Star Status
It doesn’t take long for my accent to give me away. And when it does, they are ready to pounce. “Where are you from?” they ask me. “Guess,” I say. Nine times out of ten, they plump for the United States. But America is not the world, I remind them, and after mentioning all the other Anglo countries, they finally manage to get it right. When they learn I am 26 and have already done two degrees, they are agape. And in their gormless stares, I can detect a tension between their admiration for one who seems – from their perspective – a lot worldlier than the average jobnik, and contempt for the fact that I have chosen to come to Israel and serve in the army. Keep it schtum, but there doesn’t seem to be much Zionist spirit around…
As I’ve ended up with the Home Front by chance, I’m a bit of an oddity around base. Only the professional soldiers and the reservists are older than me. Everyone else is at least five years younger. It’s like being thrust into first year of university on a parallel universe. But I am hard to detect. As I’ve only been in the army a few months, I have no rank whatsoever. The Semitic shine on my face hides my British upbringing. And apparently I don’t look that old either. In short, there is sadly no reason to suspect that I am anything other than an eighteen year old just embarked on his army service.
In truth, it can get a little depressing at times. At the end of the day, I have signed on for an extra six months, at a time in my life where convention dictates I should be out there ‘settling down’. In an institution which recognises only rank, it would be nice if there could be some recognition of my difference. In that sense, it’s been good to be appointed samal toran, although even that accentuates my difficulties.
One of the tasks of the samal toran is to make sure the young soldiers clean up in the morning. Until they do this properly, I can’t be on my way. Now, I’d like to think I’ve acquired plenty of skills in this field during my years as a youth worker. But trying to lead a bunch of Israelis is something else. I knock on the door of the soldierettes, asking them to come out for the aliyat degel, the raising of the flag. The accent is detected, and I am slaughtered. One week later, they are still squealing in excitement when they see me, giggling as they perform impressions of my inflections.
Of course, being a lone Anglo on an IDF base does have some benefits. As the title of the piece highlights, it confers on me a sort of star status. Life on base can be so dull, so predictable, that meeting someone with a different background can be the equivalent of Rose Tyler’s first meeting with the Doctor. And people remember you more easily. With my primary reason for serving so long being the wonders it is doing for my Hebrew, this is all to the good.
The other day, I was having my hair cut by the base’s hairdresser. Does it surprise you that there is such a thing? I have to admit, it surprised me, but I suppose you need somewhere to send people whose hair is deemed too long. Hence there is one girl – bleached blonde as ever – whose army service consists of coming in every day and cutting the hair of the male soldiers. The girls prefer to go elsewhere. So I was sitting having my hair trimmed while four yoof gathered impatiently. They shared banter while constantly enquiring when their turn was to come. Israeli nineteen year old boys can be tricky to deal with. But this time she had a secret weapon – me. “Look how the Londini behaves,” she said to them, which queued a chaotic frenzy of questions, and distracted from their fundamental lack of patience.
.
The point of all this is that I’m very much out of place at Home Front central command. This could be rather disorienting, but so far I’m managing to deal with it. Moreover, for a new immigrant opportunities to be out of place are actually few and far between. To integrate to even a minimal level, then, is a great opportunity, even if it does prevent difficulties. As Jeru the Damaja might have put it, I’m not your average jobnik. Which certainly livens thinks up a bit…
