerusalem herd that would tolerate an attitude like that?

I WAS finally put in my place by my wife, when she volunteered me for membership in an organization she felt was especially worthwhile. It was an organization she formed herself. It would have been difficult for me to decline.
    So now I am an activist, for Triplets Plus, the Militant Mothers of Multiples. I am expected to attend rallies and hold placards at demonstrations, and parade about in a sloganeering T-shirt. Once we really get going I suppose I'll have to lie down in the middle of an intersection to protest the cost of diapers or school-zoning policies.
    I suggested it might be sufficient if I just made a tax-deductible contribution, and even went so far as to promise to display a "Triplets are Terrific!" bumper sticker on my car -- you know, free advertising for a good cause -- but I was threatened with a boycott.
    It did no good to point out that I was at odds with their politics, because they don't have any. Aha, I said, then we have no hope of being taken seriously unless we have a bloc of votes to deliver. And, I added, when we promise votes, it's three at a time.
    It seems I had a point there.
    On the spot my wife decided we should have a political wing, and a Knesset list, and I should head it, and I should tour the country to clinch the support of all the triplets from Metulla to Eilat, promising things and making speeches and kissing babies. Lots of babies.
    This did not appeal to me at all; it seems I would have to get so involved.
    On the other hand, it might help me decide who to vote for.