Another Only in Israel Experience

1AM – picked up by a local taxi to take me to a (very) early morning flight to Johannesburg. As is customary in Israel I elect to ride ‘shutgun’ in the front passenger seat rather than sit in the back –(I think this has a lot to do with a the constant under-current of uncomfortableness with the idea of having another Israeli Jew do menial work for you -- rather than then a relation to Israel’s socialist roots.

In any event, back to the story…about 10 seconds after sitting down and saying hello, my eyes are closed and I am falling fast asleep – only to be awoken by the driver asking me if I wanted to watch some TV. A bit bewildered, I look over as the driver points to the central console of his Mercedes and turns on Israel’s channel 2 – before I get the chance to explain that I am a bit too tired to watch, he asks me if I would rather watch his wedding video at which point he proceeds to switch the screen to DVD and all of the sudden we are taken back 20 years to a wedding hall in Jerusalem where my driver – in a tux and a full head of hair – is dancing with his wife-to-be surrounded by friends and family (mostly of Moroccan decent).

As we begin our decent from Jerusalem on Highway One, we pass the massive Jerusalem cemetery of Har Menuchot, the driver begins to point to all of the people in the video that have died. “this life is like dust” he tells me in a broken voice – he points to the screen to an attractive woman dancing with the bride “you see her, that’s my sister she died 4 years ago, left a husband and 3 children” he pauses a second as the screen moves to him dancing with another man of similar build to his own “there, that’s my brother, he just died 2 months ago”. He continues to point to all of the people who had died – estimating in a clearly exaggerated fashion that 50% of the people that I see on the screen hugging and kissing he and his wife are now dead. He begins to tear.

And here I am struck by this singularly Israeli moment, consoling my cab driver over his loss, talking with him about the fickle nature of life and hoping to God that he keeps his eyes on the road.