Tag: Judaism

Hate rears its ugly head too!

While travelling, anti-semitism is always a thing, but can be overcome.

(last update: 22 April 2024)

Vancouver, November 2005.

I was staying at The Dodson * in a troubled neighbourhood in a single room. In the room next to me (on the desk side, see below) was a man who appeared to have two prosthetic legs. I think he had black hair but was semi-bald – maybe 45-50. He was a permanent resident.

[pic 2 source]

* – owner notified

His walking style was very, very cumbersome. He came across as a loud, somewhat friendly (and charming) robot but with little to no empathy. He was speaking to almost everyone in the hallway who came his way and most people would slip away from him when they had a chance. He might have been a war veteran (or that was at least the lie he put forward?) – I only overheard him say something about his legs.

Spot a psychopath when the 'mask of sanity'/ 'presentable image' / 'persona' they normally project to you sporadically drops and it gives you a hint of what their real underlying character is. Over time, all psychopaths will begin to give themselves away through little clues and signs of their real underlying personality leaking out.

So I spoke to him briefly in the hallway and I told him about my travels and he asked if I was Jewish and I said ‘yes.’

On one of the following nights, I heard him engaged in the sexual act with someone. The walls were very thin. There were screams, groans and strange sounds, but most disturbing of all was the horrific anti-semitic abuse being directed at his partner in a stream-of-consciousness style. Vicious, unrelenting hatred against anything and everything Jewish for around 35 mins and possibly longer as I lost track of time.

Once the noises stopped I heard his door close and I opened my door slightly and saw what appeared to be a male prostitute in the hallway still strapping his belt and getting ready to leave.

I couldn’t sleep and lay awake. Then I heard the guy’s door open again.

I somewhat panicked. I snuck up to my own door. It was unlocked. I didn’t want to lock it as that would make a noise. Instead, I pushed my hand strongly against my door above the handle.

I saw the door knob rotate and felt pressure against my hand. He was outside my door trying to get in – or at least seeing if that was possible. I might even have been saving my own life! Did he want another orgasm at my expense? Was he carrying a knife and intent on entering my room? I don’t know.

A war veteran (and convert) murdered my friend Tony Rose in 2014 in a premeditated attack with an 18cm commando knife so it’s certainly possible. The chap knew I was Jewish from a few days earlier and I also have mentioned here the notion of Nazis gaining sexual pleasure from the usage of gas chambers. So it’s not a perfect analogy, but it’s reasonable to suggest I was in serious danger that night.

Perhaps I should have opened the door to see what he was holding but I think that would’ve been too risky. He had a cumbersome walk, but he could’ve had a slingshot ready or a taser if that was his intent. He might have acted nonchalant and lunged at me the following day – I wasn’t going to find out. If he was a war veteran, using a head torch, he could’ve thrown a knife at me and dropped a suicide note by my side if I was asleep… or just shot me.

Moments later he went back to his room and I locked my door properly. It took me a while to get to sleep and I propped something against my door as well. As a permanent resident, he may have known ways to overcome the locks or had a skeleton key (excuse the pun.) On the other hand, he may have wanted to brag about “the Jewish guy who left his door unlocked who I could’ve killed if I wanted to but didn’t so I must be a hero.”

The next day I told the (Asian) receptionist about what had happened and he said “That’s bad” and ideally the hostel should’ve installed CCTV in the hallway after I mentioned it. Anyway, I walked out never to return:

* The exact photo I took when I stepped out to leave for good – and feeling good about it! (see on Google maps)

A few days earlier the receptionist had supplied me with a small oil heater when I complained about the room being too cold and this was due to the in-built building heater not running. The heater he supplied was too small for that room – he probably wanted to keep running costs low and I didn’t say anything further about it:

So after leaving the Dodson, I found myself at the Samesun.

Prior to the Dodson I was staying at the Cambie Seymour Hostel which I had left  because I wanted a private room for less expense than what they were offering. It was also cold there.

[left] Dorm at the Cambie Seymour with its heater.
[middle left] Michael Buble at the Cambie.
[middle right] The same Cambie TV room in 2020 source.
[far right] At Malone’s Taphouse that is part of the Cambie building.

In another similar scenario, some months earlier in July 2005 in Donegal, Ireland, I remember leaving the Dooey Hostel under similar circumstances. I felt like some type of lynching was about to take place when I overheard late one night people talking about some “Jew who had come from Israel.”

It was hard to tell what was going to happen – I definitely may have been wrong. Regardless, I left very early in the morning when everyone in the dorm room was still asleep and left behind 3 paid nights. Sunrise was at about 5am at the Hotel California.

The Irish are some of the friendliest people I’ve met (if you can understand them) – including the owners of that hostel – but I think the whole Israel vs Palestine thing can be taken too personally at times and misunderstood. At least I heard what people were saying – the hostel can’t control who comes in.

Interestingly, on the same trip in Dublin there were some Poles staying in a dorm room with me and in the middle of the night I looked down to see someone rummaging through my backpack. I think the chap then pretended to think it was his backpack.

