Moonlighting as a Grifter in Jerusalem
How I inadvertently embedded with a 75-year-old man hellbent on crashing a high society reception.
I was warned by plenty of olim that this would happen: as the warmth and light of autumn recedes into the cold, constrictive winter, the thrill of aliyah novelty will start to fade. The kids will bring home an endless stream of diseases and parasites, from stomach viruses to lice to pinworms. You will realize that your Hebrew is far worse than you thought it was, right when the “new” in your identity as a “new oleh” will start to feel misplaced. The environment will become clammy and cold and wet, and you will ask yourself what you are even doing here.
Luckily, we had a glorious pattern-breaker of a New Year’s vacation to Sri Lanka, where I found my own personal nirvana: a tiny, tropical India with the nicest people ever, incredible food, cheap tuk tuk rides, and endless turquoise waves. The kids have become skilled and happy travelers, and we started a daily gratitude practice as a family that uplifted us all.
We returned full of excitement for the future. Then, we started dropping like flies, one after the other, with some kind of food poisoning or viral infection or who knows what, and things started to feel really grim. Then the Pacific Palisades burned to the ground — the entire architecture of my childhood memories, my first home, my schools, our favorite restaurants, my friends’ homes — everything gone.
I started to feel the weight of the war again, and would see the strain on people’s faces, mostly because I started looking for it. The Mediterranean went flat and the wind died, relegating me to boring versions of exercise that kept my stoke-o-meter at 2 out of 10.
But then I realized that a confluence of cosmic and terrestrial phenomena would soon open an opportunity to get excited about. On January 13th in the Old City of Jerusalem, a 99% full moon would rise in the early evening, at 4:22pm, hovering for several minutes above the Dome of the Rock just as the setting sun would illuminate the cramped cityscape of ancient limestone buildings in a golden glow. There is a museum called the Tower of David, and at the top of its tallest tower is the singular vantage point from which you can get that iconic photograph. That museum closes at 5:00pm, and the moon should be in perfect alignment at 4:52pm, providing a tiny window to strike.
I looked forward to this for weeks, praying for a cloudless night. That morning, my prayers were answered, and I was giddy all day in anticipation of taking my electric scooter on a train up to the City of Gold for the first time, escaping the mishugas of life if just for a fleeting few hours, and bringing home a glorious haul of digital matter, an unforgettable experience. I traveled by train for 50 minutes, went up five or six of the steepest escalators on earth, emerged into the late afternoon bustle of Jerusalem, and sped off through the streets into the Old City, where I detected an immediate vibe shift: unlike the laid back, beach-going attitude of Tel Avivians, these folks appeared serious, nervous, anxious. Groups of military police were everywhere, and when I approached one to ask where to lock my scooter, he yelled at me to back off.
As I approached the entrance to the Tower of David museum at 3:53pm, with plenty of time to set up the shot, the security guard told me that sadly they would be closing the museum an hour early, for no reason, and sorry but it’s not possible to enter. I begged for a minute, but my effort proved futile. I maintained my composure until I turned around and walked back toward my scooter, then surprised myself by spontaneously yelling, “FUUUUUUCK!” at the top of my lungs. About 100 people - Arabs, ultra-orthodox Jews, military police, and a handful of tourists - cowered and jumped back and stared at me, unsure if I was about to execute a terror attack. I felt terrible about it and pushed my scooter into the depths of the Old City in shame.
I gingerly walked down the narrow, polished-stone alleyways as shopkeepers beckoned me to inspect their wares. Just then, I saw a very young Arab kid hop on his electric scooter and zoom up the alleyway. Just as soon as I thought to myself, “Wait - that’s allowed?!” I jumped on mine and sped off into the serpentine matrix in search of the Austrian Hospice, which I heard had a rooftop deck with a great view of the Al Aqsa mosque. That spot turned out not to have the vantage point I wanted, so I called a friend who told me to go to a park on a hill outside the Old City, where at least I could get a shot of the moon rising over the ancient city walls.
At that park, I watched the brilliant moon come up and lord over the horizon. From a photography perspective, it was not at all what I envisioned, and not worth the trip at all. I felt super disappointed for a few minutes, but only because I had such high expectations. Before long, I realized that I was standing there, in perfect health, with complete freedom to pursue anything I want, watching a full moon rise over the State of Israel, where the war is currently winding down, and we are expecting hostages to be freed at any moment. Then I randomly got a call from my Dad, and said, “You’re calling at exactly the best time!” I had absolutely nothing that I needed to do except look at the moon, and suddenly that felt like way more than enough.
Just after I got off the phone, I stood there in a weird liminal state. I am always rushing from one thing to the next, with never enough time to get there. It was getting dark in the park, and just as I started considering my options for what to do next, a 75-year-old Israeli man approached me, and asked if I was a tourist. I told him, “Sug shel - ani oleh chadash!” (Kind of - I’m a new immigrant!) He then got very close and wrapped me a huge hug. Something about him and his out-of-the-blue interest in me seemed a tiny bit off; he was clean cut, fit, relatively non-threatening, and carried a small backpack that appeared too small to fit a bomb inside. No cause for alarm, but in my Tel Avivian eyes, everything in Jerusalem has a sheen of intensity and weirdness.
As we started chatting, I heard an overwhelming howl, as if thousands of soccer fans or baritone-throated coyotes were chanting something aloud. I asked him what it was, and he said that it was the Muslim call to prayer, asking if I wanted to “go see it.” “Go see what?” I asked. He said there was all sorts of amazing stuff to see in the neighborhood, rattling off locations I had never heard of. I asked if he were a tour guide, and he just laughed and told me that he loves showing people around Jerusalem. I found myself in the very unfamiliar center of a Venn diagram: I somehow had an empty vessel of time to fill, and a fairly compelling offer to fill it up immediately. I said, “Yalla - let’s go.”
