The Kindness of Many Israeli Soldiers (if only the Israeli police were the same)

I remember one evening during the height of the second intifada. I was living in Jerusalem, and my husband was more violent than usual. He left the apartment at some point, leaving me alone. I went out to get help---any help. I went to Ben Yehuda, a popular tourist attraction. Because this area which included Jaffa Street and Zion Square were popular targets for Palestinian suicide bombings, there was always a heavy military presence there. I approached a young soldier for help. I could hardly speak before the tears came. My Hebrew wasn't very good, but he was kind and he got an anglophonic peer, a young woman, to talk to me. The woman soldier listened to me, and told me that her own mother had been in an abusive marriage. That her mother left the marriage. Another Israeli soldier came to talk to me, and it was decided to get help from the Israeli police station in the Russian Compound. The woman soldier was with me for the walk to the compound. She gave me the name and phone number of her mother, who lived near the Dead Sea, for me to call if I needed somewhere to go. How kind they were! Then I was alone in the police station in the Russian Compound. It is a frightening place with no windows, winding corridors, and smoke-stained walls. I was brought to speak with an Israeli policewoman. An imposing presence, tall, seated behind a cluttered desk, curls of smoke escaping from the cigarette she smoked. I was very frightened and trying hard to tell the story. I started to tell the scenario about what lead to the physical violence. I started by saying, "He was yelling at me".....she rolled her eyes, crushing the cigarette against the littered ashtray on her desk. Without letting me say another world, she interrupted me. She said that yelling at people is not against the law. She said she might call the shelter for me but that she didn't think I needed it. This followed with her cruel commentary: "We are a small country, with real problems, we don't have time for people like you!" And then, mockingly, "Tell me, why did you come to this country? To get married?" Needless to say, I was sent back to my home with a number for Israeli social services. And that is another whole story. For the record, I did not come to Israel to marry. I had been to Israel once before and it was the best time of my life, full of spirituality and beauty. I came to Israel to become closer to the land that had been so beautiful and spiritual, and to immerse myself in yiddishkeit. I didn't have the courage to call the kind soldier woman's mother. I was frightened that even if she did open her house to me, she would ultimately evict me once learning of my mood disorder, or that she may try convince me to go back to my husband, as had happened before. So I never gave this kind soldier's mother a chance. That is what stigma does to a person. That is also what happens when a community keeps telling a battered woman that her husband really does love her and that she should give him a chance, for the sake of shalom bayit. Eventually I became so afraid and so ashamed, that asking for help became so hard, so very, very hard. But I would come to the point where I would ask for help again---but never, never again from the Israeli police. When I cried out for help again, it would be to a different kind of authority. I never forgot the kindness of the young Israeli soldiers who helped me. They found the time to help me while on duty, while watching the area for potential terrorist threats. If only I had called the woman soldier's mother! Things may have turned out very differently.