Even the Taxi Driver Is Jewish

Wait, but we're not in Israel yet! On our way out of the Heathrow airport, we grabbed the first taxi that was in the "taxi rank" (the queue of taxis). In New York, we would have had to push and shove our way to get to a taxi; here in London, everyone was very nice and polite and we were able to take our time. In New York, we would not have been chatty with the driver because of he might not know much English; this taxi driver not only spoke English, he was a world traveler.

The conversation started with him wondering why we had so much heavy luggage if we were only staying in London for five days. When we somewhat cautiously told him we were just making an extra long layover in London on our way to Israel, he told us about his experiences traveling to Israel. Apparently, he has been to Eilat several times on vacation with his then girlfriend (who is now his wife).

He then regaled us with stories of his experiences, including difficult questions before being able to board an El Al flight, surprise at sitting next to a plain-clothed Israeli soldier with a machine gun at a cafe (a very unusual experience for someone who is British since even the police here don't carry guns), and later suspicion by airline officials when he was traveling to the U.S. because he had Israeli entry and exit stamps in his passport.

He gave us advice about keeping our wallets in our front pockets and told us where we could get some kosher food. As we were exiting the taxi, our taxi driver very seriously asked us about a disturbing email he and his wife had recently received. Apparently, the email was from a Jewish friend living in the U.S. who has had several experiences with anti-Semitism and described a rise in the KKK in their area. He had found the email very disturbing and was concerned for the state of Jewry in the U.S.

We weren't quite sure what to say. Our first reaction was to say that we had not personally experienced much anti-Semitism and to calm his fears, but then we stopped ourselves. There are reasons why we're cautious about telling people we are Jewish. You never know how people will react. There have even been fire bombings of synagogues in California as recently as 1999. We fumbled for an answer, but we had none.

Exhausted, we wished our taxi driver the best and headed into our hotel.