Tag Archives: israel

Why I Renounced Israeli Citizenship

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Firstly, a personal note

It has to be said that is a personal story. While also rooted in the context of tragic current events, ultimately this is simply my own perspective based on my life. That’s all I can ever claim expertise over, in the end. So this essay is not meant to be an argument over what anyone else should do.

Therefore, let me begin at the beginning. I was born in Israel in the 1980s, so I’m told, and I left as a baby. I have no memory of this (which is much of the point, see below). My parents were both immigrants and not native to the region, and they had the idea to immediately go back to my father’s country of America soon after my sister and I came along.

This left me with dual citizenship. Technically. But practically, I’ve only ever been American. I grew up in America, I am an American. That’s how it works. All my formative memories are of Indiana and Ohio, and later of California. Although there’s much I would have preferred to have happened differently in my childhood, geographical speaking I’m generally grateful about where I grew up.

I did take remedial Hebrew school as a child, had a bar mitzvah, along with all those kinds of typical Jewish experiences. While now I don’t feel much of a connection to those rituals as an adult, I am okay with having had these cultural touchstones even if it didn’t have much of a lasting impact. It was fine. I recall the JCC after school, that “aleph bet vet” song, Passover dinners with extended family, and sometimes going to synagogue which was extremely boring. Everybody comes from somewhere, and there certainly is value in being part of a community and holding on to some traditions. As long as it doesn’t harm others, to each their own, and it’s totally acceptable if that’s what my dad and various relatives were into. Today, however, I’m smarter, I’m an adult, and I know I do not need any religion in my life. My ethnicity is Jewish, but my belief system is happily atheist. That’s my thing, secular humanism represents my values for a fair and just society, and I’m good with that.

Way back in the 2000s, as a young man, I went to Israel on more than one occasion. Went on a school trip, visited family, etc. I never had any problem using an American passport. Maybe it’s because the system wasn’t digitized back then, I don’t know. I certainly had no intention of getting drafted into the military, and have always felt absolutely no allegiance to the Israeli government. Why would I? It’s always been a strange place to me and I was only ever a visitor…

Then, it was sometime in the 2010s, when I was on another family visit and they told me at the airport that I was in trouble. The officials at customs said that I had to go to some office and fill out various bureaucratic paperwork, or else they wouldn’t even allow me to leave.

“You’re not American. You’re Israeli.” I remember feeling rather offended by that.

The very last time I had to take one of these trips, it was after COVID, and it had been too long since I’d seen my family who live there today. I gave in this time, and had to go and get the passport beforehand. Just more bureaucracy to do. I didn’t want it. I didn’t like it. But I simply needed it, and it represented no ideology or big statement from me. It was simply a pragmatic solution to a problem.

But I knew I would never live there, and it turned out I would never use this passport again.

On Anti-Semitism

Anyway, it’s probably necessary in this piece to acknowledge genuine anti-Semitism. I am a progressive, and it goes without saying that I am against racism. It’s a serious problem in the world, as hate crimes for all groups have gotten worse while the digital nature of media today seems to make humanity grow more tribal and more terrible.

And when it comes to criticisms of Zionism, and the endless back and-forth debate (which is, certainly, often in bad faith), there is the issue of whether or not anti-Zionism counts as anti-Semitism. Of course it is definitionally not the same thing. And at the same time, I must concede that there are times when anti-Zionism does overlap with racism. It’s obvious that happens, a lot, especially in certain corners. There are many who get over-the-top when it comes to the subject of Israel, and it doesn’t take long to just glance at the internet and see so much hate disguised as legitimate political debate.

That being said, it’s also a convenient excuse for rightist Zionists and rabid nationalists to dismiss any criticism of Israel as anti-Semitism. This is simultaneously another thing that happens very often happens. It happens constantly.

Where we are now as a society, is that terms like Zionism and anti-Semitism have become so inflamed as that they mean almost nothing now. What a shame how language is degrading.

