Once again with noise

If three family weddings this year weren't enough, we were treated to another celebration last evening held at the house next door. They started warming-up the disco equipment in the mid-afternoon, with guests arriving as the sun went down. I think it was a wedding, but from the sound level, it could have been an adolescent graduation party, a karaoke convention or an attack by Martians. The two families have been neighbors for generations—I met them when I first arrived in Jerusalem in the 1970s—and if the tolerance demonstrated toward the nuisance level of the partying was any indication, they get along really, really well. After all, they put up with my own wedding reception 34 years ago.

The first music system arrived in the back of a Volvo station wagon: enormous speakers blasting at an incredible volume. Apparently they were trying to test the neighbors' tolerance and find the pain threshold for their guests. Cars soon filled the cul-de-sac and parking was at a premium. Fancy-dress ladies in latest fashion arrived bearing gifts. It could well have been thirty years ago in my experience.

I was becoming concerned about the impossibility of sleeping, but by mid-evening all was quiet and the street relatively empty. I thought about how this would have been received in some U.S. neighborhoods, and I'm sure someone would have gotten VERY upset before it was over. (Gunfire from an irate neighbor offended by the noise, or parking, or just the principle of the thing would not have been unexpected.)

All of the neighbors let the inconvenience pass without comment; this is an accommodative world for the most part. The Palestinian Arab may belong to one of the most tolerant cultures we know of. They certainly cluster around family and religious conviction, but when left to their own devices, a balance is quickly found and priorities are focused around educating children and attaining a quality of life--unless exploited to advance someone else's agenda. If anything, as with their neighbors here, their sense of loyalty and fairness allows passions to enflame when faced with injustice. I know this may fly in the face of what you may have heard about religious strife in the Mideast, but then, evidence indicates much of what is reported from this region is intended as coercive.