Negativity in the holy city

I felt that it was a mistake to go downtown last Thursday, specifically to Shuk Maḥane Yehudah, but then again that was the day to go. It was the day before Sukkot started, and I needed to buy the "four species" that I would be needing for the holiday (well, three species actually ― dekel, hadassim, and etrog ― since it would have been foolhearty to buy aravot on Thursday afternoon for use on Sunday morning). And so did everyone else.

This certainly wasn't the only place to buy them, and this wasn't the only day, but as far as Jerusalem's population was concerned, it was probably the biggest on both counts.

"The atmosphere of the shuk." That's how my synagogue back in America, in 2001, described the sale of "four species" and decorations for the sukkah that would be taking place in the lobby, as a fundraiser for the youth group or something or other. (It was that year that I learned, slowly, that even though Orthodox seminary girls can be outgoing and chatty when selling you a poster for your sukkah, they don't like being flirted with in public under normal circumstances.)

"The atmosphere of the shuk." I don't know what the person was thinking who inserted that phrase in the advertisement for this special evening. They probably were not suggesting that there would be the atmosphere that I witnessed this past Thursday.

As for the actual atmosphere of the shuk, I don't get it. I mean: I do, but I don't want to. The coarse yelling, the bargaining, the aggressive children and teenagers who aren't professional salesmen, but who are doing this gig once a year as a moneymaker. There's such an atmosphere of competition in the air, you'd think we were at a sports bar. Why does anybody think this is the way it's supposed to be?

And yet I know I'm in the minority. I moved to Israel out of idealism about living in Israel, not out of idealism about living among Israelis. Most of the time I get by just fine, and my skin has grown a few inches thicker since I made aliyah in 2003, but sometimes the madness of it all just overcomes me.

I picked out my purchases and got exactly what I wanted, for a good price, without being a drain on the energy of the various salesmen involved. (There were no women on the job. See also: drivers, bus and taxi.) I didn't haggle for a better price, which was unexpected.

I could have been fine with all that, but what got me down particularly last week was the sense that there were substantially more beggars on the street. I used to be able to pinpoint the 10-12 consistent beggars on Jerusalem's main public spaces. Now they are so many more, just coming out of the woodwork. You couldn't stop on the street to look at something that caught your eye without being greeted with a "Shanah Tovah", which was nothing more than the perfunctorily greeting to draw your attention to their outstretched hand. (This, on the other hand, is an equal-opportunity occupation.)

Are these people in bad shape? I'm sure they are.

Do I give tsedakah? Yes, I do.

Do I know how to face every one of them with the response they deserve? No, I don't. It's just too much to face, and it seems to be growing.

Today, a week later, on the way to my job via the shuk, I was hit up again so many times. Buy something in a store and suddenly another customer appears at the counter, open change purse in hand, held up to me with no explanation. On the way down the street, a guy looking about 17 strolls over and asks me if I have any tsedakah for food. At the bus stop, a well-fed woman, sitting with her husband on the bench waiting for the bus, casually glances back at me asks me if I have any terumah to offer.

So I spend my day brokenhearted at what seems to be going on: the economic crisis of last year has left so many people underemployed that they've become that desperate.

That, and possibly also that the level of shame in begging has dropped to the point that the benefits to be gained outweigh it.

Is it a coincidence that the number of cheap-junk stores (i.e. the equivalent of dollar stores) seems to be growing?

I am amateurishly going to make a stab at the observation that Jerusalem needs more industry, something that would give a lot of jobs to a lot of people. Something that fits the prices of homes, for example. I'm also going to take a stab at the observation that a lot of the population is living on kollel stipends, and that that paradigm is simply not going to hold itself up since it, too, depends so much on charity-giving and the wide availability of cheap junk.

I made resolution to myself last Thursday to figure out some of this challenge and to try to overcome it. If I'm going to continue to live in the holy city, which is the plan, I've got to make sure not to be sucked into the downward spiral that so many apparently have.

your name, your brand, your future shame

Wikipedia registration offers this grim warning:

You should strongly consider choosing a username that is not connected to you. All edits to the encyclopedia are permanently recorded and publicly visible in the history of any page that you edit, as well as on discussion pages. If you use your real name or a username that you go by elsewhere, people seeking information about you online may see your username and others' comments on your editing. If your editing happens to cause concern, there may be discussion linked to your username.

Frightened enough? Why stop there? By extension, the whole internet could be viewed as a giant Repository of Potential Future Embarrassment. You don't need to be a resigning state governor or a well-known, yet shunned author to know that a Twitter rampage is not the ephemeral moment of relief that it feels like.

You may not be able to delete those blog comments you left while under the influence, so Google Alerts will always remind you of that special moment. And if you think your "25 Things" note on Facebook is a wee bit embarrassing now, keep in mind that the Wayback Machine will preserve it for all of your future employers, your descendants, and all of their potential spouses and employers, for the rest of the life of the internet. (Actually, I don't know if that's true. At the time of this writing, Facebook still doesn't allow access to most of the content of your account to people outside your friends or your region. But I have heard talk that Facebook will be removing that "walled garden" paradigm someday. And Facebook already has a long memory. Don't expect it to hide the old stuff, just because it was better guarded in the past.)

I've started a few blogs since moving to Israel, but under various noms de plume that allowed me some plausible deniability. As a result, I spent so much time and effort trying to mask my identity and that of everyone I wrote about, the places I had lived, and the careers of my family members, that I abandoned them.

Obviously, that's not going to work here. This is my real (albeit Israelified) name. The name of my other blog is also my Twitter handle, my Google profile, and Facebook URL.

In other words, once I've goofed up, written a passage of substandard prose, it's done. I'm handing a loaded gun to all my future prospective employers, partners, and clients. I haven't even published this post yet, and I can already feel the eyes of my unborn children, mortified with embarrassment.

So, (he said, as if reaching a conclusion) I've decided that the only remedy is to go with it, concentrating on the journey rather than the destination, on the process rather than the product. Maybe the good posts will dilute the stinkers.

What about my personal brand and the shame of my progeny? Not to worry. My Wikipedia editor name will never, ever be associated with all this.