Dev in Yisrael

Outrage

2010-07-14T00:26:00.006+03:00

The last time I wrote about Women of the Wall, it was about the calm before the prayer. There was nothing else to write about, unless I wanted to write about lending my roommate my siddur and my tallit and watching her pray when she hadn't done so in a long time. The time before that was when we got chairs thrown at us and the police arrested the chair-throwers. At that point, it seemed like the police were on our side. The Haredim were the wrongdoers; we were following the law, and they were still harassing us. But this. How did this happen?

I was not there, as I have been in the States for a month and a half now, but there is a blog post about the experience by Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg here. I am shocked. I am speechless, save for the word "What?" "What?" The women were not doing anything that they hadn't done month after month, year after year since 1988. Daven most of the service at the back of the women's section - march with the Torah, singing, to Robinson's Arch - read the Torah - dance - daven Mussaf. Month after month. So why now? Why are we suddenly the bad guys again? Did they really think we were going to change our pattern now? Was it not just a few months ago when we were almost physically harmed by an army of chairs?

I say "we" this time not because I was physically there, but I feel like the Women of the Wall are still part of me. Watching the video I remember the times when I walked down that path, the first time in the rain with Haredim yelling at us, the time when we sang "Not By Might" in Hebrew and the woman next to me said she'd have to tell Debbie Friedman that someone had translated her song, the time Mr. Dubin was there. There is no video of the women standing outside of the police station, but I can see it in my mind. I know that spirit. I can imagine Nofrat Frenkel standing next to Anat Hoffman as she was arrested for the same charges for which Nofrat was arrested just seven months ago. "We then kept singing for some time, because, Nofrat said, Anat (who was inside the police station somewhere) would be able to hear us. (Nofrat knows from personal experience, natch.)" Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg said. Can you imagine what that must be like? Can you see her reliving that experience?

And why are the Women of the Wall put through this ideal? For being female and wanting to pray on Rosh Chodesh, which Orthodoxy declares a "women's holiday." Because wanting to sing out their prayers loud and proud is somehow wrong. Because reading the very text that is the basis of our religion is somehow wrong.

It's been said before by many people and I'll say it again: the Kotel doesn't belong to the Jewish people. The Kotel belongs to the Haredim, and that's an offense against all of us who call ourselves part of the Jewish people.

Calm

2010-04-23T21:02:00.001+03:00

The thing that I like most about Women of the Wall is the walk to get there. There are no buses that take you from Mount Scopus to the Old City; you have to go to Jaffa Rd and then walk from there. This means that a trip to the Kotel involves walking all the way through the Old City at a time of morning when nothing’s open and no one’s there. All the shops that are usually open are closed, all the streets that are usually crowded are completely empty. It’s peaceful. And then you arrive at the Kotel and see all these men and women davening, and all these police cars parked right outside the guard station, and you’re ready to pray. You’re ready to combat the Haredim with your prayer, your love for their hate.

This entry is not really about Women of the Wall, though. I am currently lying on a bed at Kibbutz Yahel, a Reform kibbutz in the Negev, taking a few precious moments between dinner and our campfire. This Shabbat seems to be about a similar kind of calm. We’re out of the city and into the desert, where there’s really nothing around us other than lots of sand, a bit of grass, and the people who live on the kibbutz. I’m also singing and listening to songs that I haven’t heard since camp, and other songs that I haven’t heard since AHA—and even without the words in the book (because Mishkan Tefila was written as a prayerbook, not a songbook), somehow I still remember the words to these songs I haven’t heard since 2001. It’s the peace of nostalgia that I’m feeling right now; even though I know I was never really happy at camp, these songs bring back fond feelings. I came on this Shabbaton because it was a chance to take a Shabbat away from Jerusalem, but I think instead I’m refinding Reform Judaism. Not that I’m going to come away from this Shabbaton a Reform Jew—I’m not—but I’m reminding myself that there are parts that I really like, parts that I really loved as a little kid, and maybe I can recall those images when I think of Reform Judaism rather than thinking of congregations that do yartzeits based on English dates and close down for the summer.

Secular holidays

2010-04-22T19:17:00.006+03:00

Israel's a bit odd in that most Israeli holidays are also Jewish religious holidays. In the States there are a bunch of secular holidays: MLK Day, President's Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Columbus Day, Veteran's Day, and Thanksgiving according to Wikipedia. In Israel there are only five (Yitzhak Rabin Memorial Day, Holocaust Remembrance Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, and Jerusalem Day), and of those only two are non-business days. Those two, the Big Important Israeli National Holidays were this week, Memorial Day (Yom HaZikaron) on Sunday night/Monday followed immediately by Independence Day (Yom HaAtzmaut) on Monday night/Tuesday.

Memorial Day is a big deal in this country. There have been so many wars that everyone knows someone or knows someone who knows someone who died in a war or a terrorist attack. I didn't attend any ceremonies, but I heard that every neighborhood has one for their own fallen along with the national ceremony which takes place at the Kotel. I didn't go to any ceremonies partly because it didn't feel right to walk in on someone else's mourning and partly because, frankly, I'm a foreign student; I don't know anyone who died and I had a lot of homework to do. Instead I listened to the radio, which played exclusively downbeat songs, probably mostly about soldiers though it was hard to tell with my poor level of Hebrew. I did catch one song that I knew from high school, though: חורף 73 (video here; English lyrics here) in which children conceived after the Yom Kippur War sing about how peace never came, no matter how much their parents promised.

Another aspect of Yom HaZikaron is that the entire country stands still in remembrance of the fallen for two whole minutes, one at 8pm and one at 11am. The minutes are marked by a very loud air raid siren; this is what it sounded like from inside my room. Interestingly, though, the radios don't shut off; I had to turn it off on my own when the siren blew.

Immediately following Yom HaZikaron is Yom HaAtzmaut, which is a totally different scene. At night, Yom HaAtzmaut is one big party: at the shuk, at clubs, in government plazas, etc. Ahuva, Alexis, Marc, Abigail, Alexis's friend Avi, and I spent the night at Ben Yehuda Street, which was packed with people dancing and singing and spraying each other with silly string. Observe:

Another big thing downtown was the selling of massive inflatable hammers. Ahuva bought two for an impromptu dual with Alexis, though there were others much bigger. No matter how much I try I can't seem to find the origin of the hammer thing, but they're Big in multiple ways.

After about an hour walking around Ben Yehuda we headed over to Gan HaAtzmaut to watch the fireworks display off the roof of the Leonardo Plaza Hotel. Surprisingly, fireworks aren't a big part of independence day in this country. Not only was the show half an hour late, but it was insanely short. Observe it in its entirety:

After the fireworks Ahuva and I went home, though Marc at least stayed out until 5am. The next morning Ahuva, Alexis and I got up early to head to Kibbutz Na'an for a traditional Israeli barbecue, which is basically what Israelis do for Yom HaAtzmaut. Not so different from American independence day, right? The big difference is that you're not eating hamburgers, hotdogs, potato chips, and coleslaw; instead, it's Israeli salads of all kinds, hummus, pitas, fries, grilled cauliflower, and as many kinds of meat as you can imagine--chicken, steak, kabob of various sorts, etc.

The big thing about the barbecue was that it was an informal AHA reunion of sorts. Kibbutz Na'an is home of Gideon Meiry, who used to be head of security for AHA, and Guido ('06). While nowhere near all the AHA alumni in Israel were there--at least two that I know of were missing--there were a good seven of us, including Alexis ('04), Ahuva ('05), Rachel Herman ('07), and myself ('07). Actually I didn't know any of the AHA people other than those I've mentioned, so it was more of an opportunity to experience Yom HaAtzmaut Israeli-style than anything.

After lunch a member of the kibbutz took us to the Kibbutz history museum, where we learned about the kibbutz before Israel existed as a country. Na'an was one of many kibbutzim that hid weapons underground, and the house that became the museum was built on top of one of the underground weapons storage rooms. It's actually pretty cool; they still have some weapons down there, along with an old morse code machine.

There are a whole bunch of other really cool things, too. For instance: an old airplane on the roof of a building on the main road, a museum set up like a pre-Israel house (yeah, that museum), and an armored vehicle outside of the museum. We also learned that no one know why the kibbutz was built where it was, because though it's high up it has absolutely no water source, which isn't good for a country where it doesn't rain. It's a big mystery.

After the tour we came back to Jerusalem and I started on my homework for Wednesday. To be honest, Tuesday day felt like the 4th of July, and I kept expecting someone to come out with a flag cake any minute. Monday night felt like a big celebration of some sort, or maybe Jerusalem turning into one big dance club. I don't know. I don't tend to pay attention to these holidays in the States (even though Hillel does do things for them), and I don't think I'm really missing out on anything. I prefer the holidays that involve Torahs and hallel and cheesecake, thank you very much--which is, of course, Shavuot, the one last holiday for which I'll be in this country.

Wisdom from an Israeli writer

2010-04-07T10:11:00.004+03:00

In Hebrew class today we read part of a poem by an Israeli writer, Yehuda Amichai, entited "Tourists":

פעם ישבתי על מדרגות ליד שער במצודת דוד, את שני הסלים הכבדים שמתי לידי. עמדה שם קבוצת תיירים סביב המדריך ושימשתי להם נקודת ציון. "אתם רואים את האיש הזה עם הסלים? קצת ימינה מראשו נמצאת קשת מן התקופ הרומית. קצת ימינה מראשו". "אבל הוא זז, הוא זז!" אמרתי בלבי: הגאולה תבוא רק אם יגידו להם: אתם רואים שם את הקשת מן התקופה הרומית? לא חשוב: אבל לידה, קצת שמאלה ולמטה ממנה, יושב אדם שקנה פֵּרות וירקות לביתו.

Once I was sitting on the steps near the gate at David's Citadel and I put down my two heavy baskets beside me. A group of tourists stood there around their guide, and I became their point of reference. "You see that man over there with the baskets? A little to the right of his head there's an arch from the Roman period. A little to the right of his head." "But he's moving, he's moving!" I said to myself: Redemption will come only when they are told, "Do you see that arch over there from the Roman period? It doesn't matter, but near it, a little to the left and then down a bit, there's a man who has just bought fruit and vegetables for his family."

We as American--and Canadians, and whatever else we are--could learn a lot from this piece of writing. We come to Jerusalem because it's a holy city, but is that really what Jerusalem is? What should we be focusing on when we come here, Jerusalem as it was or Jerusalem as it is? Jerusalem isn't frozen in time; it's a modern city with modern citizens, modern life, and modern problems. When I go to Women of the Wall, it's the people I'm focusing on, not the history. The wall itself isn't what's important; the treatment of women there in modern-day Jerusalem is what matters. The same goes for any human rights issues you might look at--the problems of the Palestinians, the problems of the GLBT population, etc. These are real people living today; can we really come to this country and ignore them? If we do that, Israel is nothing. "Next year in Jerusalem" will always be just a saying, whether or not there really is a place called Jerusalem and whether or not Jews can come there. We have to look at today, not just yesterday. Tomorrow all of this will be history--is this really what we want to see?

Beersheva

2010-04-05T22:23:00.012+03:00

Pesach Break served as a time to travel, since I don't really have any other chances to do it before I leave Israel. I've already posted about my trip to Tzfat; my second trip was only a day trip, but in some ways it seemed even bigger.

I wanted to go to Beersheva for what seemed like the coolest shuk in the entire country:

On the south side of Beersheba, in Elat Road (Derekh Elat), the Bedouin market is held every Thursday. It is frequented by Bedouin from far and wide, and its colorful bustle of activity attracts many tourists. The main wares of interest to visitors are carpets, finely embroidered cushions and camel saddles, copperware and numerous other craft products; the local people, on the other hand, come to buy articles of clothing, domestic requisites, skins and also live goats and hens. (from this site)

Other descriptions mention the sale of camels and sheep, which I just think is cool. I mean, it's not like I'm going to buy a camel and bring him home with me, but I've never seen a place where they're sold before. There's also a place near Beersheva where you can ride camels, so it seemed like the ideal trip--that is, until my usual travel luck took over.

Lynley and I got up early on Thursday, ate some matzah for breakfast, and headed to the Central Bus Station for the hour and a half ride to Beersheva. We made it there by 10 and walked to where the Bedouin Market was supposed to be, only there wasn't really a market. Instead there was this city festival thing with exhibitions, food vendors, music, and kids' crafts, which wasn't quite what we'd come to see (and also not particularly up and running at 10:30am). There was one Bedouin guy who set up shop--a tent and a bunch of stuff spread out--but that was it.

(Photo courtesy of Lynley)

One tip about Bedouin markets: never ask the price of something that you have no intention of purchasing. Curiosity may not kill you, but it will sic a very persistent salesperson on you who won't leave you alone until you either buy something or walk away--and in my case walking away wasn't an option, as Lynley was partaking in some hooka and pretending to be a dragon:

Actually, smoking hooka in a Bedouin tent might not be such a good idea either. Bedouin salespeople can be very creepy. The same guy who pushed me to buy also insisted on sitting down next to us and attempting to persuade Lynley to marry him for a full five minutes, or until we left--and I'm pretty sure he was serious.

Apparently Lynley has "magical eyes," though he'd used that line on me not five minutes before as a bargaining tool. (Bedouin markets also mean haggling. Bigtime. I paid 1/3 of the originally offered price for what I bought, and I still think I was probably ripped off.)

After we left the Bedouin Market--what there was of it--we headed down to the Beersheva Visitor's Center, which is located near Abraham's Well. This is where we discovered that Beersheva really isn't a tourist place. The visitor's center was just a small room with a few pamphlets, all in Hebrew except for one random pamphlet in French. The only English in the entire place was a misspelled sign next to Abraham's Well, which you have to pay 5NIS to see:

In actuality that's not really Abraham's well but rather a Turkish one, and there are no signs of explanation anywhere other than the Biblical verses. How was the well discovered? When? What's the wooden thing for and how does it work? No explanations anywhere. A bit disappointing.

After visiting the really unhelpful visitor's center we headed for lunch in the old city. Beersheva is supposed to be "the heart of the Negev," and if Beersheva is the heart of the Negev, the old city should reasonably be the heart of the heart--which is the case in both Jerusalem and Tzfat, the other Israeli cities I know that have old cities. Wrong! The old city of Beersheva was like a ghost town. Most of the restaurants were closed for Pesach, the buildings were run-down and graffitied, and the only people we saw were a few blue-collar workers, one of whom seemed to be chasing after us screaming but was really trying to get the attention of someone in a car. It was really sketchy, and we abandoned it for the mall food court very quickly.

After lunch we set out for the Negev Camel Ranch, or in other words, Cameland. I always love it when the bus drops you off by the side of the road in the middle of nowhere, but luckily there was a map on the Camel Ranch website that I'd copied down and a nice big sign once we'd walked 100 meters down the road. Of course, from there it was a loooooong walk to the ranch because this is Israel, and this is the desert. But when we reached it--there were camels! Lots of camels! And these pictures are only the ones they don't take out on rides for tourists!

After waiting for about an hour--the day was full of waiting, since we were also crowded out of our first bus for Cameland--we ended up with a private camel tour just for the two of us. This is where I learned that camels are really slow and desert looks like desert looks like desert. However, I definitely got to ride a camel. That was completely worth the trip.

After riding camels it was time to go back to Jerusalem, since it was already 5pm. Of course, as I mentioned earlier, our bus stop was out in the middle of nowhere, on the side of the road, without any signs whatsoever:

Also, the bus back to Beersheva only runs every hour and a half. This left Lynley and me by the side of the road for an hour, watching cars go by. We weren't necessarily trying to hitchhike back, but we wouldn't have minded it, and it's funny what drivers do when they see people standing by the side of the road. We got a lot of people putting their hands up like "What am I supposed to do?" and some people honking at us. The entire time we didn't even see a taxi pass and the bus was 20 minutes late, so we had this plan of walking to Dimona--the nearest town, about 5 minutes drive away--if the bus didn't show. While the bus did finally show, it was only after a car pulled over and a really nice couple offered to give us a lift to Beersheva. We took it. It sure beat walking to Dimona. From Beersheva it was an easy ride back to Jerusalem and the Kfar, though I didn't get back until after 9pm. Then it was pretty much bedtime. Tourism is exhausting, especially when it involves hour-long camel rides.