Even more confusing, there are also many anti-Semites who support Israel as an ethnostate model for what they want for themselves. They are bigots who don’t believe Jews can’t be real Americans, and they are obsessive Zionists. Christian nationalists, or rather, let’s just call a spade a spade and refer to them as white nationalists. They are an enormous political block in America and this describes what they are perfectly. It’s because of religion and apocalyptic prophecies or something like that, really a bizarre world we find ourselves in the 21st century when grown adults believe in such nonsense and then have real political power.

It may seem incoherent and contradictory, but that’s the mess the world finds itself in now. Note that these kinds of people are also why Islamophobia is on the rise at the same time. White supremacy of all stripes is coming out of the gutter, as extremist right-wing ideology destroys public discourse and hate becomes mainstream. It’s a terrible time in world history, full of bigotry and ignorance, no doubt about that.

But without getting into the state of the entire planet, just speaking for me personally, I can really recall only two experiences of dealing with anti-Semitism in my own life. In both cases, it wasn’t from activists who hate Israel. It was from weird conspiracy theory people. That is, it was from the far right.

What has happened to me more frequently, by the way, is when other Jewish people, those who identify as Israeli nationalists, have called me a self-hating Jew. Again and again. From strangers, and even from family members, it’s been the far more common type of bigoted abuse I’ve ever received. It’s ridiculous, it’s a stupid slur, and doesn’t add anything to mutual understanding. It’s just plain hate, and frankly I am very sick of it.

On Israel

In any case, Israel shouldn’t be the center of the universe. It’s a place with serious flaws, and at the same time sure I admit it is obviously not the root cause of all injustice in the world. That’s a very low bar of an Israel defense, but I’ll concede that. It’s just another messed up country, that’s all, and shouldn’t be considered as special as so many people think it is. Whether it’s loved as God’s eternal holy land, or hated as the ruler of the world conspiracy, those takes are both entirely too much sentiment.

Another thing, I never thought being a Jew is somehow the most interesting thing about me. It’s something I’ve long felt uncomfortable about, how other people who like to wear that identity on their sleeve. Why is nationality/religion/culture something to be so proud of? Nobody earned it, it’s just randomly what people were born into. It’s heritage, it’s a part of how one may have grown up, and no one should ever be made to feel ashamed of this either. But isn’t it better to be proud of things I’ve chosen, of things I’ve done, shouldn’t that be what I base my identity on?

Identifying with this country just isn’t my thing. Even, without getting into the controversial politics, the history and the tragedy, I simply never felt like I fit in there. It was never my home.

Perhaps for the older generation of Jewish people, this is a difficult thing to understand. There really was an existential threat not that long ago. Now, to say the least, things are very different. Israel has been an extremely right-wing country for so many years, a powerful and aggressive force in the region. Netanyahu and the Likud party, the far-right coalition and populism and settler extremism, all of these define Israel today and so very deeply not represent me at all.

More broadly-speaking, the Zionist experiment seems to be a failure. The ancestral homeland promise was supposed to be about safety and peace, that was the pitch, and it didn’t work.

And if the only way to stay safe was to occupy millions of people forever, then it wasn’t worth it. If the result of the formation of this country was endless war, then what was ever the point?

Honestly, I think one of the core issues is that it’s a better thing for the human soul to be in the minority. I may be a cis hetero white male, but I do know a bit about not fitting in with the mainstream religion and of being from a slightly different culture than the majority. Historically, Jews in America have thrived in that context and created many positive things. Yes, Europe had a different and darker history, but statistically in America today most Jews have done quite well.

To be the majority in a country, to have power over others and to be in charge, it apparently brings out the worst in humanity. This has happened in the Jewish-majority country as much as it happens in every other country on earth. It’s almost as if Israelis, with the privilege of being the ones in charge this time, now want to do to other minorities what was done to them…

In any case, regardless of the impact of all centuries past, I simply know that theocratic ethnostates are not a good thing. I don’t need to justify anymore than that. I am an American abroad. (And sure, America is also a very flawed and complex place with good and bad elements. All nation-states have blood on their hands, don’t they? That’s the way it is but I still know who I am.) In my entire living memory, I’ve been American. I don’t speak the language, I don’t feel Israeli, and I want to be in control of my identity. That was always reason enough.

