Dave Kay's Blog

my experience of living in a diverse but divided city

Finding a job as a new immigrant, in a strange country, in a different language, during a recession, isn’t always easy. Unfortunately few kept their promises of work opportunities made by many prior to my Aliyah (emigration to Israel). And as the December rush slowly began to subside at the Beit Guvrin archaeological dig, I began to search for something to occupy me into January.

Imagine a day where for 8 hours you are given a pickaxe and instructed to dig. Surrounded by fellow diggers who don’t talk, just continuously lifting dirt from the earth. You slam the axe into the ground and once every 3 or 4 hits; you hear a ‘clunk’. The clunk is the sound of your axe striking a rock, and then of the sharp pain to come. The vibrations from the rock quickly enter the wooden handle and then up to your hand, wrist, arm and spine. By the end of the 8-hour shift, it would hurt. I’d barely been there for an hour when I was asked to “find the rest of that body”. The body was too small to have been an adult.

The Archaeological dig at the Mamila Muslim cemetery has gone ahead for the purpose of building, the ironically named, Museum of Tolerance despite various appeals to the Supreme Court. My one and only day working there was never repeated because of my sheer astonishment at the disrespect being paid to the bodies. No training was offered or provided to the diggers; people haphazardly ploughed into the ground with their pickaxe, unaware what they were revealing in the earth. Most diggers had been coaxed into the job by the unusually high pay, especially if you were prepared to dig at night. The museum that will be built here will also carry the name “Centre of Dignity”. However this strange but sad tale of legality overruling morality is unfortunately just one of many examples of prejudice and discrimination commonly encountered here in Jerusalem.

Finding a job in Jerusalem as someone who is secular can also have its difficulties. During an interview for a fundraising position for a charity, I was asked if I minded wearing a Kippah (religious Jewish head covering) in the workplace. However, most applications don’t even make it to the interview without having some religious credentials on your CV. Many ask outright for someone who is ‘shomer Shabbat’, or with a ‘religious background’. A sad irony that I had come from the Jewish Diaspora to seek refuge in Israel, only to arrive here and be discriminated on the grounds of not being Jewish enough. Perhaps Jerusalem can’t offer its secular citizens the same opportunities as it does the religious.

While in the application process for my course I was repeatedly informed that I was going to be studying with “people from east Jerusalem” and asked whether I would have a problem with that. Coming from a culture where racism is unacceptable, and equal access to education is common and practiced value, my response was always “why would I have a problem with that”?

Israel’s largest bus company, Egged, have begun to run a number of ‘Mehadrin’ lines where passengers are expected to sit in gender separated seating. Although drivers do not enforce these rules, their Haredi passengers often insist that they are followed. And of course, women are at the back. I have frequently used these lines as I often travel to Sefad or Kiriyat Ata. I have received large amounts of animosity as I stroll to the back end of the bus to sit with the lower class citizens. I’m sure Rosa Parks is turning in her grave.

It is clear that this young country has many social barriers that divide people. Religious and secular, Jewish and Muslim, Black and White, Male and Female. People have traditionally run away from mixing with people who don’t share their values, living in almost ethnically exclusive communities. I question whether Jerusalem will be a place that I am able to live in once my course finishes. Wanting to visit friends on Shabbat that live on opposite sides of the city is neon impossible unless you are prepared to splash out on a cab fare. However making the obvious choice of moving to Tel Aviv will simply perpetuate the problem by moving to a city to people who share more like values to my own. The pluralist ideals that were the bread and butter of my upbringing in multi cultural Britain, and my youth movement, Hanoar Hatzioni, are foreign ideas in Israel. So my answer is social change. Until I reach a point where I can no longer tolerate living in a city that is designed for religious life, my voice will have to become one of representation for the minority. Standing up for the values of choice and freedom, in a city that doesn’t even want to understand them. I can only hope that noticeable and real progress is made, and that the democracy which this state is built upon will begin to recognise the rights of all its citizens.