I'm still here!
This summer, we went to a wedding. It was tiny and beautiful — Hang on, I went to TWO tiny, beautiful weddings. This post is not about the weddings.
It’s about a Nurse Practitioner I met at the Vernon Regional Hospital in the summer a couple of days after the second tiny beautiful wedding I attended. I guess I was a bit tired out, what with all the fun, sushi, and cows just over the fence. The day after the wedding, I spiked a fever, lost all my strength. In the middle of the night, Su and Iris took me to the Vernon hospital. I couldn’t stand up by myself. Iris is an Amazon. She practically carried me into the car.
I had a bit of pneumonia. Knocked me flat for a couple of days. I was reading Eichmann in Jerusalem by Hannah Arendt. I’m still reading it. I got waylaid by British cop shows on the Knowledge Network. Anyway, the Nurse Practitioner asked me about it. I wasn’t very far into it then and we talked about ‘the banality of evil’ and thoughtlessness, and other big themes in that small book. It wasn’t a long conversation. We talked a little about the parallels between the Holocaust 80+ years ago, and the war against the Jews now.
She handed me the book and ssid, “The Jews will win. The Jews always win.” pause. “As they should.”
“Yes” I replied. That was encouraging. Most people are at least puzzled by my turn to toward support for Zionism. Some are downright hostile and kind of shouty. Some have said, “we can’t talk about this”. I don’t know why we can’t talk about it.
This little story is not about the Nurse Practitioner, either. But it is.
I got discharged that day. On the way home we saw a line of Pro-Hamas people shouting into the traffic to ‘‘Free Palestine”. I rolled the window down and hollered “Hamas is a Death Cult” at them. They shook their fists and yelled back at me.
The anti-biotics worked!
I love those random connections with strangers, like the NP.
I would like to have difficult conversations, with people I love. I’m not going to ‘agree to disagree’. I want to hear from the ones who challenge me with a different story. We may never agree, but if we can keep the conversation going, we will come to some understanding. We’re less likely to kill each other if we can keep talking.
Hey Erin, Quite the story. One little note about Eichmann in Jerusalem. Arendt believed that Eichmann was sincere in his statements that he was just a cog in a machine, just following orders. However, his diaries were later recovered and it was revealed that he was more than willing participant. He was a major instigator. Somehow, it doesn't invalidate the cliche about the banality of evil.
In today's environment, where Jews are attacked for being Jewish regardless of any affiliation with Israel, banal is not a word that I would use to describe the Pro-Palestine lobby.