To the Elite

So far in my experience within the Kibbutz and my little exposure outside of the Kibbutz, Israeli’s are seemingly hippie yet all are soldiers, veterans or reservists of the worlds elite military force. After the army, many men let their hair grow and attend their annual army reservist obligation with their ponytails in tact. Thursdays are when the active (young) Israeli soldiers travel home for the weekend and are allowed complimentary public transportation. As I was waiting for my bus to Jerusalem, there were many kids in uniform waiting along with me. They were all hanging out, flirting, smoking, some of the girls still wearing their hip purses while in uniform. A guy sitting across from me, was sort of zoning, in these cotton/linen yoga pants, wool socks with Birkenstocks, this sherpa like jacket and an M-16 draped across his lap (guess he was reservist). There was a security guy who was running the security checks of the buses sporting a blond tipped pho-hawk. On my ride down to Jtown an Israeli girl soldier sat next to me with her M-16 wedged between us, pointing down at my left pinky toe as she longingly falls asleep listening to Suzanne Vega’s greatest hits. As I walked around the Jerusalem bus station, also a shopping mall, I step into a cosmetic store to find an Israeli she-soldier thumbing through different nail polish with her acrylic French manicured fingernails and her M-16 slung over her shoulder. It all seems so strang to look at and curiously, I wasn’t even a bit uncomfortable.

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