The Day I Grew a Second Head

I moved to a small city in east Texas last year and, for the first time in my life, I found myself living in an area with a miniscule Jewish population. There must be some other Jews in the area because one local market does have a kosher/Israeli food section very similar to what I found in supermarkets in the Raleigh, NC area where I lived before. On the other hand, the nearest shul is more than 40 miles away.

As Pesach approached I expected that the market that had a kosher foods section would have foods which were kosher for Passover as well. Less than a week before Pesach there still wasn't anything there so I decided to ask and see if maybe they were just late in arriving. When I talked to the help and the manager and asked about "Passover foods" they looked at me like I had grown a second head. I was asked "What's that?" or even "What's Passover?" Special foods? Nope, not that they knew of.

There is a huge market about 20 miles away that is in the outermost suburbs of Houston. They have a somewhat larger kosher/Jewish foods section there including frozen foods. Surely they would have what I needed. No such luck. Once again, the looks I got as I explained what I meant would be appropriate if a two headed space alien had walked into the market. The next day a coworker suggested I try another large market in the town with the shul. That made sense. Sadly, the results were exactly the same as I had experienced at the two previous markets I tried.

There is a significant Jewish community down in Houston. Looking up where the Jewish community is online and where I'd likely find the selection of kosher foods I wanted revealed that it would be 80 miles each way to get to that part of the city. I decided to check the College Station/Bryan area which is closer to where I live. It turns out there is a Chabad there and they recommended two markets. Sure enough, I found a very nice selection of Passover foods only 50 miles from home.

I went back to the first market mainly for fresh produce a couple of days before Pesach started. Their little Jewish foods section was picked clean. The matzo that was clearly labeled "Not for Passover use" was gone, as was the gefilte fish and pretty much anything else that resembled food for the holiday. Clearly if the had brought in Passover food it would have sold well. It was also clear that what Jewish community we have is probably not religious and was willing to make do with anything that resembled what would be found on a seder table.

Anywhere else I've lived, from Raleigh to Green Bay to Florida to New York, asking those questions would have resulted in someone pointing me to the correct aisle or, at the very least, a "no, sorry" followed by a suggestion about which market would have what I was looking for.

Despite the very nice pay rate that came with the contract work here I've come to the conclusion that moving to east Texas was a mistake. Culturally I feel like a fish out of water here. Identifying myself as a somewhat traditional, somewhat observant Jew shouldn't have generated the kind of reactions I got when I went shopping that day. We tend to believe that Jewish people are accepted and welcome in the United States. My experiences served as a stark reminder that, once you go away from the cities with large Jewish populations, we are still seen as strange and somehow alien in America.

Palestinian Mythology: "Arab East Jerusalem"

With Jerusalem Day tomorrow I thought it was time to debunk the most commonly repeated bit of Palestinian mythology. The idea the eastern Jerusalem is an Arab city, or that Jerusalem as a whole was ever truly an Arab city, is a lie that has been repeated so many times that most of the world seems to believe it. Straight faced reporters on major networks all over the world will speak of "Arab East Jerusalem" as if it is an undisputed fact of history and of present circumstances. It isn't.

During Ottoman rule, from the late 15th through the early 20th century, Jerusalem had either a Jewish plurality or an outright Jewish majority. In 1854 Karl Marx was a reporter for the New York Daily Tribune. His article of 15 April 1854 reported the population as follows:...the sedentary population of Jerusalem numbers about 15,500 souls, of whom 4,000 are Mussulmans [Muslims] and 8,000 Jews.At the time Jerusalem was little more than the old, walled city. Jewish settlement outside the walls wasn't permitted by the Ottoman rulers until 1865. The entire Jewish population was in the old city. If we judge east and west from the 1949 armistice line (pre-1967 borders) then the entire Jewish population was in what is now referred to as "Arab East Jerusalem".

What made east Jerusalem Arab? 19 years of illegal Jordanian occupation ending in 1967. In 1948 when Jordan captured the old, walled city they destroyed 58 synagogues. 58! I somehow don't think Arabs were worshiping in those synagogues. Yep, in 1948 there were still lots of Jews in "Arab East Jerusalem".

Here is a description of how Jerusalem was divided until the Six Day War written by former Israeli President Chaim Herzog in his 1982 book The Arab-Israeli Wars:...Jerusalem had been divided between two warring elements: barbed wire in profusion, fortifications, trenches and battlements cut through the city...

Mount Scopus [was] an Israeli enclave on the site of Hebrew University and Hadassah Hospital; it had been completely surrounded in 1948, but held out against all Arab attacks. The second enclave was Government House, which had been the residence of the British High Commissioner of Palestine...So... there were Israeli and U.N. enclaves surrounded by Jordanian held territory in "Arab East Jerusalem" rather than a clean east-west, Jewish-Arab devision. Does this sound like workable, defensible borders as envisioned in UN Resolution 242? Not to me, it doesn't.

Yes, the majority of the eastern part of the city today is Arab. That's true, in part, because Jerusalem has grown and swallowed up several Arab villages and, in part, through natural population growth in the Arab community. There are also a number of Jewish neighborhoods in the eastern part of the city.

It may be possible, someday, after a period of peace, to separate Arab areas that aren't part of the historical city and place them under Arab rule. Right now, though, I don't see this is practical. I do not support dividing the city again and I do not accept the idea that any part of Jerusalem is intrinsically Arab and must be ceded.

If you, like I, support keeping Jerusalem united you may wish to visit OneJerusalem.org. Tomorrow is the 40th anniversary of the reunification of Jerusalem. To me, that is something to celebrate and cherish.

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