How Far Do You Go?

You wouldn't wear a bikini to a retirement home.  You wouldn't walk into a church with the same outfit and attitude that you would walk into a club with.  You wouldn't wear show up to a job interview in your pajamas.

You wouldn't stroll into an ultra-religious neighborhood, ignoring all requests, in bright colors, chests showing, and crowd the streets.

Oh wait, that's exactly what we did.

Today we toured around Me'a Sha'arim (meaning One Hundred Gates), which is one of the ultra-religious neighborhoods in Jerusalem.  The girls put on modest clothing, the boys wore whatever they woke up in, like usual.  I dug out my floor length dark green skirt, black shirt, and black scarf to wrap around my arms and chest.  Although I thought I was being quite brazen, other girls were wearing white, bright blue, red flowery patterns, and even neon pink.  We set off and walked up that hill, across the green line, and into Me'a Sha'arim.  We paused just outside the neighborhood to talk about what we were about to see, and I noticed a sign on one of the buildings, "GROUPS, passing through our neighborhoods severely offend the residents.  Please stop this."

"Are we about to walk down the street that very large and angry sign is telling us not to walk down?"  I asked.

"Yes," came the reply.

And off we went.

Girls on one side of the street, boys on the other.  We walked down the streets, less polished and cleanly than those of our own neighborhood.  Paper announcements littered the sidewalk and garbage lined the streets from the holiday parties the nights before.  Men in black suits and coats, some bald, some with peyot, some wearing large funny hats.  Woman carrying multiple babies, dark skirts down to their knees.  Girls skipping hand in hand with sisters.  Boys rushing off to school, each with a stack of books.  And us, a group of Reform Jews in bright colors and shorter skirts.  Needless to say, we got looks.
We gathered awkwardly in the middle of an intersection, taking up a large section of a sidewalk we were asked not to be on.  The group of us stood there and were asked to question and ponder.  We weren't asked to judge, but how could we not?  These people had a different lifestyle than us, looked different, had different and even controversial ideologies from us.  We stood there and stared, they walked by and stared.  We all watched and analyzed and assumed and judged.
When we walked on, we walked both boys and girls together.  I learned that the area was founded as one of the original settlements outside of the Old City by religious Jews, and then taken over and re-done as a get-a-way for wealthier people, but when the financially well off didn't inhabit like was expected, the poorer religious Jews moved in, created a very intimate and strictly religious neighborhood that grew more crowded and less wealthy.
Now it is an ultra-religious neighborhood, where they can live out their lives the way they choose to.  If men and women want to walk on separate sides of the street, they are free to.  If they want to wear clothing that would get them stares, judgement, and maybe even harassment in the greater public sphere, they can without hesitating.  If they want to take a special kind of bus that better suits their needs, they can.  In this Jewish state, living in a neighborhood like this allows these Jews to freely live out the Judaism they wish to.
Why should we impede on their rights?  Why should we intrude, after them asking us not to in so many medias, and interrupt their life and their customs?  I wish we had not disrespected their lifestyle like we did.
Especially as Reform Jews, we who want everyone to have equal rights and the opportunity to practice our Judaism without discrimination and with full equal rights, who are to disgrace their customs?  It's one thing to arrange a meeting with willing participants who could teach us, but to put on disgraceful outfits and trampede through their streets to observe and judge is a different case entirely.  If the goal is education, there are different methods.  But if as Reform Jews our goal is for equality for all Jews, we need to respect them and their customs just like we'd like them to respect us and our customs.
Eventually we were heading down a street with a familiar view, but from an angle we'd never seen.
"Do you recognize this area?"  Mark Lazar asked me.  I took a few seconds to think, and then answered hesitantly, "Davidka?"  I was right.
We stopped and found a place to talk in the shade.  A brief summary of what we just saw, and then we got an introduction to our next adventure.  We were going to be split into pairs (an excited high five between Kitty and me) and sent off into the shuk with twenty shekels.  Our task was to purchase a dessert item(s) for the group to share after lunch.  Our second task was to find people from all backgrounds, ethnicities, races, and ideologies in the shuk and question them about their lives.  We asked them about when they or their family came to Israel, why, how did they like it, what did they think about politics and economy here, and what are the best and worst parts of Israel.
After we got the courage to ask people instead of awkwardly watch them walk away, secretly wishing each other would go approach them but never taking a step, we met a lot of interesting people.  I was surprised to learn just how many people we met whose entire families were from Jerusalem.  The majority of the shuk-workers we talked to were Jerusalemites back and back.  Another majority didn't want to answer any questions, and all but one of the rest spoke little to no English.  Of those we talked to, we met a foreign worker from the Philippines, an Ethiopian, a few Moroccans, and our one English speaker, the American.  A typical conversation went like this:
"Hi, do you speak English!?!" This was said in my worst Taglit-esque accent, with a peppy tone associated with over-excited American tourist groups.  At this point, anyone who was not eager to talk would immediately be turned off and give us a gruff 'no' and we would smile our prettiest smiles and walk away.
Those who were interested in talking would answer either 'yes' or 'half' and I would press on: "Do you mind if we ask you a few questions?"  Again, the peppy American accent.  Other than the one American, no one understood this, so I would repeat it in Hebrew: "Yesh lanu sha'alot l'sha'al lcha, ze b'seder?"  And once more, a gruff no would send us away while a yes would send me into the next qualifier: "M'effo atah?"  Where were they from?  We weren't looking for an Israelis, so any answer of 'Jerusalem' or 'Israel' would prompt me to ask about their families, but if the answer still hadn't changed, we would move on.
Those lucky few who made it past our selection process were asked the questions about life in Israel.  Our findings revealed that most people came for the economy but tried to stay out of the political side of things.  Some came for the religious aspect, and the foreign worker came because in addition to the work she could get here, she could also receive quality health insurance.  They came anywhere from three years ago (our American, a youth movement girl from Texas) to decades ago.  And they'd all like to offer us a deal on whatever it is that they were selling.
Having gotten all our information, we bought our dessert (massive, fluffy, sugar-coated donuts) and treated ourselves to Aroma drinks.  Healthy, I know.
We gathered in our familiar Strawberry Garden to eat and discuss.  After sharing our information, we moved on.  We sat in front of the building of the Jewish Agency for Israel and talked about what kinds of things an agency like that should do, and then handed out assignments for next week.  Dan R, Josh, and I are planning on having a Torah service on the rooftop of Beit Shmuel incorporating a very unique aspect of that location.  I don't want to give too much away, but I'm very excited for this service.