Fuck You I Won't Do What You Tell Me

The line from the Rage Against the Machine song is a fine title for a post about Israel's Independence Day (Yom Ha'Atzmaut in Hebrew). I don't use it in a negative way, as some may think, to imply that Israel is some kind of spoiled, unregulated child telling everyone else to fuck off. Rather I'm giving deference to Israel's defiance, vigor, stamina and determination - without which the country would not have been created and without whose continuation we would not now be celebrating 56 years of Independence.

On the "fuck you I won't do what you tell me" scale, you gotta love a country that established its Independence Day as the day after its Memorial Day. In such a small country, 20,196 fallen soldiers is a lot. Everyone knows someone who died while in service. Not to mention that military service is compulsory - so everyone knows what the army is like and could have been a statistic themselves! This is very different from what I'm used to in New York - where I never saw or knew soldiers. In America, or at least in New York, the Army is something in "Middle America," where we imagine Army bases, Army towns and tank fields. I say all that to make sure people understand that Memorial Day is a very serious, solemn, sad day in Israel (compared to how my friends and I perceive Memorial Day from a New York perspective).

Independence Day, when compared to those abroad (or at least in the US) is likewise extreme and intense. To make you understand why I simply need to mention two or three points: the tiny country is only 56 years old and is not only bordered by countries sworn to its destruction (there still officially exists a state of war between Israel and Syria!) but also administers and controls land within its own borders that houses a hell of a lot of people likewise sworn to its destruction!

Now imagine how you can possibly bust out into a raucous Independence Day celebration at the sunset of a day of remembrance and cemetery visits (since in Judaism days begin with their eves)! Israelis take Memorial Day seriously. Israelis take Independence day seriously. Israelis celebrate their two most important - and most emotionally opposite - national holidays back-to-back!

All of that was an attempt to make people understand what's going on Israel. Now I can transition to my more personal and biased cultural examinations. I've almost entirely avoided discussions of politics on this blog. Most people outside of Israel or the Zionist community only know Israel through the prism of CNN - ancient clashes of religions, politics, war, various failed attempts at peace, refugee camps, suicide bombers, etc. My moving to Israel obviously can't be the result of any attempt to misrepresent the situation in overly-optimistic terms - I am no comparison to the mass of immigrants who came after Israel's amazing victories in the 1967 war. Therefore, I've focused my writings on Israel's culture in an attempt to convey what those outside of Israel or the Zionist community seldom hear about or even think about.

So let me share some points from my own Independence Day celebrations.

We started out at my place with an early drink, went to see some fireworks, ate a great falafel and then headed to a party on a "moshav" (the dictionary translates that as "cooperative settlement" and I'll just add that it's like one step below a kibbutz, meaning people retain ownership of their land and not everything is shared -correct me if I'm wrong). By the time we got there it was closed and a car fire was ragging outside. So we sat by the car (that's my friend Oren, now clean-shaven), made some calls and tried to figure out what to do next:



We finally ended up at an "Irish Pub" in Rechovot (a city south of Tel Aviv that you'd never have a reason to go to or return to after going once). This is where I made a realization about what the concept of "Irish Pub" means to Israelis:

Irish Pub: noun; Any establishment with Guinness on tap and wood furniture. In some cases, as in the "Irish Pub" in Rechovot, they also have big dance floors and blast mixes of techno music, Israeli rap and only occasionally include songs from the genre Jacob Shwirtz refers to as "good music."

Anyway, what I've been trying to build up to slowly and methodically (I bet you didn't even notice my smooth transition from solemn to funny) is that toward the end of the night (by the way, "towards" is NOT a word - I know you think it is, but it isn't - bet you didn't know that) the "Irish Pub" DJ gave me the gift that is now my go-to anecdote when people ask me to describe Israeli culture:

A Rechovot "Irish Pub" DJ on Independence Day Eve played Rage Against the Machine's "Killing In the Name Of" followed by the fucking Friends THEME SONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What else can I possibly ever say about Israel culture?