5/12/99

Mr. and Mrs. Smith go to Israel

    The Smiths arrived from Oregon, stayed less than three days, and got the hell out. Thank God.
    If they are typical of the kind of tourists we're getting nowadays, we're in for a long, long millennium year.
    Roger and Alyssa Friedland, who own a RE/MAX Capital real estate agency in French Hill, Jerusalem, contracted a short-term apartment for the Smiths. The Smiths moved in. They quickly decided they hate everything and everyone in this country. They moved out. Hitler, they concluded, was right.
    (Fasten your seatbelts for this one.)
    The Smiths were gracious enough to send the Friedlands a letter describing their disgust with us.
    "The Lord told my husband," it starts (and already you get the idea), "that we were to take a trip to Israel. ... It was an exciting thought: we were going to meet our Jewish brethren and to stand in defense of them if need be." (You'll see how valiantly they stood in defense of us.)
    "We took the German airline Lufthansa to Tel Aviv, with a short layover in Munich. The kindness and the service the German servants gave impressed us. I guess somehow I thought the nation that so heavily persecuted our Jewish brethren would be cold and bitter. On the contrary, all were humble servants. ... It seems that the people of Germany have been humbled by the past that haunts them and collectively are a kind people." (Haven't we always said so?)
    "We arrived in Tel Aviv on the 19th. At the airport, you could immediately sense the spirit of argumentation and bitterness that has held the Jewish people captive for two thousand years." (Can't imagine why.) "You could look in one direction and see people arguing, turn your head slightly and see the same thing in another direction." (I assure you, they were arguing about whether these people should be thrown out of the country. Generally, though, arguing is a grave sin. We know that.)
    "Praise God our taxi cab driver spoke English. He lived in the United States for 4 years. My husband explained our purpose there and spoke in the scripture. The man said he was so excited, that the hairs on his arm were standing up. He said my husband must be an angel from the United States." (Picture your typical Israeli taxi driver talking like that!) "He knew how angry God was at the people. ... It was a good hour's drive from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, with my husband giving a witness all the way." (Why do cabbies always bring these loonies to Jerusalem?)
    "The taxi driver continued to ask directions to find Lincoln Street -- which to him was an odd word and must be pronounced Lin-co-lin." (Ah, so it was an Israeli. They're the only ones who don't pretend the "l" doesn't exist.)
    "We explained to the realtor that we were not tourists, but were there to see if Israel was heeding the call it has always had -- to be the moral standard for the nations." (Uh-oh.)
    "We expected everything to be in tiptop condition. But this was not the case. The toilet ran continually, the dryer didn't dry, the vacuum was broken, and the air conditioner wouldn't work." (Early Y2K problems.)
    "Ironically, we found out that a Rabbi and his wife owned the apartment. My husband said that when you invite someone to share in your home you make sure everything is in working order. What man of God would not have everything decent and in order??" (The rabbi's mistake was, his front door should not have been in working order.)
    "I left only to exchange some money and go to the grocery store. I smiled and said 'Shalom' to different ones along the way. I could not get anyone to look up or acknowledge my greeting." (Word spread fast, from the taxi driver, about the giving-witness thing.) "No one was friendly on the streets, including the Orthodox Jew who we thought would have been closer to God." (He is. God warned him about the Smiths.)
    "As time went on, my husband's spirit became more distressed with being in Israel. For ten years we had wanted to come, and in just hours our joy had become sorrow. The Jew had not changed. Everything was a money grab." (The American is a capitalist; the Jew is a money grabber.)
    "Regardless of the cost, he wanted out of Israel immediately. The Jews had made a mockery of the word of God. Somehow, the Jew has gotten the idea that the covenant that God has with His People has nothing to do with obedience. ... What a stiff-necked and rebellious nation!" (And money grabbing, don't forget that.)
    "We called our real estate agent to inform her we were leaving. ... We explained our total disappointment with the people of her land. Israel was called to be a light unto all nations -- the moral standard. My husband explained that they had had 2,000 years to get it right." (But Mr. Smith, we were constantly being interrupted by all those Christian persecutions, Christian pogroms, Christian blood libels, Christian banishments, Christian crusades, Christian forced conversions, Christian inquisitions, Christian holocausts...)
    At this point, I should come to the defense of the majority of Christians, who would be more outraged by this than even we are. I should probably also assure the majority of Oregonians, and Smiths the world over, that no reasonable reader is going to think they're all like this. Especially because, believe it or not, it gets worse.
    "We then got into the cab. He drove recklessly and at a tremendous speed." (This guy was not going to be given a witness for an hour.)
    "The Israeli security police came to ask us questions. They harassed us about flying Lufthansa, a German airline, rather than El Al, an Israeli airline." (!!!!)
    "Why, they asked, were we leaving so soon? Both of us replied that we did not like their country and wanted out as soon as possible. ... We found the Israelis suspicious of everyone -- us, the Palestinians, the Germans." (Had to get the Palestinians in there.)
    "My husband explained that the Jewish people wonder why