When I came to Israel I had a simple plan. I wanted to leave America as a boy, and return as a man. I figured that this would be a three-step process.
- Go to kibbutz ulpan for five months, at the end of which I'll speak fantastic Hebrew.
- Go to a sayeret for three years.
- Return to America exactly as the person that I want to be and then succeed in all endeavors that I pursue.
It hasn't exactly gone that way, and I've been forced to do a lot of growing up here in the past ten-months. At the end of my five-months on kibbutz ulpan in December it became clear that the army wouldn't take me until May at the earliest, and my Hebrew was shit, so I needed to figure out what to do in the meanwhile. If I'm going to be honest with myself, then I have to admit that most of my problems have been, at least in part, my fault. That is, it's my fault that I didn't have a realistic plan when I came here, and hadn't done sufficient research back in the States. It's my fault for thinking that a red carpet would be rolled out for me leading me to wherever I decided. By the end of my ulpan I saw things a little more clearly, and after explaining my situation, the director of the program strongly suggested that I do garin tzabar. It seemed like a good idea because the army was giving me a headache about my "chayal boded" status, and according to the director of my ulpan whom I have immense respect for, garin tzabar can take care of things like that easily, so I took his advice.
I started going to the garin tzabar seminars, and as I've outlined in other posts, I became surprisingly attached to the group and to the program. From the beginning I explained to them that my draft date is in May and therefore I can't do the program unless they switch it for me. Don't worry about it, it's no problem, we'll handle it. They were so confident that I felt bad that I kept bringing it up, like I was bothering them about a sure thing. However, as the months started passing by and it became clear that garin tzabar was struggling to switch my draft date, I started to get worried. After I'd come home from a seminar I'd be both in a great mood and also scared of losing all the friendships I'd made. After a lot of phone calls and false promises of "we'll have an answer today or tomorrow," garin tzabr finally came through. Five days before my proposed draft date, they managed to switch it. That's a wild roller coaster to go through. It got to the point where I was mentally preparing myself to draft on Tuesday and was about to do some last minute emergency shopping for things that I need. If only they had managed to switch it even a day earlier, then I'd still have a job.
That's right, I got fired from work because the management at my hotel didn't want to deal with the inconvenience of not having an extra waiter on hand for a few days, which would have been the case if they waited any longer for an answer and it ended up being that I did have to go to the army on Tuesday. I pleaded with them to wait and see what the army will tell me, I explained to them that I need money to pay for my rent and to eat, and that the date will most likely be switched, but they had no compassion. Such is the life of an oleh hadash. People only admire you, your courage, and your zionism, when you're not fucking with their money. Of course, the next morning I got the call from the draft center and was informed that my draft date has officially been changed, which officially makes me unemployed. Of all the possible outcomes to this situation, I never imagined that it would go like this. I doesn't matter though, I technically got what I wanted, and now I just have to suck it up, quit my whining, and roll with the punches.
However, the story doesn't end there. My draft date has been changed to August, but in order to participate in garin tzabar I need to draft in November. The reason that garin tzabar settled on only moving the date to August is because the army was outright refusing to let me draft in November but for a reason I don't fully understand, August was okay with them. Whatever the reasoning may be, this turn of events is good for me because now garin tzabar has almost four-months to continue to plead my case. The hard part is over, and it seems more than likely that I'll get to do the program, but that's not final.
I learned a lot from this whole ordeal. I learned how important it is to stand up for yourself in this country, and that you can't get what you want until you speak up, call on all of your resources and contacts, drive people crazy, and refuse to be ignored. Otherwise, the only person who won't have a say in what direction your life is headed in is yourself. The biggest irony is that I got fired at work because I mentioned, under no obligation, that I have an impending draft date which will probably get switched. I tried to do them a favor by giving them a heads up, and I got fucked because of it. I still don't know what to make of that. My whole family said to me that telling the people at the hotel about the situation with my draft date would be a bad idea, but I didn't listen. Had I not tried to go out of my way to help the hotel management, then I wouldn't have gotten fired. Yeah.