The guy showed a staggering lack of situational awareness as he led us down an endless stone staircase that required me to carry my awkwardly-sized, 80lb electric scooter. “That looks heavy,” he said. “It is,” I responded. A random lost American asked him for directions, and he expertly directed her to the location. He asked me to wait on the street while chatting up a security guard at a random building, and came back to apologize that there would be no classical music concert that evening. “It’s too bad,” he said, “They often have free wine!”
We continued on, and he asked me to lock up my scooter so he could show me inside a very unique hotel, which lodges artists and intellectuals from around the world on an invitation-only basis. Had I not seen a large group of people in the lobby, I would have been creeped out and bailed without hesitation. But I followed him inside, checking out the artwork on the walls. “We’re in luck!” he said, motioning for me to follow him down a corridor that opened up into a reception lounge filled with fancy people, all dressed to the nines. By contrast, were in casual clothing, carrying backpacks, and my hair was still crunchy from my lunchtime swim in the Mediterranean.
“You have no idea how good this wine is going to be.” He led me to the bar, where the owner of the catering company poured us each a glass of red. “He’s an amazing guy - I know him. Notice that even though he is the owner, he is here pouring the wine out of respect for his Arab staff who cannot deal with alcohol.” I studied the room, a bit surprised by the diversity of the crowd: there were plenty of Jews, some religious, some not, but mostly lots of English-speaking folks with accents and appearances that I couldn’t place.
“Let me tell you - the thing about Israel, you can just walk into any kind of reception like this, and nobody will ever ask you who you are or if you belong there. Never. It’s amazing! Now let’s get another glass of wine. By the way, it’s important to talk to people. Even if you don’t know who they are. You have to talk to them. It’s really important.” I followed him back to the bar, and asked if he makes a habit of crashing parties like this. “Let me tell you something. I was in my early 20s during the Yom Kippur War, driving a tank up near the Golan Heights. It was clear that we were going to lose the war, and probably lose the country. A terrible time. I got out of my tank at one point, and immediately got hit with a bullet. I don’t remember what happened after that, but I woke up two days later surrounded by Israeli doctors. I thought to myself, ‘Thank God - I’m with Israelis and not Syrians,’ and after surviving that shot, I just made a decision to not care at all what anyone thinks, and just to have fun with life! By the way, My name’s Elias.”
After our fourth glass of wine, we started getting hungry. The room filled in with even more guests, and Elias grew visibly concerned that either the food would get fully consumed, or the actual event, whatever it was, might start soon, thus cutting off our access to the hors d'oeuvres. We made a beeline for the white-clothed buffet and loaded up our tiny ceramic plates. Elias fashioned an architectural masterpiece of exotic cheeses, swelling with pride as he took his first bite. I told him that the bread was fantastic, and he responded, “Bread?! Are you crazy? With cheese like this, I have no space for bread. None at all.”
Although we felt slightly self-conscious about our appearance, ultimately hiding our backpacks under the tea station, we shamelessly asked the catering company owner to crack open another bottle of red for us. He complied without reservation. As we got drunker, trading stories, and keeling over in laughter over and over again, Elias started regaling me about his biggest score from the month before.
“I just needed to see the sea. I love Jerusalem, but there is nothing blue here. I grew up in Morocco before moving to Israel as a kid, and I’m crazy about the water. So I took a bus down to Tel Aviv, and started checking out the hotels until I arrived at the Hilton, which is by far one of the nicest hotels in your city.”
“Oh, you stayed in the Hilton?” I asked.
He started laughing so hard that his face almost touched the floor. “Stay? Are you crazy? I have no money - no money at all! I went there looking for a conference, and oh did I find one! I could smell the food from the lobby, and just followed my nose. I tried to get in, but it was heavily guarded. I saw a religious guy walking out of the conference hall, wearing a badge on a lanyard around his neck.”
“No way - you asked him for his badge?”
“Who do you think I am? I would never do something like that! That’s too extreme. I just took off my baseball cap to reveal my kippah, walked up to the guy and said, ‘I really want to get in there and hear the lecture, but the security is so tight and they won’t let me in!’ Then he just took off his badge and put it around my neck. So I walked right in, and I’m telling you, they were serving the best steak I have ever had, totally kosher. The best.” He looked up to the ceiling, his eyes glazed over in reverie.
“The conference was actually quite interesting. It was put on by this Haredi guy from Brooklyn who is knocking down old buildings and constructing them anew, with a very compelling investment thesis. If I had money, I would have put it with him.”
“Wait - you actually attended the conference?”
“Absolutely - I was there all day! I went to every one of the lectures, and they were fabulous. And they kept serving food. When it ended, I just took the bus back to Jerusalem for a few shekels.”
As we polished off the last of the wine with a potent wooziness setting in, a tall, broad, very white emcee announced that we would soon migrate into the adjoining movie theater room to view the documentary premier of “Dying to Live: The October 7th Massacre,” a film produced by an Egyptian activist who long ago converted to Christianity, got tortured in a Cairo prison, and then escaped to Israel on a jet ski, where he walked into a hotel lobby in Eilat, dripping wet, and claimed asylum.
After telling this story, the emcee thanked the many ambassadors and spouses in the room, and then went through a list of other dignitaries gracing us with their presence. Then, looking right at us, the emcee continued, “And tonight we also have a lot of staff in the room, and we invite them to view the premier, entering the theater through the staff entrance at the rear.”
Elias started cracking up, and said, “Ok, looks like we’re going in through the rear doors!” We sat in the back row and watched the disturbing but fairly well-produced film, sneaking out just before the credits rolled. I checked my phone for directions back to the train station, gave Elias a hug goodbye, and scooted off into the night.