Monday: At the intersection

Monday, 17 July 2017
JERUSALEM “LADY PASTOR” CHRONICLES, cont: 
"At the intersection."

At the same Jerusalem intersection, on a different day

Waiting to cross the street from West to East Jerusalem late Monday morning, we are:

One Orthodox Jewish man: white shirt (untucked), black pants. Head covered by a kippah. Tzitzit swinging at his legs as he comes to a quick stop at the edge of the curb.

Two young Muslim women in hijab: Full length black dresses, ankles covered, heads wrapped in scarves. Brightly colored backpacks perched on their backs, a stark contrast to the rest of their outfits.

And me: Head noticeably UN-covered. Black shoes and black tights. White plastic collar adorning a black dress, covering knees and elbows (but revealing slightly the tattoos on my forearms). Would it have been so appealing to get these tattoos, had I not been living inside this uniform for three years? Perhaps not. But here they are now, a tiny bit of resistance. Nolite te bastardes carborundorum.

Four human beings at a city intersection. Four human beings, created by God, covering their bodies out of respect for God. As we bake together in the unfiltered sun and heat of Jerusalem, I wonder: Is this what God intended? Or perhaps God sees us sweating through layers of black polyester and cotton and shakes her head, saying, “Oh my dears, I didn’t mean for you to suffer so.”

The light turns green, and we make our way across the lanes of traffic. As we approach the markets of Musrara, the Jewish man veers off to the right and into the street, as far away as possible from the vegetable stands. The Muslim women head the opposite direction, edging as close as possible to the tomatoes, peppers, and onions.

I walk on, somewhere in between, but just before I reach the first vegetable stand, a large white van swerves into my path from the road. It makes me catch my breath, in a way I haven’t felt since the fall of 2015, when daily car-ramming attacks made even the sidewalks feel like war zones.

When the van comes to a stop just ahead of me, I see that it is driven by a priest—a Christian, and a foreigner, like me. He swings open the door and jumps out: Black shirt and pants. White plastic clergy tab, casually poking out one side of his unbuttoned collar. He is in an awful hurry, but for what? To buy a life-saving tomato? A critical watermelon? I can’t imagine.

In his haste, he nearly knocks me over. Finally, he sees me: A look of recognition. A look of confusion. Then a simple nod.

As I walk past the van and the priest, now furiously shopping for vegetables, I think about the odd space we inhabit in Jerusalem, this priest and I. We are Christian, a minority religion. I am a minority within that minority. But we are also internationals (read: White), privileged by virtue of our passports and our skin color. We are also clergy, a holy protected class in the City of Holy Protected Things.

The question is: How do we inhabit this complex of identities? Where do we stand? How do we walk, and with whom? Do we attempt to blend in (impossible)? Is there a middle path, where we try to offend no one but also say nothing (all too possible)?

Will we use our unique positions to affect change?

Or do we just drive our big white vans full of our Big White Privilege anywhere we desire?