Marty Roberts
Staying Real in Israel
"The Marty Roberts Show"

There is nothing quite as beautiful as the Negev Desert of Israel in the Spring. The rains have just about ceased, and the wildflower displays are almost surreal in their splendor. The air is cool and crisp, but it’s just warm enough to be out and about in short sleeves. If you are out for a hike, even short pants are in order. Almost everything is green, not the usual shades of brown, with the exception of wild splashes of color that are the wildflowers and the blooming cacti.

Out for my fitness run yesterday, the new growth springing up everywhere was striking.

When we moved to our beautiful little community in the Negev some 12 years ago, the vista was pristine. Our community overlooked what is called a Wadi, or small desert canyon, to the south, with the immature saplings of another Israel National Fund Forest trying to hold their own against the heat and dryness of the harsh desert clime.

The nearest Bedouin community was barely visible, just over the horizon, a small collection of unimposing private homes, some with small livestock corrals. The only sign of religious institutions to be seen were the small synagogues still under construction near the center of our town. Not a mosque to be seen.

The Bedouin, although Muslim, were not particularly “religious”, and extremist elements were almost unheard of. We had to watch out that a pair of jeans hung out to dry in the yard would not be snatched by a “visiting” Bedouin, and it would not be too wise to leave your bicycle unattended in the driveway, but other than theft, which has been a characteristic of wandering desert Bedouin tribes throughout history, no Fundamentalist threat.

Many young Bedouin served in the Israeli Army, and most were good Israeli citizens. Pretty good tractor and bulldozer drivers, too, and they knew where to get the best earth, rocks and plants for your new garden.

As I ran yesterday, I saw that the adjoining Bedouin community was no longer on the distant horizon. It was sinewing itself well down into our Wadi, with buildings, tents and corrals flowing over the hills, almost blending into the now maturing forest.

I also counted SEVEN, yes seven minarets punctuating the vista. A sign of the radicalization taking place in the Israeli-Arab community, even amongst the Bedouin, who previously were quite separate, even antogistic towards their more permanently situated Israeli Arab brethren.

The majority of their building is illegal, as they squat on huge chunks of public land and make it their own by their presence there in numbers. Almost unheard of is the scene of Israeli police forcibly removing Bedouin from their illegally established communities, the horror that we witnessed in Amona, the tragedy of Gush Katif, such scenes not being at all “PC” in today’s Israel, unless the victims happen to be Jewish “settlers”.

It is estimated that one-half to two-thirds of those living in the Bedouin towns are not Bedouin at all any longer, but palestinian Arabs that have used the ploy of marriage to Israeli Arab citizens to infiltrate into Israel. It is that element that is building the mosques, many of them on land that does not even belong to the builders, but to the State of Israel. THIS is the demographic time-bomb being discussed in the media.

The weekly sermons are blasted over the mosque loudspeakers every Friday…We can hear them clearly in my backyard…and the words are NOT words of love. The sermons are shouted out by the fundamentalist Immans, stirring the crowds gathered in prayer into a screaming, murderous frenzy.

The hatred of Jews, even in Israel, is being planted, cultivated, nurtured by fellow citizens of our own country…awaiting the imminent harvest of the inevitable violence to come. Talk is of the next intifada, the next Arab uprising in Israel.

Unfortunately, most of Israel, and, certainly, our leaders are still asleep at the wheel…

“tradition“- custom or practice taught by one generation to another

We attended a wedding last night near Yavne, in Israel.  There is nothing quite as lovely as a Jewish wedding…the start of another beautiful Jewish family…and it’s especially beautiful in the Jewish homeland, the Land of Israel.

Before a Jewish baby is even one week old, as we bless the new Mom in the synagogue with wishes for a speedy recovery from the trials of childbirth, we are already also blessing the newborn with visions for her future, to “build a faithful Jewish home in Israel”.  When the young couple stands under the “Chuppa”, the Jewish wedding canopy, and enter into the contract of marriage under Jewish Law, it is the culmination, the realization of the blessing first bestowed on the newborn child.

I really DO cry at weddings.  Something about the ecstatic but frightened young couple looking into each others eyes and seeing their future unfolding…or maybe, for me, it’s the parents of the bride and groom, as they escort the end product of their lifetime labor of love forward to their new independant future together, helping them to start the next chapter of their lives, hoping and praying that THIS fruit has not fallen too far from the tree
that bore it. 

I don’t totally understand the free flow of my prolific tears, perhaps that will be the topic of another essay…

As the ceremony builds up to the groom’s declaration, “If I ever forget thee, O, Jerusalem”, and culminates in the crushing of the glass under his foot, an eternal rememberance of our holy capital’s destruction and the subsequent exile of the Jewish people from our homeland, I am used to hearingthe band break out in Jewish-Chassidic song, to the cries of “Mazel Tov, MazelTov” by the gathered friends and family.  A brisk hora is the usual sounds that escort the couple to their isolation room for a quick snack and recovery
prior to the gala party.

Not last night.  No band…there was a DJ,which is OK…there are plenty of Chassidic CD’s around…but after the crushing of the glass, the mega-watt speakers blasted out,

“You know, you make me wanna’ SHOUT…”

It made me wanna cry even more.

I love the old rock and roll, probably even more than most.  I have even been known to appear in a club or two with my “oldies” band.  I can even tolerate the supersonic volume levels and flashing multi-strobes of today’s audio amp systems.  I am, and always will be, after all, a child of the sixties.

But a Jewish wedding is a place for tradition, a time to preserve the old, not to introduce the new.  It is not a time for self-expression, for innovation.  It is the mega-centuries-old traditions, based upon Jewish laws and customs, that bind our generations together, across time and space.  Different Jewish ethnic groups may have developed variations on the theme, but each is a tradition unto itself.  A Jew should never feel out of
place at a Jewish wedding.

There is a certain sense of comfort in knowing that at a religious ceremony there will NOT be any surprises.  The surprises can come in the party to follow, with the young couple finding outlets for expression of the unique form of love that only they have discovered…

But, please, not under the Chuppa.  It’s worked pretty well for about 3000 years.