Jun

21

20 Camels

Filed Under Family & Friends, Israel/Jews, Travel/People & Places | 8 Comments

“Twenty camels. I give twenty camels,” the fiftyish Arab shop owner tells me.

But my mind is somewhere else. I continue to search for the right pair of “Jesus sandals” in his tiny shop filled with shoeboxes.

“Do you have a size 38 for this one?” I ask, holding and showing to him a nice pair of leather sandals I’ve handpicked from the variety of sandals being displayed.

“I check, I check….” he replies, his voice trailing off. He leaves me for a while and starts rummaging through the other piles of shoeboxes nearby.

“What’s with the camel talk?” my curious brother asks me in Tagalog.

“I don’t know. Maybe he wants to sell us some camels as we tour Jerusalem,” I whisper in our mother tongue. “Anyway, do you think this pair will look good on me?” I inquire, showing him the unisex Jesus sandals.

“Well, it’s okay. But it’s not too feminine.”

“That’s the point.”

Mom and Dad are sitting on a wooden bench. “So, have you found your sandals yet?” Mom asks me.

“Yes. I’m just waiting for the man to give me the right size.”

After a few minutes, the shop owner approaches me and hands me the size 38 Jesus sandals.

“Thank you.”

I try them on. He, meanwhile, examines me from head to foot. I become a bit self-conscious.

“Great! They fit perfectly! I’ll take them,” I tell the Arab shop owner with enthusiasm.

He looks enthusiastic, too. “Twenty camels. I give twenty camels!” he exclaims.

“Pardon me? You mean these sandals are made from camel leather?”

“No…no.” He then turns towards my brother and parents. He explains something to them in a murmur. My brother then chuckles.

“Ah…he wants to marry you off with his son. He’s willing to give twenty camels for that,” my brother explains to me in Tagalog.

“My son is good man,” the shop owner points out.

I smile out of embarrassment. I then tell my parents and brother that we should leave the place ASAP — but with the Jesus sandals, of course. This kind of negotiation, however interesting in cultural terms, is purely out of the question.

After making the footwear purchase, I thank the pleasant Arab businessman without giving any reply to his 20-camel offer. We leave his shop with silly smiles on our faces in deference to his “generous proposition.” He reads between the lines: that we’re saying “no” in a diplomatic way. He smiles back.

We all head back to the Christian guesthouse, also situated in the old city of Jerusalem.

Twenty camels. Is that my worth in the Arab world? Should I be flattered?

Tired and weary from too much exposure to the summer sun, I mull over the prospect of having an Arab father-in-law who sells nice leather sandals at the Arab market in the old city of Jerusalem. (Jerusalem, Israel/August 1999)

(Note: This blog entry is reposted in my anecdotes blog, Jolly J!)

May

7

Israel’s 60th

Filed Under In the News, Israel/Jews, Politics, Special Events | 6 Comments

Israel celebrates the 60th year of its founding as a nation this month.

While Israeli President Shimon Peres has invited heads of state, ministers, scientists, philosophers, and artists — among them, US President George Bush, former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, former Czech President Vaclav Havel, and former Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid — for a three-day conference to mark the Jewish state’s 60th birthday on May 14, Switzerland’s Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey has not received an invitation, and has voiced out her disappointment. Apparently, no one from the Swiss government has been invited to Israel’s 60th anniversary celebrations.

According to the news portal Swissinfo.ch, Switzerland will be represented in Israeli’s Diamond Jubilee festivities through its ambassador in Tel Aviv. The slighted Calmy-Rey was quoted by the Swiss newspaper SonntagsZeitung as saying, “Personally, I am disappointed that our country was not invited at government level.”

The non-invitation may have been caused by Calmy-Rey’s recent visit to Iran to witness the signing of a multi-billion-dollar natural gas supply contract between Swiss company EGL and Iran’s state-owned National Iranian Gas Export Company.

Reports have it that the deal “prompted angry reactions from Jewish groups because Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has often called for the destruction of Israel.” Alfred Donath, president of the Swiss Federation of Jewish Communities, said that “by signing the gas deal Switzerland sent the wrong message at the wrong time.”

Calmy-Rey reportedly defended the deal by saying that every state had the right to pursue its economic interests, and that Switzerland was not the only country buying Iranian oil and gas.

The Foreign Minister said that Switzerland, being a neutral state, “talks to everyone.” She added that Switzerland will “continue to condemn breaches of international humanitarian law.”

A minority of Swiss citizens, who are staunch pro-Israel advocates, have often said how Calmy-Rey has compromised the supposedly neutral position of Switzerland by taking sides and not supporting Israel’s right to defend its constituents. “She doesn’t seem to know what she is doing,” said one Swiss businessman, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

In March, Switzerland was the only European member of the 47-nation UN Human Rights Council to vote in favor of a resolution condemning Israeli military action in Gaza that resulted in the death of more than 120 Palestinians, many of them civilians. The military raids were prompted by Palestinian militant groups escalating their rocket fire into Israel. (Video courtesy of Aish.com)

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