Neighbors

by Nissan Ratzlav-Katz

The professor had gently urged his students to speak openly about what motivated them to sign up for his course on the Arab-Israeli conflict. Several had already spoken. Some were Arab students from the Gulf states, some were American Jews, some were immigrants to the United States from Iran, and some were even Americans of far more vintage stock.

"I watched the first tower come down. Then I fell down, also. I literally lost the ability to stand. I sat straight down on the floor in front of the television," an Israeli student, David Yitzhaki, told the class of about fifteen people. "That's when I understood," he continued, "the threat we were facing in Israel was the same that the rest of the world is facing today."

Even before he finished speaking, the classroom nearly exploded with vocal, and mostly very incensed, reactions. These were followed instantly by loud and forceful replies. And back again.

The professor leading the course, "Neighborly Relations: The Palestine Conflict", tried desperately to regain order. He banged on the table at the front of the room, trying to get someone's - anyone's - attention. It wasn't working.

This was meant to be a civil, intellectual discourse, with open exchange in a classroom environment, on the Arab-Israeli conflict. As an expatriate Jordanian, Professor Nazim Malik should have known better. "What an idiot I am," he thought to himself, shaking his head in exhaustion.

Because he was originally from an Arab state, yet also a member of the ethnic Circassian minority in that state, Malik was seen as a fairly neutral arbiter by his students. Although, truth be told, his Jewish students were more likely to credit him with neutrality; after all, ethnic minorities were still quite suspect in Arab states. But what the label "neutral" meant in practice was that students from either side of the issue were able to drag out his name in support of their particular point of view, while saying "even Professor Malik says...."

What it meant at the moment was that everyone was ignoring him.

The cacophony had reached a level that Malik started to call names in order to get a little quiet. At least on the written page, the Hebrew, Arabic and English names sat peacefully and quite silently next to one another. Hashim next to Rivka and Jeff. Ahmed below Jonathan, but above Erez. David next to Ayat and Fares, who was in turn next to Mark, Kimberly and Georges. It looked so nice on paper.

As students heard names being called, they suddenly remembered that there was, after all, a professor in the room. Despite his frustration, Malik didn't allow himself to show anything but a smile. And the smile wasn't entirely for show, either, as he genuinely enjoyed watching young minds in combat.

When the students learned - with his help, Malik thought - to muster evidence and formulate intellectually rigorous arguments, the debates among the students appeared to him as elegant as a finely choreographed Tai Chi exhibition. But this? This was World Wrestling Federation stuff - all bluster and no substance.

"Look," he finally said when there was silence in the room, "this is just our second session. Let's leave the debates until later in the course, okay?"

Then it was Hashim Shak'a's turn to speak.

"I am a Muslim, a Palestinian raised in Kuwait," he said, with an ever-so-slight accent, "and, as such, I have a built-in interest in this course." Then, turning in his seat to face David, who was behind him, he said, "And let me tell you about my experience of 9/11."

Hashim turned forward, looked at the professor, and continued, "On September 11, 2001, I was visiting family in Jenin. Now, I wasn't allowed to leave Jenin that day, because if I did, the Israeli soldiers imposing their 'hermetical' closure would've shot me. So, you'll forgive me if, for me, on that day, I felt more threatened by Jewish soldiers than Muslim ones."

Once again, the class erupted in comments, denunciations, cross-talk and finger-pointing.

Professor Malik mumbled to himself under his breath.

--*--*--*--*--

After a few more stormy introductory lessons - on the history of the region and its peoples - the class spent three sessions looking at Arab foreign policy and how it affected the "Neighbors" in question. David was not surprised to hear what most of the Arab and Muslim students had to say. Israel, for them, was responsible for everything that was not right in the Middle East, from Islamist internal terrorism to totalitarian dictatorships to repression of women.

During one class, the paranoia reached new heights when Hashim Shak'a stood up and loudly proclaimed that the blue stripes on the Israeli flag represent the Nile in Egypt and the Euphrates in Iraq, with the Jewish star in the center ruling over all of the Middle East.