A few months later, I had a lot of things stolen from my bags in a hostel room at Jaffa port, Tel Aviv, including this favourite t-shirt that I had worn in Canada:

[At Painted Turtle Guesthouse, Nanaimo, drinking bottled water and generally calming nerves. I was happy to have picked up that jacket for $50 at a second-hand store even though it was basically new …jealousy is a curse.]

People also do things out of jealousy too and I only learned about this in my mid-20s! Perhaps I presumed good things came pretty easily to everyone. Jealousy is a foreign emotion to me – could it even be idiotic?! I’d help anyone who was jealous of me – as long as it was caught early enough. That said, sometimes it’s never reciprocated, and being kind to the cruel makes one cruel to the kind.

Speaking of jealousy, in Victoria BC in late September, I met an Israeli (/ American?) chap (Gideon??) in a mixed dorm and I could’ve been a good wingman for him (even though I didn’t and don’t drink alcohol,) but he was determined to be some type of alpha male or at least be seen as one, and this was also part of his pickup-style it seemed.

That’s the impression I got and to the point where I couldn’t have a normal conversation with him at the Ocean Island Inn:

But he still was a friendly and likeable guy, no doubt, and at least he didn’t try to steal my stuff like the person from Poland did. But I think that’s much more a ‘broke backpacker’ thing than anything else. By this, I’ve also had a pair of optical spectacles stolen at a hostel in San Francisco in early 2003.

At this hostel (Fort Mason) I met a young German woman who had just completed a thesis on the act of doing an “About Face” in international relations.

Surprise, surprise, it happens and one should be prepared for it. It’s a nice step as well.

Interestingly, when I arrived I walked into the dorm room and there were two gay guys going at it, so I did an about-face, went back to the desk and made a complaint.

Anyway, Gideon noticed the Kenvelo (“yes and no” / כן ולא) t-shirt I had on too and knew some history of the brand. Sort of sums up the acquaintance. But isn’t machoism a part of Israeli culture? What did I expect? Lead or be led. Whatever the case, hopefully age has mellowed him out and good luck to him! Travelling isn’t always easy, even for the best of us!

In Ireland, I met a female ‘Orly’ who I saw again in Haifa some months later as she was Israeli and I even went to her place by the sea. She was genuinely nice and along with a few of her friends, we went to Caesarea and one friend told me she thought Netanyahu was ‘shifty’ and he had just won Likud chairmanship at that point. Orly had studied English literature and wanted to become and an advertising copywriter. One trick at work when dealing with problematic characters (for whatever the reason) was to “go around them.” Speaking of which, up at the university, an Arab fellow followed me and gave me hostile looks for under a minute as we walked down the same path. Did he want to intimidate me, beat me up or was he gay and signaling dominance? If only I was part of a group.

“Safety in numbers.”

I am pretty sure it was at that uni where I spoke to someone with Orwell’s 1984 sticking out of his backpack telling me that “it is the future.”

[pic: 27 Sep 2020]

Or should that be “Danger in numbers!”

Regarding dominance signaling, at a bus terminal in most likely Haifa in ~2006 (Tsfat below,) I spent many hours sitting at a table playing Civilization IV on my laptop with all the bustle around me. Addicted, I skipped a few bus trips to keep playing. When it quietened down and into the night, a cleaner of the building came up to me and started yelling loudly. I was surprised but then he wiggled his head a few times to show me his solitary earing. I thought the bus station was closing and he was telling me to get out, but I later learned it was not. What did he really want? Ahh, the civility.

In any case, a fellow at my recent reunion made the observation that the Israelis he came across while traveling fall clearly into either two categories: cool dudes or total douchebags – or words to that effect. But wasn’t that too harsh? Why pick on Israelis: they live in a permanent state-of-war? But why not if they don’t give you a chance? This fellow, a year above me, presently works as a researcher for public policy. We didn’t speak for long and I hadn’t spoken to him since school. Really, I think countries and people sympathetic to the Palestinians should absorb them into their societies. The money they donate doesn’t have much effect – it funds personal Swiss bank accounts, right? Countries should have a “Palestinian Migrant Quota” to fill.

Nevertheless, in Whistler a few years later I spoke with a man from the US who was hateful against Israelis and I told him that all you have to do is think of one positive thing to say to free your mind. He did and days later he was a changed man and very friendly.

Anti-semitism in the diaspora is a double-edged sword where you can run, but you can’t hide… for long. It can separate people, but it can also bring people closer together.

Graves, trenches or foundations, it’s a digging contest!

see holding bottle –

 

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A terrifying new vision in horror arrives in theaters, this Friday. @comeplaymovie #ComePlay @azhyrobertson #GillianJacobs @johngallagherjunior @jacobschase @focusfeatures #Amblin

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A terrifying new vision in horror arrives in theaters, this Friday. @comeplaymovie #ComePlay @azhyrobertson #GillianJacobs @johngallagherjunior @jacobschase @focusfeatures #Amblin

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