On the Gaza War

Why now? Well, these are all issues I’ve thought about for long time. Then October 7 happened, and the Gaza War. And everything, which was always bad, somehow still got so much worse.

It goes without saying that Hamas is terrible in their own right, that is clearly self-evident. I’m not into Islamic fundamentalism either, because duh. Obviously. But ultimately the politics of the Middle East are about power dynamics more than any other factor. It’s not about who’s supposedly most “moral,” it’s about which side has the hi-tech Western modern military and which side is full of people in poverty. Who has the most power is what truly matters in the end.

The way the older generation thinks of Israel as some kind of plucky underdog, how so many Boomers were raised with that postwar context, it just doesn’t fit anymore today. That narrative hasn’t made sense for a very long time, it simply hasn’t been the case for decades and decades and decades. Billions upon billions of dollars in American military support is the complete opposite of underdog. Today, it’s incredibly clear which side has become the oppressor.

This happens again and again in history, and we’d see that if we took the time to study. A people are oppressed, colonized, and suffer horribly. Then they gain power, and use the new position to oppress others. Which in turn causes more suffering, and the cycle continues for generations.

To repeat: October 7 was terrifying, taking hostages is wrong, and there were too many victims. Then, that day was followed up with so many more tens of thousands of casualties, creating far more victims, leading to more abject poverty and no solutions which respect human rights in the future whatsoever. That’s even worse.

In Conclusion

I don’t want to get bogged down by every horrifying news story, but let me get a little specific here. Out of all of them, from the horrible genocidal statements by members of the government, to settlers ransacking food shipments for starving refugees, the ongoing failure to get hostages back in exchange for a ceasefire, the criminal prime minister who has been corrupt for years and years, the authoritarian media clampdown silencing dissenting voices, even this Zeteo documentary footage highlighting how extreme Israeli society has become—not to mention AIPAC’s interference into American politics and how the lobbying group has become a fully right-wing Republican organization, I could just go on and on—it’s the utilizing of AI to maximize the mass killing of human beings that has disturbed me the most.

In case you haven’t read up on that: Source. What an evil, soulless future this is. This is a very bad sign of what is to come for the future of warfare and for the future of humanity, and Israel should be ashamed. I wish I could convince people who support this government to do some serious soul-searching. Probably can’t convince very many people at this point, but I wish.

So, in conclusion, I think Israel is on the path to being just another Middle Eastern dictatorship. Nothing special whatsoever. There’s not much I can do about that awful course that they seem to be choosing. It’s been in the making for a while, with the endless occupation and the far-right government long in control. I can only disassociate, maybe protest a bit, but overall the only thing left is to petition the US government with my vote to stop funding the war machine there.

And also, some might say that terms like genocide and apartheid, however legally they are defined, are too loaded terms. We should or shouldn’t say it, it’s all so inflamed. But in any case, even without those charges which are in fact valid, even still, what was and what is happening there is an absolute affront to my values and it’s easy for me to know I am not on that side.

Yes, I am privileged. I had the ability to do something about how I feel in this situation, and used that privilege to remove myself from it. I don’t want the dual citizenship. I want to control my life. And that’s why I’ve now renounced my Israeli citizenship. I am not, and I cannot be, Israeli.

Always Goodbye: a review of the graphic novel by Frank E Beyer

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https://medium.com/@frank.e.beyer/always-goodbye-b46c36a9d202

Always Goodbye

F E Beyer
 

A review of the graphic novel

 

Ray Hecht’s autobiographical graphic novel starts with his birth in Israel, where his parents were immigrants, and ends up with him working in Asia. Moving to America as a small child he has an unstable upbringing, thanks to his Ukrainian mother and American father divorcing. The drawings and the layout here obviously took a lot of work and I dare say it may have been easier just to write the narrative, however, this was a more interesting way to tell his story. Each year is introduced with a picture of a key event and I laughed when I saw OJ’s Bronco being chased by police down the highway for 1994.