Pesach in Israel

2010-04-05T20:37:00.005+03:00

Absolutely the best part about Passover in Israel is the fact that it's only 7 days long, rather than the 8 days in the rest of the world. Seriously, it's amazing. My diet this past week has consisted of mainly 4 things: matzo pizza, matzo with peanut butter, mashed potatoes and corn, and matzo ball soup. It gets old.

That said, there's so much more difference between Pesach in Israel and in the US. For one, you really can't get chametz anywhere. Maybe in the Arab neighborhoods you could, but at least in the Jewish parts the supermarkets look sort of like this:

And by that I mean that they're all covered up. Most shelves still have all the non-Pesach food on them (you just can't get to it), but in the case of fresh bread everything's just gone. Ahuva's standing there with the last loaf of bread in the entire store and it was only Sunday--Pesach didn't start until Monday night.

And then there's restaurants. A lot of restaurants just close down for Pesach, but plenty stay open and even have pretty much their normal fare. I was very confused on Thursday when I entered the Central Bus Station and saw what I thought was the normal sandwiches (below), but then when I went back to take a picture I noticed that there was a sign saying that everything was kosher for Pesach (also below). You do not find this kind of thing in the States.

That's not all there is, though. Most places have a lot of salads, but there's also realistic looking pizza and quiches and breaded fish and... everything. Pretty nearly everything, not to mention the potatoes and other things that are always kosher for Passover. My roommate says these things are made mostly out of potato flour and that they actually taste good, but I didn't try most of them. My eating out consisted of a bad potato boureka in Beersheva on Thursday and a potato and spinich "blintz" (really an omelet) and Passover cheesecake at Village Green yesterday. The cheesecake looked good enough (see below), but it had this awful almond macaroon bottom and really wasn't worth the 31NIS I paid for it--typical of Village Green desserts, but I do it over and over again anyway. Besides--cheesecake is one of those pleasures you need to have during such an awful food holiday. (I just miss it being free and made by my father.)

(Picture courtesy of Lynley.)

So maybe Israel is the best place to be for Passover if you're willing and able to eat out all the time, but otherwise I'm actually not so fond. Where are the tins of macaroons? Where's the (mostly) really bad mixes for pancakes and muffins and cakes and things? For that matter, where's the matzo farfel? I'm not one to eat out all the time, and I honestly missed some of the things that you can get in the States during Pesach. There's this one really good apple cinnamon muffin mix that you can get in the States, I think Savion brand, in a brown box that's amazing and definitely not Manischewitz, I miss that a lot. I usually live off muffins during Pesach, but that hasn't happened this year. Call me crazy, but I think I'd actually rather spend Passover in the States--even with the extra day. I'll trade an extra day for some muffins, thank you very much.

Tzfat

2010-03-28T20:55:00.005+03:00

I spent this past weekend in Tzfat, one of the four holy cities (the others being Jerusalem, Hebron, and Tiberias). I was there once before, in high school, and I remembered it being beautiful. As someone who goes to Friday night services pretty regularly, I love thinking about the fact that this is where Lecha Dodi was written, and really Kabbalat Shabbat as a whole was formed. The city has a lot of spiritual meaning.

The trip started out on Thursday by discovering that the 982 bus to Tzfat doesn’t actually leave from the Central Bus Station, even though that’s where you buy your tickets. Also, the big “23” on the ticket dosen’t mean “gate 23” but rather a zone. So… Lynley and I missed our bus and had to wait two and a half hours for the next one. Yay. At least I finally got to check out the mall that’s in the Cental Bus Station, and obtained something that you’ll probably only find in Israel—haggadot in a dollar store.

We finally made it to Tzfat around 7pm after a three and a half hour bus ride up and down and around lots of mountains. (It’s Israel.) Guidebooks tend to only spend a page on Tzfat as part of the section on the Galilee, so we got off the bus and had to wander around until we found a sign for our hostel, Ascent. “Go up the stairs and follow the map,” it said—what map? There was no map! Thankfully I remembered that someone at the office had called my phone to confirm our reservation, so the number was in my phone and I was able to call them for directions.

The thing about Tzfat is… even with a map, you get lost. It’s one of those places that maps can’t really handle, like the Old City of Jerusalem. For example, this:

That’s a road. There’s no signs and no stores or houses on it to indicate that it’s a road, no street numbers, but it’s very definitely marked on the map as Ma’alot Olei HaCardom. Such is Tzfat.

The first place we tried to go for dinner, Café Bagdad, kicked us out saying that they were only serving coffee, even though they were open for another half hour. (This was 8:30pm.) So we went to the next place the people at Ascent recommended, Café Milano. There we discovered that even though Tzfat is mainly known for kabbalah and art, there’s actually another piece to it: cheese. According to the faulty map there was entirely a whole cheese museum! (In actuality, no such place exists.) Anyway, this meant that there were a lot of cheese dishes at Café Milano. Lynley ended up getting something called “halumi salad,” which was actually pasta in teriyaki sauce with cashews, bell peppers, and halumi cheese. I got a cheese platter with roasted vegetables. Lynley very much got the better deal; her halumi salad was amazing. (I know cause I got to try some.) Take a look:

My cheese platter was okay. I really liked the labane, but of the other two cheeses one was okay and the other I didn’t really like. The veggies were also okay, not wonderful. But Lynley’s halumi salad… wow! Amazing. Just amazing.

After dinner we headed back to Ascent and went to bed. Then on Friday we woke up early and went to explore Tzfat before everything closed for Shabbat. Our first stop was Safed Candle Factory, where they really make art out of candles. Like, for example, the Temple:

or a whole bunch of penguins:

There was also one of David and Goliath and one of Samson tearing down the Philistine temple, but I wasn’t so interested in those. While we were there we also eavesdropped on a tour guide teaching a family a bit about how regular havdallah candles are made, basically by dipping string into melted wax multiple times and then weaving the tapers together while they’re still hot. It’s pretty cool. I actually spent as much money at the candle factory as I did for two nights at Ascent, which either says something about how cheap Ascent is or how impressive the candle factory is. Maybe both. And no, I did not buy a penguin—their faces were too weird.

From the candle factory we poked our heads into the Ari Synagogue (looks like a normal Orthodox synagogue, minus the women’s section) and proceeded to a street lined entirely with galleries of more conventional art—paintings, jewelry, and Judaica. There were some really beautiful things there, all of it expensive. There was even one shop where we got to watch weavers at work, which was really cool although I don’t understand why anyone would spend more than $100 on a really plain-looking matzah cover.

And of course we had to go find the cheese. There are signs all over the place saying “Tzfat cheese à” or “holy Tzfat cheese à” all of which led to another and then yet another sign. Reaching the cheese factory is like going thorough a maze, literally. When we get there it was just a little place—a table covered with different cheeses, a few tables for sitting down, and a room with vats in it that are used to make the cheese. Unfortunately we didn’t get to find out how cheese is made (we’d have to come back on Sunday for that, except that we were leaving Tzfat on Saturday night), but we did get to try every single one of his cheeses. They weren’t expensive, either; I got small pieces of feta and the special Tzfat cheese for only $10. That plus the four rugalach I’d brought from Jerusalem were more than enough for lunch.

Cheese:

So Friday was good. Shabbat… not so much. It’s odd because when I said I wanted to spend a Shabbat in Tzfat, I was warned that Ascent was really, really Orthodox—which is true. However, I’ve spent Shabbat with the Orthodox before, and as long as I know I’m there for Shabbat and not for a long period of time, I even sorta enjoy parts of it. Organizations that reach out to non-Orthodox students tend to be really concerned about how you’re doing and completely willing to talk to you about Orthodoxy. They have this kind of excitement to them. The people at Ascent… didn’t really. There was a shiur before Shabbat, but it didn’t really go anywhere. After that was supposed to be “Candlelighting and orientation,” but in reality it was just lighting on our own and sitting around until time to go to services. Dinner wasn’t with families in Tzfat, as it usually is at Ascent, but all together in a room in the hostel with not so wonderful food. Saturday was more of the same, if not worse; downtime until lunch unless you got up in time to go to 8am services at a synagogue of your choosing, a meal in which there was no vegetarian option (brisket and potatoes that were cooked together with the brisket), more down time until 4:45, an hour-long tour of Tzfat, and then more down time until dinner and even more downtime until havdallah!

Honestly, if I wanted to stay in my room and read and eat crappy found, I could have stayed in Jerusalem. I wasn’t too pleased with Ascent Shabbat. Usually they pay attention to us. Usually there’s singing and words of Torah and decent food when Orthodox organizations try to draw people in (and presumably the rest of the year, too), and that’s what I was expecting. That’s what I paid for. I feel like it would have been different if we’d gone to families for meals, but the website made no mention of the fact that Shabbat HaGadol isn’t a Shabbat where we get hosted. If it had, we probably would have come another weekend.

It all just seems very odd to me. They asked us twice if we were vegetarian—once on the registration form, and once when they called to confirm our registration. There was at least one other girl in our boat, too. If you know more than 48 hours in advance that 3 out of your 10 English-speaking guests are vegetarians, how in the world do you justify ignoring it? Apparently they expected us to just eat the salads, with no warning that we wouldn’t be able to eat the main dish. Thank you very much for your consideration. I really appreciate it.

I think, in the end, I’m still glad I went to Tzfat for Shabbat. As much of a let-down as it was, as much as it was so not worth the 200NIS we paid for it, if I hadn’t done it I would have wished I had. I would have just continued to have this fantasy of Shabbat in Tzfat and regretted never experiencing it. And there were some good parts to it. I discovered that while no one drives on Yom Kippur, the Shabbat of Shabbats, in Jerusalem, no one drives on Shabbat in Tzfat, period. Not a car moving that I could see, at least not on HaAri Street or Jerusalem Street, the only two streets we walked on where cars can actually go. I also discovered that there are basically no cats it Tzfat. The entire time we were there, we only saw two—as opposed to the rest of Israel, where they’re everywhere. These things are interesting to me. They’re unique, the same way the history is unique. I just wish all of Shabbat was like that.

Architecture mixed with a bit of politics

2010-03-22T21:20:00.005+02:00

Today marked my architecture class's second trip to the Old City, and the last trip for a while. For the most part it was nothing remarkable--just a tour through a Herodian mansion and a visit to the Southern Wall of the Temple Mount. However, current events dictated that we must try to take a look at the newly rebuilt Hurva Synagogue, which we did.

Long story short: the Hurva Synagogue was originally built in the 1860s and was destroyed twice. In 2002 the Israeli government decided to rebuild the synagogue, and it was rededicated last Monday night. This was part of what lead to the "Day of Rage" riots among the Palestinians last Tuesday. The New York Times explains why they're so upset:

The synagogue’s new white dome blends in with the city’s ancient monuments holy to Christians, Muslims and Jews. Because of the topography, seen from certain points around the city, it rises above the Islamic shrines of the compound revered by Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary, and by Jews as the Temple Mount, including Al Aksa Mosque.
In Damascus, Khaled Meshal, the exiled leader of the Islamic militant group Hamas, said the synagogue’s dedication signified “the destruction of the Al Aksa Mosque and the building of the temple,” according to Agence France-Presse.

Okay, so that sounds a little bit drastic. Really, the rebuilding of one synagogue is going to lead to the destruction of the Temple Mount as we know it? However, take a look at this (also mentioned by Ha'arez):

According to a centuries-old rabbinical prophecy that appears to be coming true, on March 16, 2010, Israel will begin construction of the Third Temple in Jerusalem. During the 18th century, the Vilna Gaon, a respected rabbinical authority, prophesied that the Hurva Synagogue in Jerusalem, which was built during his day, would be destroyed and rebuilt twice, and that when the Hurva was completed for the third time, construction on the Third Temple would begin.

And the Third Temple will logically be built on the Temple Mount, and thus Al-Aksa Mosque will be destroyed... it makes sense. Except for the whole "we're going to build the Third Temple now!" part. I don't see the moshiach anywhere; do you? Besides--according to Ahuva's recent sermon, we weren't meant to resume the whole animal sacrifice thing anyway.

Anyway! The brand-new rebuilt synagogue is entirely locked, but we got to go in and see it anyway. See, our teacher is Israeli, and Israelis are pushy and tend to get their way when they're only up against a couple of custodians who answered a classmate's very insistent knock at the door. The synagogue is beautiful. Take a look:

The outside photo is not mine because silly me expected to be able to find a recent photograph online, but apparently not. They're being very secretive about this place, probably because of all the riots and such. But really--how hard is it to take a picture of the outside?

I don't know what to think about the controversy surrounding this synagogue. Sometimes it seems like people--Palestinians and (particularly haredi) Israelis--will riot over just about anything, given the chance. It's not like we're in a position to build the Third Temple, no matter what the Vilna Gaon said all those years ago. Yet--the fact that the dome rises above everything else does make a certain political statement. I read it somewhere--"We're here to stay," it says. The Israelis are here to stay, in the heart of the Old City, in the heart of East Jerusalem, in the heart of Eretz Yisrael... can you blame them for being upset?

Israeli basketball

2010-03-20T22:47:00.003+02:00

Basketball is definitely not soccer. I mean, I know it's not, but in terms of Israeli sports--there's a big difference between a Beitar Jerusalem game and a HaPoel Migdal Jerusalem game, which is what one of our madrichim from Rothberg took us to tonight. Thank goodness there was no racism, but there were also no organized cheers whatsoever. There were also plenty of seats left, and very few people standing--though I was told that part of that was the fact that it was a Saturday night game and a lot of Jerusalem's fans are religious. Anyway, the game in videos:

Hatikvah, lots of insane basketballs flying everwhere, and a view of the crowd:

Ramat Gan's team doing well at the beginning of the game:

And a video of Jerusalem doing well, because that is my city for the year, after all:

Ramat Gan only did well in the beginning; by the second quarter Jerusalem was creaming them and I lost all of my attention span. Really, sports games need to be close to be interesting. It's no fun when Jerusalem wins 107 to 68, with the margin only growing over the course of the game.

Oh well. At least we won?

Police make all the difference

2010-03-16T15:54:00.003+02:00

Police make all the difference in the world. Remember my first trip to Women of the Wall? It was pretty miserable, both due to the rain and due to the haredim's hatred. There were police around, but we didn't feel guarded; this was just a month after Nofrat Frankel was arrested. The next month the police made a barrier between us and the haredi women and it went better, though one woman was hit by a haredi. This month--G-d. What a difference.

The assault from the men's side was totally unexpected. They did not wait for us to start davening, but instead threw a bunch of chairs over the mechitza while we were still gathering, even breaking a leg off one of them. It wasn't even 7am, and the police hadn't arrived yet. Lots of chairs (and a video starting in the middle of it):

Notice how the women attempt to make light of it. This is how you have to think at Women of the Wall--ironic comments are about all we can do.

Needless to say, I thought that the early chair throwing was an indication of a very bad morning ahead. It's not exactly a good sign. However, the men eventually stopped throwing chairs and the police came over to ask what happened and help clean up the chairs. Someone also said that they arrested the chair-thrower, which was the first good sign of the day. (According to YNet, they arrested two chair-throwers even!)

Once we started davening, the police formed a wall between us and the haredim. Surprisingly, the haredi women didn't bother us this time--one woman muttered about how the moshiach was never going to come this way when she walked past us, but that was it. The men were also surprisingly subdued. There was a little bit of shouting, but that didn't last. They mostly walked/danced around in a circle singing, supposedly drowning us out in their ears. For the first time ever I could hear every word the service leader said; the sounds from the men's side didn't overpower us at all us. Oh--and Mr. Recite Hallel at Us was back today, too. That was sorta weird--it almost seemed as if he was supporting us, except we knew better. (He was screaming "gevalt" last month.)

At the end of Hallel we were actually able to dance around in a circle ourselves, which one of the women said had never happened before. No videos of that because I was participating, but I think this is proof of what police--and overseas--support can do. When the chair-thrower was arrested I think it really changed the dynamics. The haredim no longer had the upper hand, and there were consequences to their hatred. They were in the position that we were in back in December, and even more so probably November. And why were the police guarding us? I think that has something to do with overseas--particularly North American--support for Women of the Wall. I mean, politics make my head spin, but when 29 Canadian rabbis send a letter to their Israeli ambassador supporting Women of the Wall and there is enough American support that the ambassador to the United States made a statement about the issue, that's gotta mean something, right? If nothing else, it'd probably make Israel look pretty bad if/when something bad happened to the Women of the Wall while they were davening, assuming they were following the law (not reading from the Torah and not wearing talitot). Why else would the police go from arresting Nofrat Frenkel to protecting us from the haredim, if not for international pressure?

