"Are you Crazy?"

I heard that a lot from my American compatriots when I announced I was moving to Israel. Another common line was “Just don’t get on any busses!”  My husband-to-be (whom I will refer to as “Z”) assured me that life in Tel Aviv was not scary at all, and that I would in fact be very safe.  I was 24 years old with a bug for travel (and hearts in my eyes!) and found it very easy to believe him. 
So who had the more valid reaction? The Americans, or the native?

The  violent and the tragic fill our TV and computer screens from morning to night.  A typical American vision of Israel is of a chaotic place where rockets and busses explode. This is what they have seen on the news.  And though it may not be on a daily, or even monthly basis, such things have happened (and still do, depending on the location).

 How accurate was Z’s feeling of not being in danger? Could this be a sort of blindness from staring into the sun too long? Or did he just know that in Israel, serious measures had been put in place to protect him? When Z first visited Washington, D.C. he was nervous. He eyed the long lines of tourists crowding around the museums (with no security in sight) and thought, “this doesn’t look good.” When he found out civilians can carry guns, he was shocked. He actually felt safer in his home town of Tel Aviv.

But Tel Aviv is known as a bubble.  Once inside, the rest of the country’s troubles seem a million miles away (all the more odd considering Israel’s tiny size.)  I fell under this drowsy sort of outlook myself. While on a short trip to W.V. in December 2008, a war broke out between Israel and Gaza. Rockets were landing within 20 miles of Tel Aviv. My exasperated father pointed out that was like someone shooting missiles at us from Winchester, VA (a town we drove to every day for work.) I admitted that would be a scary situation. And yet I was not afraid to fly back to Tel Aviv. 

For me, it took some getting used to the sight of green-clad soldiers with rifles slung across their backs munching a falafel pita on the sidewalk or sitting sleepily on the bus.  And what a pain to have to open my bag every time I entered Dizengof Center Mall or the Mega Supermarket. But quickly, the oddity of this way of life faded as an acceptance set in that this was just the reality that kept things in check.  I took the bus to work every day and the most panic I felt was when a driver tried to explain a fare change to me in Hebrew.

My conclusion? No, Israel wasn’t as scary as my friends had imagined. The idea of the total war zone where one risks their life every day is no more accurate than the picture some conjured that I’d be living in the middle of the desert riding on a camel.

But their fears shouldn’t be discounted. The volatility of the region is never far from an Israeli’s mind, even as they get up and go to work, shop and make dinner.  And still I felt safer strolling in Tel Aviv than I do in D.C., where I’m much more likely to be mugged. There, I knew someone was looking out as if their life depended on it. 

Hailing from West Virginia, I should have known there is always more to a place than the stereotypes suggest. But after my foray in Israel, I sometimes wonder how much of my own ideas about the rest of the world are skewed?