Which of these two situations is less plausible?
1) You’re walking through the shuk and come across an American girl looking confused. One of the shop owners asks her to leave her cart outside and she doesn’t understand the Hebrew. Five minutes later, you see her again in a different part of the shuk. Fifteen minutes later, again. You decide to see if she needs help and say, “Hey, I’ve run into you three times. Do you need any help?” Then she says, “Are you Benji Lovitt? I’m Dan’s cousin, we emailed a few months ago…I just moved here for the year.”
OR
2) You’re standing in line at the post office, talking on the phone with international celebrity and social media wizard Leah Jones when you tell her, “Gotta run, I’m next in line.” The American guy standing nearby overhears you and says, “Hey, would you mind mailing this letter for me?”, handing you an envelope and 10 shekels. You look at the envelope and realize you know the people in America he’s mailing the letter to.
And to top it off, Dan’s wife USED TO DATE THE GUY WHOSE NAME IS WRITTEN ON THE ENVELOPE.
The moral of the story? There are no more than 7.5 Jews on the planet and we’re slowly approaching the point where they all know each other. Some call it Jewmageddon and some just call it crazy. But no kidding, this happens to me all the time in this tiny country.
Jewish geography for me used to running into someone I knew on the street or meeting someone and realizing we knew someone in common. Now? After living in Texas, Atlanta, NY, Israel, and working in the Jewish community, it’s accidentally falling into a vat of falafel grease and finding out the EMT who saves my life not only is dating my ex-roommate, but found about out my blog from his nephew (who, by the way, has a twin sister that I met at a Tweetup in the Old City).
It happens about once a month and never ceases to make my jaw drop. Mmm, I just looooove me some falafel grease.
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