I have to say, I will be perfectly happy if the Haredi men keep drowning us out by singing and dancing and reciting Hallel at us. These are all things that belong at the Kotel. Screaming insults and throwing chairs--those do not. What are the chances that they'll find this solution satisfactory, or that next month will be even slightly like this month? One thing I've learned over the past three months is that the reaction to our davening is unpredictable. Totally and completely unpredictable.

We went from our peaceful davening at the Kotel to an even more peaceful Torah reading with rotating Torah readers, including Devora, a fellow Rothberg student. Notice how you can hear the birds singing. Isn't that a nice end to it all?

A trip to the City of David

2010-03-15T19:56:00.006+02:00

An update about the start of the new semester and my class schedule will come soon; we're three weeks into the semester and my schedule just got finalized today. However, this semester promises many more class-sponsored tourism than I got last semester due to one class: Jerusalem's Architectural History. We had our first field trip today, a visit to the City of David. Possible little known fact: the Old City of Jerusalem today is nowhere near on the same land as the Really Old City of Jerusalem, aka the city that King David built. The only overlap is really the Temple Mount--everything else is outside the current walls.

Another possibly little known fact: Jerusalem architecture is ugly. There's this way of building one house on top of another because that's how you build on the side of a mountain--okay, I get that. But why does everything have to be so blocky? It's just ugly, and it's all over Israel. Really, why? The below photo is of Sirwan, an Arab neighborhood across the valley from the City of David, but it's just one example.

These particular houses obviously weren't there in biblical times, but they were still built one on top of the other--thus how King David saw Batsheva bathing. However, what was there was Warren's Shaft, (probably) the passage through which David and Yoav originally invaded Jeursalem back when it was a Canaanite city. We got to go down there:

Of course, the metal stairs weren't there originally, but it was still pretty cool. We also went through Hezekiah's Tunnel, which involved lots of water and a soaking wet skirt. I couldn't take video in there because I needed my batteries for my flashlight, but I stole someone else's video off Youtube:

This class includes four field trips like this. Today was First Temple Period Jerusalem, next week is Second Temple Period, and in the future we have post-Christianity and Islam Jerusalem and Modern Jerusalem. Pretty cool. Hopefully by the end of the semester things will stop looking like one piece of Jerusalem stone after another... which is really all I can tell of Jerusalem right now.

Purim x2

2010-03-01T16:10:00.010+02:00

Israel is one of only two places in the world where you can celebrate Purim, drive to another city, and then find that it's (Shushan) Purim all over again the next day. While this is an interesting phenomenon, it's one that I hadn't intended on taking part of. Purim is not my favorite holiday ever - there's too much partying and drinking and too little meaning. Still, when I mentioned to my friend Ri that it would technically be possible for me to get from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv for Saturday night's megillah reading at the Gay Center and she offered to let me stay over for the night, I figured I might as well. It's not like I'm going to get this chance ever again.

The evening at the gay center began with a havdallah that wasn't so impressive, though it did allow me time to scan the room with my camera. Havdallah's usually my favorite Shabbat service, but it wasn't like anyone was joining in with the singing, and the leaders botched the words enough to make me wonder whether they normally do this or not. It's also the first time I had ever seen havdallah done without dimming the lights.

The megillah reading was your typical megillah reading. Lots of people in costumes, lots of noise whenever Haman's name was said. I was actually really surprised at one point when a cowboy went up to read and I recognized "his" voice--it was Nofrat Frenkel from Women of the Wall. My camera failed me on that reading, though, so I have to leave you with the reading of a sailor and a cute mother/daughter pair instead.

After the megillah reading most people left for other parties around the city, but a few stayed for dancing at the gay center. I stood or sat against the wall the whole time, but it was still pretty entertaining to watch. I really like the fact that alcohol wasn't the center, which is usually the problem with Purim since it's supposedly a mitzvah to drink until you can't tell the difference between Mordechai and Haman. There was one girl walking around with a bottle of something, but that was about it. It was mostly dancing--again, a bad camera time. There were some really cute moments, like a Haradi woman dancing with a gay guy dressed up like a fairy and a woman in a lion suit dancing with a little girl dressed up like snow white. Unfortunately, all I caught on camera was the normal dancing stuff, none of the really good moments.

We got back to Ri's house around 1am on Saturday night, slept in until noon, and then headed off to the bus and train stations and back to Jerusalem for Purim Part II. We had planned to go to a megillah reading and possibly to another gay Purim party at HaKatze, but we didn't end up getting back to the Kfar until 8pm and we decided to just stay in and make some hamentashen dough. This morning, however, was a totally different story as we went to the Kotel for the Women of the Wall's megillah reading.

This was the first time I have ever heard a delayed reaction when it comes to drowning out Haman's name. People are usually jumping at it - I'm used to megillah readings where the reader says "ha" and someone starts making noise, whether or not that word is actually supposed to be Haman. This is the first time I've ever seen the reader pause without being forced into the pause by the overwhelming noise, and the noise lasted significantly less time than, say, at the gay center megillah reading.

What's even stranger than Haman, though, is the fact that the Women of the Wall megillah reading went without a hitch. There were about a million people at the Kotel, on both sides of the mechitza, and there was a bar mitzvah going on on the men's side. Yet, we were completely ignored by everyone. I don't understand; if the problem with women praying out loud is a problem of kol isha, why doesn't apply to megillah reading? If it isn't a problem with kol isha, what is the problem? Why can't they just leave us alone? I should be thankful that no one screamed at us this time (though I confess I was was sorta looking forward to chalking it down to an over-enthusiastic drowning out of Haman's name), but it's left me more confused than anything. Politics. Religious politics.

Aaaaaaand--Purim is not yet over. When Ri gets back from her seuda we're going to finish making hamentashen and then hopefully head off to the drag show at HaKatze. Perhaps I will test out my new camera there, since the old one completely failed at the drag show last time.

Women of the Wall - Rosh Chodesh Adar

2010-02-15T10:17:00.009+02:00

As I walked down to the Kotel from the Jewish Quarter this morning, the first thing I noticed was the large amount of men davening on the men's side--so much larger than the group there last time (see my post). There were more women, too, but what I noticed was the men--I suppose I saw them as more of a threat, and there were so many more of them. I know it's probably because it wasn't raining cats and dogs this time, unlike in December, but as I walked down the steps I got a bit nervous. More people means more chance of trouble, and there were a large number of police cars in the parking lot, too.

I got there early, so I went up to the Kotel for a little alone time and spontaneous prayer, something I can only seem to do at the Kotel. When I got back--the Women of the Wall meet just outside the women's section--I found some familiar faces, and it wasn't long until davening started.

I was surprised by how quiet it was at first. For all the men in the men's section, most of them ignored us, and in the beginning there was only one guy yelling "gevalt" at us. It was easy to hear Nofrat Frenkel, who was leading the davening--unlike last time, when we had to strain to hear the leader. Eventually more people started yelling at us, but it was the women who made more of a fuss at us, pointing and yelling. There were plenty of soldiers and police officers guarding us, though; they stood between us and the women, though I think I saw a bit of shoving at one point. I was in the back, up against the wall that marks the end of the women's section. I figured it would give me a bit of emotional support if necessary, since getting two hours of sleep doesn't so much make for stability. Overall, though, I thought it was pretty much okay. It wasn't until Hallel that we had to strain to hear Nofrat, when other men joined in the "gevalt" and the women were screaming. By that point our original gevalter was reciting Hallel at us--though I don't understand what the point of that was. Yes, we know. We were just reciting that, thank you very much.

As we left the Kotel plaza for Robinson's Arch, a few men joined our group, including Noam and Mr. Dubin. This made me think a little bit; I've told people a few times that (in high school, at least) I felt that one of the worst parts of being a woman was not being able to help make a minyan in circumstances that required adherence to Orthodox law. How must these men feel, who want to support Women of the Wall but can't because of their gender? Is it similar to the way I feel when I can't help make a minyan? Perhaps I'll ask next time I see Mr. Dubin.

The rest of the service went without a hitch--we walked over to Robinson's Arch singing Mishe Nichnas Adar, but no one followed us over. We read the Torah with no screaming people and no rain to disrupt us. There was a little bit of dancing at the end of the Musaf amidah, but not so much. It was just calm, really, a big contrast to the davening at the Kotel itself. Out of sight, out of mind?

It's hard to come up with concluding thoughts right now, as I am writing this before going back to sleep--and if two hours isn't enough for emotional stability, it sure isn't enough for thinking. Thinking back to December, though, when most of the men on the men's side were screaming at us, it's amazing how many people ignored us. It's even more amazing to me that the women were the ones who gave us the hardest time; I understand, sorta, that there's a problem with kol isha for the men, but what's the problem with the women? Do they feel like we're reflecting badly on womenkind? If anything, I think they're the ones doing that. All we want to do is pray.

I'm grateful for the soldiers and police officers who came to protect us. I'm glad that no one got arrested. I'm glad that my initial fears were largely unfounded--though, perhaps I didn't get the full experience standing in the back. Those in the front may have a different story.

British Airways

2010-02-14T02:04:00.004+02:00

I'm back in my dorm room in Jerusalem after a month in the States, and I would like to write about something I should have written about a month ago: my experiences with British Airways.

My flight to the States coincided with the big snowstorm in the UK, which means my original Friday flight was cancelled. After an hour on hold, I got my flight rescheduled for Monday and settled in for a Shabbat at Ahuva's--which was fine until Friday night, when my second flight got cancelled. Another hour on hold and I was booked for Tuesday.

When I got back to the Kfar on Saturday night, I learned that my roommate Estie, who was also flying British Airways, was still going out in the morning. At this point I just wanted to get home and pet the cats, so I listened to another hour of hold music before finally talking to a representative. I explained my situation, that my flight had been cancelled twice and that my roommate was flying out in the morning, asked if there was any way I could be put on her flight. After a few more minutes of hold music, she came back saying I was good to go. Why they didn't put me on that flight to begin with I'll never know, but it was that simple. She even stayed on the line a while longer so Estie and I could ask various questions about baggage allowances and special meals, juggling both of our questions and both of our accounts without ever sounding annoyed. And this after multiple days of call after call of frustrated, hour-on-hold passengers!

Since then I've had a few less pleasant experiences with British Airways, namely another call during the massive snowstorm in DC to try and reschedule my flight which was met with one very rude customer service representative. Also, whereas this entry a month ago would have mentioned the surprisingly edible food provided by British Airways--evidenced by both August flights and the January ones--maybe they're making budget cuts or something, since the food was nearly inedible for my flights back to Israel. However, I have to hand it to them; they did take off during a time when the DC metro was even shut down, and I even had a row to myself for my first flight--totally coincidental, but it made up for Mr. Customer Service Guy.

I've flown El Al before, during my first trip to Israel with AHA. They're much more expensive and, honestly, I don't think they have anything over British Airways to make it worth the cost. And with my travel luck, being able to say anything good about an airline is a miracle. I don't expect to travel much in the future, but if I do I know which airline I'll pick (assuming they stay on the cheap side of the price range, of course).

Besides--who could resist those accents and the pink and blue pillows they put on the seats?

The value of money

2010-01-20T23:04:00.005+02:00

I owe this blog a long entry about the ending of the semester, but that entry is still to come. Right now, I would like to talk about the concept of money.

I have been spending money on food, transportation, and other daily necessities for five months now, all in shekels. As I travel around Boston now, I'm really not doing anything I haven't done before. Yet, somehow, it feels different. While I balked at a $2 bottle of water at the airport, once I converted it into shekels I realized that I'd bought a $2 (8NIS) bottle of water in Israel before, quite willingly, if not an experience I repeated again once I realized how much I'd spent. $1.80 in subway fare sounded high when I looked at how much I'd be traveling until I realized that it's not that different from Egged's $1.25 (5.9NIS) fare for those who can't pass as a youth. $4 on pizza and $8 on lo mein also seem extreme when I'm looking at buying all my meals, until I remember those $7 (26NIS) calzones I splurged on a few times. Similarly, the $3.25 (12NIS) falafels I got in Israel felt really cheap there, but really aren't when compared to that pizza.

I always knew that I don't really have any real concept of the shekel. I've been judging my purchases based on whether the number seems large, knowing that you really can't get anything for 1NIS. But it took me until this trip home to realize that I've been thinking about it in the same way I think of dining points at Brandeis: I have a fixed number of them, and as long as I don't go over I'm good. Shekels don't look like dollars, and it's not like I can earn any anyway. But in the States, where I'm used to money as something that's earned and spent and saved, it's a completely different matter. The money guilt that has evaded me in Israel comes flooding back.

I have not yet figured out the solution to this problem, or what it is I need to solve here. The lack of money guilt is very nice, though being left to spend whatever I please is probably not a good idea. Perhaps leaving my money in dollars in a US bank will solve this one.

How not to plan a trip

2010-01-07T08:28:00.009+02:00

* Plan the entire trip between midnight and 2:30am the night before you leave.

* Stay up until 2:30am when you have to get up at 9:30am. Repeat the next night, substituting "2am" and "7:30am." Survive the trip with the help of caffeine pills. Be really crabby because of it. Travel with another person who's doing the exact same thing.

* Plan to meet someone and then have one digit wrong in her phone number.

* Plan your entire trip around websites about gay Tel Aviv, and then find out that there's nothing to see or do until night.

* Fail to realize that there are two shuks in Tel Aviv, and then go to the one that's mostly food and not random fun stuff.

* Fail to look up each and every relevant bus route.

Read: The one big important lesson I learned from my trip to Tel Aviv and Haifa with Ahuva is that I'm really not cut out to be a traveller. Going to places I'm unfamiliar with is too stressful.

Birthday party

2009-12-31T23:05:00.002+02:00

I turned 21 last Sunday, and to celebrate a bunch of my friends went bowling last night at Lev Talpiot Mall, one of the two alleys in all of Jerusalem. Most people actually didn't make it; it was a miserable night, rainy with lots of puddles to soak your feet through your shoes, and Lev Talpiot Mall is far away from just about everything. It still ended up being a lot of fun, though.

The original idea was pretty simple: do some bowling, eat some cake, go home. Little did I know that if you want to go bowling in Israel, you have to make a reservation or wait, nor did I realize that we wouldn't be able to bring food into the bowling alley--cue Alexis, already on her way to the bowling alley, heading back home to put a cake in the fridge. Meanwhile, Ahuva, her friend Rosanne, and I waited what we were told was going to be an hour and a half for a lane. We ate some really expensive fries and wandered around the arcade for a bit. We discovered that Ahuva's still really good at basketball, and only in Israel is whac-a-mole really whac-a-wolf which looks a lot like whac-a-cat. Also only in Israel: being assigned a bowling lane next to a Haredi family.

The hour and a half waiting period thing was a lie; we really only had to wait half an hour, which was nice except for the fact that Alexis hadn't made it. We didn't realize how long it would take her to get there, so we bought a four-player game and ended up taking turns playing for Alexis. (Bowling is expensive in Israel; 28 NIS per person per game!) "Alexis" almost won, too--Ahuva and I tended to bowl better for "Alexis" than we did for ourselves, though Rosanne was really good all the time. I also learned the importance of having a ball that a) isn't too heavy and b) your fingers fit into; a mysterious new ball showed up at our lane halfway though, and I stopped throwing balls into the gutter. (My hand stopped hurting, too.)

Alexis and LynleyShimat showed up later, after our insanely priced game of bowling and a game of air hockey for Ahuva and Rosanne. I got to whac-a-wolf/cat (followed by Ahuva whacing-a-wolf/cat), Ahuva and Lynley played more basketball, and Lynley and I played this really messed up bowling arcade game where throwing the ball in the middle always caused a split and throwing into the side didn't necessarily result in a gutter ball. Afterwards we sat and ate some popcorn and redeemed our tickets for a couple of spinning tops, which were way too amusing for our own good. A couple of the people who worked at the bowling alley looked at us like we were crazy; then again, I think we've mostly come to expect as much. (Note: you have to turn your volume all the way up and/or plug in speakers to hear the sound on these videos.)

