zionism, like hip-hop, is a way of life

Feivel, our site coordinator and guitarist in a Jerusalem-based band, asked us, "What is hip-hop?" Hip-hop is a way of life. It is the spoken word, music, dance, and art that artists use to arouse people with a common identity to create community. By this definition, Zionism is hip-hop.

It's unusual these days to hear people self-proclaim themselves zionists. You have to devote a couple of hours to sit with a person and listen to his story. You can't just ask, "Are you a political zionist?" "a labor zionist?" "a religious zionist?" That would be an I-It encounter, a cheap objectification of the thing that often forms the foundation, conscious or subconscious, of a person's lifestyle and livelihood.

If i have learned anything so far, it is that sincere humanization is the result of constant, nagging threats. They reiterated it a thousand times during orientation: No means maybe. Maybe means flash another smile and you'll get it. If you make eye contact, play israeli/jewish geography, or sincerely inquire about a person's life, you're a lot more likely to meet success in your requests. The cashier will search the store to find the brand that's on sale, people will let you cut the line (except boarding a bus), and when the person next to you on line also speaks english and finds out you're also originally from new jersey, they will probably invite you over for coffee or a shabbat meal. Despite the divisions within this country, brotherhood lives.

Zionism lives. Talking politics in the Northeast USA and Europe, I wouldn't have known. I have surrounded myself with astute, informed cynics. But here, I've met countless new and old olim (immigrants to Israel) who made great sacrifices to live here. People who left a high quality of life because they were pulled here by the magnetic force of Zionism.

Zionism is still a magnet. Jerrin and I shared two Shabbat meals with new immigrants in their 20s from Paris, Montreal and Toronto. They earned degrees in engineering, pharmacy, journalism, and have no aspirations to practice those professions here. Maxim, our friend from Paris emphasized (I paraphrase), "I did not come here because my life is Paris was bad. My life was very, very, very good. I had my own apartment but I ate every meal somewhere else, each meal with different friends. I studied to be an engineer, but I don't want to be an engineer. I left my girlfriend, and I don't know what will happen in the two years she has left at university. I didn't observe Shabbat in France. I didn't wear a kippah. In France, everyone wants their own house with their own yard and their own life. Here, in Israel, people walk in and out of each other's houses, they drink a little coffee, they talk, they rest on Shabbat. I knew I had to come here." So Zionism, like hip-hop, is not easily defined, but surely a way of life. In the case of someone who makes the move, there are two lives--Diaspora and Israel. Zeh mah yesh-- this is what there is.