I almost forgot what going to the shuk, the open-air market, is like on the Eve of Shabbat. It is insanely crowded. Locals shop there because the prices are low, and it is a must-see for tourists.  When I lived here for the year, I went every Friday to pick up a sweet and doughy challah, and treat myself to a juicy fruit or two, but I almost forgot what exactly it felt like to be there. The atmosphere is chaotic, but in an almost routine kind of way. You expect to hear competing merchants yelling over each other, offering the best and the cheapest produce. There are always piles of fragrant ruby-red and saffron yellow spices overflowing from burlap sacks. The same disheveled bearded man sprawls out in the middle of the walkway, rhythmically shaking a cup of coins. Whiffs of fresh cheeses, roasting chickpeas, and spicy meats waft through the air.

So, before I met a friend, I swam through the ocean of tourists and haggling customers to buy a hunk of the freshest and tastiest goat cheese I had ever tasted in my life, and some beautiful vegetables. I met my friend, and we nibbled food and sipped water while we caught up on old times.

She too, shares some of my concerns about civil society in Israel. She explained to me that she was in an ulpan (a Hebrew immersion class), and every Friday evening, they would have a mandatory Kabbalat Shabbat service. My friend found this bewildering, as at least 1/3 of her class was Arab—either Muslim or Christian. After the service, she went up to the leader, and told her that making this service obligatory was insensitive and undemocratic.

The leader replied that she was being oversensitive; she just feels that way because she had been westernized and was being overly politically correct. My friend replied that on the contrary, the leader was being undersensitive, because it seemed that she had already forgotten what it was like to be in the ethnic minority.

I thought about this concept a great deal throughout Shabbat. In America, it took some serious personal growth to be able to acknowledge my social position. Though I am a woman, I am also white. I am privileged.  Every time I feel like everything is going well for me, I remember what the Torah reminds us 36 times—that we, too, were strangers in the land of Egypt. I remember that I have a specific responsibility to make other strangers feel welcome and included, whether that be a minority group, immigrants, asylum seekers, or any other population.

It’s sometimes easy to forget that in Israel.

If you’ve been following my blog, you may remember how I enjoyed staying in central London for Shabbat, carrying the holy secret of Shabbat observance along with me in my pocket while everyone went about his or her daily activities. In Israel, it is completely different.

The buses stop more than an hour before Shabbat. As Shabbat enters, a siren sounds throughout Jerusalem. People head to Shabbat dinners with friends and family or to services. There is a silence on the streets that is difficult to define.

Celebrating Shabbat is not unique; it is the norm. What are the implications of this?

This past Friday night, I celebrated the Sheva Brachot of two of my close friends in a hotel around a 35-minute walk from my apartment. As I walked, the breeze whipped through my hair, a welcome change from the oppressive sun that left me with a heat headache earlier. The sky, as it plunged deeper into nightfall, was an amazing shade of indigo blue. As I looked up, I imagined painting it, squeezing both blues and purples onto the canvas, and blending it in the middle with titanium white.

Every ten minutes or so, a person walked by me. Cars driven mostly by taxi drivers and Palestinians occupied the streets. There was an eerie peace to the evening.

In the hotel, the waiters who remembered me from the week before greeted me, and we schmoozed as the family trickled in. The dinner was amazing, and it was lovely to celebrate with my friends.

Towards the end of the meal, however, one of the younger guests turned to me and said:

“This is just uncomfortable.”

“What’s uncomfortable”? I asked.

“Just that Arab waiters are serving us”.

“Why is that uncomfortable”? I responded.

“What’s not uncomfortable about that?”

Sigh.

I learned from some of my waiter friends how to say “nice to meet you” in Arabic, and went on my way. On the way home, I thought about the Palestinian street cleaners, and the Palestinian supermarket worker who cleaned up the bottle of Balsamic vinegar I had smashed earlier on in the day. I thought about the teenager on the bus who helped me collect my apples, which were rolling every which way around the bus, and who smiled widely when I told him Shokron, thank you, in Arabic.

What does it all mean?

The next morning, I was excited to roll out of bed and go to services. I looked outside, and it was raining. Really raining. This is no ordinary occurrence in the region; people around here pray for rain all year round. As I was walking to the synagogue, bundled up in my London rain jacket, I heard mothers telling their children how exciting it was that it was raining. I saw men in drenched shirts that were once crisp and white, smiling. A car drove by and a large splash of water drenched me. But the cheer was infectious-I took my muddy legs and my wet cheeks right into synagogue with me.

In the synagogue, we said the blessing of the new month:

“May the Holy One renew the month unto us, and unto all of his nation Israel, for life and for peace, for happiness and for joy, for salvation​ and for comfort, and let us say amen.”

I silently hoped to myself that this month would bring personal clarity. That it would bring together a community amidst a fragmented Jerusalem.

After Shabbat, my roommate and I watched the big Manchester United vs. Barcelona game on a big screen outside of a bar nearby. I enjoy watching sports, but I was never a fanatic. For me, however, the best is watching the spectators. Everyone had so much fervor and excitement for the game, and there were so many different types of people. There were religious folks in black velvet skullcaps, Arab waiters and chefs from neighboring restaurants, women-dressed in jeans and halter tops, but also some with their hair tied back in scarves (a religious symbol of marriage), children of varying ages and ethnicities, men with knitted skullcaps and sandals-even a police truck had pulled up to watch the game. It was amazing to watch the unifying capabilities of this football game.

I only wish they had been playing together, too.