One Day I Cried

I wanted to write another one, this time a dedicated post about what I feel about circumcision, but even after reading this incredible article, I know we'll have to do it. I've talked to people at work, some of them had to do it later in life, whether for medical reasons or because at the age of 27, they were sick of being called Russell. I understand why some people think it's a horrible thing. I understand it all. But at least after talking to other people I know I'm not doing it for some random religious idea, but because I've come to believe it's the right thing to do for Jr.

And if he comes later in life to resent the choices I've made for him, and if later in life he comes to see this as the first of many betrayals, then all I can do is apologize in advance and reiterate my promise to always do what I think is right for him. There's no manual to life but the worst you can do is fail, which isn't a big deal, after all. Now, parenting--that's a different issue. He will trust me to take care of him, to guide him, to teach him, to love him, and to know him as the individual he will become, and failure is not an option.

So with that, I thought it was the right time to reprint this essay I wrote a few years ago. If you've read this far then I know you'll enjoy it because I used to be a better writer then.

One Day I Cried


One day I was playing with a girl from my class. Her name was Meital, and I liked her. This piece is not about her. It's also not about her father, who grabbed me by my ten-year-old neck and lifted me up, moved me around, carried me an inch off the wall, warned me never to come near Meital again, and dropped me on the ground. The piece is about my father, who ten minutes later told Meital's father that if he ever came near me again he would kill him. Meital's father started explaining what had happened, but my father told him to shut up, and that the conversation was over.

It's the same guy who laughed when I burnt my finger and screamed when I was four-years-old. I'm still scared of fire. The same guy that embarrassed me for years because he insisted on wearing a stupid furry hat when he started going bald. The other kids used to call me "The Russian." The same guy who told me every night to brush my teeth, until one night I asked him to say "Good night" once in a while instead of "Brush your teeth," and he smiled and said, "Good night." Then, when I walked to my bedroom, he shouted, "And brush your teeth," and laughed.

One day, in the car, he told me a story. A fairy tale, perhaps. A young Prince was having a ball in the palace. While he was standing by the door, welcoming his guests, he accidentally farted. Yes, farted. Everyone started whispering: "Did you hear that? Who...? You think...?" After all, the future of the country was at stake. Suddenly, a poor young woman, one of the Prince's maids, approached the group of distinguished guests, lifted her head, and said, "I was the one who farted. It was I." Naturally, the Prince was so moved by this gesture, that he married the woman the next day, and they lived happily ever after.

In my father's tale, the Prince married the maid because she said she farted. I mean, this guy doesn't make any sense.

One day we were watching television, and he said the conductor in a weekend talk-show orchestra used to be with him in the army. Then, every Friday, the family would sit in front of the television at 8 pm, and every time David Kriboshe's face appeared on the screen, my father would say he was with him in the army. I thought it was sad that people saw themselves in the context of others, and I thought I wouldn't be like my father when I grew up. I would be somebody. I would be the reference point.

When I'm a father, I thought, I would hug my son every night and tell him how much I loved him; and I would never hit him; and I wouldn't spend family meals alone in front of the television; and I would always know how old my son was, and who his teachers were; and I would never wear silly hats to embarrass him; and I would set a good example.

And one day I got home from the army and cried because my friend died from a landmine in Lebanon. My father took the backpack off my shoulder, put it away in my room, and asked me to follow him to the car. We drove to Jaffa and sat on a bench in the old city, overlooking the peaceful skyline of Tel Aviv. We sat there, and I cried, and he hugged me and cried, too, because his son was suffering, and he couldn't handle this first experience of watching his son carrying so much pain. And I realized nothing was his fault, because he didn't know better; because there was probably a moral in that story, and she was now a princess; and he was just worried about my teeth, because the dentist took away his when he was twenty; and I could see the helplessness in his sad eyes, and I realized he was crying in my arms just like I was crying in his.

More Army Stories 1991-1994

We emptied out his aftershave and peed inside the bottle. I took this photo a second before he realized what was going on.