After we left the bowling alley, we wandered into a massive SuperSol which was pretty much a mix between a grocery store and a Target. Seriously; there were a whole two aisles of clothing, and another few of kitchen appliances and electronics! It was sort of amazing, especially when I found marshmallow fluff and a version of Pocahontas that I remember from when I was little dubbed in Hebrew (10NIS!). I knew there was a reason I bought a region-free DVD player last year.

After spending a while in the grocery store (which also, btw, featured a whole aisle worth of ice cream--both sides of the aisle), the five of us squished into a cab and went to Alexis's house for cake and a very late (11pm) dinner. Alexis made fried mushrooms and pasta with pesto sauce, mushrooms, and onions, which was wonderful (especially the mushrooms!). This was followed by a really interesting non-chocolate mousse cake, of which I managed to drop my piece and catch it in mid-air, which was really funny and amazing. There were actually a lot of funny and amazing stories throughout the night, which is what you get when you start Ahuva talking on AHA. Also funny and amazing: Ahuva on birthday candles.

Before we knew it, it was 1:05 AM--way past the time that the buses stopped. I figured it was time to go when I started getting silly and making wing motions with my arms at the mention of something I don't even remember, probably birds of some sort. Almost definitely birds of some sort. Because it was raining we all caught a cab back, first to King David for Ahuva and Rosanne, then to the Kfar for Lynley and me. The cab fare was actually also sort of amazing; for the entire trip from Talpiot to French Hill it only cost me 22NIS when it cost 40NIS from the Old City a few weeks ago. Granted, there were four of us in the car for the first half of the trip and then two for the second, but it was still a really nice price. It made me sorta happy, especially after all the money I spent on the night overall. I haven't calculated how much I spent, and I don't think I will; it was a large amount, but I'm okay with it because I had a fabulous time. I have some very good friends here in Israel.

Bigotry in Jerusalem

2009-12-24T17:45:00.005+02:00

Lately, I've been feeling really sick of this city. I've already mentioned the anti-Arab bigotry that I saw on Rosh Hashanah and around Yom Kippur and at the soccer game, but I feel like I've been experiencing it a lot more recently--and not just bigotry against Arabs, but against anyone who's not Orthodox.

First, there was Masa's Security Issues Shabbaton on the last weekend of November. The weekend began with a Friday tour of the security barrier, run by the Israeli human rights organization B'tselem. We heard stories about families and villages cut arbitrarily in half and people who can't get past the checkpoints to receive medical treatment, and the absurdity of the situation hit me. I don't know much about the effects of the barrier--I am not an Israeli resident, but a representative from Stand With Us emphasized the effectiveness of the thing in stopping terrorist attacks--but couldn't they build the barrier around said villages, rather than straight through it? What security does splitting up families and communities provide?

And then there's the issue of Sheik Jarrah, where a Palestinian family was evicted from their home to be replaced by Jews (this over and above the houses that are being demolished), and the people who protest it keep getting arrested! Yaron, the youth coordinator of JOH, was one of those who got arrested the two weeks ago; he told us the story on Sunday, at which point he told me to be careful of what I do because they were deporting the non-Israelis who were arrested. (Whether that actually happened or not I don't know.) It's all really frustrating because really, there's nothing I can do. While others I know do go to said protests, I don't feel like I can ignore Yaron's warning--and even if I did go, what good would it do? Are these protests really doing anything?

Switch topics of a second to Orhodoxy in this city. I already posted about the protest I went to on the same weekend of the MASA thing. That occurred in the middle of a personal struggle of mine, in which I came out to my chevruta partner at JSSC and she freaked out. The following Sunday, the director of the women's learning program nearly kicked me out, telling me to "think seriously" about whether or not I wanted to be in the program, and lectured me about being a non-Orthodox convert and how she wishes the other movements of Judaism wouldn't call themselves Judaism because "Judaism has 613 commandments" and the other movements "are really different religions." The next week, someone else called me a "bad Ashkenazi" when I told her that my family's tradition is to follow the Sephardic rules for Pesach--because obviously, where my family's originally from matters much more than the customs of my family now. The same person compared my LGBT Jewish community at home to Sodom and Gomorrah, and none of the other (also Orthodox) people stood up for me. The head of the Hillel-Hecht Beit Midrash program "reserve[s] the right to talk to [me]" when I told him about what happened at JSSC and why--although he has since requested a copy of Rabbi Steve Greenberg's book.

And then there's Women of the Wall; the arrest of Nofrat Frankel which I have mentioned multiple times in this blog, and the abuse that we suffered last Friday. I am reminded of this every time I ride the 4א through Ge'ula and see the streets full of men who look exactly like those who were yelling at the Women of the Wall and women who look exactly like those who have insulted me for my identity. And I think, how can one live in this city. How can one take insults to oneself, and then look up and see all the other, much bigger bigotry going on around her? And when I mentioned it to one of our madrichim, his only response was, "What bigotry?" What bigotry, indeed. Have you lived here so long that you can no longer see it?

I know that America is not innocent of racism, but I still look forward to my upcoming month there. I need a breath of fresh air, or at least air filled with problems that I'm used to.

Women of the Wall

2009-12-18T22:49:00.003+02:00

This morning I got up really early to head down to the Kotel for Women of the Wall’s monthly Rosh Chodesh minyan. Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t have made it: it was rainy and windy enough that my umbrella kept turning inside out; the friend who was supposed to go with me slept in; I wasn’t exactly awake at 5:50am when I had to leave the apartment; and I don’t really go out of my way for feminism in the first place. (Blame it on reading books and articles from the 1970s.) However, last month’s arrest of Nofrat Frankel made me determined to attend, if only to support a fellow queer Jew who wanted nothing more than to daven at the holiest Jewish place in the world. Besides, I haven’t been to shacharit for a while, and I miss singing Hallel.

As I mentioned, the weather was miserable, but there was still a nice group of us huddled together under umbrellas. Someone behind me commented that if they wanted to break up the Women of the Wall by arresting one of their members, they failed and did the opposite; I’m inclined to agree, since someone else said that this was the worst weather she could remember meeting in.

For the first few prayers, everything was fine. But by the time we got to Psalm 150, men were gathering next to the mechitza and behind the women’s section shouting something at us—maybe “ki va,” maybe “toeva,” maybe “give up.” Of these “toeva” makes the most sense, except that… it doesn’t. What were we doing wrong? We were on the women’s side of the wall. We were in the back, so we weren’t interfering with religious women who wanted to go up to the wall. We didn’t do any parts of the service which require a minyan, even though there were definitely at least a minyan of us there who count women. I saw very few women wearing tallitot, at least outside of their jackets (I didn’t even bring mine, since I was warned that being an American meant I could get deported if I made trouble) and while this is something Orthodoxy forbids, it isn’t listed as a toeva (abomination) in the Bible. Also, while one woman came up to us and started screaming, everyone else was a boy or a full-grown man standing on the periphery. They didn’t have to look at us. They didn’t even have to listen to us; we weren’t being very loud, and they certainly could have overpowered us with their own prayers rather than shouting at us. Of course, their shouting forced us to raise our volume; we spent the rest of the service struggling to hear where we were in the service, and when one of us picked it up we had to sing loudly to signal others of our place.

After we finished the Amidah, we headed—slowly, so as not to slip on the wet Jerusalem stones and drop the Torah—to Robinson’s Arch, the area designated for women and mixed groups to read from the Torah. The men followed us, still screaming, held back by the police. To drown out the screaming, we sang—Al HaNisim, Banu Choshech, Ahavah Raba, Esa Enai—songs of strength and hope. Because it was raining we were told we could read the Torah in a covered space near the Arch, but then that permission got revoked. “It’s an archeological site,” we were told, “tourists are going to be coming through.” (Even though the site didn’t open until 9am, and it wasn’t even 8:30 at this point.) We ended up going to the actual Arch, huddled once again under our umbrellas, where Nofrat Frankel chanted the Torah portion out of a chumash rather than risk the Torah getting wet. We, of course, did not get this privilege; I left the service soaked through multiple layers, and too cold and wet to walk to the bus stop. I paid 40NIS to take a taxi home, but at that point I didn’t care.

I’ve read people wonder why the Women of the Wall can’t be satisfied with praying at Robinson’s Arch in the first place, since it is, after all, still part of the Wall. But from what I saw this morning, I have to wonder how anyone can pray there. There’s just one long path leading up to the wall, no space to really gather. It is, after all, an archeological site and not a prayer site (but somehow still acceptable for us to use, and whereas the space indoors is not?) Imagine praying in a synagogue the width of your bathroom; that’s about the width of the space at the Arch. And they wonder why we can’t be content to pray there!

You may notice that I’ve been using the word “we” a lot in this entry. This is natural for an entry about an event I attended, but I feel like it’s more than that. As I get more and more fed up with the Orthodoxy of this city (more about that to come), I’ve come to identify with this group of women a little bit. All they want is to pray, once a month, at a holy site where some people pray every day. They’re not there to be disruptive; they just want to be themselves and practice their religion in a way that’s meaningful to them. And if this minyan is a way to carve out a little space each month to do that, and in the process perhaps show those bigots that there are other people in this world who are entitled to pray at the Kotel too, all the more power to them. They’re not meeting next month—nor will I be here—but come February, I’m definitely going again.

If anyone is interested, the New York Times ran an article about this same minyan. I'm under the rainbow umbrella, and no it isn't mine.

Added 11 March 2010 - Youtube now has two videos from the December meeting of Women of the Wall. The first gives the overall experience (minus the bulk of the service where we were being screamed at); the second shows the Haredi reaction to our davening.

Protesting in the Holy City

2009-11-29T20:49:00.005+02:00

Last night, I attended a protest in the center of Jerusalem. I'm rather surprised by the lack of media coverage of it; it seemed like a big deal, with thousands of people marching down King George and Ben Yehuda, culminating in one very full Kikar Tzion. Yet, somehow, it wasn't mentioned in either the Jerusalem Post ~~or the English edition of Ha'aretz~~. (There is a Ha'aretz article here.) The best coverage I can find is from EuroNews. (Note that the guy holding the flag in the first frame is Andy Dubin, one of my former teachers from high school.)

After reading that article, I have to wonder--what were we actually protesting? The protest was billed as

“Taking back the city, by walking!”
Secular, religious and masorti Jews:
say put an end to attempts of haredi coercion
and unite to restore sanity, freedom
and mutual respect to the city!

which is entirely consistent with the newspaper articles. Yet, what is it specifically that we were protesting? According to EuroNews, we were protesting the Haredi protest of Intel, which I didn't even know about until now. According to Facebook and the Masorti movement, we were protesting the arrest of Nofrat Frenkel at the Kotel. I couldn't understand the speeches because they were in Hebrew, so I don't actually know what we were officially protesting. All I could really catch were a few phrases about Jerusalem belonging to everyone--which, of course, I fully agree with. I was told that the general message was "Why do we let a minority who doesn't even serve in the army control our capital?" but I have to take other people's word for that. It's gotta be true; why would they lie?

Anyway, I hope that we actually accomplished something with our march/rally/protest combination. I'm not particularly hopeful considering the lack of media coverage, but maybe we at least sparked something. Maybe. And with that, I leave you with some footage of the event itself, courtesy of my and Alexis's cameras. Mine's the one that sucks.

Reconstructionist Shabbat in Jerusalem

2009-11-23T21:12:00.000+02:00

It's amazing how different this past Shabbat was from the previous Shabbat. Last Shabbat I was in the Kfar, sick, and didn't do anything Shabbatistic other than consume a challah. This Shabbat was Shabbat.

Friday night was disappointing at first because I didn't realize how early Shabbat started (3:58 candle-lighting time!), so I didn't have time to walk down to Shira Chadasha for services. Instead, I hung around Ahuva's until Alexis arrived, at which point the three of us experimented with porridgey couscous. The result: fried couscous with mushrooms, onions, poultry seasoning, zatar, and whatever other spices Alexis put in there. It was actually really good, and a testimony to what creative college graduates can do if they actually learn how to cook. (Read: a testimony to the awesomeness that is Alexis in the kitchen.)

After dinner we settled down to watch Swing Kids (or rather, let it load on MegaVideo) until Ahuva's roommate and one of her friends came in with Mr. Fuzzfuzz, at which point we proceeded to talk about kitties and tell funny stories from high school. But really, while Friday night was a lot of fun, it's not the main point of this entry. The real reason I was downtown, intruding on Ahuva's hospitality, was that this week was the monthly Reconstructionist minyan, which I am absolutely in love with.

They've said that Reconstructionist services are never the same twice in a row, but I've now attended twice in a row (this Shabbat and Parshat Noach last month) and it seemed pretty similar to me. A lot of the tunes used in Psukei D'zimra were Reform, but there actually was a Psukei D'zimra, as opposed to it just meshing into Shacharit. I was very happy to hear a tune of Elohai Neshama which I know and love from Temple Emanuel. We also did Ahava Rabbah entirely out loud, which I haven't heard since sophomore year at AHA, before Rabbi Stein started valuing time over singing.

The gem of the service, though, was the Torah service. The Reconstructionist minyan in Jerusalem reads only three aliyot, but all of the aliyot are communal. Each one has a theme relating to the portion to be read. I don't remember what the first one was, but the last two this week were for anyone struggling with jealousy or feeling under-appreciated (for Esau's pleading for his blessing) and for anyone who was searching for something (for Jacob's being sent out to search for a wife). After each reading, the gabbi rishon gives a mi sheberach blessing based on the theme - that we should overcome our jealousy and see that we are loved, that we find what we are searching for, etc. It's really moving to stand up there and have someone say a blessing over you, especially one that's produced on the spot and not one that's just being read off a sheet. Before the third aliyah they do the normal mi sheberach for the sick, but they do it in the form of a chant of "ana el na refa na la," the words Moses prayed for Miriam when she was sick, and while it's being repeated people say the names of the people for whom they are praying. This is also really moving because the entire congregation is chanting it at once, rather than just one person standing in the front reading off a piece of paper.

After services is a potluck with lots of good food--mostly carbs. People like to bring pasta to these kinds of things, it seems. That and dessert. This week there were also two different kinds of lentil soup (in honor of the parasha, where Esau sells Jacob his birthright in return for lentil soup), tofu, pumpkin cake, and bread pudding - all of which were very exciting. Lunch was nice; I sat with Noam, Devorah, Alexis, and a rotating couple of RRC students. It's hard to describe, but the potluck is both part of the Reconstructionist minyan and not a part at the same time. I mean, it's a potluck, and a potluck is a potluck is a potluck. Yet, the potluck begins with kiddish and motzi, and if you stay till the end they do birkat, too. But it's not the full birkat, not at first at least. First they do a really interesting alternative birkat:

בריך רחמנה מלכה די עלמה מריה דהי פיתא
(Brikh rakhamana malkah d’almah mareh d’hai pita)
You are the source of life for all that is, and your blessing flows through us.

Oh Lord prepare me
to be a sanctuary,
pure and holy,
tried and true.
And with thanksgiving,
I’ll be a living
sanctuary
for you.

ועשו לי מקדש ושכנתי בתוכם
V’asu li mikdash v’shakhanti b’tokham

The middle part and the melody are taken from a Christian prayer that's apparently very popular at multifaith gatherings, but it works and it's pretty, especially when combined with with the relevant Hebrew. Our table did the traditional Birkat Hamazon afterwards, but most people just started to clean up. I think that's pretty much indicative of the Reconstructionist minyan; do everything, but maybe in an abbreviated form which still retains the beauty and meaning of the prayer. I think that's what I like about it. It's a nice balance.

Rosh Chodesh Kislev

2009-11-18T22:39:00.000+02:00

If you've spent any time around religious Jews, you know that there's a whole ton of holidays around September/October and then nothing until December. It's the longest stretch in the Jewish year, and it's especially visible in Israel, where the entire country goes from Rosh-Hashanah-Yom-Kippur-Sukkot-Simchat-Torah insanity to two months without a single break. It's so bad that, here at Hebrew University, the Jeff Seidel Student Center had their "Hanukkah" event 25 days early, on Rosh Chodesh Kislev.

