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Last Thursday, I went to the Middle Eastern joint across the street from my office. Hadn’t been there in a couple of weeks. The manager is an Arab Christian man who’s a dual citizen of Israel and the US.
We usually speak in Hebrew. Recently, he started answering me more often in English and seemed to have less time to kibbitz.
On Thursday, after pulling him aside to ask about his family in Israel and Gaza (who are safe, ברוך השם), he said he wanted to introduce me to someone. I met a well coiffed man wearing a jacket and tie, eating his lunch by himself.
After some pleasantries, he told me he’d recently been in Gaza. Rough stuff going on over there, I said. Unprompted, he then told me four things.
1) His three adult sons are still in northern Gaza and he doesn’t want to be like his friend who lost multiple members of his family
2) He saw no trucks entering Gaza from Israel
3) IDF is killing Gazans who try to access ‘UN food’
4) IDF lied about 10/7. “The invasion, beheading babies, burning, and rapes, the whole thing. It’s all made up by IDF”.
My job often requires me to be interested but neutral. I’m good at creating that balance and did so there. He finished just as my order was announced ready. THANK G-D. So I said, I pray your family stays safe. He was clearly expecting a different response, quickly wiping off his hands, looking at me, and sincerely saying thank you, as he shook my extended hand.
~
He was told that I was a Jew and knew exactly what he was doing. But when it’s person to person, I continue to believe that decency will prevail and maybe, after a while, change some minds.
English