Honey wishes I still looked like that. I think when I shave my head she still sees that person. Suspended disbelief I think they call it. I should shave my head more often.

My parents came to visit me one Saturday in the desert. It may have been the first time my father drove on a Sabbath. There wasn’t much to say, and if there was, we didn’t know how to say it. My enthusiasm for the army was gone by then, and I still had two and a half more years to go and two funerals to attend.

My First Cigarette

On a routine patrol in Lebanon, a friend of mine stepped on a Hezbollah landmine and died along with five other soldiers. Two weeks later we were sent to that same spot to prove the IDF could not be deterred. My transformation into an outsider with no trust in authority began during that briefing.

But I went into Lebanon like I was told to do, and walked around the beautiful land filled with unexploded landmines from a thousand years of war. Lost in my thoughts, I walked in a straight line, trampling over fences and crop on my way to nowhere.

Then I felt my right leg stuck. My left leg was free but a tight wire was stretched over my right leg and I suddenly realized I was going to die. To this day I’m not sure if there was any way for me to stop or if I just let myself continue because after two years in the army I just didn’t care anymore. So I pulled my right leg up and waited for the end.

Back in the camp, I lay on my bed and thought about it all, or maybe I wasn’t thinking at all. A new guy came over and asked me about the patrol. He offered me a Marlboro Red.

My Army Service in the West Bank

During a patrol in Nablus, three of us were walking in a narrow alley when two large bricks suddenly dropped from the roof. One brick hit my foot. We quickly took cover and scanned the area. The first thing I noticed was the empty vegetable stand. The friendly, old vendor wasn’t there; he must have been warned, I thought. When we finally walked out, the old man slowly turned the corner and greeted us as he usually did. I slapped him in the face. No one said a word; it was as if it had been the natural thing to do, to randomly slap an old man in the face.

At other times, we would be told to search for wanted Palestinians. We were never told what they were accused of, and I suspect most of them knew even less. We were just given maps of the city and told to arrest individuals in specific addresses, usually about twenty a day. We blindfolded them, put them in handcuffs, and pushed them into a waiting van, where we would kick them in the stomach.

We were told this was nothing compared to the good old days, before the world media started covering the Intifada. In the good old days soldiers used to make Palestinians sing “My Golani,” the army brigade’s anthem. Soldiers used to paint Palestinians’ donkeys in green and yellow, the brigade’s colors. The good old days were a free-for-all of torture, theft, and humiliation.

We used to open doors to random houses and do a search. This meant putting everyone in one room with one soldier guarding the family with a gun aimed at their heads, with young children crying, grandparents pleading, mothers holding them tightly, and fathers sitting defiant to maintain what was left of their pride. The rest of us walked room by room, opening drawers and throwing their contents on the floor, emptying closets, throwing antique lamps on the walls and breaking them, stepping on beddings with muddy shoes and complaining about the smell. In one drawer I found a letter an eighteen year-old Palestinian wrote to a pen pal in Denmark. He wrote about his wish that one day the violence would end and a Palestinian State would rise alongside Israel. I thought he was trying to fool her into coming to visit him so he could use her to transfer explosives into Israeli cities.

One time we were walking in the middle of the road when a car turned a corner and immediately stopped. When we reached the car and moved to the side, one of us remained in the center of the road and simply climbed the hood of the car with his gun aimed at the driver’s face. He continued walking up to the roof, then back down, when the driver rolled the window down and asked in Hebrew, “What the hell are you doing?” Apparently this was a secret elite unit of soldiers who were dressed like Palestinians, infiltrating the city to find out information about attacks. “Oh,” said my friend, “I thought you were Arabs.” Everyone laughed.

Sometimes in Nablus I used to shoot pigeons out of boredom. Others shot mosque speakers.

The only Arabic phrases I know after three years of service in Nablus and in Gaza are “Open the door,” “Turn the car off,” “Give me your papers,” and “Stop or I’ll shoot.”