Immanuel, a Conversation in Berlin

I had the pleasure of meeting Immanuel while working in Berlin and one day he agreed to sit down and tell me about his life.  A life that saw him moving from Israel to Berlin when he was 9 years old.

A huge point of difference between his two worlds was surely the weather.  I noted his delight in regard to the heavy Berlin snowfalls through the winter of 2009/2010 but the delight was soon over ... too much snow for too long.  He explained that Berlin was nothing like the city of his Israeli childhood which, when he described it, sounded not unlike the outdoor life I experienced back home in New Zealand.

After nine years in Berlin, he has developed an outsider-looking-in perspective on both cultures.  There are things that he misses about Israel, things that amuse him and things that make him sad.  We began with the laughter, as he gave me examples of Israeli guys picking up tourists in English. 

We quickly moved onto how he felt about his move to Berlin and the initial excitement of a new life in Europe, the promise of snow, his introduction to the u-bahn, the huge zoo ... the fact that everything was just so Big.

But life in Israel had been good ... like most childhoods, it was full of sunlight and friends.  He explained that Israelis live loud.  There was always music and laughter, no one stayed a stranger long, there is this instant inclusion.  People weren’t afraid to touch one another and, somehow, people just seemed so very alive.

Berlin was something else.  There was a lot of rain and this odd feeling of death in places he didn’t expect it ... perhaps the constant reminders of the wars that devastated Germany, perhaps the different sensibility he found in the architecture and felt in the people

He attended a Jewish school in Berlin, with a Hebrew teacher, but somehow the mentality was still very different.  Students were children and teachers were adults in Germany, the lines were clearly defined.  Not so in Israel, where there is less respect for the teacher and students act more like equals.  He didn’t claim this was a good thing, in fact, he mentioned his favourite teacher back in Israel was the one who was most disciplined.

After six years in Berlin, his mother bought him a ticket to Israel.  He was so excited to arrive and loved the immediate warmth of Tel Aviv.  After an hour, it felt like he had never been away.

His father and 2 sisters live in Israel, and he lives with his mother, stepfather, sister and much-loved little brother in Berlin. As he said, it’s a good feeling having a home in two very different countries but I don’t know where I want to live.’

In terms of differences, he has found the Berliners mostly friendly but cooler.  You don’t always have contact with your neighbours, unlike Israel.  Both countries have similar ideas about music and fashion but the notion of conflict is absent in Berlin.  Back in Israel, he explained, they never relax.

To return to the beginning and those first months in Berlin.  He was terribly afraid.  However, over time, he learned he didn’t need to be scared about what people might do to a nine-year-old Jewish boy from Israel.  These days he works with people from everywhere and all religions and he has learned that it’s about who he is, not his religion or country of origin.  People don’t care, they understand there is two sides.

This stands in sharp contrast to Israel where he has been disconcerted to see his school friends slip into a nationalistic kind of racism around the age of sixteen or seventeen when as they prepare for their time in the army.  He noticed his Israeli facebook friends posing with guns in their profile pictures ... a leap he couldn’t comprehend after so long out of the everyday of that Israeli world.  Guns on buses are considered normal there.

He credits his mother with lifting him beyond the unthinking process of retuning to that ‘home’ to do his military service but it was no simple task.  The Israeli teens go to serve their country with their friends.  Not to go is a huge decision.  They go to be together, to be one. 

He struggles with the understanding that old friends simply don’t want to hear why he decided not to serve.  They seem unaware of how their actions are viewed out in the wider world and he is not sure that it is something that will change.  He explained, they want to believe that the settlements need defending rather than understanding that the real defence would be to for the two sides to come closer.

All too soon, our time was up and I said goodbye to Immanuel and his wonderfully warm and welcoming family.  Just until next time.