The Hair Test

When I went on my Birthright trip to Israel I expected to have fun like I was on a trip to Cancun, filled with American style debauchery. Well, like a trip to Cancun if Cancun was mixed with intense Jewish religiosity. But much to my surprise, my trip was very meaningful, especially in learning about many Israelis’ desires for peace and a two-state solution. And even more surprisingly, I developed strong feelings for an Israeli soldier named Uri. Even though we grew up across the globe, we shared a love for Radiohead, the film High Fidelity, and pro-Obama/ pro-Peace politics.

I decided to extend my trip to Israel for a week, and stayed with him and his friends in Tel Aviv.  The apartment looked like an Eastern European Jewish grandparents’ apartment, with flower patterned corduroy couches, ornate glass dishes, and aged wooden cabinets. It even smelled like onions. I assumed their grandparents furnished the place. Well, the furniture did come from grandparents. But the grandparents weren’t theirs, they died three years ago, and their children leased out the place to Uri’s friends. On their meager military service salaries, they were willing to settle for a furnished place that was still haunted by the smell of onions.

We were sitting down, and they wanted to play music that would put us in the mood to go out. This was the summer of 2010, so I thought maybe they would put on Usher, or Shakira, or some pop Israeli musician that was hot at the time.

Nope. They played the musical Hair! This is about the last thing I anticipated hearing from young Israeli soldiers. They asked me if I liked, “Hair,” and I said I did considering I was from San Francisco and have hippie parents that played it while I was growing up.

They looked at each other, smiled, and proclaimed that I passed, “The Hair Test.” Supposedly they did this to new friends to see if they were “cool or not.” In fact, one of the girls did so badly that when they asked if she liked Hair, she replied, “you mean, Hairspray?” Needless to say, this was a deal breaker.

At first I thought Uri and his friends might just be unusual peace loving freaks like myself. And yes, they were much more left wing than your typical Israeli. Although Uri and his friends believe in a two-state solution, most Israelis will say they do not believe there is a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

But I kept noticing 60s and 70s peace and love music like Janis Joplin, John Lennon, and Bob Marley being played at bars, restaurants, and on the radio. I finally asked one of Uri’s friends Yoav, who serves in the army as a producer for the radio, why this music was still popular? He paused, then answered, “Because it symbolizes the peace we hope we’ll have some day.”

If this hope for peace was reflected in the country’s musical taste, this hope for the future, in some small part, must be widespread. Even if most people were outwardly pessimistic, somewhere deep inside they longed for a peaceful future. In Israel hope is a dangerous feeling, one that is hard to proclaim and will realistically be followed by disappointment and fear. Considering there have been many attempts at a peace deal, this cynicism is very prevalent; let alone the obvious history of conflict.

Ultimately, Yoav’s answer was a deep moment for me. Music has the power to articulate what we are afraid of expressing, what in ordinary life would make us too vulnerable. This is when I fully realized that many Israelis’ desires were different from Netanyahu’s policies. They reminded me a lot of blue state Americans under Bush, not agreeing with the government’s policies and many not believing a progressive future would come.

And here I am, back in Israel, now dating Uri, and actually staying with the same friends of his. In the end, because there were Israelis that could have been born in San Francisco, I knew I had to come back to Israel to understand the complex struggle toward peace. Indeed, they also passed my “Hair Test.”