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This story has appeared in the Christian
Science
Monitor.
How I talked myself out of
Turkish police custody
By Edward Ordman
FEBRUARY 27, 2003
I am deeply concerned when I read of people being arrested
because they are in the wrong country, speaking the wrong
language, having the wrong religion, or just being in the
wrong company. I have some notion of how frightening it can
be, because it happened to me once.
I was spending the summer studying mathematics at the Hebrew
University in Jerusalem. I took a week off to sightsee in that
part of the world. Jews could not go to the Arab countries
then, in 1971, but I could visit Turkey. I flew to Istanbul on
a cheap student flight, arriving after midnight. Beside me on
the plane was a young Englishman. He knew his way around
Istanbul, so I went into town with him and we checked into a
cheap hotel together.
Two days later, the police came and arrested him. I learned,
in what followed, that my friend was traveling the world,
making a living by selling fake student identification cards.
The IDs were valuable because they allowed large discounts on
things like plane fares. He had a little printing press in his
suitcase, and apparently had been selling Swedish student
cards in India, Indian cards in Turkey, and so on.
The police found from his passport that he'd spent a lot of
time in Nepal and Afghanistan, so he was a strong candidate to
be carrying drugs. They took him, me, and our luggage to the
police station.
They sat me down and asked me a long string of questions -
mainly in Turkish. To many of them I had to reply that I
couldn't understand the question. They wrote something down in
their little book - perhaps that they couldn't understand the
answer. We resorted to very basic English and pantomime. I was
terrified. My companion looked guilty of forgery, and the
reputation of Turkish prisons was not at all encouraging.
Then the police pantomimed that they wanted to look in my
luggage. Did they suspect me of carrying drugs? Could my
roommate have hidden something there? I pantomimed permission.
At this juncture, I'd better explain what tefillin are. Also
called phylacteries, they are a Jewish prayer implement. You
may have seen them in paintings by Chagall. The Bible (Deut.
6:6-8) says in part, "... these words, which I command thee
this day, shall be upon thy heart:.... And thou shalt bind
them for a sign upon thy hand, and they shall be as frontlets
between thine eyes."
Traditional Jews interpret this quite literally. We take those
words, write them on little scrolls of parchment, tie them up
in little boxes, and strap them on where it says, for morning
prayers.
So in searching my bag, the police came to my tefillin - funny
little boxes. You can tell something is inside, but can't tell
what. They pantomimed at me: What's in there?
I don't know if you have ever played charades, but I can tell
you that that is a hard one! I did not want them ruined, and
who knew what sort of secret code the police might think I was
carrying?
Anyhow, I tried to act out "religious implements" or something
like that. Gestures at the heavens and clasped hands drew a
complete blank. For reasons that seemed convincing to me in my
terrified state - reasons having to do with the death penalty
for apostasy in Islam - I did not even consider attempting a
Muslim prayer posture.
I was getting desperate when I got my brainstorm. These police
must be at least nominally Muslim, so they must have had at
least as much exposure to mosque Arabic as I've had to
synagogue Hebrew. I'd read just enough about Islamic law to
suspect that some words were similar in the two languages. And
I also remembered the immigrant stories my father had told. In
many of those stories, Jewish immigrants to the United States
often sounded funny, but they often managed to be understood.
So in my very broken Hebrew I began an ungrammatical speech on
the general subject of faith, hope, and charity, substituting
a "k" for a "ch" and a "v" for a "b" and silently praying that
it would sound something like Arabic.
My first sentence drew strange stares. On the second sentence,
every single one of the policemen broke into smiles, then
gales of laughter. They patted me on the head, put my suitcase
in my hand, and pushed me out the door.
I checked into a hotel that was more expensive than I could
easily afford - one with a translator on duty. And I called
the British Embassy to report where the young Englishman was
being held.
To this day I don't know what I said to the police. I was far
too scared at the time for such details to sink in. Years
later, when I began attending the social hours at my
neighborhood mosque in Memphis, Tenn., some possibilities were
suggested. Perhaps the Hebrew word tzedakah suggested the
Arabic zakat; both mean "charity." Or perhaps I used the
Hebrew rakhamim (mercies), and it suggested the Arabic raheem
(merciful).
But the experience did help me to learn that by whatever name
and in whatever language, Allah can be very understanding.
(C) Edward Ordman 2003