The Sound of Music

June 15

The folks in the UJC office, located in the Jewish Agency for Israel complex on King George Street, have been gracious throughout my time in Israel. Today, I borrowed a Skype hook-up for a conference call with colleagues in Chapel Hill. At 5:30 I hailed a taxi to take me to Damascus Gate. Taxi drivers seem to represent the underside of commercial life in Israel. Not the dark, serious underside of sex-trafficked young women and immigrant workers whose basic rights are violated, but the underside of commercial life. For example, there’s usually a choice when entering a taxi, meter or fixed rate and you can be sure that the fixed rate is not meant to be a discount. Sometimes in fact, at the Arlozorov Station or at the Central Bus Station in Jerusalem, drivers refuse to take you, if you ask for the meter. Something was different about this taxi and then I realized that Mozart was playing. I commented on the music and that took us right to a political discussion! “I don’t listen to the politicians; they have nothing to say, so I listen to music. This is Mozart,’ he explained in heavily accented English that reflected his Central European origins and his 40 years in Israel. To summarize his views, Obama has no experience running anything. He is naïve. He is not a friend of Israel. As we pulled up to the Damascus Gate, which is at the eastern corner of the Old City and therefore in Arab East Jerusalem he suggested that I watch my wallet, passport and camera, before speeding off.

Who would have imagined that I would re-enact my favorite movie while visiting Israel? Linda booked us into the Austrian Hospice, about a 10 minute walk from the Damascus Gate, along a narrow street filled with raucous merchants in their small stalls, and countless children scurrying about. The two story stone edifice indeed has the look and feel of a solid Austrian abode. The walls of the overly wide corridors are lined with pictures of Emperor Franz Joseph and others from their sojourns to the Holy Land in the 19th century. It wasn’t until we walked into the café for a snack that I started humming “the hills are alive with the sound of music…” because running the café was a sister, dressed in a white habit, as friendly as could be. Not only did she work the café, but the next morning we saw her doing some gardening, after she had finished supervising breakfast in the basement dining hall. Martin Steiner, the 20 year old desk clerk, was a dead ringer for Friedrich, the oldest boy in the movie. Martin is spending one year working in the Austrian Hospice in lieu of six months of mandatory military service for all males. Young men are given a choice of one year of service or six months in the military. “Isn’t six months hardly worth it for required service in the army?” we asked. “You are right. We are a small country. Why do we need an army?” he answered with a smile.