A few years ago, I was walking down the street at a city fair. Vendors had set up stalls selling baubles to fixer-upper contracts. My stomach was grumbling from the smell of unhealthy-but-delicious food in the air.
In this cacophony of colors, I spied a stall at the very end of the street. It was the only stall bearing a country’s flag. It was pulling a small cluster of passers-by into its orbit. Curious, and eager to distract myself from a bad dietary choice, I walked over.
The flag of Israel adorned the back of the stall. There were a couple of tables with booklets and pamphlets. The setup was manned by a handful of volunteers.
A woman approached me, smiling, in response to my quizzical gaze. Turned out, they were promoting awareness about the country. She told me how Israel has a high concentration of entrepreneurs. The many ways Israelis have contributed to the world. Cherry tomatoes, she said, were a gift from Israel to the world.
This was all vaguely interesting to me. I don’t eat tomatoes outside of ketchup or the occasional burger. And Israel had only been in the periphery of my awareness, news often associated with conflict. I made some off handed comment about my hope the war is resolved peacefully. I asked if she had anything I could do to learn more. Yes, she beamed, handing me a glossy pamphlet.
I thanked her and went on my way as she turned to greet the next visitor. I caught mention of “cherry tomatoes” over the noise.
That interaction happened around the time, as I discovered later, the Zionist State of Israel had killed 56,000 Palestinians in the latest conflict, out of which it could identify 8,900 combatants from its own database of 47,000 known militants.
I had a gut feeling that the lady did endorse cherry tomatoes too much.
And here we are today.