This article was originally posted on the personal blog of the author, which you can find here.
Today I saw a pregnant woman lying in an alleyway crying, and I jogged right past her.
Re-read that sentence.
I jogged right past her.
Yes.
That’s right.
Who have I become?
Around 7:30 tonight, I left my apartment to go for a run. I took my usual route, down Tzalameh street until I reached the beach, where I turned onto the boulevard that follows the coast, and jogged there for a bit. Then I went down to the sand and sat, listening to the waves and trying to clear my head.
I’ve been back in Israel two days, and they have been some of the longest days of my life. Not only am I jet-lagged beyond belief, but I am- and have been, for months now- in an ongoing state of unresolved transition. Huge transitions. First the transition into Israel and specifically my neighborhood earlier this year. Then a transition into the heightened anxiety of a wartime atmosphere. Then a transition from a spontaneous flight across the world to quiet, wealthy, cold, rocket-free Massachusetts. Then a transition BACK to Shapira, but out of the Tel Aviv I left; a Tel Aviv quietly preparing for war.
So you can understand why I needed to clear my head with some exercise.
I ran back from the beach, trying to make it home in time to attend a meeting. Heading back up Hartzion, I took my first left instead of my second, figuring it would be a short-cut to the perpendicular street I sought. Instead, it curved around and I ended up in an unfamiliar alley, sandwiched uncomfortably close between dumpsters and the backs of the dilapidated shanty-type houses that crowd the neighborhood. Deciding to just follow the alley through, I ran, dodging piles of broken glass, garbage bags, and a pregnant woman, lying on the ground crying.
What a shame, I thought. I hope she’s okay.
I kept running.
I turned out of the alley, figured out what street I was on, and ran a few more blocks. I wondered what her situation was. Then, as I reached the corner of my street, I suddenly stopped. The gravity of what I had just done hit me.
As is my common practice, I finished my run with a sprint. But today, I wasn’t sprinting to increase my heart rate in the final 100 meters.
She was right where I left her, lying in the fetal position in the alley. I ran over to her, and spoke with her as eloquently as I could with my very mediocre Hebrew.
“Are you okay?”
(No response.)
“Excuse me… are you okay?”
She lifted her head.
“I am lying on the ground in an alley. No, I am not okay.”
A brief pause. How to respond to that?
“Why are you here? Don’t you have a house?”
“No … it’s not important.”
“It is important. Do you have a place to go?”
At this point, however she responded, I didn’t understand. She was holding her head and rocking back and forth. I couldn’t tell if she was strung out, or just scared and crazed. To my immense relief, an ambulance pulled up- someone else’s call- and a police officer came out, and began talking with the woman. He asked me if I knew her, and when I said no, he donned rubber gloves, and helped her to her feet. I wanted to stay and hear their conversation- to hear her story, but I felt like an intruder, an evesdropper. So after a moment I left, and ran the last few blocks home. When I arrived, I sat for a few moments on the porch, feeling very upset about the incident. I still do.
In the end, I did the right thing and went to see if she needed help. But what scares me is that living in this place, surrounded by scenes poverty and hopelessness, the image of a pregnant woman lying on the ground and crying is no longer enough to startle me. I noticed her, as I notice the hundeds of men who crowd the public parks each night, sleeping curled up on cardboard or asphalt, or under the eves of the Central Bus Station, reeking of urine and dispair. But these days, I walk past those men, too, with barely a second thought. How could I have become numb to these scenes?
This incident has given me a new oxymoron to battle. Being in this state of constant transition is exhausting. I don’t feel at home anywhere anymore. Nothing is familiar or comforting, neither in Shapira nor in Northampton, because it is set in such stark contrast to the other world I know, whichever it is. I want more than anything to adjust to my life here; to feel at home and like I know where things stand. But simultaneously, I am horrified by the thought of everallowing myself to come to terms with the way of life here. Growing used to seeing poverty on these scales, accepting politics of apartheid and oppression that Israel perpetuates each day, running past pregnant women lying deserted in an alleyway is not something I am okay with at all.
So I pray that I will always be maladjusted. I hope to God that I don’t ever leave my state of nauseous, perpetual transition. Because the day that I join the ranks of millions of people who by their passiveness declare every day loud and clear that this situation is acceptable will be the day that I cease to define myself as a moral, thinking person.
