I spent last weekend in Jerusalem with my friend Talya, who has been in town for the week. The bus ride there was pretty uneventful (fyi: inter-city buses are statistically much safer than intra-city buses) except that it took about two hours and I thought it would only take 1.5. Not the end of the world. So obviously the requisite Israeli soldier took a seat next to me about half way through the ride (there were several stops) and we talked a little about why I’m here, America, other small talk… Eventually I asked what he’d been doing in the southern part of the country since he’d said earlier that his base was in Jerusalem and he lived further north.

Conversation:

[Hebrew]

Ilana: So what were you doing in the south?

[English]

Soldier: I was at the funeral of one of my friends, the Arabish killed him.

[English]
Ilana: [pause, stare out window, mumble in English “that sucks” or something else that wasn’t really fitting]

[Hebrew]

Soldier: I didn’t understand.

[Hebrew]

Ilana: … I’m sorry.

[Hebrew]

Soldier: I appreciate that (he really looked like he did appreciate it).

Ilana: [smile and shrug, few seconds silence]

[English]

Ilana: It’s Arabs, by the way.

[English]

Soldier: What?

[English]

Ilana: The people, they’re not Arabish, they’re Arabs.

[Hebrew]

Soldier: Thanks, I need to fix my English.

[Hebrew]

Ilana: You should watch more TV.

We then launched into a conversation about his ambitions to be an actor and about how nice it is to be able to find kosher food in the supermarkets in Israel (I know, good stuff). He got off a few stops before me, and as he left, I sort of regretted how quickly I ended up changing the topic. It was the perfect opportunity to try to wade through one of the biggest gaps between Israeli and American society, but I’m still not sure where I could have gone from there. I feel like something slipped away from me but I’m not sure why.