If one can judge by the increasing flood of tumah unleashed upon Holy Yerushalayim, we must really be at the literal end of the redemption process. (I can hope, can't I?)
Yesterday, I walked across the street from the Central Bus Station to get a bus home. I hadn' t been there ten seconds, when a small black woman (obviously not Ethiopian) walked up to me and asked if I spoke English. I just almost shook my head 'no.' Then I thought to myself---maybe she needs directions---so I said yes.
She asked, "Are you a Xian?" Immediately a flame flared in my gut. I proclaimed proudly, "I am a Jew. This is a Jewish country, it's the Jewish State, so, of course, I am a Jew." And against my better judgement I added, "What are you?"
"I am a xian." She pronounced it "krees, tee-ahn." I go, "In that case, you are an idolater and you need to get out of my country. You don't belong here, you have no business being here. Why don't you go back to wherever it is you came from?"
"It was the L-rd G-d who brought me here," she replied. I told her she had dreamed that all up in her head just like the religion she practiced. I know, I know. I should have simply turned my back on her after the first question and ignored her thereafter. But, I didn't. Our confrontation escalated.
She told me I should go back where I came from and I informed her that G-d gave me this land and brought me home. "Where do you get that from?" she asked. I told her, "The Torah," and she says, "What's that?" I told her her religion is considered idolatry according to the Torah and she asked, "What's idolatry?" So I told her that this was her primary problem, that she needed to find out what idolatry is and understand the penalty for it. I tried to explain it to her, but either she wasn't getting it or didn't want to get it.
In any case, I told her that by trying to turn Jews to the worship of a dead man as G-d, she was deserving of the death penalty and I would be happy to throw the first stone. While all this was going on, I kept trying to distance myself from her and put an end to the back and forth, but she followed me around the area and started wagging her finger in my face, calling loudly upon her god to open my eyes to her truth and show me the error of my ways. I called on the G-d of our fathers to send her immediately to her just reward.
We were getting louder and louder and a few people gathered around to see what the commotion was about, but we had been speaking in English so I began explaining to the Israelis in Hebrew that she was a missionary and that she was harassing me, wanting me to believe in Yashke.
The Israelis couldn't care less, but an American olah, dressed city-settler-style, stepped up to offer her assistance.
She said to me, "If you really want to do something about the problem of idolatry in Israel, you could make a donation to those of us who live here." I was really wound up by this time. I must have looked apoplectic as I stared at her in disbelief and shouted at the top of my lungs---"I LIVE HERE!!!!"
I told her how I was minding my own business when this woman walked up and started trying to convert me. She suggested that I stop following her around. I was in sputtering mode by this time, "I'M NOT FOLLOWING HER, SHE'S FOLLOWING ME!!!!"
"Well, that's not what it looks like," she offered with her nose a tad bit toward the sky. And for further emphasis, she repeated it, "That's not what it looks like." All I could come back with is "ARE YOU NUTS OR WHAT?!!"
As she walked away, I realized that the "kress-tee-ahn" was nowhere in sight. Well, B"H for that!
I don't know if you are aware, but the International Xian Embassy in Jerusalem (ICEJ) claims that they are the ones to thank for convincing the government to resettle hordes of (very) black Darfurians and Sudanese refugees in Jerusalem. The men roam the streets in gangs and stand around the street corners, making it very uncomfortable for Yerushalmi women to feel safe in their own neighborhoods. And this is in addition to the Thais and who knows what other kind of Asian men one sees sitting on their haunches in the doorways of their apartments or beneath the pay phone.
Then there are the Asian women who, when they are not performing their domestic duties in Jewish homes, are prancing about the Holy City in skin-tight jeans and worse. The other day, I glanced up to see an Asian couple standing on the corner of King George and Yafo St. It was obscene. She was wearing short-shorts (another emerging plague on the streets of Jerusalem) and a halter top and she was leaning back on her male Asian escort while he bent over to kiss her neck. This was about 1:30 pm on the most central intersection of the city. I was so tempted to lay into them, but who knows where it would stop if I ever got started.
Unfortunately, the tumah is not restricted to the foreigners in our midst. My daughter and I were riding a bus a couple of weeks ago when a bunch of high school kids got on after school. Kids usually hang together on the bus and talk, so I didn't think anything of it at first, but over time it became too painfully, obviously clear that there was much more going on between two of the boys than simple, normal, friendship.
It's hard to see it. I don't want to see it, but at the same time, it is impossible to miss. I try to quickly look away. I feel guilty that there is not something I can do to change the situation. So I pray. I take the deep pain that wells up in my soul from the desecration of the holiness and sanctity of the city where Hashem chose to place His Name, and I use it to power and lift my longing and pleading for the geulah shleimah. May it come NOW, please G-d!!
And I take some comfort from Hashem's promise through His prophet Yeshayahu---
"Awaken, awaken, put on your strength, O Zion; put on the garments of your beauty, Jerusalem the Holy City, for no longer shall the uncircumcised or the unclean continue to enter you."
