My reality in Israel

Recently I’ve been fielding a lot of phone calls, facebook messages, and Whatsapps all asking the same thing.

How am I doing? Am I okay? What’s it really like to live here in Israel?

 While saying that living here is exactly like living in the States is a drastic leap, for the most part I can say with over 100% confidence that I feel safer here in Israel…in Jerusalem, than I did when I lived at home in my suburban childhood home or when I went away to college or grad school. I would be lying if I said that living here is always safe and peaceful, however, I feel safe here. When compared to living in a major city in the US living in Israel is actually safer (*collective gasp*).

The curious thing is that people only have a skewed impression of what Israel is really like. It’s either a third world country that Jews go to visit because of Birthright and, cue Fiddler on the Roof music, tradition. Israel is seen as a “backwards” country filled with camels and dust. This tends to be the conceptualization of most countries in the Middle East and the only thing I have to say is that it is just not true. There is a thriving high-tech industry, cosmopolitan culinary scene, vibrant night life, and the Israeli culture fosters innovation, ingenuity, and creativity.

The other impression people have is that the people here all in a war-zone all of the time. While the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has gone on for decades and can easily be called the longest standing family argument most people here want to just live in peace with their neighbors. What we see on the news in the States is often just the “highlight reel” of negativity. Despite the continual threat of tensions escalating Israel functions exactly like a “normal” country. Bureaucracy is the bane of everyone’s existence, lines basically do not exist and people go about their daily business despite whether tensions are high or low.  

So what makes us think that it is more dangerous to live or to visit Israel than to go visit New York, Chicago, Miami, or Washington D.C.? These are all places that people choose to go to on vacation or just an “escape” and they’re all places that statistically have higher rates of violent crime per capita than Israel. As a whole the United States is ranked 31^st in violent hate crime 13% more than Israel. Intentional homicide the US is ranked 7^th, 2x more than the rate in Israel.  Worries about being attacked in Israel are actually ranked 81^st, whereas people in the United States reported feeling concerned about being attacked 77% more than Israelis (all statistics found on nationmaster.com see link below). We can even see this for ourselves in the news in the US there just seems to be an epidemic of violent crime and yet people still have this belief that they are safer in the US than they are traveling to Israel because Israel is “dangerous….did you see what they put on the news?”

 The latter part of this sentence is exactly why there is this heuristic bias towards Israel. If the only thing that is being shown about Israel in the news is information about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or Hamas/Hezbollah calling for the destruction of Israel, than the logical conclusion is that of course Israel is dangerous. The information that we take in impacts the way that we view the world.

The news is sensationalized, that’s a common knowledge. More people are likely to turn on the television or an article if there is something about it that is pulling them in. Having lived in the United States for the majority of my life I have known and tacitly been a part of this reality but never been impacted by it. Now that I live abroad however it is interesting for me to see what is being presented as my reality vs. what is actually my reality.

When the media presents what is happening in Israel they focus on what is news. So, what is presented as my reality is this … People burning tires in streets, protesters everywhere, the dense acrid smell of burning rubber hanging like a cloud over the city clouding the skyline and infecting everything, thousands of protesters carrying Palestinian flags shouting their rejection of the recognition of Jerusalem as the Israeli capital.

This is not my reality despite the fact that the media is displaying it as such. Most of the photos used to describe what is happening in Jerusalem are actually not from within Jerusalem at all. Many of them are from places within the Palestinian Authority, far from Jerusalem. To be perfectly honest my life has not been overtly impacted by the Presidents decision to recognize Jerusalem as the eternal capital of Israel and the Jewish people. The buses are continuing to run, schools are running on schedule, and for the most part things are functioning as they normally would. During the week and for Shabbat I was able to go everywhere I needed to go and I felt safe. I kept my wits about me, but that is necessary everywhere.

What has scared me the most is/was how terrified I felt like everyone at home was. It made me check up on the news more than I would have otherwise, despite the fact that I have alerts on my phone if there is a terrorist attack. I felt like I needed to be in the know so that I could do damage control. I could put out the fires that were being started because we don’t have a good idea of what it is like here. To everyone who has reached out to me, thank you, from the bottom of my heart. It means more to me than I can possibly describe knowing that people are back at home concerned for me and my well being. I am safe and will try to continue to be so. I know that I did the exact same thing when I lived in the States and heard news about what was going on in Israel. I have friends that live in Tel aviv and Jerusalem and during this time last year I was texting them every time I heard about something that had happened. Typically there response was something like this…”no that’s not near me, I’m okay.” or “I didn’t even know that happened. I’m okay. I’ll talk to you later thanks for checking in.”

People who live here understand that the outside world doesn’t know what it is like to live here. How despite the threat of terror life can continue relatively unfazed. It is hard to describe how normal my day truly is when what is being portrayed in the media is a reality which is far from normal. It makes any statement that I make seem defensive or ungrounded in reality. Which makes it hard to bridge the gap… because what is it really like?

It’s different for each person. I have friends who as soon as President Trump made his statement insisted that they come home out of fear that the situation here would escalate…these friends are still here a week later and are not looking for tickets home. I have friends who when this happened were very flippant about it and when the Palestinians declared “days of rage” following the announcement made statements about how this is nothing new and that they weren’t going to be intimidated by terror. There is a spectrum even within Israel of how people react but Jerusalem, my Jerusalem anyway, has not shut down, we do not live in fear and I still feel safer here walking the streets at night than I ever did in America.