It’s an average Autumn day in Jerusalem. Though the words “average” and “Jerusalem” seem to be oxymoronic, when you live here that’s what an uneventful day in the holy city turns out to be. 
On The Way To School
Quarter to eight in the morning, and there’s a brilliant blue sky overhead with a blinding sun angling into my eyes. I head out the door and down the street with my two young children, rushing as much as I can with them in tow in order to arrive at my son’s school by the eight o’clock bell.
It’s his second month in first grade, so it’s still a big deal. I’m irritated because I know, still at this stage, if he’s late it’s my fault.
Cars Everywhere
We turn onto the main street along which we have to trek to get to the side street of his school. The cars stand still as far as the eye can see, bumper to bumper, moving ahead every turn of the green light by two or three.
Even with my two children, one in the stroller and the other taking modest steps, we far outpace the traffic. A stationary driver usually gazes in our direction with a weary and slightly bemused expression, as we enact the story of the turtle and the hare, every morning.
I always push ahead with the same comment to my children (the drivers’ windows are closed): “Good thing we didn’t take the car, eh?” As I said before, an average morning, with all the streets clogged tight with traffic.
What A Din
The streets are loud. I’m not talking about the occasional open window with Israeli pop music blaring out of it – this is, mercifully, rare. There are the older models of cars and buses which would have been confiscated by the police in any other Western country for environmental transgressions, but continue to spew out prodigious quantities of black smoke and rumbling noise while often carrying loads of children.
The sirens from ambulances are a common addition to the street noise level. But above all noises, I hear cars honking. Yes honking on the streets here is as Israeli as felafel.
What The Honk Is It All About?
At first I understood the honking as a symptom of people’s stress. It seems a reasonable way to let off steam against a background of war, terror, and threatened extermination past, present, and future. Okay, honk away.
But that is too convenient an explanation, too quick by someone who is an outsider living long term here. It’s a bit patronizing to analyze away aggressive road conditions with a pat on the head that says, “there, there.” There is something cultural here working which is not just coming from a collective, pervasive, and very real sense of trauma.
Israelis are communicators. It often seems, on the street, bus, phone, in any public place - that there is a need to express oneself so that more than just the person you are addressing can hear.
There is a strong sense of community which this communication arises out of, even if it is reminded to one through being told what you’re doing wrong.
If I don’t move ahead a couple of meters to close the gap between me and the car just ahead of me in the traffic jam, I am blessed with a honk.
Whenever I ride my bike, I receive a dozen taps of the horn (or full blown hair-raising honks) saying to me: hey, I’m coming up behind you. It’s annoying and helpful at the same time.
A Nation Of Communicators
People talk here, they let each other know what their doing and where they are. When I understood that most honks were less about aggression and more about communication, I started to, if not fully appreciate, at least not cringe when they sounded at or next to me.
Someone is telling me that they are there, and that they see I am there, and they want me to know. It is a minimal level of care and community, and it occurs often.
After about ten minutes we pull into the school area, and the traffic takes a dramatic turn. Dozens of kids are being dropped of to school in every conceivable manner: cars, buses, mini-buses, vans, bicycles, and just plain old walking.
The honking picks up in this area too: there are thirteen parking spaces outside the entrance, for a population of over 500 kids, at least half of whom are being dropped off by car.
There is confusion among those who are dropping off, those who have dropped off and want to get out and off to work, and those who just use the street and don’t want anything (ever!) to do with the school.
There is constant backing out, pulling up, turning around, as well as the milling about of small bodies. A dangerous site, but somehow it works. And the honking definitely helps.