Even in war of terror, tea glasses matter

In April of 1988 I was called up for my first reserve duty, a few months after the first intifada exploded. We were stationed for a month in a nasty little place called Jebalya, a Palestinian refugee camp in the Gaza strip. One day I was given an assignment to take six men and set up a lookout position on the roof of an Arab house above a main road where Jews often travelled. There had been a number of incidents that week, including riots, Molotov cocktails, burning tires laid across the road and rock-throwing at moving vehicles; our job was to help get things back under control.  

One of the interesting aspects of this detail, was that each morning, the Arab owner of the house, an older man, would come up on the roof with a tray holding a samovar of tea and some glasses for me and my men. He would pour tea for himself first, take a drink (sensing our obvious hesitation) and then absolutely refuse to take no for an answer, pouring us each our own glass of tea. The interaction was fascinating and on a number of occasions we had some interesting conversations. One morning one of the men, hearing a noise behind him, wheeled around in a hurry and accidentally banged into this Arab fellow with his tray and tea glasses, knocking over the entire tray, tea glasses and all. He apologized profusely.

A few days later, upon returning from his weekend leave, this same soldier sought out the Arab man who had brought us tea the week before and gave him a brand new set of tea glasses. It was a beautiful moment, reminding me, with all the craziness we had been experiencing in the Gaza strip, of what it means to be part of a Jewish army. 

These are not the stories that make it into the New York Times, nor do the members of Breaking the Silence share such stories, though I can share countless similar experiences in my 30 years in the Israeli army and reserves. But these are the stories that make us who we are as a Jewish people, and a Jewish army, in a Jewish State.