Passport Encounter

I was home sick. It was a cold and overcast day threatening rain. I was scheduled to take a trip to the U.S to see my ailing mother but couldn’t find my US passport. My travel agent insisted I go immediately to East Jerusalem to the US Consulate to get a new one. So I dragged myself over there to stand in line pushing and shoving along with Israelis and Palestinians to get inside this small building for passports and visas.

Finally the Israeli Security Guard told me you can only get in with an appointment that is scheduled online and takes two weeks. I started arguing that I needed to take care of this immediately. He sent me to the Palestinian Entrance Guard who told me it was impossible to get in. I started calling my travel agent and the emergency line inside the Consulate to pressure the guard, and after awhile he agreed to give me a request form to complete which he said he would send inside to see if they would let me in.

Chilled and drowsy, I waited a long half hour , until I just wanted to go home. That was when I was told could enter the building. After going through lengthy security procedures, I got inside and sat in the small crowded waiting room. I was feeling weak and dizzy and wanted to lay down for awhile — but there was barely room to sit. After what seemed like eternity an American agent called me and listened to my story impassively before asking me to wait to see if they would help me or not.

Around me were various groups of people. American Israeli religious couples who had come with new babies to get a US passport. Israelis and Palestinians applying for visas to visit the US. Each in their own separate groups — the religious couples helping each other to keep the babies and children entertained, the Arabs assisting each other to fill out English forms. The agents were a mixture of Americans, Palestinians, and Israelis.

Finally I was called to another agent, a Palestinian, who to my immense relief was sympathetic and began filling out the necessary paperwork: I could see light at the end of the tunnel. When I handed him my passport photos he informed me that they were the wrong size — I choked back another protest because to my amazement I saw the agent was right: my recently purchased passport pictures were indeed too small for the space on the form. Exhausted and feeling defeated, there was only one thing left to do: cry. Through my tears, the agent he told me he would give me a pass so I could go out and get the pictures taken across the street and immediately return to him. I hurried outside into the cold.

Grateful that it wasn’t raining I rushed down the street. In the small shop, I spoke Hebrew to the Palestinian photographer and he quickly took a picture and showed it to me for my approval. I was dismayed to see how awful I looked and requested another one. On the second try, I realized it was an accurate reflection of just how sick I was and there was nothing I could do. He then disappeared into the street.

A lovely young Palestinian woman walked in and started fixing her hijab in the mirror preparing for a picture. I smiled at her and said “beautiful” in Arabic — giving her feminine reassurance that she looked lovely. She looked at me with a serious face and pointed to the ring on her ring finger. I thought that she was telling me that she was married — so I smiled and pointed to the ring on my ring finger so that she could see that I was also married. She shook her head “no” and looked at me sadly and I suddenly noticed that all of her clothes and hijab were stark black and I realized instantly that she was telling me her husband had just died.

I spontaneously put my hands on my heart and said in Hebrew and English that she had my deepest condolences, and she nodded her head to acknowledge that she understood. I asked if she had children and made a gesture of cradling a baby — she nodded her head and held up five fingers. My face fell and again I clutched my bosom and said I was so sorry. The photographer walked back in and prepared to take her photograph. Knowing that there was a fair possibility that her husband had been killed by Israeli soldiers, I nonetheless summoned the gumption to tell the photographer to ask her how her husband had died.

The photographer glared back at me petulantly and asked me why I was questioning her. I explained that she’d told me her husband had just died. When he put the quesion to her in Arabic, she replied with the Arabic word for cancer – which is the same in Hebrew — and I immediately felt relieved that he had died of medical causes. I told the photographer to give the woman my condolences which he did and to which she smiled. She showed me a document from the U.S. which indicated that she was dealing with a lawyer there about inheritance issues, and I understood the reason for her trip to the US.

After photographing her, he turned to me and said it would cost thirty Shekels for the photo. I gave him sixty and said I was paying for both of us. Another annoyed glare as the photographer asked me why I was paying for her. I told him I wanted to help a widow and began to gather my things to leave. As she opened her purse he explained to her that I had already paid for her. She looked at me with confusion.

I said “imah” and “em,” the word for Mother in Hebrew and Arabic to make her understand: I was simply one mother helping another. She smiled and thanked me and as I returned to go back through the security procedures at the Consulate, I felt transformed. I thanked God for blessing me with this encounter and realized the real purpose for me to be there at that time had nothing to do with my passport — but to have an opportunity to transcend the madness and violence of our situation and greet a sister. In a few minutes without a common language we had been able to open our hearts and communicate deeply and experience the sisterly bond between us.

I waited patiently for the rest of the passport procedures. I spotted my new friend and realized that she too had returned from the photo shop and finished her procedures and was leaving. As she approached I stood up and smiled at her. We spontaneously hugged and wished each other safe journeys in our different languages. She left.

As I turned to sit down I noticed that everyone in the entire room was looking at us and the whole room had been transformed from several disparate groups and individuals into one unit of wonder-struck people moved by the random sight of a passing encounter between a Palestinian women and an Israeli woman who embraced and wished each other well in their different languages. I again thanked God for enabling me to have this experience and to share it with everyone there so they could see a different reality and realize that peace is not a dream or vision for the future: it is available to us at any moment we open our hearts to trust instead of fear.

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