2/8/99

Schnitzer's Beduin powwow

    Whenever I can make it to Beersheba by dawn on Thursday in time for the livestock shuk, I always drop in and see Schnitzer.
    This last time I got there a bit late -- it was 3 p.m. -- but I didn't miss much: there was a foot-and-mouth scare, so the only horse-trading in the country was back in Jerusalem.
    Anyway, without so much as a limp ewe to bid on, I hoofed it to Schnitzer's two-by-two prefab hut for a chat.
    Lior Schnitzer is the side-show at the weekly Shuk Habeduim. He's the manager of Beersheba's three markets, his emporium a tiny space with not much more than a desk, a picture of a rabbi, a microphone, and Schnitzer. Over the door is a sign that says "First Aid," but if you come looking for first aid, he'll likely tell you, "Go bother the ambulance, that's what I pay them for." What you come for is friendly abuse, a laugh, a story, a favor, a snippet of wisdom, protektzia, and maybe a glass of water. 
    Schnitzer looks imposing even when he sits behind his desk. He's a strapping, wiry fellow, 53 years old, lean and tough. He's got hawkish eyes that subdue a stranger at first, but a penchant for raucous humor.
    Even when the 1,000 sheep, goats, camels and donkeys stay home, the Beduin Market is a weekly magnet for shoppers and sellers, with over 300 stalls offering a mix of shmontzes and exotica. Jews pay Schnitzer NIS 250 for a stall, Beduin and Arabs pay NIS 90.  
    "I insist that the Beduin get a reduced price, because if not for them there wouldn't be a shuk here. But if they want to sell Jewish-type merchandise, they have to be on the other side, with the Jews, and pay like Jews."
    The herds of humans passing by Schnitzer's door are incredibly colorful: Beduin nomads and upper-class city folk, Black Hebrews and haredim, Russian immigrants and Gaza Palestinians, cops and robbers. During the course of a day, many will crowd in to see Schnitzer about something or other.
    A Beduin boy comes in asking if he can load up his wares and go home early. Schnitzer tears a strip off the poor kid, then offers to teach him English: he pulls out a piece of paper, scrawls in large letters "NO" and sends the chastened child back to work.
    A man brings in a lost driver's license belonging to a Sara Ziziashvili, and Schnitzer calls every Ziziashvili in town (there's more than you'd think) asking if they know of a Sara who might be driving around without a license.
    Policemen, withering in the desert heat, pop in and flop down, muttering about one nudnik or another. Nudniks come in too, muttering about the cops, and sometimes Schnitzer just sits back, grins, and watches them go at each other.
    A pal steps in and displays a ticket he had just been given for parking in a spot reserved for the disabled, and who but the ticket-issuing policeman is shmoozing with Schnitzer at the time. In the middle of the pukka-pukka, Schnitzer hollers at the cop, "Take a good look at this guy, he's an idiot, he's disabled in the head!" Everyone has a good laugh, and the cop offers advice on how to get the fine canceled.
    An excitable man barges in, interrupts everyone and barrages Schnitzer with an opinion, in what seems to be an ongoing debate between the two, about the big court case. Not Deri; Demjanjuk. It's a bizarre non-sequitur, but suddenly everyone is drawn into debating Demjanjuk.
    "Attention ... attention," Schnitzer drawls into the microphone. "For anyone interested ... mincha prayers ... will be held ... in five minutes ... at the Boy Boy stall. Attendance is not obligatory ... but definitely advisable."
    Twenty minutes later, having just prayed to God, a religious man named Yitzhak comes to beseech the devoutly secular Schnitzer. There's a better chance that God will answer his prayers. He's an amazingly ugly man, stooped, with droopy eyes and oversized, jagged, tusklike teeth, and he's shy, but he courageously stands up to Schnitzer. He asks that a karavan be provided for daily prayers, because "it's not right to be davening with half-naked women walking around us." The little fellow tries to warm Schnitzer with a feeble hang-dog smile, but the response is another emphatic NO. "I don't want to start establishing mosques in my shuk," Schnitzer barks, bluntly provoking Yitzhak. The sad sack doesn't flinch. "I see. But you won't be offended if I go to City Hall and ask there?" Another bracing debate rattles the hut. Schnitzer's loving it.
    He talks tough, but he's compassionate and acutely sensitive to his fellow man. He has his reasons for saying no, and for saying it with a wallop -- but he'll readily bend the rules and say yes when he can.
    He's got a difficult crowd to control here, yet he commands obedience. He knows his customers, and he speaks their language -- culturally and linguistically (he's fluent in Hebrew, English, French, Yiddish, Arabic and "pidgin Arabic"). He's a keen observer, and has plenty to say about every ethnic type -- and about himself. 
    "I have a lot of experience with the Beduin. They're good people. They came from a totally different culture, and they were raped by a system they don't understand. But just like when we were in the Diaspora, cheating the goyim, they're cheating us.
    "They're good negotiators. The old Beduin, when they want to buy, they'll almost convince you that they don't want to buy. They buy in the end, but they won't show their satisfaction." Schnitzer chortles. "They'll get something worth 100 shekels for 20, and walk away with a sour face that shows all the tragedies of the world.
    "It's true what is said about the Arabs, that they appreciate force, power. They're like children, they try us, they test our limits. They get a zbeng (whack), they go backward, they don't get a zbeng, they go forward.
    "Who works in a Jewish market? Failures -- people who couldn't find positions, other jobs. Some of them are junkies, ex-junkies, criminals. So they try to exert power on me. Some of them remind me what my mother did before I was born. But whatever they say, I remember that these people wake up at 3 o'clock in the morning, and come here to make a living, a difficult living. They don't make a lot of money. So when they curse me, I know it doesn't come from the head, it comes from the gut. It's frustration.
    "If I lose my temper, I've lost the battle. I believe that I'm strong enough to play the weak one. Some guy once threatened he would kill my children. So I took out a picture and I said, 'this is them, don't make a mistake and kill my neighbors' children.' I keep cool."
    The potential for inflamed tension between, say, hotheaded rightwing Jews and Gaza Palestinians is high. Schnitzer is proud of the relaxed, safe environment he governs. "When all those buses were exploding in Jerusalem, I instructed the Arab workers that in case anything happens here, they should run for their lives to my office, where I can protect them from fanatics."
    This shuk, he explains, is an integral part of Beduin culture. "There's an important social purpose, more than just buying, selling, bartering. The different tribes get to meet regularly, exchange news, settle accounts, tell stories, keep in touch with their children who married into another tribe."
    The Beduin have been conducting these internecine powwows for at least a century. The animalware is sold between dawn and 10 a.m., then for the rest of the day they sell handiwork, cheese, "and, yes, also hashish. And you have the women who sell gold things: out of the 'safe' -- between the breasts -- they pull out the gold."
    A sweaty cop stumbles into Schnitzer's office, and struggles to fit an umbrella pole into a base hole. "No. It won't fit," he says with finality. Schnitzer can't let this pass without a wisecrack. "How can it be that it fit before and now it doesn't? What, they don't teach you in Police Academy to put a pole in a hole?"