Meduza

Meduza (pl. meduzot) are commonly known in English as jellyfish, jellyfishes, aborted octopi, or little motherfuckers. Despite its misleading benevolence, I’ve always enjoyed the idea behind the name jellyfish: they are JELatinous fish (I kid), but this appreciation was topped only when the Hebrew name was revealed to me in the Mediterranean Sea about two weeks ago.

One of the most attractive woman I’ve ever seen (which happens every few minutes in Tel Aviv) approached me in the water (a miracle already given my blinding whiteness when deshirted) and asked me slightly urgently: yesh meduzot? Are there meduzot?

I froze and like a high school boy unhooking his first girlfriend’s bra—yes it was this kind of childish hormonal desperation, why describe it otherwise?—I twisted and jerked and fumbled in prayer through the decade-long annals of my forgotten Hebrew vocabulary to find this word, to unlock its mystery, and to ply it against my life’s goal (then: see boob, now: marry Israeli). Did she say mezuzot (the small Jewish emblems on doorways), was she asking if I was Jewish? I did not contemplate revealing my circumcision, but might have had the water not been quite so cold.

So I said I didn’t understand and let her swim out of my life. Moments later I was struck by an aborted octopus. A real live swimming floating little motherfucker. I then knew what she had been asking.

It’s meduza season in Israel until the end of August. A jellyfish is called meduza here not because of its feel, but because of its shape. And perhaps, because of the implication of its capacity to sting. Meduza for those who haven’t gotten there yet is named for Medusa, that Gorgon beyotch from mythology. Head of snakes, turns you to stone.

I like meduza. It’s an apt way to describe the way a jellyfish looks and is adequately menacing. But they have ruined the beach for me and so I also hate meduza.

***

As things like this happen in Jerusalem, I’ll relate a story. Walking out of my hotel one morning, I bumped into a fraternity brother of mine. Actually he was my “big brother” in my college fraternity. At school, we initially bonded over our Zionist leanings although his were manifested much more stridently than mine (a hard feat in the days of the Second Intifada).

I met Josh a few days later in North Tel Aviv and one day we went to the beach and the water was filled with people and we went in, only getting stung lightly a few times and enjoying the water. The next day we went back and the water was empty. The weekend was over and so we considered that might explain the dearth of swimmers. But after getting in, it was meduza safari upon us. We got stung, badly. Back of the knees, legs, arms, etc., until we relented and went pouring out onto the beach. To pass the time or validate the money spent on parking, we walked the beach and caught up more, his life in Vegas, mine in New York. We passed dead meduzot on the shore and while he wanted to keep walking, I picked up rocks and smashed each one that I could as we passed. Josh is a naturalist and accepts the meduza for their purpose, I am the avenger against unthinking beings. I am Perseus’ college fraternity brother. After my third rock pitch Josh joking, asks if I am Palestinian.

I guess there wasn’t a point. Only that I think about meduzot when I go to the beach or when I see a car passing with a yellow ribbon flying from the door handle. The ribbon is for Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier being held in Gaza. As I was arriving the papers were preparing to mark the four year anniversary of his abduction. His parents started a march from their home in the north for a week-and-a-half picking up strangers in each city and town, diverting the traffic, landing in Jerusalem at the Prime Minister’s residence. I watched them march into Jerusalem like the Romans. 20,000 of them spilling into a park next to the hotel where I first bumped into my big brother. 20,000 avengers against unthinking beings led by Shalit's family. It was vicious. It stung. The feeling about Shalit is something in the water here, occasionally stinging. The ribbons are tied to the door handles and they flap in the street wind like a tentacle waiting to strike.