 

Things start out well for the family in America, but after a few years the cracks begin to show and his parents get divorced in the early nineties. His mother remarries a none-too trustworthy Israeli man and Ray stays with his Dad, who trains to be a nurse. Ray does recognise his father’s efforts to better himself. His sister is academic and as she grows up gets sucked into a conservative Israeli world that Hecht wants no part of. She learns Russian and presumably Hebrew too — as she moves to Israel and gets married there. Ray’s trips to Israel don’t work out well, it’s not a place he connects with. With this in mind, it’s not surprising that he prefers to study Japanese and later Chinese.

A self-confessed nerdy child, Hecht struggles socially and finds solace in comic books. (I was waiting for his reading to break out from the pure escapism of comics and this does eventually happen.) A convincing portrayal of how America can be a lonely place for a teenager, a lot of this must have been hard to bring to the surface again. One major problem for him is always moving from school to school, as the title indicates it is “Always Goodbye”. Probably the most painful incident is when he gets kicked out of school for something he says about a mass shooting. Despite being an introvert, he makes various efforts to improve his social life, investigating subcultures — punk, Goth, arty-type, straight edge, hippie — looking for something to hold onto. His friends do the same thing and he falls in and out with them depending on what phase they are in — a problem of a fractured society: you can join many different tribes but a sense of belonging is not guaranteed. He does some hallucinogenic drugs, but the answer doesn’t lie there.

 

In his early twenties Ray moves out of his Dad’s place and back again several times, in a non-linear surge towards independence common in his generation. He has a string of dead-end jobs in various States and then vaguely commits to life in California. Salvation comes in the form of China, recommended to him by a random character at the Burning Man Festival 2008. Like many young Westerners who go to work in Asia (me included), it’s the first time he has the luxury of living alone in a decent apartment. He begins teaching at a kindergarten in Shenzhen, the huge city over the border from Hong Kong where everything is new and exciting. He mentions the bootleg markets and this reminded me that one of the pleasures (and even social activities) of living in China back then was shopping for pirated DVDs; now of course we just download movies without leaving the house. He survives the kindergarten, moves onto a Korean owned school in Guangzhou, and escapes the English teaching world to become a copy editor.

Ray realises that a lot of the expat life is about drinking and tries to find meaning through writing and dating. The dating doesn’t go so well, but gives him material to write about. While many say it’s easy to get an Asian girlfriend, it doesn’t work out most of the time because of different expectations and, sure enough, Hecht takes us through a few awkward flings. The world of online dating also turns out to be a wash-out. Despite these romantic failures, he publishes a novel and eventually gets involved in a serious relationship with a creative South African woman— i.e. finally he has some good luck. I was interested to read that he initially went down to Hong Kong every six months to get visas, but later got a ten year China visa. Surely long term visas like this are not on the table anymore?

The text isn’t that polished and there are still a few mistakes to be ironed out, or perhaps they were left in the on purpose to emphasize the DIY nature of this work? His analysis of society is usually spot on and you can see a narrow view of the world broadening as he travels more — this gives the story a nice arc. As a thirty-something he ends up in Taiwan, looking at current events it was probably a wise decision to leave China and move there.

Always Goodbye: the graphic novel

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https://www.amazon.com/Always-Goodbye-Ray-Hecht-ebook/dp/B07ZYFRYJK

 

I am proud to announce that my graphic novel Always Goodbye has now been published by TWG Press, and for a special promotion this week it is free to download for the Kindle app!

Please enjoy, and of course if you like you can share and review and just plain tell me what you think ~

 

Synopsis:


Life can take a man many places.

Born in disputed Israel, fostered in Middle America, and then finally driven into Rising China—Ray Hecht takes journey after journey as he tries to figure it all out. He goes down many paths from the years 1982 to 2019, attempting and failing at new identities with each passing decade: artist, filmmaker, journalist, and author.