"That is not true, Hashim," Professor Malik corrected him, "But let's stay away from polemics."

After the class, David even approached Hashim and explained to him that the blue stripes come from the thread that was traditionally tied onto the talit, the Jewish prayer shawl. To no avail, of course. David heard from a fellow student that Shak'a repeated the same Nile-Euphrates story in another class just two weeks later.

It was non-stop. It was purposeful. And it was relentless. Israel. Israel. The Zionists. Israel. Again and again.

Then there was Mahmoud Ghafour.

Generally, the guys from the Arabian peninsula - Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, etc. - came to the United States to let loose socially and religiously for four years. They partook of drugs, girls and alcohol, flashed around a lot of cash, and made a concerted effort to help each other slide through classes. Afterward, they generally returned to their conservative Islamic states with a framed document testifying to their having spent some time at a quality North American institution. With that in hand, they went on to join one family-run company or another created from oil profits.

They were not expected to behave like American students and become "activists" at the slightest provocation. And certainly not for the sake of any cause that would shed a negative light on their home countries.

But Ghafour was different. He didn't seem to know the unwritten rules. Or maybe he didn't care. Either way, his comments in the "Neighbors" class were enlightening, even for an Israeli like David Yitzhaki.

The young Saudi pointed out the failure of his home regime to allow even minority Muslim sects a voice; he criticized the Gulf states' contributions of funds to international terrorist organizations, even as they spoke out vehemently against domestic terrorists; he viciously attacked the repeated Saudi fear of public criticism over their disaster-ridden management of the Muslim pilgrimages to Mecca and Medina.

Ghafour also had a thought or two about the Saudi hypocrisy on Israel. He claimed that even as the Saudi leadership talked the talk - even publishing viciously anti-Semitic blood libels in major newspapers and encouraging Jew-hatred in the mosques - they found ways to do business with the Israelis. They ignored the Arab boycott when it suited them, he claimed, for motivations as base as the desire to stay at a particularly luxurious Swiss hotel, even if it was supposedly owned and operated by the Israeli Mossad.

These comments made most of his fellow Arab students, or at least those from the Gulf, quite uncomfortable. Sometimes, they tried to contradict what he said, but mostly they kept quiet. They knew exactly how much of what he said was true. But truth was not of paramount importance.

"You have to stop bashing Arab states," David overheard Hashim Shak'a lecturing Ghafour after one particularly intense class. "You are hurting your own people."

Mahmoud, Hashim and a third Arab student named Ahmed Tawfik were talking quietly in Arabic, but David caught enough of it to understand the gist of the conversation.

"I tell the truth," Ghafour countered.

"Truth?" Shak'a retorted angrily, "Truth is that our Arab people are dying thanks to Jews and Americans, and you are telling me - and more importantly, them," he gesticulated at the near-empty classroom, "about some minor infractions at home?"

"What has one to do with the other?" Ghafour insisted.

The physically small, but forceful, Shak'a looked Ghafour in the eye, and slowly said, "You are losing focus. You are serving the interests of the Zionists by drawing attention away from their massacres of our brothers, and toward Arab foibles. Some may think," he paused, "that you were doing it on purpose."

Tawfik latched his eyes onto Mahmoud's, with a hint of an impatient smile.

Ghafour looked down at his desk and went silent. He finished packing up his books and, without another word, walked out the door in long, brisk strides. Shak'a and his companion followed close behind at a more leisurely pace.

David remained seated a few rows back. It took him a moment to absorb what he had just witnessed.

And it wasn't over yet.

The following week, as Yitzhaki made his way into the building where the "Neighbors" seminar was held, he spotted Mahmoud Ghafour, Hashim Shak'a and Ahmed Tawfik. They reached the door simultaneously. David reached out and held the door for his classmates, smiled and theatrically waved them inside. They hesitated.

Then, Ghafour suddenly turned to David and said, in a voice loud enough so that everyone nearby could hear, "Listen, David. I am not a Zionist."

"Okay," David said haltingly, unsure what to make of this more-or-less obvious statement.

"Just because I say some things critical of my country doesn't mean I like Israel, or that I'm a Zionist," Ghafour elaborated.