As of this writing, I'm living in an apartment and city that's too expensive for me, unemployed, and still a half-a-year away from putting on the uniform. I don't really have anything to complain about though, this is the path I chose and it's my responsibility to stand by it no matter what happens. My story isn't so unique and in comparison to the problems that are plaguing the average oleh hadash, my issues fall somewhere in the middle of the spectrum, maybe even towards the easier side. For example, no matter how tough it's been at times, I can't imagine what it would be like to not have a family here to give me advice and support whenever I might need it.
I look forward to (probably) participating in garin tzabar and then eventually doing what I set out to do, which is join the IDF. No matter what happens, there's nothing to do but to keep on pushing, and I know that things will eventually work themselves out, but exactly how they'll do that still remains a mystery. I've made some mistakes and have had some setbacks, but I've learned a lot about Israel and also about how shit works in general and I wouldn't trade that type of experience for anything.
* "Balagan" is Hebrew slang for chaos/disorder.
That's right, I got fired from work because the management at my hotel didn't want to deal with the inconvenience of not having an extra waiter on hand for a few days, which would have been the case if they waited any longer for an answer and it ended up being that I did have to go to the army on Tuesday. I pleaded with them to wait and see what the army will tell me, I explained to them that I need money to pay for my rent and to eat, and that the date will most likely be switched, but they had no compassion. Such is the life of an oleh hadash. People only admire you, your courage, and your zionism, when you're not fucking with their money. Of course, the next morning I got the call from the draft center and was informed that my draft date has officially been changed, which officially makes me unemployed. Of all the possible outcomes to this situation, I never imagined that it would go like this. I doesn't matter though, I technically got what I wanted, and now I just have to suck it up, quit my whining, and roll with the punches.
However, the story doesn't end there. My draft date has been changed to August, but in order to participate in garin tzabar I need to draft in November. The reason that garin tzabar settled on only moving the date to August is because the army was outright refusing to let me draft in November but for a reason I don't fully understand, August was okay with them. Whatever the reasoning may be, this turn of events is good for me because now garin tzabar has almost four-months to continue to plead my case. The hard part is over, and it seems more than likely that I'll get to do the program, but that's not final.
I learned a lot from this whole ordeal. I learned how important it is to stand up for yourself in this country, and that you can't get what you want until you speak up, call on all of your resources and contacts, drive people crazy, and refuse to be ignored. Otherwise, the only person who won't have a say in what direction your life is headed in is yourself. The biggest irony is that I got fired at work because I mentioned, under no obligation, that I have an impending draft date which will probably get switched. I tried to do them a favor by giving them a heads up, and I got fucked because of it. I still don't know what to make of that. My whole family said to me that telling the people at the hotel about the situation with my draft date would be a bad idea, but I didn't listen. Had I not tried to go out of my way to help the hotel management, then I wouldn't have gotten fired. Yeah.
As of this writing, I'm living in an apartment and city that's too expensive for me, unemployed, and still a half-a-year away from putting on the uniform. I don't really have anything to complain about though, this is the path I chose and it's my responsibility to stand by it no matter what happens. My story isn't so unique and in comparison to the problems that are plaguing the average oleh hadash, my issues fall somewhere in the middle of the spectrum, maybe even towards the easier side. For example, no matter how tough it's been at times, I can't imagine what it would be like to not have a family here to give me advice and support whenever I might need it.
I look forward to (probably) participating in garin tzabar and then eventually doing what I set out to do, which is join the IDF. No matter what happens, there's nothing to do but to keep on pushing, and I know that things will eventually work themselves out, but exactly how they'll do that still remains a mystery. I've made some mistakes and have had some setbacks, but I've learned a lot about Israel and also about how shit works in general and I wouldn't trade that type of experience for anything.
* "Balagan" is Hebrew slang for chaos/disorder.
Hey! every balagan has a solution!
ReplyDeleteJust don`t quit and think that you are a hero for me!
Best of luck.