Told in simple lines and crude forms, Ray’s graphic memoir Always Goodbye rushes through the milestones of a person’s life with harsh sincerity. Follow along these memories of a man’s travels across the globe as he tries to find himself, always saying goodbye but then reconnecting all over again, as many times as it takes…

 

2016 – 2019: Goodbye China, Hello Taiwan! THE END

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Previous: 2014 – 2015: Love and Publishing

Read all at Webtoons.com

2016 – 2019: Terrible politics, book tour, leaving China and coming to Taiwan! Various family trips from Israel to South Africa and California. Art and comics and Burning herein. At last, we catch up to now (so meta) and I reflect… Thus, an ending. 

Thanks so much to you all for reading this, my humble life story!

 

2011 – 2012: Growing up, turning 30, weddings, and the end of the world

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Previous: 2009 to 2010  The Expat Life: A new decade living it up in Shenzhen, China 

Read all at Webtoons.com

2011 and 2012, beginning with my Guangzhou year. Didn’t work out well, so I returned to Shenzhen. Meanwhile so much travel, all over Southeast Asia and returns to Israel and Japan. Plus foreshadowing in Taiwan, and Hipster Pacific Northwest too. And I go to both my sister’s wedding and my best friend’s wedding. Growing up!

 

2000 – 2001, New Millennium: On Teenage Sexuality (or lack thereof). And 9/11

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Previous: Late 90s

Read all at Webtoons.com

2000 to 2001, Happy New Year! I finally somehow graduate, Israel travel x 2, and some reflection on girls. Then, yet another national tragedy… Welcome to the 21st Century

 

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Always Goodbye: 1954 – 1984

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This here is my autobiographical comic, Always Goodbye. Just a humble lo-fi take on my life, year-by-year…

 

Read them first at Webtoons.com: https://www.webtoons.com/en/challenge/always-goodbye/list?title_no=224697

 

Prologue, my parents meet in the middle of the world, I am born, and the family grows and goes. Suffice to say, to be continued–

 

 

 

Reflections on the year 2016

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2016 was, to say the least, a tumultuous year.

It’s already something of a meme to say that 2016 sucks so much. And yeah, that’s largely true specifically in the political sense anyway.

However, in my personal life I can definitely declare that though it’s been hard I can claim lot of positive growth over the past year. I traveled the world, I promoted some writing, I published here and there, wrote another book, and I even moved in with my girlfriend!

There has been a lot on this very blog worth share. I reviewed, I interviewed. And although at this stage it’s hard to say if it will lead anywhere, one of my personal productive favorites of the year was starting anew on my hobby of drawing silly little comics.

In thinking over this arbitrary marking of the Earth going around the sun that we all mark on our calendars, I have thought about it most nostalgically and created a list of links below. Here, a few posts that stand out to me to sum up the crazy intensities of this most epically year:

 

In February, right after Chinese New Year, I was lucky enough to be detained by the Chinese police after attending an unlicensed rave party. I tested negative for drugs and was soon released, while sadly others I knew tested positive, leaving me with the opportunity to write what proved to be my most popular piece of writing ever. The guys over at Reddit China were somewhat opinionated. But I had my say.

Hey it even led to a piece I wrote for the Wall Street Journal.

 

With my novel South China Morning Blues published — from Blacksmith Books, Hong Kong — in late 2015, I was very focused on promoting the book all over Shenzhen (and Guangzhou, and Hong Kong) over the beginning of the following year and on. It was a big part of my job for months on end. The highlight was definitely in March when I went to both Beijing and Chengdu for a little get-together known as the Bookworm Literary Festival.

 

The travel it did continue. I visited the great country/not country of Taiwan as part of my girlfriend Bronwen’s art residency in May. Absolutely wonderful place. There will be more on Taiwan come the next new year.

And in June it was time to go to Israel for the bi-annual visiting of the family. What a trip I met some little nieces and nephews, saw my parents, had emotions, all the while some legal complications came up and had to be dealt with.

 

One event that really stood out in the summer was the art exhibition by Bronwen and some other locally sourced artists over at Sin Sin Fine Art in Hong Kong. Great work. I happened to write an article about it.