"Okay," David repeated helplessly, still perplexed. His brow furrowed trying to think of a more intelligent retort.

"That's it," Ghafour said abruptly, glanced at Hashim and stepped through the door, which David was still holding open. Hashim and the other student followed right behind.

Yitzhaki was momentarily confused, but guessed that Mahmoud was hoping to prevent any pro-Israel students from getting too friendly with him. Or maybe it was shame. Maybe what Hashim told him last week made Ghafour honestly uncomfortable with how much he was talking about the Arab regimes. Or maybe making a public statement to a Jew about his anti-Israel credentials was a way for Mahmoud to ward off Hashim's implied threat from the week before.

Whatever the significance of his declaration to Yitzhaki, Ghafour didn't have many further insights on the Arab world after that.

On the other hand, Ghafour's last lesson was perhaps the most instructive of all.

Elijah the Prophet

by Nissan Ratzlav-Katz

You won't believe this story, but I'll tell you anyway.

You know how, when someone turns up at just the right moment to help someone else in some way and then disappears from their lives, people say that "it must have been Elijah the prophet"? I don't know if people really believe it when they say it, but when I say it - at least in one case - I mean it very literally. I don't believe it in an abstract way, I know it.

I am as sure of this as I am of my own name, Moshe Benyamini. And I am as skeptical as they come.

The day I met Elijah the prophet was utterly normal until the car crash. I got up. I went to the synagogue. I grabbed a coffee for the ride to my job in Jerusalem, and I dashed out the door.

As I recall, the ride to work was uneventful. My day went by pretty slowly, I think, but it's hard to remember the details from that morning eight months ago. I do recall that I was excited to get home that day, since it was my wife's birthday and I was going to take her and our son Gavriel out for a fancy dinner at this nice little Indian place I knew. I ended up giving her a birthday she wouldn't forget, all right, but it was far from what I had in mind that morning.

Anyway, after about seven hours of pecking at my keyboard and trying to make our company's brilliant medical imaging software stop crashing, I finally decided I had enough. It was a little early to leave, since we had the RSNA convention coming up, but ours is a pretty laid back company. People come and go as they like, work from home or the office, day or night - just as long as the work gets done and the boss is happy. It also helps that she's out of the country most of the time.

I downloaded some of my work that I hoped to continue with at home onto a flash drive attached to a keychain, dropped it in my pocket and headed out the door. I don't think anyone saw me leave, since they were really absorbed in their own projects. And I didn't want to interrupt them or get caught up in any long conversations.

On the way down from our fifth-floor offices, I clearly remember looking out the windows near the elevator at the darkening sky and thinking that it was probably going to rain on my way home. I was right, of course.

My car, a little Toyota minivan, was in the regular company spot. As I reached for my keys, I remembered that I wanted to pick up some flowers for Yulia's birthday. You know, to start the evening off right. There was a little flower shop just inside the front doors of the lobby, so I ran back inside the building.

I really have no clue about flowers. I let the lady behind the counter - Yoelle, I think her name was - pick out the flowers and design a bouquet. She seems to have a real knack for it. She's got a Feng Shui thing going or something.

With the flowers in hand, I ran back to the car, placed them carefully in the back - in Gabi's car seat - jumped behind the wheel and peeled out of the parking garage. I quickly made my way past all the high-tech offices in what is still called, for some inexplicable reason, an "industrial zone" and onto the highway.

Our home is in the small community of Nofar, just on the other side of what people refer to as the "Green Line". We are close to territory under the control of the Palestinian Authority and there are a few Arab villages that dot our area. To get home, we have to pass by some of them, but there has never been too much trouble. Unless you count rock-throwing and the occasional Molotov cocktail as trouble. In truth, people can adapt to anything. You just learn when to pass through and when not, when to travel in groups and when it's safe to drive on your own.

The road itself is not the best. It is kind of old and winding, with potholes and hairpin turns overlooking the deep ravines of the Judean desert. Guardrails are a distant memory. They were long ago stolen for scrap metal.

