By Adar
I was on one of the last mid-friday buses in Tel Aviv before they stop running for Shabbat, coming from the beach, so it was extremely crowded. I was lucky to get a seat, and quite comfortable, but not everyone on the bus was quite so at ease. A teenager, not more than sixteen or seventeen, and an older man, probably about seventy, who were sitting a few seats away from each other, started arguing. Who knows what about. Maybe the teenager was hitting the window and the older man told him to stop. I don't know. But it escalated so rapidly that within about a minute, they were flying insults toward one another that had absolutely nothing to do with anything. It was very colorful language, most of which I unfortunately understood, and I think everyone around was shocked by how ridiculous it had become so quickly. The teenager's friends told him to let it go, and others told the older man to give it a rest as well. But they didn't. Soon, many more people were involved, telling the two to cut it out, and the hot-blooded teenager was actually being forcibly held back by his friends because he was ready to start punching the older man. Over what? They were complete strangers, it was absolutely ridiculous. The entire bus was buzzing, and I was surprised that the driver didn't kick the two off the bus -- he would have within the first two minutes in the US. After quite a stir, with shouts coming from all over, the driver says into the microphone, "Hevre, it's erev shabbat" (Friends, it's the sabbath this evening). The bus calmed down, the two sat back down. A handful of non-religious guys (I don't think anyone on the bus was particularly religious) started singing the Kaddish (Shabbat prayer). Soon some other guys were jokingly singing Passover songs and the whole ordeal died down.
I've been trying to think what on earth would agitate those two people on the bus to get at each other's throats so quickly. Perhaps they in particular are difficult people, or have far too much testosterone. But the psychologist in me thinks that maybe it was the boiling point for both of them because of what's going on in Israel right now. Warnings of a third intifada, marathon runners dead and hospitalized because of the heat, an accident yesterday caused by young Palestinians throwing rocks at moving vehicles that put a two-year old in critical condition, and of course the constant threat of Iran and Syria. It's a tense time, to say the least. As a visitor, it's one thing. But to live constantly like this, with so much of reality being harsh -- I don't know, maybe it makes blood boil a little faster than it should.