 

At last, the dreaded subject of American politics. Over the second half of 2016, I carried on with my life and moved and wrote and promoted, meanwhile in America (totally affecting the rest of the world) it all went well and truly insane. I became rather consumed in following the politics of the horrible election cycle. Finally, of all things, I was forced to start writing political columns. The anxieties of the day before, then November’s horrific results, and a touch of conspiracy theory commentary.

Sadly, at this rate I will probably have yet more to say in 2017. A lot more. Despite the apocalyptic scenarios at hand, I’ll try to be optimistic about the new year. What’s certainly true is that nobody knows what will happen next.

 

Thus was the year. I and you survived. Thanks for paying attention to me and my humble perspective. On a concluding note, let us mourn the actual concept of truth and facts with this cartoon by Tom Tomorrow… RIP truth~

Good luck to 2017, we’ll need it!

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Bureaucratic kerfuffle in Israel: My Trip

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There I am

As you may know from brief biographies published on occasion, I am American but I happened to be born in Israel. But what does that exactly mean? I moved when I was a baby and I don’t speak Hebrew, I don’t even particularly care about Israel other than a general appreciation for the Western mythological tradition, and in fact if you speak to me in private I would express that I am quite critical of the intense political situation there. If you wanna get into religion then let me say I’m basically atheist at this point.

I identify myself as completely American and somewhat proud of that—not that America is perfect but there is an argument to be made that America’s contributions to the world do outnumber the negatives. And, America is just plain more interesting.

The short and long of it is that I left Israel at two-years old. I have no memory as “sabra”. My dad is from Chicago and my mom is from the former Soviet Union; they met there and me and my sister were born abroad but raised in the United States of America: the midwestern states of Indiana and Ohio to be specific. I consider my hometown to be Cincinnati. For the past decade I’ve had a California driver’s license. Even though I’ve lived in another interesting country for quite a while, China, I will always consider myself an American abroad.

I did visit Israel a few times in my adult life. When I was a teenager on one of those trips, a couple times to see family. What can I say? The food is good. It’s English-friendly and easy to get around. That’s about the main takeaway for me.

So, over the last several years my sister has chosen to live in Jerusalem and do the whole religious thing. Not for me, but to each their own. She has a family, a precocious hyper son whom I met at a wedding in Florida two years ago. Since then, her family has grown with the addition of two super-cute nieces I had yet to meet. Hence, the time came for one of those international trips to meet the family!

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Ridiculously super-cute

I had arranged to fly from Hong Kong to Tel Aviv for a brief, one-week trip. My mom was flying in as well. Right off the bat, unwelcoming Israeli security became an issue as I was personally escorted through the HK airport. It was better than the strip search last time. The real bureaucratic issue was when, after the grueling 11-hour flight, I was told off at the Ben-Gurion customs…

See, I have never even had an Israeli passport. I left as a baby under my parents’. I could claim dual citizenship, but I’ve never had any desire whatsoever. In 2011 I came for my sister’s wedding, and there wasn’t a problem with my U.S. passport until I left and a border guard yelled at me for not having an Israeli passport. I was told I would not be allowed in next time without it. In the years since I tried my best to forget about that. It was kind of offensive, being told what my identity is.

They must have remembered, because when I came in the guard knew I was warned already and gave me a very hard time for not getting the passport. Gotta give their record-keeping system credit. Apparently I had to go to the Ministry of the Interior to sort it out, or I would not be allowed to leave the country!

Bit scary to be told that. What, should I contact the American embassy and say Israel is trying to kidnap me? I do get it; Israel is very aggressive about getting more migration for their own reasons. However, I am not into it. Least I know I’m too old to get drafted.

I suppose it could come in handy if there was a world disaster and I needed a second country’s passport. Still, I try not to plan my life around paranoia.

So, they eventually let me through. I was nervous but ready to embrace the trip. My Dad—who happened to be in the area—picked me up along with my British brother-in-law. It was late, and already I preferred the cool, dry desert air to the humid jungle weather I had come from. We went to my dad’s accommodations to pass out, and the next day I saw my sister’s family!

