The Israeli Trail: A narrative non-fiction book about my travels with Israelis in South America.
I met the Sinatra-singing, Seinfeld-quoting, melancholic Yaniv Blum on a bus ride in Patagonia. Historically, Israelis go on the “Big Trip” as a post-army celebration, but Yaniv had no cause for celebration. Jaded by his experience, he carried a secret from his army days and wasn’t sure he’d ever return. I had just graduated college and was traveling in South America to escape as well, mostly the Iraq war and the prospect of another four years of Bush. Here, Yaniv would say, “Homan, take American, replace with Israeli, and…ditto.” Once when I was ranting about the Patriot Act, he interrupted, “Ken, yes, you have your problems, but I like your movies.” In this manner, we often disarmed each other’s growing disillusionment. Yaniv, however, felt alienated from his countrymen in a way I did not, and our friendship began only when he repeatedly shoved a Coca Cola bottle in my face–determined to make me speak, he later admitted. Had I answered in Hebrew, he would have chosen another seat. Soon, I was introduced to the “Israeli Trail,” a collection of restaurants, hostels, and Hebrew culture that ensure Israelis traveling in South America can still find Israel everywhere they go.
Often, while traveling with Yaniv, I wondered whether Americans would one day resemble Israelis, most of whom, I quickly discovered, had simply accepted the Palestinian conflict and war with their neighbors as unending: “Two hundred years,” as one insisted the war would last. Yet through various encounters with an old man who fled from the Pinochet government, an American terrorist on a ferry ride and adventures, a run-in with a drunken Chilean, a terrifying night on a glacier, I began to view my country in a different light. But in the end, it was Galia, long brown hair parted in zigzags, surprisingly cold, startlingly beautiful, whose tough, realistic love for Israel inspired me to believe again. However, Yaniv too was convinced Galia would be the answer to his troubles, so when she fell for my “American optimism,” our friendship was nearly torn apart. Only the trail kept us together, until Buenos Aires, where Yaniv’s past was finally revealed and I learned the true meaning of the Israeli Trail.
