Telefon Tel Aviv
There’s a hammer hanging in Nimrods room – a judges’ hammer. Rumors circulate about that solid piece of wood. Some say Nimrods grandfather stole it in a UN-meeting. Others say it stems from the time of Israel’s foundation and actually belongs to a museum. Recently on Skype we spoke about Yair Lapids accusations of Israelis moving to Berlin. The politician everyone in voted for (since people knew his face from TV) recalled his own family’s Holocaust story, resulting in the line: “Forgive me if I’m a bit impatient with people who are willing to throw the only state the Jews have into the garbage because it’s easier to live in Berlin.” Nimrod, who just turned 23, is not one of the people indicated. He has good reasons to stay in Israel. “I’m a Jewish Palestinian”, he tells me, recounting his family story. “They moved to Palestine in the mid-19th-century.” Nimrod claims that he hated Lapid for what he said – “People leaving Israel aren’t traitors.” Yet: “It sounds funny to me. I would never give up the connection to this place here, this is a question of commitment.” Suddenly he sounds as if he actually agrees with Lapid (just a bit): “For a long time Jews didn’t have the chance to say: I’m happy to die in the place where I’m born. That is one of the few things I don’t find problematic about the state of Israel: The right of people to stay.” Nimrod is careful not to be misunderstood: “I am part of Zionist history. But you know, Zionism is about moving and settling. I’m talking about staying, to know where I belong. Some people say they move out of Israel, because Zionism has failed. To me that’s replicating the notion inherent to the Zionist project.” So let’s tease a bit: Seriously? There’s no scenario, which would make you leave? “No, and if so, I would want to be here to prevent it. One of the crazy things of the Israeli regime is, that it actually tries to make the occupation look like an irrelevant side-effect. I feel I have a task to make that visible. I’m part of a political group doing so.” The hype around Berlin is something Nimrod follows, but doesn’t share. “Berlin is cosmopolitan, a bit like New York, there’s coalitions between Israelis and Palestinians, that’s interesting. But it is also a decadent place. It feels like those stories of Weimar, a city on the verge of collapsing. Sometimes I believe people move there to die. Many of them just stop doing anything in the moment they arrive to Berlin.” I’m trying to think: What would describe German’s relationship with their families rather than a hammer and tales of tradition? Tables? Monocles? Broomsticks?
® Jonas Opperskalski