It was raining a bit by the time I left Jerusalem's city limits and got onto the road heading east. I was thinking about dinner and wondering if Yulia would want to rent a movie for after Gabi was tucked into bed. We hadn't seen a movie in years, or so it seemed, ever since Gabi was born and we moved out to Nofar from Modiin, where my parents live.

I was trying to remember the name of a movie - any movie - from the last three years when the rain started coming down harder. But I was so absorbed in thought that I didn't really notice it right away. You know how you can get in your car and start driving and then suddenly find yourself halfway home without remembering how you got there? That's what happened to me.

When I finally phased back in from my daydreaming, I was approaching one of those sharp turns in the road. I really wasn't going too fast - had it been a dry, sunny day. But it wasn't. And I took the curve at a clip that I shouldn't have in the rain.

With the first rain, the oil on the wet road becomes a slippery film on the pavement. I knew that, just like everyone else, but I wasn't paying attention. And I paid for it.

As I made the turn, the car lost traction and went into a spin that took it directly towards the ravine alongside the road. The last thing I remember before finding myself upside down at the bottom of a ditch is desperately trying to regain control of the car as it began to tumble off the edge of the road.

The next thing I remember clearly is the smell of the rain. Then, the pain. The incredible pain. I was trapped in my seat by the steering wheel, my seatbelt and the roof of the car. Since the car had flipped over as it fell into the ravine, the roof had collapsed inwards almost to the level of the dashboard. Fortunately, somehow, just as the car flipped I was thrown sideways and spared having my head crushed to a pancake. But what it meant at that point was that I was sort of bent sideways and unable to move.

As I lay there, pinned to my seat and bent in half, I tried to move my fingers and toes, praying that I hadn't been paralyzed. The increasing pain that accompanied every attempt convinced me that I was not a paraplegic, even if every bone I knew the name of felt like it was broken. The warmth of fresh blood trickled across my face and soaked my shirt. The rain was still falling gently.

After taking physical stock of my situation, I suddenly realized where I was along the road home. And I panicked. Of course, in my situation at the time, panicking could not consist of much more than hyperventilating.

I had crashed right nearby the Arab town of Kafr Towba, which was in the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority. And Towba was known to be a hostile community, which regularly contributed more than its share of rock-throwers, vandals and even one suicide bomber. What would they do when they found a lone and wounded Jew trapped like a bug in a jar?

Those were the thoughts running through my head as I tried to see if I could figure out what happened to my cell phone. I liked to tuck the phone under my thigh as I drove, so I was pretty sure it had been thrown around inside the cabin as the car rolled over and crashed. I couldn't see the phone from the position I was in, but I hoped that I'd be able to slowly free a hand to begin to feel around.

I don't know how much time had gone by, but I felt the blood rushing to my head. I started seeing black spots in my field of vision and I think I eventually passed out.

After some time, I opened my eyes into what seemed to me to be pitch blackness. Then, I suddenly heard someone, or a few someones, coming. It sounded like they were climbing over rocks and making their way down the hill towards my position. This is it, I thought, I am about to be rescued from my crumpled car in order to be lynched in the center of Towba. I decided to pretend I was dead, which admittedly wasn't that much of a stretch by that point.

As the footfalls approached, it sounded more like just one person. And he was muttering something to himself. Still terrified, with closed eyes and practically holding my breath, I strained to hear what he was saying. It was Arabic.

My high-school Arabic was pretty good and I had picked up some more of the language in contacts with our more civil neighbors, but he was mumbling and I was not in the best frame of mind for linguistic exercises. I couldn't make out more than a few words - "idiot", "dead", "know how to drive", "soaking wet".

There was a pause of silence. Then, I heard heavy breathing coming from what remained of the passenger side door. The guy was obviously looking in through the sliver of space between the collapsed roof and the door. I didn't dare move or open my eyes.

After a moment, there were some sounds of grunting and I felt the car move a bit, as if he was pushing it or something. Then I heard scraping noises from inside the cabin, coming closer and closer to my head.