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Me and Mom and Sis and boy

I had met her son/my nephew in 2014 but I never met my nieces until that day. They are ridiculously cute. And not only that, but we then returned to the airport to pick up my mom! A real family reunion of a trip. I doled out gifts of Chinese trinkets and we all caught up on life. It’s always nice to see one’s immediate family after years away.

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The dreaded Ministry of the Interior

Finally, on Day 3, I went to the dreaded Ministry of the Interior. My dad helped me out a lot. I brought my (American) passport and my printout of flight details, and that’s all I had. No Israeli documentation whatsoever. We took a number, waited, then were told to go somewhere else to take a number. It was early in the day and I can’t complain as it was rather fast for a government ministry. At last, a lady took us in her office. I had two choices revealed: I could pay to receive an Israeli passport and it would take a few days, or I could get an exit permission letter right then and there at no charge. I chose the latter. She highly recommended that I get the passport and I must eventually if I ever come to Israel again, seriously I really better not forget, but this would be allowed for the current trip.

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Model of ancient Jerusalem at Israel Museum

Now over with, I was free to enjoy the rest of my time! There were so many dinners with family. Playing with the kids. Taking photos. Eating delicious Middle Eastern food. Oh the hummus, the hummus!!! Lots of walking around the central district of Jerusalem, which is mostly an overly religious city, but touristy Jaffa Center at Ben-Yahuda street was tolerable. We went to malls, restaurants, and argued. It’s a family tradition. Arguing with my dad was the worst (we have a complex relationship), and there was a rather heavy disagreement with my sister as well over the settlements and alternative medicine. But don’t get me started, as this is supposed to be a mostly apolitical blog. The theological discussions were remarkably civil.

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Comics!

When asked about my favorite place on the trip, I have to admit it was going to the comic book store in the metropolitan city of Tel Aviv. I love checking out comic shops when going to a new place. The beach was also nice. The Israel Museum comes highly recommended; at the time they had an exhibition on ancient Egypt. They even have the Dead Sea Scrolls, an amazing sight to see (though they don’t let you take pictures there). I did enjoy the old city of Jerusalem, with the Western Wall and the Christian District, all those old churches and ancient structures.

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Beach

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Taking the Western Wall very seriously

One project I was working on while there was an interview series with my mother. She’s had a crazy life immigrating from one country to the next three times over, and I wanted to learn more about it. I treated the interview like journalism, recorded several hours of footage, and that’s all I’ll say about that until I create something to share next year.

The days went by too fast and before I knew it was over. After a funny episode of almost being late because I needed a new belt, I was driven back to the airport. I said my goodbyes, and the exit paper was no problem. All that was left was memories and souvenirs. I was headed back to that other controversial country of China, back to what had since become familiar to me, my life in Shenzhen. Not that life is stable here, the scenery is ever-changing no matter where…

Whether one likes it or not, family is where ya come from and they are important. I hope I’m on good terms with them. I’m not happy about everything when it comes to where I am from and my past, but then again perhaps I should get over those issues and appreciate all that’s been done for me. My mom and dad did their best, they are good people, and I thank my sister so much for helping me organize this trip. I wish her the best of luck with her new family, and I am sure she will do great.

That said, perhaps next time we should all visit in another country. Somewhere chill, I wouldn’t want to get in trouble over passport customs issues or anything.

 

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A rare photo of almost the entire family in one place. Note the food

 

Israeli Chinglish… Hebrlish?

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So, I’ve been a bit quiet over the last week because I am currently traveling. In Israel. It’s not my favorite country, to be honest, but I have family to visit and hence here I am. Get into the controversies later.

Hope to have a longer post next week detailing some adventures and challenges. Be patient and stay tuned…

In the meantime, I’ve been looking for some Chinglish to share! (Or would that be Hebrlish?) It’s a very English-friendly country, westernized in all the good and bad ways, and about the only thing I saw was this sign at the beach mentioning “rockery.” Also, me.

