If the task of the enemy is to erase the Jewish presence, our task is to preserve it for an eternity. So what you want to do, when someone’s life is cruelly snuffed out, is find a way to remember that person so that the loss feels like a loss, and so that the person—the essence of that person, who he was—stays with us. As it turns out, Na’ama Henkin wrote a blog a couple of years ago, in Hebrew, and my friend, Avital Macales, took the time to translate that blog into English, so that the wider world might get a sense of Na’ama, who she was, and the nature of the loss we have all sustained.
What did Na’ama write about? She wrote about what it felt like to go to a business meeting in Tel Aviv as a religious woman, among secular people, her head adorned with a kerchief. She wrote about her reticence to let them know she lived on a settlement in Samaria, but hoped they might get to know her first and know she’s not some crazy, wild-eyed right wing fanatic. She hoped they might find out that her headscarf was not who she was.
Well, it was and it wasn’t. Wearing that headscarf to a secular business meeting proved her sincere faith that she was just a Jew living on land promised to all Jews by God. It’s in the Bible and it’s in the Quran. There are artifacts to prove that Jews were not only there but were there before Jesus and Mohammed were gleams in their Mamas’ eyes.
But then again, she wasn’t just a Jew. She was Na’ama Henkin. She was a special person. Sincere in her faith and brave enough to face the secular world without artifice, apologies, or pretension.
And that is just what she did.
May God avenge her blood.
The Utterly Irrelevant Head Kerchief
Once again I’m getting ready to go to a business meeting in Tel-Aviv, once again opening up my closet, trying to decide for the hundredth time which outfit will be modest yet fashionable, elegant yet not over-the-top, and once again I secretly know that when I step out of my car in the parking lot in the heart of Allenby Street I will feel, as always, like a stranger, an outcast, different. She’s one of “them.” My designer head kerchief, the one that at a women’s evening on our yishuv would elicit compliments and interest – “where did you get that?” – is as relevant on Allenby Street as the Muslim Hijab, i.e. utterly irrelevant.
After I manage to overcome a momentary feeling of inferiority I enter the parquet-covered building. They’re already waiting for me for a meeting set for ten minutes ago (somehow, the heavy traffic into Tel-Aviv and on its streets always manage to surprise me.) One last dash to the ladies’ room, fixing my kerchief, making sure my makeup is still there, and one last, final sigh: Who am I trying to fool. A “dosit” stays a “dosit” [slang for religious].
A second before I go into the meeting, the usual musing creeps into my head – will they be surprised to see that I’m religious? Did the person who has invited me add this title as an inseparable part of my description – “We’re going to work with Naama, she designs interfaces, oh yes, she’s also religious – you know, a dosit with a head kerchief, but she’s actually cool”… I’ve never been present in the room when something like that was said, if at all, but I can always sense it when I walk into the room, though I am greeted completely naturally, and with a smile, the men do not offer to shake my hand and the friendly secretary hurries to inform me that the coffee is kosher.
And then that moment comes when, as part of the small talk, someone asks, “so where are you coming from? Did you say Jerusalem?” (They always remember Jerusalem, because of the area code), and I blush, “no, no, a small yishuv, around Modi’in.” Oh, they all nod, Modi’in, yes, we’ve heard of that city, we really ought to go there one day with the kids, they say there’s a terrific park there.
The day will come – I say to the annoyed little justice seeker in me – maybe when I’m older, when I will find the courage, and in response to that question, I will tell the truth: I live in Neriya, it’s a yishuv in the region of Benyamin. Yes, it comes out to be on the other side of the green line, what the media calls a “settlement”, but we prefer to call it a “hityashvut.” You should come visit one day, it’s really pretty there.