I put Hanukkah in quotation marks up there because while the event was advertised as a Hanukkah event, we never really got to the Hanukkah part. Instead, Rebbitzen Tsipora Dahan cooked up a storm and had the best meal ever at her house. I'm not kidding: homemade bread (including rolls with an onion filling!), soup, kugels, eggplant parmesan, sweet potatoes, pecan pie, cheesecake, sufganiyot, peanut butter balls covered in chocolate, lots of other small chocolate things - all made by Tsipora, except the soup. It was amazing, seriously the best food I've had in a really long time. I asked Tsipora afterwards if she was going to become a chef when her kids grew up, and she just laughed and said that it's a hobby.

We were supposed to do Hanukkah crafts after dinner, but we didn't finish eating until 10pm--after starting around 8:15. During dinner, however, we had the obligatory Jeff Seidel Orthodox idealism. Stacy and Tsipora brought in a musician, 12th grader Hadassah Haller from Ramat Beit Shemesh, who sang what must be the Jewish version of Christian music - not religious songs, per say, in that they weren't prayers, but songs that are focused on Hashem and religious life. One that really struck me was Chanale's "My Business":

Is the way to happiness the path to success?
Can I be satisfied if I'm something less
Than the doctor, the lawyer, they hoped I would be
So what if I'm happy, just to be me?

Each day, every hour, on me they depend
To be mother, a sister, plus a wife and a friend
I have a profession, though no PHD
Yet today I am happy just to be me!

Chorus: I don't need a license, don't need a degree
For I'm in the business, of a woman, you see
My life's full of meaning and my home's full of light
I don't need all that money to be doing all right

I don't need a mansion with riches inside
My children are diamonds, and my family's my pride
Why should I travel, I'm where I want to be
Can you find me a woman who's got more than me?

There's not much vacation, get no time to rest
My house is my office, and my kitchen's my desk
I work for Hashem, yes, the Torah's my trade
Maybe I'm overworked but I'm not underpaid

Chorus

I really don't know what to think about it. On one hand I'm all for going after what you want and not what people expect from you and I completely agree with not needing to be rich to be happy, but I have a problem with the rest of it. "I don't need a degree... I'm in the business of a woman, you see"--are you saying women don't need an education? Are you saying that the purpose of a woman's life is to take care of the house and the children? If that's what you want to do, fine, but... the business of being a woman, really? I feel like the song "Just A Housewife" from Working conveys the same thing but in a much better way. Otherwise it just feels like they're shoving the wonders of Orthodox living down your throat--which, I guess in a way, is the purpose of Jeff Seidel.

Overall, though, I had a really good time at the Rosh Chodesh event. Hadassah's voice and music was really beautiful, even if I had to take the songs themselves with a grain of salt, and I still can't get over Tsipora's cooking. You know, I could really get to like Rosh Chodesh this way.

Drag queens and swing dancing

2009-11-16T11:38:00.008+02:00

This week was a very busy one for me at the Jerusalem Open House. Not only did I spend most of Sunday at the community center, working on the newsletter and the database with Dalit and the other interns/volunteers; I also attended two big events, the opening of the Hakafot café on Tuesday and my own event, the English Speaker’s Group swing dance night (“Swinging Queerly”), on Saturday.

While the café’s grand opening was advertised as an English-friendly event, I was disappointed to see the only English-speakers there were Ahuva and myself. This made the first hour or so rather boring, since we were isolated among a bunch of Hebrew-speakers who already knew each other. I did, however, get to consume some Ben & Jerry’s ice cream (Cookies & Cream, 7NIS) and pie (apple, 10NIS). I would have just gone for the pie, but it wasn’t out at first so I didn’t know about it.

And then the drag monarchs came out—two drag kings and two drag queens, regular performers at HaKatze. I am happy to say that my videos from Open House came out much better than the ones I took at HaKatze, and now you can actually see the drag:

The event was also advertised as an open mic night, but there was no open mic about it. Once the drag monarchs (yes, I know I’m making up this phrase), the night was basically over. I don’t know how much café-related items JOH actually sold, but the drag drew a nice crowd.

Between Tuesday night and Saturday night I had my longest stretch of time away from the Open House in a long time—or maybe it just seems that way because I was there almost every other day for a week and a half prior. Saturday night, however, was our first English Speakers Group event of November, “Swinging Queerly,” in which we invited Shirley of the Tel Aviv Swing Club to teach a lesson in East Coast. It was really interesting to watch her teach because she didn’t teach it as East Coast, she taught it as six-count Lindy Hop, which actually makes a difference. I didn’t even realize before now that East Coast starts on a step-step, whereas Lindy (six-count or eight-count, whatever) starts on a rock-step. The moves also had different names; the inside-turn was a “window,” for some odd reason. I have no idea.

I spent a lot of the event running around—figuring out how to turn on the fan, finding tape so someone could tape her flip-flops to her shoes, helping Shirley, etc. I guess that’s why I lost track of time and the lesson went an hour and a half before Shirley realized people were getting tired and it was time to stop. We were supposed to have open dancing after the lesson, but that failed. People were just too tired. I think they had fun, though. They look like they were having fun:

Note that the people in the second video, Ahuva and Alexis, learned Swing at AHA, which is why, as Chelsie put it, "they look so good." Yes, I also spent a decent amount of time taking video--and stealing follows when Shirley was working with their leads (or vice versa). That's how I got to dance once we had an odd number. (Before the last person came, I was just in the line.)

And that was that. When things ended I went to get malawach for the first time with Ahuva and Alexis, and then I went home. Game over.

Shabbat in the Holy Land

2009-11-13T23:13:00.004+02:00

I had this very idealistic idea of Shabbat is Israel before I came here--something that involved Shira Hadasha and lots of spiritual experiences. Now that I'm here, however, I'm realizing just how idealistic that was. Yes, there are a lot of Jews in Israel, which means a lot of synagogues and people celebrating Shabbat. However, you need more than a place to go for services to make Shabbat. Not any place works. It's not fulfilling to walk into an Orthodox synagogue where the ruach is in the front and you're stuck in the women's section in the back--at least, not if you're not used to that kind of thing, and these are the majority of the synagogues in Israel! You also can't walk into a synagogue that does most of the service silently, regardless of its movement affiliation, if the ruach is what makes Shabbat meaningful for you. And of course, even if you find a good minyan--Shira Hadasha, for instance, or the Reconstructionist movement's monthly minyan--this means nothing unless you have a community of friends with which to spend the holiday. Meals, conversations, board games--these are important parts of Shabbat! And I have seen glimpses of all these things in the past few months, the good bits and the bad. Honestly, after all this time, I'm not finding Israel particularly spiritually fulfilling. Maybe I'm not trying hard enough; I don't know. Maybe the spirituality of the Holy Land is confined to the Orthodox majority; I don't know. All I know is that I feel like I'm still searching for something, and I haven't found it yet.

The call

2009-11-11T18:34:00.002+02:00

Hebrew University is geographically located in East Jerusalem, though it’s considered West Jerusalem. The French Hill is ambiguous; not considered a Jewish settlement, but not considered West Jerusalem, either. All of this geography is a prelude to a very simple point: from campus and my apartment, I can hear the Muslim call to prayer five times a day (or rather, whenever I’m awake and in a place with an open window). And oddly, it’s a very comforting sound. I have no idea what the words mean, but the very sound is a comfort. Even knowing the politics, even knowing that many of the religious people who heed this call wish I wasn’t sitting where I’m sitting, in this land—their land—the sound is a comfort. It’s a reminder that this country is home to devout people of many religions, and that Jews don’t have a monopoly on religion here. It’s like a wish, like it’s saying respect us, too! A constant coming out, perhaps. A five-times-daily Pride, a reminder to everyone that we’re here, respect us, too! It’s an odd comparison, but maybe it explains things a bit.

Classes

2009-11-09T14:50:00.007+02:00

You know how when things get busy, all you want to do when you have a spare moment is lie down and do nothing? That's been me lately. Classes started three weeks ago already, and I haven't written a thing. I've been so busy with schoolwork and dealing with idiot banks and phone companies... well, that's another story. Right now I just want to write about The Big Thing, my classes.

The first class I'm taking, of course, is Hebrew. I'm in Ramat Gimel intensive, which means we have an extra half an hour of class each day so that we can get through the entire level and enter Daled next semester. That is, of course, in theory; my teacher is adding in additional classes so we actually finish everything. Read: Instead of having class 8:15-10:15 Monday/Tuesday and 8:30-10:15 and 10:30-12:15 Wednesday, I will soon have an extra 10:30-12:15 class on (some) Mondays. Sound like Ulpan, anyone?

I'm learning how wise the Ulpan program was. We had class from 8:30 until 1:15 (I think--I can't even remember anymore!), which was a lot, but we always had a break after an hour and a half. Now we have two hours straight, and it's really hard to concentrate that long without a break. I also think that my Ulpan teachers are better than my current teachers, even though one of my current teachers is a PhD and the other one wrote our textbook. During Ulpan, our teachers couldn't rely on translating words into English to convey their meaning to us because not everyone spoke English; now it seems like it's all they do. I miss the pictures and the wild gestures and understanding the words for what they are rather than what they mean in English.

Long story short, I'm not enjoying Hebrew, nor do I really feel like I'm learning much. I don't know how we're going to get through the level, nor do I know how I'm going to learn enough to take a class in Hebrew next semester. In theory I'm working my way through Daled on my own; not in theory, I don't have time and will have to see how much cramming I can do during break / whether I can convince the teacher I can work really hard and puppy-dog my advisor into letting me take it even though technically Daled is required. Israel is supposed to be full of loopholes.

My other class on Mondays and Wednesdays is Talmud, which I don't really understand. I was supposed to be in the lower level Talmud class because I've only ever studied Talmud in high school (and that was my first trimester!), but the lower level class was full of Nativ kids who joked throughout the whole first class without the teacher saying anything. I left half-way through; I can't learn anything in an environment like that, let alone Talmud.

Now I'm in the more advanced Talmud class, Critical Readings in the Talmud: The Talmud as a Path to Tikkun. Technically I have the prerequisites--Hebrew level Gimel and a class in classical Jewish literature (Kimelman's Liturgy class), but I feel like everyone else in the class has studied some Talmud before, and I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be getting out of it. What's the point of Talmud study? What are we supposed to be learning? My tri-chevruta (the product of an odd number of students in the class) is working off of the original Talmud page, which means we're reading and translating the Aramaic and... not much else. We're not really questioning it. Should we be? And even if we do, of what value will our answers be, when there are no real answers to be found?

My internship class, In the Community I: Israel Case Studies - Academic Internship, is also a mixed bag. The main thing that I'm learning from the class itself is that I really don't like psychology; sociology is much more interesting to me. It's mostly a waste of time, a lot of people sharing what's going on with their internships mixed with a bit of organizational psychology from the teacher. The good thing about knowing that I have to write a paper connecting the readings to my internship is that I'm connecting things as I go along; I guess I'm learning something there, but it doesn't merit an hour and a half every week.

My internship itself, however, is wonderful. I'm doing a whole bunch of things for JOH: running the English Speakers Group, helping to write and edit articles for the newsletter, helping to put the donor database in some sort of order, and helping to catalog and order the library. All in eight hours a week. I really like it, though, because it means hanging out at JOH a lot, whether I'm there for my internship or not. It means spending time out of my American study-abroad bubble and with Israelis in an Israeli setting, not just Israelis that were brought in like, "Oh, look, kids--it's Israelis!" I really like being able to meet people and work with people by myself and not just spend time with people the university presents to us. It's not helping my Hebrew much because everyone speaks at least some English, but I get to overhear some stuff in Hebrew, and there's more to a culture than just the language. I'm also beginning to get used to things here, and I'm starting to see how I'm going to get some degree of culture shock when I go back to the States in January.

By far, my favorite class this semester is one that got added on a whim: Nafez Nazzal's The Palestinians: Modern History and Society. Professor Nazzal's a wonderful lecturer. Everything he says is imbued with passion because he's speaking about his people and things that he can see but can't fix. Class is filled with tangents, stories of his life, but every tangent is relevent because his story is the story of the Palestinians. He knows leaders on both sides, has been threatened by leaders on both sides, teaches Palestinian students and Jewish students, gains perspectives from those he teaches... and tries his best to open everyone's eyes. Another student and I are recording his lectures because his wisdom is too important not to be recorded. It's amazing, and I can't believe I almost didn't take it. I know that I'll listen to the recordings again later, and share them with friends if I can, legally. Can I? I feel like everything Professor Nazzal is teaching us is too important not to spread.

Outside of this, I have a bunch of Jewish learning classes. I'm still doing Jeff Seidel, though I'm not really enjoying it and would definitely drop it if it wasn't my only way to earn money in Israel. My old chevruta partner gave birth over Sukkot break, and I don't know yet what to think about my new partner. My roommate Estie has also convinced me to go to the Hillel-Hecht Beit Midrash on Monday nights, which is where my tri-chevruta is going to do our Talmud homework. Wednesdays are the Masorti learning community (read: beit midrash, just not called that for who knows what reason) where Woty and I are learning bits of queer Talmud--see my original questions about Talmud study above.

With all of this, I feel like I have very little time. I'm beginning to miss Sundays, as Shabbat begins earlier than ever right now and my pre-Shabbat Fridays consist of sleeping in, cleaning the apartment, and going downtown to Ahuva's, where I've spent four out of the past six Shabbatot. I really need to learn to walk the 3.3 miles from the Kfar to Emek Refaim, or the 2.67 to Ahuva's. Those are the main places where Cool Shabbat Stuff happens...

Aliyah

2009-10-29T13:51:00.005+02:00

I think the weirdest part about Israel, and the thing that sets it apart from other study abroad locations, is the big emphasis on aliyah. Most people who speak fluent English in Israel, which is the vast majority of the people we meet on campus-sponsored outing or events, made aliyah at some point in their lives. Even in the Forum, amidst a very, very Hebrew-heavy "Welcome back to campus sign up for our bank/buy our books/come to our events!!!"--I turned to the older lady next to me to ask what the word for popcorn was in Hebrew (one of the stands is for the cinemateque, and they've been giving out free popcorn for the past two weeks) on Thursday, and she's American! She's from DC and her husband is from Boston. Maybe it's just because I'm in Jerusalem--I've been told that if I wanted real Israeli culture, I should have gone to Haifa--but there are a lot of olim here.

It's not just bumping into them, though, either! From my first weeks here I met people who had either just made aliyah or were about to, and the reaction they got from the other people around us--usually olim themselves--was one big "MAZEL TOV!" Last Monday I "attended" (read: went for an hour and then left due to a headache) an Idan Raichel concert sponsored by MASA, one of the organizations I'm getting money from for study abroad, and in the speeches before some Important Man told us all how he hoped we'd go back to our homes, be advocates for Israel, and then came back in a few years as olim. So then, the whole point of the MASA grant is to make Jewish kids want to move to Israel?

I have to wonder, at this point, how many native Israelis I'd meet and really speak to if I weren't interning at the Jerusalem Open House. I have yet to go to any events outside of the English Speaking Group, but once a week I'm there with Dalit and Or and Yotem, and whoever else happens to be there that day. Since my fellow intern and I have meetings with Dalit at 11:00 and I don't have class until 16:30, I can hang out there for a few hours after the meeting, soak in the atmosphere. If I wasn't there, would I really see anything but olim?

Theater and niggunim

2009-10-23T10:10:00.004+02:00

After two and a half months in Israel, I have finally discovered Merkaz Hamagshimim. I've been on their mailing list for a while, but I never managed to get downtown for anything. I guess I'm making up for lost time now, since I'm in the middle of a "three events in a week and a half" spree.

My first trip to the Merkaz was last Thursday for Spontaneous Combustion, a 48-hour theater project for which Lynley was a writer/last-minute actress. I have to say, the plays were a mixed bag. Some were funny, some were a bit pathetic, but that's what you get when people have 48 hours to write and rehearse an 8-minute scene. There were a couple that were really impressive, though. There was one called "Grow Up," written and performed by Daphna Tadmor and Dayna Moses, which was done in monologues, each actress telling multiple girls' stories of childhood. Then there was one written by Anna Gerrard and performed by Micky adiv and Margalit Rosenschein, "Drink to Me," in which a woman meets with the girl she thinks her husband has been cheating with, only to find out that she was his very neglected daughter and she murdered her husband for nothing. Both of those were very well-done, and I can't believe they were produced in 48 hours! Lynley's scene was one of the humorous ones--an actress auditioning to be a teletubby. Okay, so it was very funny; I'm laughing just thinking about it.

