All Stories are not created equal

One day in Jerusalem, I peeked inside the head of a Muslim man and discovered that he inhabits a Story which, in his telling, ends in a massacre.

In 1995, my editor at National Geographic magazine sent me to Israel for a month to report and write a feature story about Jerusalem.

It was my dream assignment. Ten years earlier, I had made my first pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and it changed my life. I had what you might call a personal epiphany. Or maybe it was simply the sudden realization that religious Jews, Christians, and Moslems were not irrational lunatics (although some certainly fit the description) and that perhaps the scribes and prophets of Jerusalem have some important insights to share about the world and our place in it.

So when I finally got the Magazine assignment, I was elated… until everything imploded a few weeks later. The whole production became a disaster, on the page and in my life. But that’s another story for another day.¹

Now, though, I want to share one memorable interview from my fieldwork that did not make the final cut — or any cut, for that matter — and you’ll soon understand why.

The Stories we live (and die) by

One Friday afternoon, I’m scheduled to interview a man whose family has held the keys to the city of Jerusalem since the time of Mohammed… or so says the local legend.

At 3 pm, I arrive at his house in East Jerusalem and knock on the front door. His wife answers. She is expecting me. She ushers me into the parlor and offers me coffee and cookies. Her two small children hover in the kitchen doorway, wondering who this stranger is. A minute later, the man of the house enters and shakes my hand. I’ll call him Hasan.

He’s a soft-spoken gentleman, maybe 5’10”. Friendly eyes. Easy manner.

“What can I do for you?” Hasan says.

“I’m writing a story for National Geographic magazine about Jerusalem, with a focus on the three faiths whose Stories revolve around this city,” I say. “I’m interested in how faithful Muslims like you make sense of current events when seen through the lens of the Koran. That is, what does your Scripture tell you about what’s happening today on the ground here?”

“Well, to be honest,” he says, “nothing happening right now surprises us. We could see it all coming.”

“How so?”

“Just to give one example — we knew the Jews would one day come back to this land because the Koran tells us they would return. And they have.”

“Interesting,” I say. “What do your holy books tell you will happen next?”

“The Koran teaches us that the Jews will return, despoil the land, corrupt the people, and work against the will of Allah,” Hasan says. “And they’ve done that, too.”

“Okay,” I say. “What happens next in your Story?”

“The Koran tells us there will be a great war and all the Jews will be slaughtered.”

“Hmmm,” I say, trying to maintain my composure and journalistic objectivity. “So, the Jews return and despoil the land… and then there’s a great war in which all the Jews are killed, their blood flowing into the Mediterranean Sea. The Muslims have finally reconquered the land they believe Allah has given them. But then what happens? What’s your Story’s next chapter?”

“I don’t know,” he tells me. “It doesn’t say.”

For a few seconds, I stop breathing.

“It doesn’t say??!!”

He stares at me, poker-faced.

I almost throw up my coffee and cookies on his beautiful rug.

“Okay,” I mumble, clearly rattled. “I think I’m getting the picture.”

I ask a few other unrelated questions, mostly to give the interview some semblance of normalcy. Then I thank him for his time, shake his hand, and make an early exit.

I rush back to my apartment building in West Jerusalem, and run up four flights of stairs to my rented room, but then decide to visit my landlord, who lives across the hall. I’ll call him Amos.

I knock on his door. A moment later, Amos opens it. He and his family are preparing for Shabbat dinner.

“My G*d,” Amos says to me. “Are you okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost! Come in, come in!”

I sit down on the living room sofa. Someone brings me a glass of water. And I tell Amos and his family about my assignment, and the interview, and about the horrific Story that’s playing inside the head of the man I’d just met… and inside the heads of who knows how many other Muslims.

I’m doing a reasonable job of maintaining my composure… until I suddenly lose it.

“This is a nightmare!” I say in a panic. “They’re coming to kill us all!”

Amos nods his head and shrugs in a nonchalant way that I now would describe as quintessentially Israeli.

“Yeah,” he says, “it’s a problem.”

1. National Geographic published “The Three Faces of Jerusalem” in April 1996, almost 30 years ago. It’s awful. Breathtakingly bad on so many levels. Just thinking about it makes my stomach churn. And even though I ultimately wrote only part of the story, it carries my byline, further compounding my embarrassment. Do me a favor and do NOT look it up. (I’ll write more about this editorial fiasco in a future post.)