This week I found a transparent man.
While I was standing at a bus stop in the Geula neighborhood of Jerusalem, a man arrived with a scrubbing knife and began removing the ads that were pasted on the transparent walls of the station.
I approached him. "What are you doing?" I asked.
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""What can I tell you," he said. "It's my job. That's how I know who's lost, who's found, and who's selling socks at wholesale prices...""
• And how does it feel to take down these ads, to make the station clean?
He answers with bitterness in his voice. "No one notices and will not notice whether the station is clean or dirty with ads. If there are ads - they read. If there are no ads - then they sit in the station. It just hurts my heart that every ad I take down, someone bothered with it. But they didn't hang it in the right place...""
•Do you tell people that when you see them putting up the ads?
""What do I tell them, that they're not hanging in the right place? They're not listening to me. Then I have to take down the ads. Look, the 'Shabbat Chatan' ads. I know they hung this one today, so I try - even if it's my job - to take this ad down last, so that maybe another person will see it.".
""I always start with the old, torn ads, and those that have passed their time, so that the good ads stay on the board for a minute longer.".
Who will you vote for in the elections, I asked. You're just like the transparent man from the Shas ads...
He laughed and looked at me. He put his knife in his pocket - and said: "There is a saying, in every house there is a trash can. Even if I vote for the prime minister and tomorrow he comes and makes me a minister in the Knesset - what do you think, will the ads here clean themselves up? No, no. Another person will come in my place, and learn the job - and he will be the one who is transparent.".
""So I'm good here. My job will never go away. And there will always be people down there and there will always be people up there - so why should I vote?""
Thank you, I told him. Thank you for your time. And he responded, while scrubbing: "I'll meet you at the next stop...""
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