I went back to the Merkaz last night for Erev Niggunim, a night of prayer-song-tunes co-sponsored by the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College. I almost didn't attend because of laundry issues, but I'm really glad I did. The niggunim that were taught were really beautiful, and the first few reminded me a lot of Nehirim's alternative prayer services. A couple of the niggunim were actually nigguns that we've done at Nehirim, which made me really nostalgic. It was really nice. I didn't learn any of the niggunim well enough to be able to repeat them by myself, but I could definitely join in if I heard them again. Also, I really hope the niggun Alanna Sklover wrote spreads; it was beautiful and very much deserves to be spread.

To conclude my spree, I'll be back at the Merkaz on Monday for The Children of Qassam Avenue, a play written and performed by high school students in Sderot. I really don't know much about what's going on there, so I really look forward to hearing their stories. I learned at AHA that plays of this sort can be very powerful, and I can't imagine this one being anything but.

Correction: I did not return to the Merkaz for The Children of Qassam, since the show ended up being by invitation only.

The Bank Saga

2009-10-19T11:25:00.005+02:00

Financial situations are tricky when you go abroad. Student visas don't allow for employment, so work-study is out. If your student loan is through a school with semesters and your study abroad program wants you to pay everything up front, the money available to you will be extremely lopsided. And then there are the banks and the credit cards, which charge you extra to withdraw money from ATMs (for banks) or use your card in a currency other than dollars. Capital One gets around the fees when you're looking to use a credit card, but unless you're lucky enough to have a bank without an external ATM charge (or you think to change banks to one before you go abroad!) you're sort of stuck when it comes to banks.

I was not one of the smart ones. I did not change banks before I left for Israel, and my bank is one of the worst for charges--$5 for every non-Bank of America ATM withdrawal plus a percentage of the withdrawal for being in a foreign currency. When you're living on $500 a month, that actually means something.

I thought I'd found a solution. I thought I could just open an Israeli bank account, withdraw a ton of money at once from Bank of America, and put it in the Israeli account before I became a pickpocket's jackpot. It should work, right? This is what I thought on my second day in Israel, when I was still jetlaged and clearly not thinking.

Opening a bank account in a foreign country means trusting the bank completely. You sign a bunch of forms without being able to read them and hope that your friendly neighborhood banker is telling you everything you need to know. Something seems weird? Oh, that must just be how it works in this country.

So I opened an account with Discount Bank on the second day of orientation and was told to come back in a week to get my ATM card. I come back and it's not there yet--come back in a few more days, they say. So I come back, get the (activated) card, and am told to come back tomorrow to get my "secret code," as they say here (which, btw, you don't get to change). This is weird, but okay. So I come back, get my PIN and try the card. It doesn't work. The bank worker doesn't understand what I mean, but she does manage to help me fill out the paper deposit envelope so I can put my first ever 200NIS into my brand-new bank account.

I leave and walk back to the Student Village. My phone rings; I'd dropped my wallet at the bank and I had to go pick it up. When I got there, I discovered Warning Sign #1 (which I promptly ignored and chalked up to "this is how it is in Israel"): they had given me one person's ATM card and another person's PIN. So she helped me change that deposit envelope to my account number and told me, "Come back in a week and we'll have your card." One week later, I'm told that I'll get the card in the mail.

At this point I had a whole host of other problems--including an inability to find the mailboxes and the discovery that I was given the wrong mailbox key (thus confirming my theory of "this is how it is in Israel")--which delayed this whole process. At some point, I received an ATM card in the mail. During the first week of break--now the week before Yom Kippur--I went down to the branch in Ramot Eshkol to get my card activated. Once again I tried to use the card and it wouldn't work. The bank worker wouldn't believe me and made me show her, and the ATM ate my card (because apparently that's what the machines do here if you type in the wrong PIN more than three times in a row). Turns out that while this was my card and was my PIN, it was my original card and PIN, the ones that had been cancelled when I had received that other person's card and PIN. "You'll get your new card in the mail shortly," she said. ''And I ordered you a new PIN before we figured this out, so you'll get two PINs. Just try them both and one will be right."

Okay, now this is ridiculous. It's been two months and I still can't get my money from an ATM--which is important because, as I discovered these past couple weeks, while there are many branches of the bank, not so many of them actually contain tellers. (This is doubly important during Sukkot, when the banks are only open for half a day.) The few times I could actually get someone to talk to me, they told me that they couldn't help me; I had to go back to the branch that issued the card. Well, which one? The one on campus where I opened the account, or the one in Ramat Eshkol with actual tellers?

Now classes have started, which means I'm back on campus and that original branch on campus is once again accessible. "Are you sure it's not in your mailbox?" the woman kept asking me when I told her it's been two and a half months already and I have no card. "Are you sure." YES. "Okay, I've ordered you a new card. I'll call you at the end of the week."

Is it just me, or have we come full-circle here? Honestly, I'm about ready to strangle someone. At this point all my money is in that account, and I can't get to it. I'm ready to just close the account and forget about it, but then what would I do with all that money? I'm not ready to be a walking jackpot, and there have been break-ins at the dorms so I can't even hide it somewhere in my room.

Lesson learned: if you don't know the language or the culture, don't open a bank account. Period. It's not worth the risk.

There will be another post about classes once I've had more than two of them.

The art of toveling

2009-10-15T15:10:00.004+02:00

Today I discovered the art of toveling. Or rather, my roommate needed to tovel her utensils, so I figured I might as well do mine too. Why not? I'm in religious housing, after all. Besides, I never managed to ask whether it was a problem with the sponges if I didn't.

It's actually a beautiful ritual. The point of kashrut is that eating is an act of worship, one of many that we compare to worship in the Temple. Thus, we treat dishware the way we would have treated articles of sacrafice preparation in the Temple times: we dunk them in the mikveh to make them holy. It's not something that I would particularly care about normally--I don't pay attention to the kashrut of dishware, period, nor do I really concentrate on the meaning of what I eat--but that doesn't mean it isn't a beautiful analogy.

Estie and I took the trip to the mikveh this afternoon. It was a nice walk, since it's actually not overly hot in Jerusalem for once. And there are so many mikvehs here! The shul we went to--right down the street from Kfar HaStudentim--had three of them: one for men, one for women, and one for dishes. (Estie said that at her shul in America they only have one that's used for all three purposes.) The one for dishes is a little structure in the middle of a courtyard, with two steps leading up to it and a metal lid. It wasn't very deep, but sitting on the side and looking into it reminded me of our foremothers drawing water from their wells. In a way, we were drawing water from this mikveh, as holy water dripped off our utensils and pots when we brought them out of the mikveh.

The process is simple. Open the lid, say the blessing, submerse the spoon/fork/pot/whatever into the water, let go for a second, take it out. Repeat until everything is done. Then you close the lid, gather your dishes, and leave. That's it. And yet, walking away in the sun with a plastic bag full of toveled items felt really, really nice--even if I know that the feeling will completely the first time I go to make pasta and burn myself on that newly holy pot. Oh well.

Gateways

2009-10-12T22:15:00.003+02:00

Sukkot in Israel is not just a festival of sitting in booths outside but an all-out break. Banks are only open half the day, schools (and JOH) are closed, and there are festivals all over the place. One particular festival that caught my eye was the Gateways Festival, a series of shiurim held over the course of two days. I ended up attending only four sessions during my time there, partly because of my all-nighter at Ahuva's, but they were generally good.

The first session I attended on Wednesday, "Mystery of Mikveh" led by Rabbi Miriam C. Berkowitz, was a bit of a let-down. It was just a powerpoint overview of the concept--what it is, who uses it, etc. I knew this stuff already. I mean, I've been to a mikveh before. I've read a little bit about it for class. Been there, done that.

My next session--Rabbi James-Jacobson Maisels's "The Meaning of Forgiveness"--was much better. I went to it thinking it was about seeking forgiveness, but it was really about giving it. I took a lot away from it, the biggest being that if you remain angry at a person, the pain they caused you once just keeps repeating itself over and over and over until you let go of that anger. It sounds pretty simple, but it's a really big realization for someone who's stuck in the cycle. New year's resolution, perhaps?

The sessions I went to on Thursday were more fun and less serious. The first session was "Creative Connections to Sukkot and Self" run by Yael Unterman and Ilene Prusher. Basically, creative writing in which we pretended to be a sukkah--such as this one, where I write as the sukkah outside Village Green:

There are so many different people in me. In and out, in and out, all kinds of people. Haredi men, with their long beards and dark suits. Young men and women, tourists, with their tank tops and shorts and cameras. All come bearing trays of food. Pizza. Quiche. Chocolate cake. All kinds of food for all kinds of people. Some sit down quickly, eat, leave. Maybe they bentch. Others stay, talk, dwell in me. Maybe they come in a group, maybe they come alone. Some meet old acquaintances. I recognize you, they say. Were you at Mati’s sukkah two years ago? Yes, I was! I can’t believe you remember me.

Three girls sit at the next table. Who are they? They’re not daitim. They’re not tourists. There’s no Hebrew in their conversation. Americans. “This is the first time I’ve eaten in a sukkah this year,” one of them says. I’m her first. I’m many people’s first, over the course of these seven days.

The girls leave, and their trays remain on the table. What are they? Just one of many. In and out, in and out, leaving no trace but an empty tray. Then even those disappear, and new people arrive.

It was really fun. Yael teaches a creative writing on the parsha class at Pardes on Sundays, but I can't go to it because I don't really have 800 NIS to spare. It's sad, but I gave her my email address so she can tell me when she does random workshops like the one at Gateways. Sigh. I forgot how good writing feels, and how I can't do it without prompting but once I'm given something to go on... it goes.

My last session was "Song and Soul" run by Dr. Elie Holzer. It was beautiful right from the beginning, which meant I had to capture it. (Thank goodness for my voice recorder!) I have two clips to share here which basically sum up the entire session. Blogspot won't let me upload mp3s, so they're in video form with random pictures. Just ignore Garfield there, okay?

First, the meditation:

This was only done once, but it was enough. I'm not a big fan of meditation (I left the forgiveness session before the meditation bit), but this was extremely calming. It was followed by a bit of text study out of Heschel's Man's Quest for G-d and then a bunch of prayer-songs such as this:

My voice recorder is not quite so wonderful at capturing music, which is sad. It was beautiful. It also made me wish I had gotten up for the 10:00 Musical Hallel session, but oh well. Nothing I could do about that.

I had intended to go to one more session--A Taste of Gan Eden--but a need for food and quiet down-time one out. Instead, I discovered tuna pizza (much better than it sounds) and returned to the festival in time for "Jammin in Da Sukkah," (acapella) which I found a bit too quiet for my taste. Again, oh well. I got to play with a kitty in the sukkah, and it delayed doing my laundry that much longer.

And... that was that! Really, there enough jammed into one wonderful week that I think one more even would have driven me overboard. Now for a nice, quiet week of emails and scholarship essays...

Simchat Torah

2009-10-10T22:58:00.001+02:00

A few weeks ago, Woty invited me to an event on Facebook, “Simchat Torah in Netanya.” At the time, I thought it would be perfect. I’d get off the French Hill for the holiday (because I have a mostly unfounded dislike of spending Shabbat in the dorms) and I’d get to travel to a different place for the holiday. Do the non-tourist touristy thing, experience the holiday as it’s done in non-Jerusalem Israel. I’m still glad I came, but I have to say that I really wouldn’t have minded staying home. I did a little too much moving around this Sukkot.

The trip was open to “15 CYers and Shechterers and Kedemers and their friends,” but Abigail and I were the only people not from the Conservative Yeshiva, which was sort of weird. (On a side note: I spent Yom Kippur with a bunch of people from Pardes, Shabbat of Sukkot with a bunch of people from HUC, and now Simchat Torah with people from CY; how is this happening?) Congregation Bet Israel in Netanya, as we discovered, is sort of like the Florida of Israel—it’s right on the coast and mostly populated by older, grandparently-people. Abigail and I stayed with a woman named Ruth, and she was really nice. I wish we had gotten to talk to her more, but we spent most of our time either at synagogue or asleep.

Services themselves were… interesting. Long, The rabbi said multiple times that if anyone needed to put a Torah down, they should hand it to one of the “young people” because “that’s what they’re here for.” Which… is pretty true. Very few of the congregants could hold or dance with a Torah. I almost feel, though, that if the congregation only had one Torah instead of five, the Rabbi could have done it all by himself. He was so full of energy; the only rabbi I’ve ever seen with that much energy was (ex-)Rabbi Stein. I heard one congregant make a comment that “he’s not a rabbi, he’s a shaman! He’s just putting on a show,” which is actually a pretty accurate description (the show part, not the shaman part). On Friday night the dancing concluded with the rabbi and a little boy (one of, like, four kids there) on a table carried by a bunch of students. When he took the Torah out of the ark again to read it, he did the blessings while on a student’s shoulder, and I was sure that all three of them—the rabbi, the student, and the Torah—were all going to drop and we would have to fast. This morning it was the limbo and dress-up hats. It was a little bit too crazy for my tastes.

In a way, I wish that I had stayed in Jerusalem for Simchat Torah. There would have been a lot of people dancing with the Torahs, not just a few students—and as the hakafot went on, the number of students dancing really dwindled. Maybe I wouldn’t have gotten to hold a Torah, but maybe there would have been enough energy to keep me from being exhausted, and if there wasn’t I could collapse in my own bed. Okay, so maybe I lied up there. But hey, I went to Natanya. I met a few people, had some good conversation, and danced with a Torah. I’ll just have to come back and spend Simchat Torah in Jerusalem sometime. Maybe after I get done with all this school stuff I’ll come back to Israel and do research on the holidays in Israel.

A very queer Sukkot

2009-10-08T16:51:00.004+02:00

My facebook status a while ago proclaimed that I was going to have a busy Sukkot, but I really had no idea just how busy it was going to be. I had no idea how queer it was going to be.

Sukkot started off with Shabbat at Ahuva's, which was pleasant but fairly unremarkable. Sunday was also fairly unremarkable; I started my internship at JOH, but all I did was meet with my boss, Dalit, and do some brainstorming. The excitement really started on Monday, and it really hasn't stopped since.

I've been told that there's very little gay stuff in Jerusalem. There's Jerusalem Open House, of course, and a few gay-friendly cafes, but there's pretty much no nightlife--with one exception. On Mondays, Hakatze has a gay night complete with drag queens. Since we are both on Sukkot break right now, Ahuva and I decided to check it out. I forgot to ask the people at JOH what time things start there, so we went by the website: the show starts at 22:30. Yeah, right. Well, we got there at 10:30, or rather a bit before because Ahuva wanted to make sure we got good seats. The place was empty. We waited a while, and the place was still empty. We knew we were in the right place--our entrance receipts said Hatatze--but there was just no one there. Finally I went up to ask the bartender what was going on. Yes, it was drag night. No, she doesn't know what time the show is gonna start. "It's drag queens," she said. "You never know with drag queens." Apparently, all the Israelis knew this already. They started trickling in around 11:15; the show didn't actually start until 12:30.

It was worth the wait, especially since this is the first time I've seen drag outside of Pride events. I took some videos of the performance, but they're currently not working. It's very sad, especially because I can't really describe it in words. It was mostly in Hebrew, but a lot of the songs were in English and the drag queen MC would periodically joke with the audience in English. There was also a drag king there, but I wasn't so impressed with him. Overall, though, it was good. They took a big break in the middle, during which Ahuva and I attempted to swing dance to music that very obviously not created for that purpose. We are also both very out of practice, so it was more funny than anything else. And a nice change from standing on a chair for forty-five minutes, of course.

We left at 2:30 and went back to Ahuva's apartment, where I promptly collapsed. (I'd expected this and arranged to stay with her overnight--the buses don't run that late.) I was up again around 7:00 because of the sun and noise from the construction, read a bit, and then fell back asleep. Next thing I knew it was 14:52 and I'd missed a call from Jessica about our JOH event.

That night was our second JOH event, a showing of The Bubble. We (Ahuva, Alexis, and I) arrived at JOH at 19:30, at which point I spent an hour trying to locate various pieces of technology and convince the movie to play. It mostly failed since Yotem told me to play the movie from my computer, which Dell apparently didn't fix. We finally got it going with a JOH DVD player--which we really should have tried in the first place.

