Odysseys in a Parallel Universe 2-2

A few days later, my flight landed in Israel + I was back at Lod, the same airport I’d waited for my friend for so long just 2 Christmases before.

I also revisited the Tel Aviv Youth Hostel where I’d awakened the chickens in the middle of the night.After all, it had become a touchstone in my pilgrim journey, a monument worthy of proper remembrance.

But the next morning, I began my ascent up the Judean Hills towards Jerusalem: only 61 kms, but it had taken years to bridge what seemed to have become a chasm.

I picked up my pack, took the bus down Haifa Road and got off at the intersection to Jerusalem.

Back then I hitchhiked basically everywhere I went; it was great way to meet the locals, open up new relationships and… it was cheap!

But hitching didn’t start out too promising for me in Israel that morning!?

A guy on the bus had warned me: ‘Most people are too selfish here!’ but I thought I’d try and for ½ an hour, I fought off what seemed to be the entire Israeli army in a hitching war. However, these soldiers were on their home turf and won every battle. Every car that stopped opened its door for the soldiers and, invariably, each time I remained behind.

Finally an old beat-up pickup pulled over and even waited for me to run up and get in!

It was a small cab with a worn bench seat and a gear shift in the middle. They don’t make them like that anymore!

Turned out there was another ‘auto-stopper’ (that’s what they called hitch-hikers on the other side of the ocean!) already in the cab, and he slid over to the centre, up against the gear shift, so I could wedge my way in.

He didn’t look very Jewish: with blue-eyes and long blond hair poking out from under an Arab headdress, he looked more like a surfer than an Israeli.  And sure enough, he was from California!

He looked different and his name was different too: Ferdie.

‘Not Freddie?’

‘No… I’m Ferdie,’ he made it very clear, but in a disarming kind of way. He’d already been in Israel for 8 months, was working at a hostel in Ein Gedi down on the Dead Sea, and was learning Hebrew at the same time.

Right away I could tell Ferdie was intense. As it turned out, he was my John the Baptist introduction that day.

Our driver was older. He spoke no English, only German and Hebrew, or Evrite. Nor did he speak a lot either.

He was concentrating on shifting the manual stick gear shift so we wouldn’t stall on the steep upgrade.

But he was friendly.

I knew no Hebrew, but recalled some German, and I figured out his basic story quite quickly: he had spent the WWII years in concentration camps in Germany.  And that fact alone spoke volumes.

Israel is like that: when you least expect it, it surprises you with a life, a story beyond comprehension!

I had waited so long for this ride, and now here I was, in an antique pickup, squeezed together with a California surfer-dude and a Holocaust survivor, heading up through the hills toward Jerusalem. I didn’t miss the irony.

It didn’t take too long till we’d worked out a system for communication either:

Ferdie + I both spoke English, so we understood each other.

But when the driver wanted to speak, he’d speak in Hebrew, and Ferdie, in the middle, would translate for me in English. However, sometimes Ferdie couldn’t understand the driver’s Hebrew, so then the driver would try it again in German and I would relay whatever I understood back to Ferdie.

Ferdie + I in English, Ferdie + the driver in Hebrew, the driver + I in my broken German: together we somehow got our messages to one another!

The driver was very proud of Israel and became our history tour guide, pointing out the various battlegrounds and victories along the route: bombed-out buildings, abandoned tanks, wrecked army trucks. He wanted to fill us in on all the battle details, but what our language system lacked in conveying details, Ferdie + I made up the difference by just nodding our heads in astonished agreement! There’s more to communication than just words.

We’d driven along like this for about ¾ of an hour, when I noticed the terrain and building-types were changing.

We were getting closer to the city. 

I’d originally intended to walk all the way up to Jerusalem, but decided rather to hitch as closely as I could to within 5 kms or so, and then walk in from there. After all, this was The Holy City! And even its conquerors had paid their respect in the same manner. General Allenby actually dismounted his horse when he took Jerusalem from the Ottomans in WWI! If great men had felt this and done so, this was also the least I could do! 

Thinking I didn’t have much time before we’d be there, I explained my desire to Ferdie and asked him to convey this to the driver. Ferdie understood immediately: one of only a few to whom I didn’t have to explain all the Why?s.

In turn, he translated my request to the driver, but he still thought in his German practical way and could not understand why I wouldn’t want him to drive me all the way into the city. This was more than a language difference.

But I insisted: ‘im rege’=’‘on foot’ in Evrite, stuck with it and finally, after repeating it several times, he relented. He agreed to drop me off just before we actually entered Jerusalem.

Meanwhile, Ferdie told me he was out of shekels, so I offered to lend him some. We agreed he could pay me back when I visited Ein Gedi. I don’t think I’d ever before agreed so quickly to lend money to a stranger; but here I was a pilgrim, on my way to Jerusalem, right? + he was a needy,  apparently sincere person… and so I did.

But I made sure I told him to do the same for somebody else someday.

It didn’t take long then and new, city-looking apartment houses began appearing.

I reminded the driver I wanted to stop and walk.

He pulled over, I got out, and with a shaky ‘todaraba’, adjusted my packsack and headed in what I thought was Jerusalem’s direction. I was excited but also apprehensive about my next turn being my 1^st glimpse of the Holy City, with my mind’s picture of a golden dome shining brightly in the sun!

And I couldn’t have asked for a more brilliant day; not a cloud in the sky!

But I hadn’t gone very far at all, just turned the first corner in fact…

and there stood Ferdie by the road, waiting for me!

It was like meeting an old friend welcoming me home!

He walked back towards me and we walked toward the city together.

A short ways further and we parted again; he’d just wanted to be sure I had my directions right. He headed north to the new city + I towards the south, from where I hoped to gain an unobstructed view of the Old..

But my pack was getting very heavy!

Up and down… more and more hills; this pilgrim literally wanted to lay his burden down.

I hadn’t realized how many hills Jerusalem was built on!

But I was getting closer. So much changed as I moved ahead: the buildings looked older, people dressed different. They exuded a confidence that their city was no ordinary city, but one with history, character, culture, purpose, strength, identity, – a timeless city that had withstood men’s ravagings over millennia and would somehow withstand every future challenge!

After all, every opposition had come and gone, but Jerusalem was still here!

And suddenly, I saw a part of its wall, just like in the pictures, gleaming off in the distance.

And then a gate – Jaffa Gate!

And in a few more minutes, I was walking right through it!

My legs seemed to walk on their own; my eyes swam this way and that, trying to take everything in.

My hands clasped together tightly and then suddenly collapsed loosely at my side.

My mind racing and heart overcome, I entered Jerusalem almost unconsciously, absorbed and caught up with both the Big Picture and the details… all at once!

And I liked it and drank in its life!

At first impression, the people seemed easy-going; even the Arab merchants didn’t hassle me as in North Africa.

The city was mellow- mellow yellow, like its golden, cream-coloured sandstone walls, and it felt good..., like home!