Before I even realized what was happening, I felt cold fingers on my temple. He was huffing and puffing as he pushed his arm further into the car and walked his fingers down the side of my face. I had no clue what he was doing - and then he reached my neck. I had the most bizarre thought that this crazy person was trying to strangle me.

Before I could act on what I thought would be my only defense under the circumstances - biting his hand - I felt him place two fingers lightly on my neck and pause. He wasn't trying to kill me - not yet, anyway. He was feeling for a pulse.

Suddenly, he withdrew his hand and said, "Thank God," under his breath.

My eyes shot open. Had I heard right? He hadn't said "Thank God" in English, of course. But he didn't say Hamdulillah in Arabic, either. He said Baruch HaShem - in Hebrew.

"I'm alive," I croaked weakly.

"Thank God," the mystery man repeated in Hebrew. "You're very lucky."

"Can you get me out of here?"

He hesitated, unsure of what to say to me, I suppose. "I'll call the ambulance," he finally said, and he stood up.

I was able to twist my head just a bit and I saw his sandals. "Don't leave me," I said as loudly as I could.

He dropped down to his side on the ground and peeked into the car again. "Don't worry, I'm here," he replied softly.

I couldn't really make out his face since it was already night time and I was not able to hold my head in such an awkward position for long. He continued dialing and started speaking, in Hebrew, to what sounded like an emergency services dispatcher.

"Thank you," I whispered through a flow of tears I felt bursting from the depths of my heart.

After he hung up with the first responders, my rescuer was quiet for a bit and then said, "When you get home, tell your wife happy birthday from me, Gilad Carmel."

I was startled. How did he know? Before I could ask him, I felt dizzy again, convulsed involuntarily, and again slipped into my own private darkness.

When I was able to open my eyes, I heard breathing nearby and sensed that the man who found me was still there. Staying by my side.

"Are you from Nofar?" he asked when he realized I was awake.

"Y... yes," I stammered.

"Well, perhaps after this is all over I'll come visit you." There was a smile in his voice.

"Yes, that would be great," I said. "But how did you...."

"And I'll bring my nephew to play with your son Gabi. I bet they're about the same age."

I was again dumbstruck. "But how..." I started to ask, when suddenly he jumped up and seemed to be hesitating about something.

"I have to go," he announced, and spun on his heels.

"No! Wait!" I called out, suddenly coughing up blood.

Just before I passed out in the car for the last time, I heard sirens approaching. I am not sure, and it may have been the concussion and my own paranoia, but the last thing I heard was someone shouting in Arabic.

After I recuperated enough to leave the hospital and the rehabilitation ward - about seven months later - I decided to track down my rescuer, Gilad Carmel. With the help of the all-powerful Internet, I called every Gilad Carmel - or G. Carmel, or Gilad Carmeli, or Gil Carmeli, etc. - listed in the phone book or who had ever had his name posted anywhere online. I also called in a favor with some people in charge of personnel in the army - and they tracked down an unlisted Carmel or two. In all, there weren't really that many of them, and none of them had any clue who I was or what I was talking about.

Then I started working on finding all the Carmel families in Israel. That was a much more daunting task. So I recruited friends and family and we just started calling. All of them.

There was not one of them who remembered ever being in the area where I had my accident, never mind saving someone's life there.

After all these fruitless efforts, my Mom said, "Maybe it was Elijah the prophet." I laughed, but then I got to thinking about the guy's name. Gilad. You know what we sing about Elijah at the end of Shabbat? Eliyahu haGiladi - "Elijah of Gilead." I ran to my Bible and looked up the story of Elijah. Guess what? He had a critical showdown with the priests of a false god, guess where? Mt. Carmel! Get it?

Gilad. Carmel. And how did he know about Yulia's birthday and Gabi's name and age and where we lived?

I told you that you wouldn't believe me. That's okay. I know I met Elijah the prophet. And he saved my life.

* ------------- * -------------- *

Gilad Carmel sat at a table in a restaurant in Nofar's shopping center, sipping black coffee and eavesdropping on a conversation between a young man in a wheelchair and the proprietor behind the counter. They were obviously friends, or at least acquaintances. Nofar was small enough that everyone seemed to know everyone else.

