Walking stories

Agasp from afar

October 9, 2023

It’s been three days since this war in the Middle East started, and we’ve done little else than watch the TV news, gasping  at images of neighborhoods destroyed, suffering civilians in tears as their families are torn apart.  The pictures on the front pages of newspapers across the country, of course, are not scenes that Greenberg and I encountered on a walk through San Francisco.   The scenes and reports of devastation in Gaza and in Israel this week-end make our city’s most blighted neighborhoods seem like amusement parks.  

As on-lookers, we can see both sides, which makes it even more terrifying.  Righteousness is beyond the point.  One side hits at another, the response is stronger, then the response to that is stronger still, and so forth.  It is a doom loop with a human toll, and of course no one wins.  

At Sunday afternoon’s Page Street sing-along, the Blue Angels soar and boom overhead, and we sing “Where Have All the Flowers Gone,”  while jets streak across the sky.  No one ventures an opinion as to who is right or who is wrong; what is  shared is dismay at the spiraling violence. 

When you have a dog, you do get to know the neighbors, chattily trading details of daily lives and pleasantries about the dogs, who in the best cases have befriended each other and in the worst have learned to tolerate each other.   I remember that when the January 6 insurrection happened, neighbor dragged themselves away from their TV sets in late afternoon and stood in the middle of Page Street, sharing emotional responses. 

So on Monday afternoon, when I set out for a walk with Greenberg, a neighbor crosses the street with his dog, and as he gives mine a treat and I give his a treat, we express despair at the news.   We’d both been watching all weekend.  We live side by side in this city; it is comforting to know that we have at least our distress in common.   

Later in the walk, I encounter another dog-walking acquaintance,  a young man accompanied by two other people.  I say a friendly hello and he responds in kind.  I lean over to pet his dog, and – like the chatty old lady that I am –  venture a comment on the news, something like, “Wow, what a terrible weekend.  So upsetting watching the reports.”

He looks puzzled.  “The Middle East,” I say.  His friends nod.

”Oh, well,” he says.  “The Israelis always do something like that when they need money.”

I think he is talking about donations to Israel from Jews around the world.  I don’t  want to ask him, or get any deeper into the conversation, and I know that for my own peace of mind, I’ve already made a mistake by broaching the subject.  

 But I don’t think I can hide my shock at his assertion.   I think that nothing anyone could say about the newborn – but ancient – war can  make me more depressed than I already am by the broadcast images of destruction, by the images of families on both sides mourning loved ones lost 

But there it is.

 I was born in 1945, and I’ve always hoped to have transcended the instincts of my parents, who lived through World War II and always seemed to assume that anyone who wasn’t Jewish saw Jews in negative stereotypes.    One of the major tropes, of course, was about money.  

This dog-walking man has always been pleasant, and I don’t  want to point my finger at  him. I am totally unqualified to stand on the sidewalk with him and discuss the situation in the Middle East, and besides, I see testosterone-fueled wrongs on both sides.  Furthermore, I don’t know why this particular war started at this particular time.

From the expressions on the faces of his friends,  I can  see that they are surprised at his comment, and I can’t  let the moment pass without responding in some way.  Despite my mixed feelings about the Middle East,  my response to him is  clear in my mind:  How dare he?  

I am well aware that my tepid response might have been appropriate if he, a guest at a sunny picnic, had mentioned to fellow revelers that he’d spotted a storm cloud in the distance. 

“That’s such a cynical point of view,” I say, “very dark.”