That is one powerful movie. I mean, I knew it was. We watched it at Brandeis, but I still wasn't prepared for the ending. I don't think anyone was. We had some pretty intense discussion afterwards about it, which was nice. Then, as I was cleaning up (around 22:30), Ahuva asked those people who remained to relocate to her apartment and eat birthday cake--because she'd been eating cake nonstop since Friday and still hadn't finished it. So we (Ahuva, Alexis, Devorah, Lynley, and I) bought a carton of ice cream and went back to Ahuva's. And... never left. We were just talking, telling funny stories, and it was fun. We completely lost track of time. Alexis left around 4, but by that point Lynley, Devorah and I figured that we might as well wait another two hours and take the bus back to campus. So... we did. Just stayed there talking from 23:00 to 6:00. And then it was all over. I went back to campus, went to bed, and got right back up again for the Gateways festival.

(To be continued)

Village Green

2009-10-05T15:27:00.002+02:00

Yesterday I discovered a really cool restaurant: Village Green. Really, this place is cool because it reminds me a bit of the US. While I can easily find falafel and pizza and pasta places in Jerusalem, I've been mourning the lack of pie and muffins in my life. They just don't seem to exist in most places (other than a 32NIS piece of pie at a couple places - way too expensive!), and it's sad. I love pie, and I mill my normal Brandeis breakfast of yogurt and a carrot or corn muffin. I walked into Village Green yesterday to give them a flyer for our next JOH event and there they were, among other things, right near the register: carrot muffins and apple pie. Pie! Muffins! And cheesecake (which is a pie), and a bunch of other kinds of muffins. Heaven. Pie and muffin heaven.

I will gladly pay 18NIS for a piece of cheesecake. I miss it that much.

Yom Kippur

2009-09-30T10:16:00.003+02:00

I spent Yom Kippur 5770 in downtown Jerusalem with my friend Jessica from JOH, and I can honestly say I enjoyed it. I don't know how much repenting I really did, but I love a lot of the Yom Kippur liturgy and it was a really easy fast. I drink for health reasons, but I wasn't hungry at all.

On Sunday afternoon Jessica and I went to Alanna and Rebecca's house for our pre-Shabbat meal, as did Woty (also from JOH) and a girl named Julia (I think) from the Conservative Yeshiva. The food was wonderful--lentil soup, sweet potato lasagna, baked potatoes, broccoli, and honey cake--and the company was even better.

After our meal, we all headed down to services at Kedem--where, to my great surprise, Leora Perkins (from Brandeis) led services! I didn't even know she was in Israel, and apparently she didn't know I was here either, despite the fact that she's living with Noam and Emily Jaeger. Anyway, she led services, and there was a lot of mingling afterwards. Yom Kippur in Jerusalem is amazing; everything shuts down and people walk in the streets because the only cars are police/army/emergency. Of course, I knew this from my time here in high school, but I don't remember people congregating in the streets. It was like one big party (without the music or dancing), or oneg Shabbat at the biggest outdoor synagogue in the world (without the food, of course). Emek Refaim, the street which houses Kedem and Shira Hadasha and probably about a million other services, was full of people standing around talking, and we couldn't walk more than five steps without bumping into someone Jessica knew. The intersection of Ein Gedi and Derek Chevron (another really big street) was the same way.

On Monday we (Jessica and I) went to two different minyans: Mayanot in the morning and Kedem in the evening. It's remarkable how different these two places felt, even though they're both lay-led traditional egalitarian minyanim that meet in school buildings. Kedem has the feel of a Hillel in that (as far as I saw) it's populated entirely by students in their twenties, whereas Mayanot is a congregation of people at all ages--from people who are definitely someone's grandparent to the little kids playing Twister outside. I definitely preferred Mayanot to Kedem. I think there's something special about davening with people from all generations. It gives it a feeling of connection with the whole Jewish people--many of whom are praying these same prayers at this same time in their own synagogues and time zones--and not just with Kids (Students) Like Me. It's a nice feeling, as is davening without a big, solid curtain separating me from the ruach.

Between services we went back to Jessica's and slept, and after Yom Kippur ended--around 18:00, since we changed our clocks on Saturday night--we went to the house of one of Jessica's friends from Pardes for a break fast breakfast. I like that idea; I may very well steal it. And btw, Miriam Farber (a Brandeis alum and a Pardes student) makes the best cinnamon rolls ever.

One thing that I forgot to mention is that Jessica's roommate has a really cute hamster named Rimon, and now I really wanna get a hamster. Only problem is that I don't know what I'd do with him when I go on vacation or when I leave at the end of the year... not to mention that I don't know whether they're even allowed!

A bit of politics

2009-09-27T11:08:00.008+02:00

I'm not so sure that I want to get into politics here, but I feel like it's necessary now. I have now been to/through three "settlements" in the West Bank: Me'or Modi'im, Chevron, and the random settlement that our tour guide for the Chevron trip was from (the "through" it the above sentence, as we drove through it on our way back to Jerusalem). I didn't even realize that Me'or Modi'im was beyond the green line until we were coming back and passed through the checkpoint--which, by the way, was nothing. I really don't understand it. If all of this land is Israel, why can't Jews form communities on land that is otherwise uninhabited, no matter where in Israel it is? Why can't Arabs? If Chevron is a part of Israel, why can't Israeli citizens who just happen to be Jews move there if there are houses and/or land for sale? I'm not looking to start a discussion on either side right now; I am just expressing some confusion. I hope to form my own opinions based on my time here before anyone tries to convince me of anything.

That said, this article bothers me. Take a look:

Two policeman and two Muslim worshippers were lightly injured in riots which erupted Sunday morning at the Temple Mount holy site in Jerusalem.

The incident began when a group of tourists entered the Temple Mount compound accompanied by a police force. At a certain stage, some 150 worshippers started gathering around them and calling out towards them.

Some of the worshippers began throwing stones at the group. The police force fired stun grenades in an attempt to gain control of the riot. Two police officers were lightly injured by stones and received medical treatment on the site. They were later evacuated to the Shaare Zedek and Hadassah Ein Kerem hospitals in the capital.

Two worshippers were lightly hurt by the grenades and were evacuated to the al-Maqasid Hospital in east Jerusalem. According to Palestinian sources, 13 people were hurt after inhaling tear gas. Adult worshippers attempted to calm things down, while the group of tourists was removed from the site.

Were the tourists really allowed on the Temple Mount? If not, why were they there? Why were they accompanied by police? What happened before the violence broke out?

And then there's this:

The defense establishment has declared a heightened state of alert across the country ahead of the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur. On Saturday evening, a closure was imposed on the West Bank until Monday at midnight. Residents will only be allowed to cross into Israel in humanitarian cases.....

Vehicles will not be allowed to pass from east Jerusalem to the western part of the city in order to minimize the friction between Jews and Arabs.

I do have to wonder what time this went into effect last night, since we passed through the checkpoint around 20:30 last night with no line, no hold-up. But what in the world? How is this okay? What's happened in the past that's necessitating this? Did anything happen, or is this another example of Israel not really being one land one country after all?

Me'or Modi'im

2009-09-26T21:46:00.005+03:00

I spent this Shabbat at Moshav Me'or Modi'im with Devorah and Abigail from JOH. (Well, Devorah's also a Hebrew University student, but whatever--the common link between the three of us is JOH.) We were hosted by Rabbi and Rebbitzen Trugman, who have open home hospitality Shabbats twice a month. Estie, my roommate, was given a flyer about it a while ago, and I thought it would be cool.

Me'or Modi'im is also known as the Carlebach moshav, since it was founded by Rav Shlomo Carlebach and his followers. I think this is another situation like Kibbutz Hannaton, though - they call it a moshav, but it's really (according to Wikipedia and what I saw of it) a community settlement. And that's what it is: a community of people who believe in and live by the teachings of Rav Shlomo Carlebach--or "Rav Shlomo," as they call him, because he is The All-Important Rabbi and doesn't need a last name (or they just knew him--one or the other).

It was a very pleasant, quiet Shabbat. We started out with singing niggunim before Shabbat even started. Services were not as wonderful as I'd expected, but egalitarian me isn't a fan of synagogues where the women's section is in the back to begin with, and all the ruach was up front with the guys. That's okay, though. It just means I didn't rush to get up for Shacharit this morning, nor did I go to mincha or ma'ariv.

Friday night Devorah, Abigail, and I took our sleeping bags outside to the porch, and it was really wonderful. Okay, so maybe it was a little bit hot in the sleeping bag, but it would have been worse inside and the air was so good out there. Everyone else was inside, so it felt like we were little girls having a sleepover. It was nice. We spent this afternoon on the porch, too, reading and playing bananagrams and rummy cube.

Once again, the best part was seuda shlishit. The food was wonderful, and we spent a lot of time singing--songs and nigguns with really upbeat melodies. Everyone was really into it, too, which is a nice change from what I'm used to from AHA. I'm learning the traditional Shabbat zimrot, so maybe I'll actually be able to join in when I get back to Brandeis.

The whole Shabbat was just so relaxing and pleasant. The rebbitzen told me to come again sometime, and I think I will. I liked it.

The end - #1

2009-09-25T10:12:00.005+03:00

Yesterday was the last day of summer ulpan at Hebrew University. It's hard to believe I have three whole weeks off already before the regular university semester starts. It went so fast! I expected it to be torture because I'm really bad at languages, but it really wasn't. It was boring at times because I knew the grammar already, but my teachers--especially אירה--did a really good job of keeping it interesting. I feel a lot more comfortable with Hebrew now, and as much as I wish I could have moved up to Gimmel, it's probably a good thing I didn't. HU ulpan is "learning Hebrew in Hebrew," and I think I was in the perfect level for adjusting to this. It was overwhelming at Brandeis, for all of the couple weeks that I was in 40 level Hebrew, and I think I would have had the same problem here if I was in a higher level.

It's amazing how much I've improved. It's still hard for me to speak, but if people are talking slowly enough I can definitely comprehend conversations with words I know. There was also a rather amusing incident in the Old City last week in which someone asked me in English if I was looking for a hostel and I answered "לא"--"no"--in Hebrew without even thinking. It's a small phrase--just one word--but the man's reaction ("Oh, you speak Hebrew!") was priceless. No, I'm not an American tourist who can be taken advantage of. Yes, I'm an American, but I'm here for the year and I'm learning. This is after two months; where will I be after a year?

Yesterday was also my last day of feeding cats before class. This week I realized that there's no predicting my audience. I'm pleased to say that they recognize me now and come running when they see me--even before I sit down if the law librarians haven't fed them already--but other than that, it varies. On Tuesday I had 14 at once, and there was enough turnover that I don't know how many I fed. On Wednesday there were only 8, but a grey cat curled up in my lap. I ended up being late to class, but I didn't care. The only thing that would have made me move would have been if someone had yelled "Fire!" and then I would have taken the kitty with me. Usually the cats get along, but there was a day this week when they started howling at each other. Not hissing, howling. What in the world does that mean? I've never seen it before.

I can't say goodbye to my cats now. I know we're on break, but I'm going to continue to go up and feed the cats on weekdays, at least until I see that the librarians are getting there first. They know me. They want my food. Who am I to withhold it? Estie pointed out that I won't always be here, but I don't want to think about that. January--and my winter break in the States--is a long time away.

Gaya

2009-09-22T22:29:00.005+03:00

Today Alanna Sklover and I went on a spontaneous study session at Tmol Shilshom downtown. We had a good time, and our waiter was hilarious; Alanna gave him a good tip. (She also wouldn't let the poor college student pay for the bread she ate :( ) On our ways home, we stumbled upon another cool little place called Gaya: The Art of Thinking. Basically, it's a store that sells wooden games and puzzles, but they also have a lot of games out for people to play. We played a few things, but I think the best were definitely our game of Tumica and the wine bottle puzzle. Alanna and I both joined their customer's club, and I'm definitely going back there. This is another time when I can't even explain how much fun it was.

Rosh Hashanah (part 2)

2009-09-20T21:45:00.004+03:00

There was a rather stark contrast between the first day of my Rosh Hashanah and the second. First, I had two very different meal experiences. Saturday night, Sarah and I were paired with six girls from Neve, a women's seminary, at the home of an older couple, the Bornsons. The meal was very long--lasting from 21:00 - 23:30--but it didn't seem long at all. It was really my mental image of an Orthodox holiday meal, with the man sitting at the head of the table giving little bits of Torah thoughout the meal, but interactively. The meal was calm, everyone was nice, and the food was wonderful. It was also dairy, which made it even better for me because I didn't have to feel guilty for not being able to eat the food that the family had prepared.

Lunch today was also dairy, but otherwise it was a very different experience. Our hosts were also older, but four of their nine childen were there (ages 15 and up) along with two of their grandchildren (12 and 15). Before the meal one of their daughters (19) was teasing her nephew (15) and mock-arguing about whether girls were smart enough to learn Gemara, which (as Sarah pointed out) was even more amusing once you remembered that she's his aunt. There was also a lot of Hebrew being spoken there, since our hosts' son-in-law doesn't speak English. I was rather proud of my ability to catch a lot of what he was saying, even though I missed a key word that changed the meaning of the whole thing. On the other end of the table, the (grand)mother was telling us family stories--how she made aliyah, why she had kids, etc. There was still Torah, but it wasn't so prevelent and the meal was much shorter. Once again, the food was amazing.

I did decide to go to the Kotel for davening this morning and there was a ruach-filled group of guys there, but at 8:00 they were already davening mussaf. However, I did get to hear U'netaneh Tokef, which I love depite--or even because of--it's powerfully morbid translation. I had my moments of connection at the wall, but I also discovered that it doesnt have the same power over an extended period of time as it does over a short visit. As shocking as it may seem, I think I had a more meaningful Rosh Hashanah at Brandeis than I did in the Old City.

And now, it is bedtime. Dev has a test at 8am and needs to sleep whether she is tired or not.

Rosh Hashanah (part 1)

2009-09-19T16:33:00.003+03:00

Rabbi Marcus said that the goal of the Heritage House Rosh Hashanah in the Old City was to make it “the best Rosh Hashanah of your life.” It’s not doing it for me. It’s just not. Several points which are making this the case:

- The mechitza. I’m usually okay with mechitzas, but this one is a solid grey curtain going all the way to the front. It doesn’t bother me so much that I can’t see the guys—well, except for when the guys are singing and no one on the women’s side is. But what bothers me is the fact that I can’t see the Torah, or the ark for that matter. How can I stand in front of an open ark when I can’t see the ark in the first place? What goes does hearing the Torah reading do if I can’t see the actual Torah. Forget for a moment that it would never happen in an Orthodox synagogue, but how do I know they’re not just reading out of a chumash? I need to make a connection to the Torah and the ark in order for Rosh Hashanah to be meaningful. I need to see these things, and it’s not happening there.

- Last night we were set up in pairs with families for dinner, and the wife of the family I was with didn’t get side down for dinner! “NAME, we need two more plates.” “NAME, water.” All the time she was bringing things in and out, and it wasn’t just the husband who was acting like this, it was the other guests, the friends of the family! When I asked her if she ever got to sit down, she said “Maybe once the kids go to bed, but it’s fine. I like it this way.” She didn’t look happy, nor was the majority of her in-and-out due to kids. Her husband never offered to help, nor did the other guests. What is this? Why can’t she sit down to her own Rosh Hashanah dinner? It bothered me.

- I’ve also been hearing a lot of bigoted opinions this Shabbat. A couple times a Muslim family walked by and the guest who sat next to me muttered as soon as they walked by. “I’m fine with them, but I don’t want them as my neighbors! Why can’t they stay in their own quarter?” (Sound like 50s/60s era America, anyone?) A couple of times they mocked Conservative Judaism, but those comments were at the other end of the table so I didn’t quite catch what was being mocked, other than a rabbi taking a tourist group to see a church. Sarah, the other student, and I got asked if we wanted to make aliyah, and one person asked me why I didn’t want to, but I didn’t feel like I could reply. This was the first time I’ve ever felt that I had to be closeted about being Conservative--let alone everything else I have to be closeted about!

There are also smaller things. There are also classes upstairs during the repetitions of the amidah—“when the service seems like it goes on forever”—and the entire women’s section empties at that point. Until then, it’s too crowded. Pages are called whenever they change, and if we get reminded to say “Adonai” instead of “HaShem,” or to stay out of the aisle during the Amidah so women can get out (which doesn’t happen, btw), I’m going to scream. I don’t know what I’m going to do about tomorrow. I can’t concentrate in there. I’m thinking of going to the Kotel and davening by myself. Maybe I’ll be lucky and there will be a group of particularly loud, ruach-filled men there and I can follow along with them.