The man in the wheelchair, Moshe Benyamini, had just finished describing the circumstances of his one and only meeting with Gilad. Until that moment, all Gilad knew of the man who crashed his car near Kafr Towba was that he lived in Nofar and had a child named Gabi. But this man, Moshe, thought Gilad was Elijah the prophet.

"How wrong he is," Gilad thought. In fact, his name wasn't even really Gilad Carmel. Well, not officially anyway. He still had to change it in the registry of the Interior Ministry. His ID card currently said "Jabr al-Karim", even though he hadn't used that name in more than a year.

Gilad's name change was somewhat related to the story Moshe had just finished telling. In fact, it was that name change - and what it symbolized - that brought Gilad to be on that road at just that time.

Gilad had been on his way to Kafr Towba to see his mother.

How much time had passed at that point? Two years? The last time he had seen his mother, she had told Gilad her deepest secret: She is Jewish.

"But you were born in Towba just like everyone else!" Gilad - then Jabr - had objected.

"My mother was a Jew," she said quietly, sitting on a low stool in the al-Karim family's drab kitchen. "And that makes me a Jew, too."

"That's ridiculous!" Jabr shouted.

"Keep your voice down," Jabr's mother implored. "It is true, even if Islamic law does not recognize it as so."

Jabr was shocked at his mother's blasphemy. And yet, he felt a certain unexplained excitement. He knew he was meant to feel disgust at the very thought that Jewish blood coursed through his veins, but he could not. It intrigued him.

Suddenly, he spun on his mother: "Is that why you light candles on Friday night?"

"Yes," she admitted. "My mother did it and I do it too. And I will teach your sister Asma to do so as well, when she is old enough."

It was not long after that conversation that Jabr decided to spend time among the Jews. If he was one of them, then he wanted to know them better. Not just as soldiers or as passing drivers on their way to or from the nearby settlement of Nofar.

After a year of working illegally in Jewish communities around Israel during the day, and exploring the Jewish cities as "Avi" or "Gili" at night, Jabr al-Karim decided to become Gilad Carmel. He spoke with a rabbi in one of the towns not far from Towba and discussed his options. The rabbi had said he needed a pro forma conversion, since they could not count on the accuracy of Mrs. Al-Karim's statements alone. Gilad/Jabr agreed.

Eight months ago, he had officially converted - or reverted - to Judaism and was on his way to tell his mother the news when he saw the wrecked car in the ravine, the tires still spinning. He had parked his own car a little further up the road and climbed down into the ditch to see if there were any survivors.

Gilad didn't think he was any kind of a hero - certainly not Elijah the prophet. All he had done was call an ambulance and stay near someone who needed compassion. In fact, Gilad wasn't much of a talker and didn't know what to say to be of any comfort, until he noticed the flowers scattered near the car. He was going to ask what they were for and then, as if by design, a breeze blew a soaking wet paper with a child's drawing on it against Gilad's leg.

"Happy Birthday, Mommy," a child's scrawl on the drawing said. "Love, Gabi."

Had the Israeli emergency services, realizing the situation was critical, not called the Palestinian Authority emergency services, Moshe would probably have died. The PA ambulance was simply closer. But when Gilad spotted the ambulance escorted by a Fatah militia vehicle, he knew he had to get away.

The PA did not take kindly to people like him, who crossed the line and joined the Jews. Even people who merely agreed to help the IDF in capturing violent terrorists were regularly executed by the PA. He knew of Muslims who converted to Christianity and found themselves hounded out of their homes, their villages, while others were killed by semi-sanctioned Islamic death squads.

So, Gilad had run back to his car and sped off towards Jerusalem. He had never gotten to tell his mother about his conversion and his new name.

And now, Gilad sat in the town of Nofar and looked intently at Moshe Benyamini as the scarred and wheelchair-bound young father practically swore an oath that he had personally met Elijah the prophet. Moshe's eyes glowed with passion and faith and confidence as he spoke. And he was smiling.

Gilad Carmel stood up, placed some change on the table, and quietly left the restaurant.