Chamudie's House
I have been told that if I write another insulting letter about B'nei Akiva, they could sue. That seems a bit silly, but seeing as they can also hold my year's worth of college credit over my head, perhaps I should listen.
If B'nei Akiva was disturbed that we took tramps with Arabs, I can ony imagine what they would have said, had they found out about the unofficial trip we took to Chamudie's house. Chamudie is an Arab worker that works at Peduel doing the repairs, and the like. It's a bit of a joke; Chamudie is exceedingly wealthy, his family has this large oil factory back at his house. He just works at Peduel to keep busy. So, one day, some of the guys decided that we would spend our afternoon rest period (I'm a getting a little sick of saying how that was really a twenty four hour rest period.) at Chamudie's house, meeting him.
We took two cars to get there. Our Madrich, Tzviker, drove his car, and Ofer drove himself in his van. It was only two of us from Hachshara, Robin and me, and the rest were Yeshiva kids. We were getting briefed on what to expect at the house, what Arabic coffee and tea taste like, and the like, but I wasn't really paying attention.
Ofer pulled up next to the car, and he and Tzviker planned the route of how to get there. I was a bit out of it, and was just looking around, and suddenly saw something in Ofer's car.
"Something else you should know..."
"Hey, those things hanging from Ofer's sun blocker mirror...don't those things look like handgrenades?" They weren't looking the riveted green ones that you see in movies. They looked like the shiny brass ones that they show in newsbites on the news."
"Yes, Michael. Anyway, these people are fairly well..." By this time, we were getting out of the car. I was the last one out.
"Oh my GOD!!!! Those are handgrenades. Look, it says 'Rimon' on them."
"Wow, that is weird. But look, just be nice to them, don't start with..."
"How did he get hand grenades? What happened, he walked into the Hand Grenade's R us? 'Hello, yes I'd like to buy some handgrenades?' 'Yes, of course. Will that be cash or credit?' 'Oh, here, put it on my Visa.' 'OK, here you go, have a nice day.' It's like Airplane II?" At this point, we were already at Chamudie's house, so it was pointless for Tzviker to proceed.
The whole thing, of course, was very civil, actually pretty friendly. We found out that Chamudie's fraternal grandfather was actually Jewish. Thus his name, (Chamudie means 'sweetie' in Hebrew) and he also had given his children Jewish names.
Commercial break:
Magazine Description
He served us, in his undecorated living room, as we'd been told, very bitter coffee, and very sweet tea. It was a bit difficult to understand him. He knew Hebrew, he had to, where he worked, but it was with an Arabic twist that made it hard to understand. So, he told us what it was like being one of the Arabs who was not angry at the Jews.
He showed us where, close to where we were eating, his friends, and his friends' children had thrown rocks during the Entifada. He told us that he was often put in a bad situation. Since he had money, but he also worked for Jews, and therefore didn't throw stones, (plus gave his children Jewish names) his neighbors and friends thought that he was a member of the Shabaq, which is roughly equivilant to the CIA, and put out to spy on the Palestinian population.
At this point, his children came back home from school. He had, typically, very cute kids. I fealt having them hear would be interesing. Chamudie spoke no English, just Hebrew and Arabic. The children spoke no Hebrew, but were learning English in school. The thing was, that when they came into the house and saw us, they hid their faces from us. I'm not talking about teenagers that would be wanted by the law, I'm talking five and six year olds, up to a twelve year old girl, that ran and hid behind their father. To be honest, I was wondering whether they were acting or not. After a while, I came to the conclusion that they weren't.
We thought their fear was a bit strange, and Chamudie told us that they are afraid of the soldiers. Apparently soldiers would use force against the kids. Not shoot them, but they'd still hit the kids. Again, not to the extant of any permanent damage, but remember, we are talking about little kids.
Tzviker turned to them. "��, ����� �� ������ �����..." (Lo, anachnu lo chayalim, anachnu...) [No, we aren't soldiers, we're...] He turned to Chamudie. "�� ������ '����� �����?'...��, �� ������ '����� ����?'" (Eich omrim 'anachnu chaverim,'...lo eich omrim... 'anachnu achim?') [How do you say 'we're friends?'...No...how do you say 'we're brothers?']
"����� ����." (Anachnu achim.) See, it's the same thing... You have to look at the transliteration there...
Anyway, we were given a nice little tour of his neighborhood, where his neighbors gave us all deservedly strange looks, he pointed out to us where the kids had thrown the rocks during the Antifada and everything.
We saw the factory. It was rather small, I suppose, I didn't quite know what an olive oil factory would look like. He cave us twigs that we dipped into the oil to taste it. Apparently his grandfather lived to 105 by drinking a cup of olive oil a day. He probably had pimples till he was 30, in the process.
So, we didn't get olive branches, but we got stick covered with olive oil. It's a start. On our way out, Chamudie told us, in Hebrew, but regardless, "Do you know who stood right where you are around thirty years ago? Bill Clinton!" So, we all did our best to look impressed, and did our cordial goodbyes.
Commercial break:
Except Tzviker. "Clinton? How could that be? He was in school in Britain at the time, and then went to Russia during his schooling...we never heard anything about Clint..."
We dragged Tzvikker out. All of us were slapping him, and kicking him in the leg when he started questioning Chamudie. "Look, if he wants to think he met Clinton, than let him think he met Clinton." They did not let this die for a while.
I was interested in something else. The cars came around to pick us up. "Uhm...Amir, just out of curiousity...why do you have hand grenades in the car?"
"Well, in case anything were to...you know...happen..." I could picture Amir's dream. Standing alone, screaming to the machine gun toting arabs to drop thrit guns, or he'd pull the pin.
"If anything were to happen, what, you'd blow up the neighborhood?"
"Well, to be honest they're not really grenades they're shockwave grenades." I have no idea what this means, and I really don't want to know.
"Where did you get these things anyway? I don't remember them selling these things at the drug store."
"I got them from the army."
"You stole them from the army?!?!"
"Stole is such a harsh word..." Indeed it is, I suppose he borrowed them. He'll return them to...but I imagine we'll be reading about that in the papers.
Meanwhile, if somebody tells you that they were in the Israeli Army, be cautious...be very cautious...
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Michael Kadish