 

 

 

Dating in China – Last of the POFs

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For me, 2013 was the most dramatic of years. It started slow, with early episodes displaying a simple lack of confidence and success. Then I tried to make up for lost time, and went too far. I found myself stuck in the quagmire of drama and heartache and stalking.

Throughout the year, while I did go to a whole other country for romance, in the meantime I tried my best to put myself out there and meet cooler girls, and was subsequently rejected multiple times. Chinese and foreigners alike. Former coworkers, girls I met on the subway, all those I met in real life seemed not to be impressed by me. So I went by the tried-and-true method of online dating, and that means the website of POF…

 

Sonia

Early into the year’s journeys, I emailed a pleasant helo to Sonia. She was an engineer from Iran who lived in the outer suburbs of Shenzhen. (A suburb in a Chinese doesn’t mean picket fences. It means desolate places near factories and far from the interesting, modern parts of the city.) We flirted and I invited her on a tour of downtown, with me as guide.

Being from Iran, it was very interesting to talk to Sophia about politics and culture. Nothing was off-limits. I was left with a very good impression of modern Iran, which sadly is an impression that many Americans do not get these days.

I could put out a disclaimer to everyone: Not only am I Jewish, I was born in Israel. It is my heritage and my ethnicity, but I don’t think of it as having that much to do with my identity these days. My father is American and I moved to the U.S. as a baby. I know no Hebrew. I am basically an atheist — I like to call myself a “mystical atheist” but no time for an extensive theological discussion here — and I feel great antagonism towards organized religion. I have zero interest in going to Israel and joining the military to fight for an apartheid state surrounded by brainwashed lunatics, thank you very much.

Culturally, the Jewish people have brought great advances to Western culture as well as science. I think history has shown educated liberal Jews going to America is a perfect fit. Politically and culturally, Israel is another story. It is a somewhat messier and more complex place, and I do not think history has shown that Zionism has accomplished much of anything at all. Well, too late now. The region is what it is. I do not wish to delve too deeply into controversial politics, that’s not the point of this blog. Just letting you know how I feel, just letting you know where I’m coming from when it comes to meeting Persian girls.

Sonia did not seem to be racist against Jews whatsoever. She came across as a very worldly open-minded person, and she gave me a hell of a chance. She did tell me that it was hell to be in Saudi Arabia, and Iranians liked traveling to Turkey so they could act out more freely. She was politically very much against Israel, and on that I pretty much agreed.

Iranians abroad, from my understanding, tend to reject theocratic-conservative values and do whatever they want to do as 21st century human beings. Sonia confirmed this. She had no issues with being the naively feminine sort; and yeah there was intimacy that first night.

She wasn’t my type, to be perfectly honest. Attraction-wise. A big girl albeit with a pretty face, but I’m simply not into big girls. What we had between us was an opportunity I wanted to experience, and hence we shared an experience. I have now learned on an intrinsic level that young Iranians are absolutely not religious fundamentalists, I know it as deeply as possible, and hey I hope that can be good for American-Iranian relations.

So, it definitely wasn’t any potential boyfriend-girlfriend dating situation and she knew it. I guess we were supposed to be fuckbuddies, as certain expats abroad like to do to pass the time, but we never ended up repeating the experience.

She invited me to her place to cook one another time, and it was very nice of her. But I didn’t like that area. I didn’t stay over. We made some other plans but kept cancelling and it didn’t develop. I don’t remember the details, but I do recall a text saying that it was over and she got mad at me. Perhaps I was dating someone else, perhaps there was some overlapping drama at that junction. It all became something of a blur in the midst of that year.

I hope I wasn’t too rude.

I hope I didn’t leave her with a poor impression of Jewish Americans.

 

Jing

I met Jing on POF, and we corresponded a while before meeting. Always too busy, she was yet another girl who lived far away, and even our first date when we finally did meet it was a bad date. Luckily, she gave me another chance.

Somehow, over the course of the year, Jing became my most stable friend-with-benefits. For several months, she was my most drama-free of dates and for that I will forever be grateful to her.

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