Shopping in Israel

2009-09-15T17:09:00.007+03:00

Shopping in Israel is a cultural experience in itself. I never thought I'd say this, but the salespeople here make Jim--our most enthusiastic salesperson at FDB--look like a kitten. (Meow.) They're pushy! I keep saying that I'm not going to buy anything that I don't really love, but twice now I've felt pressured enough that I couldn't really say no. Both involved sellers bringing down their prices--a skirt from 60 to 45, and a pair of shoes from 100-something to 80. I'm left questioning both purchases.

I'm basing this post on two experiences, a trip to a Druze village on the way to Kibbutz Hannaton and my first visit to the Machane Yehuda shuk today. "Good quality, good quality." "Take two, I give you deal." "Here, here, take, take." "Come, come." "Follow me." They like to repeat things, and if you start pulling away, they just insist more. It's so hard! Devorah Kramer, another RIS student, said that it's what makes them good salespeople, but I've never seen anything like it in the US. I thought Jim was pushy!

The shuk needs an entry of its own, but I'll have to make due with someone else's youtube video. One street, thousands of people, more fruit than I've ever imagined in one place:

(I didn't spend that much time near the fish. I was having trouble with the smell alone!)

I couldn't have been there more than an hour, but I left exhausted anyway. For $47 I managed to buy: ten pitot (5 NIS), a pomegranate (2 NIS), a large container of grapes (13 NIS), two dragonfuit (one red, one Costa Rica) to bring to my Rosh Hashanah hosts so I can be selfish and save my challah for myself (10 NIS), a pair of off-white pants (20 NIS), a pair of Wal-mart quality white, non-leather shoes for Yom Kippur (40 NIS), and a pair of black sneakers (80 NIS). The sneakers are my second questionable purchase because they only had them in velcro. I'm not sure how I feel about having velcro shoes--sort of like I'm back in elementary school--but it is true that my shoelaces won't come untied this way, and it's got to be better than shoes with holes in them (read: my current pair). And if worst comes to worst, 80 NIS is only about $21 and there are about a million shoe stores on Yaffo street (which the salespeople made me forget in the moment, of course).

There's also a store across from the shuk that looks to have some pretty good skirts for 30 NIS, but by the time I got back there I was exhausted and my hands were full of packages. Next time.

Overall, I would call today's trip successful. I am very glad to have found a place where the rotten exchange rate doesn't make everything too expensive for Walmart-price-cheapy me. I do wonder, though, whether time will make me resistant to Israeli salespeople or whether I'll always be this much of a push-over.

Challah baking

2009-09-14T17:30:00.004+03:00

This afternoon, Rebbetzin Tspora Dahan from the JSSC invited students to her house to bake challah. I am thoroughly exhausted, and there were seven of us working on it! I can't imagine how the rebbetzin--or anyone else, for that matter--does it alone. Granted, we did a double batch, but in order to do the challah blessing you need 2kgs of flour worth of dough. That's a lot of challah. That's a whole lot of challah.

We made challah at Brandeis once, but it was interesting to do it in an Orthodox setting. We learned about sifting the flour, checking the eggs for blood, putting the raisins in water so that any bugs float to the top, and of course the challah blessing. This is all stuff we didn't do at Brandeis. Oh, the complexities of religious life...

I made two round challot with cinnamon sugar on top for a sweet new year. One will probably be my breakfast over Rosh Hashanah, and the other will go to my Rosh Hashanah meal hosts.

Update on Naftali

2009-09-14T10:07:00.001+03:00

When I got to Hebrew University today, I found that someone had already fed the cats—as it turns out, the librarian that my law librarian was filling in for that time. I asked her about Naftali; apparently he was his regular self today. He’s not healthy and they know that—he has his good days and his bad days. Yesterday happened to be one of his bad days. The librarians have know him for years; I’ll have to trust them.

There’s another cat here, a small black kitten, who’s also rather affectionate. She purred for me this morning, and the librarian told me that she is sick (though, I couldn’t tell) and has been taken to the vet and given some antibiotics. She’s going to be adopted by someone because she’s not suited to life as a stray. Lesson learned: the law librarians really take care of these cats. I don’t need to worry about them. Right?

Kibbutz Hannaton

2009-09-13T16:47:00.009+03:00

I spent this weekend at Kibbutz Hannaton, the only Masorti kibbutz in Israel, on a Shabbaton sponsored by the Fuchsberg Center for Conservative Judaism. Overall, I enjoyed the Shabbat. I met a few new people--a girl named Beverley and Eitan Marks, the brother of an acquaintance from Brandeis--and had a pretty relaxing Shabbat. Services were a lot better than last week. I led weekday Mincha for the first time since high school, and the guy who led Kabbalat Shabbat used the Carlibach melodies, which I love. The food was pretty good, too, if a bit spicy. I discovered rice with raisins in it (not one of the spicy things) and had my first ever Shabbat where seuda shlishit had the best food.

I don't quite understand what is kibbutz-like about Kibbutz Hannaton. The kibbutz recently privitized, so everyone has their own income and owns their own home and people don't eat together in the Chedar Ochel anymore. A dairy farm provides the kibbutz's income, but only one member of the kibbutz works at the farm. As far as I could see, the only communal thing is the land, and the kibbutz just happens to own this dairy farm.

Speaking of the dairy farm, we were given a tour of it on Saturday afternoon. Overall, I was impressed. When I think of farm animals I imagine those stories of chickens who can't even move their wings, but these cows had lots of room to move around. Our guide said that the cows are kept happy, if only because those commercials are true--good dairy products come from happy cows. (And happy cows come from Kibbutz Hannaton?) The only thing that really bothers me is what they do with the calves. A calf was born about twenty minutes before we got to the farm, and the workers took him away from his mother before he could even stand. Since he's male, the kibbutz won't keep him--he'll be shipped off to become somebody's hamburger or veal dinner. The poor little cow! He didn't even stand a chance. Of course, after the tour of the dairy farm, we all throughly smelled like cows. I think the bugs also thought we were cows; I have five bites on one arm alone.

I also learned a bit about teaching styles this Shabbat. Rabbi Romm, the rabbi of the Fuchsberg center and a founder of the Masorti movement, invited a rabbinical student named Adam to join us for the Shabbat. Since it was a shabbaton, there were multiple learning sessions. Before Adam started his, he said something really interesting. I've been having trouble with Rabbi Romm's lectures, and Adam pointed out why: while Adam teaches about things he finds problematic, Rabbi Romm teaches about things he finds interesting. That's why Rabbi Romm's lectures are so light, and he can go off on so many tangents--it's not that he's really wandering off topic as he's providing more "interesting" tidbits about an "interesting" subject. This is the first time I've encountered this kind of teaching; I'm used to--and I think I much prefer--shiurim about the things that are problematic.

If this trip happens every semester, I think I'd like to go again next time. I thoroughly enjoyed myself.

Next Shabbat--Rosh Hashana in the Old City!

Naftali

2009-09-13T15:10:00.004+03:00

I'm really worried about Naftali. He wasn't right when I saw him this afternoon. He'd sniff the water bowl and the food I put in front of him, but he wouldn't eat anything. These cats never refuse food. I had to shield Naftali's food from the other cats because they all wanted it.

He doesn't sound right, either. That's the first thing I noticed (though this video was the last I saw of him--of course as soon as I take out the camera and put in new batteries all he does is climb into my lap and shut up.):

shut up.): That is not Naftali's voice. I know his voice; I've known this cat since my first week here. I knew he wasn't healthy to begin with, but this is different. This is new.

What do I do? I wish I could take him to the vet, but I have neither the money nor the knowledge of the Israeli society to do so. Should I try to locate the law library and search for the librarian who told me Naftali's name? She was only substituting for her friend when I saw her.

I wish I could take Naftali home with me, but even if we were allowed to have cats in the apartment, my roommates aren't cat people. No way they'd let me sneak a cat into the apartment, even if maintenance wasn't doing monthly inspections.

What should I do? What can I do?

Kitty update

2009-09-10T16:38:00.005+03:00

Last week was rocky when it came to my cats. On Saturday night I discovered that Mister Zol, the grocery store, doesn't open up after Shabbat, so I had no food for the kitties on Sunday. Sunday night, I discovered that they close at 21:00, and I went at 21:15. On Tuesday I finally had cat food, but my roommate and I got to campus too late for me to do my feeding. On Wednesday someone fed them before I got there, from the looks of it real white meat. I think I finally got to feed them on Thursday.

This week has been better; I haven't posted only because I was waiting to have video. I still haven't figured out how to feed and tape at the same time--the video's sorta awful. The cats were also really spread out this morning, but I think if you count you'll find all twelve.

The cats know me by now. Twice in a row now they've come running, and this morning I didn't even have to sit down first. The kitten's also becoming more trusting; it took a while for him to come out of his bush, and then he would run back into it whenever anyone walked down the path. Now he'll stay there and eat, as long as there's a bigger cat between him and the people. ("Mommy, hide me!")

I haven't named any of them yet, and I doubt that I will. There are some consistent kitties, but otherwise the cats in the humanitiies block change day by day. They also don't trust me enough to let them touch them--with the exception of Naftali, who has been affectionate since way before the feedings. I wonder if they'll ever trust me that much?

Speaking of Naftali, yesterday I found a girl pouring water into a rock for him. She said he was dehydrated; he'd drunk half her bottle already. I'm really glad I saw that; somehow, I've never stopped to think about how these cats get there water. It doesn't rain during the summer in Israel, ever. How do they find water to drink? Anyway, I've started giving them water, too. A container that had held creme cheese is now a kitty water bowl, assuming the people who clean the university don't find it in the bush and throw it away. I think I'll make the same thing out of my butter container when it expires, and the rocks have little grooves which can hold water. It's so simple; why hadn't I thought of it before?

When I got back to Kfar HaStudentim after class, I found Lynley with a couple of kittens, whose names seem to be either Yossi and Charlie or Hariette and Gila depending on who you ask. Yossi's scared of people, but Charlie's the friendliest kitty I've ever seen. As soon as I sat down on the bench she was in my lap, climbing around on top of me and on top of my backpack. I don't have any footage of that--it was so unexpected--but I can show you Charlie/Gila with Lynley, and being otherwise generally friendly!

After Lynley left, a couple of people who work in the office came out with a container of what I think was tuna. It makes me feel cheap to be feeding them dry cat food, but... the cats seem to like it just the same, and it's probably better for them.

Though, I could give Charlie one kind of fish to play with!

Queers, Beers, and Games

2009-09-08T23:48:00.005+03:00

Tonight we had the first Jerusalem Open House English Speakers Group event planned by Jessica and me. (I don't understand why we put "beers" in an event title and then tell people that they need to bring their own. How is that part of the event? Oh well; apparently it attracts people.) It was a lot of fun, thank goodness--the only rough spot was that both of us bought snacks, so there was way too much food and I ended up coming home with all four bags of generic Bamba.

I had been worried about the event for the past couple of days. I flyered at Hebrew University, but I don't know the official procedure so my signs kept being torn down. Would people know about it? Would people want to come to a game night? But it all worked out. A bunch of us were there at 7:30, and we didn't end up leaving until around eleven. I had some very good conversation, too. It's so much easier to talk to people when we're not squeezed into a room and just told to mingle!

The night has left me with such a pleasant feeling that I felt a need to write about it, but now that I sit down to do so I'm finding that I really have nothing to say. Maybe I'm just tired. It is midnight over here, after all.

Beit Shemesh

2009-09-07T15:54:00.004+03:00

I've been debating how much I want this to be a touristy blog. After my post about Chevron that's what it feels like, but I don't think I can really write about my year in Israel without the touristy bits. Thus, I will attempt to catch up after a busy weekend of tiyulim and midterms without sounding too much like an American tourist. (Yeah, right.)

This weekend I went on a mini-Shabbaton to Beit Shemesh, a city about forty minutes outside of Jerusalem. It was mini in the fact that there were only ten of us, including two students from Tel Aviv and a Hebrew University alumna who's friends with the rabbi. It was nice that way, though; the remaining seven included my roommate Estie and Naomi, a aquantence from our first Shabbat at school. Because there were so few of us, it wasn't cliquey, which was nice. I tend to wander on my own when I'm with a big group.

Our first stop on Friday was the caves outside Beit Shemesh where the Jews lived during the Bar Kochba Revolt in the 130s CE. I'd thought I'd explored the caves already, when I was in Israel on Muss, but what people refer to as the Bar Kochba Caves aren't actually the anything--there are a bunch of systems of caves. The cave systems are really amazing; there are false tunnels and holes in the ground (read: ancient bathrooms / Roman soldier traps) and massive rooms where people lived. and Rabbi Seigel, the organizer of the Shabbaton, thought he knew these caves inside out, but we discovered a room he didn't know about before. Whereas I think we could walk through much of the tunnels we visited with AHA, most of the time we had to crawl through these and I was quite literally covered in dirt by the end.

As fun as it was squeezing through tiny passage ways, I think the best part of the caves came at the very end, when we turned off all our flashlights and sat in one of the large rooms in silence. I could just imagine the Jews sitting there, scared, listening for the sounds of Roman soldiers. It was a very powerful moment, and I love how it's possible to connect with history like that in Israel.

Shabbat was spent in Beit Shemesh proper, in the south part of the city--which, for a city, was very spread out and had an amazing amount of grassy areas. We were split into twos and sent to families which agreed to let us sleep in their apartments and host us for Shabbat lunch. The food part was really good--you can't beat home-made challah and potato kugel, and they made tofu that I actually liked. (Dev, being a bad vegetarian, has never actually liked tofu before.) Other than that... I wasn't particularly impressed with my host family. I'm banking on them not finding this; lashon hara lamed hey, blah blah blah.

There are four kids in the family, the youngest being a six-year-old boy who looks a lot like Simcha in Lost Luggage. Only... not so cute in the behavior aspect. He must have ADHD or something like that, because he spent all of Saturday running around screaming his head off--ear-piercing, headache-inducing screams. And his parents didn't stop it! During Shabbat lunch he sat down to eat a few bites, and then off he went to run wild, shooting us all with a lego gun snd screaming, and his parents just paused when he was too loud and went on with the conversation whenever he stopped, as if nothing was happening. At one point I got up to take excedrin and by the end of the meal I was wincing when he screamed, and his parents didn't take the hint. Only when we went to bentch did his mother lock him in a room so we could do so. I don't understand. The rest of their kids--a fourteen-year-old boy, a seventeen-year-old girl and a nineteen-year-old girl--are all perfectly nice. What's with this kid, and why don't his parents do something? My parents would kill us if we behaved that way, especially if there were guests in the house.

The rest of Shabbat was also mixed. Kabbalat Shabbat was not particularly fulfilling, since the only thing that was sung was Lecha Dodi. Typical of Israeli synagogues, I've been told--the focus of Shabbat here is on the family, and people want to get home to their families and dinner ASAP. Dinner and Seuda Shlishit were at the Seigels', but I couldn't enjoy dinner because I was half asleep after the day in the caves. Both meals at the Seigels were very crowded--there were the ten of us, the Seigel family, and another family. For Seuda Shlishit I ended up on the couch with the Seigels' cat, Cleopatra, on my lap, which made me happy. I never did get a seat at the table--I wasn't about to move and disturb the cat, and things were crowded enough that I was within arm's reach of the table anyway. Poor kitty ended up with crumbs in her fur before I managed to get a plate, though.

The best part of Shabbat, like in the caves, came at the very end. We went around the tables and everyone was given a chance to give a small d'var Torah, or to pass if they wished. I passed, but there were a lot of interesting commentaries that came up. I wish there was more of that in my Shabbats. Good singing, good food, good conversation - that's all I want. I'm still working on finding it here.

$$$ for learning

2009-09-07T15:42:00.003+03:00

So far, I'm pretty disappointed with the $$$ for Learning program. I was matched up with my chevrusa partner, Shoshana, three weeks ago, and we still haven't really gotten started. Each time she brings a different book, and each time it's not what I'm looking for. I want to learn about prayer and kavanah; so far, either the books don't talk about that or they don't bring up much for discussion and just reading words off a page isn't very fulfilling. This morning I checked out a copy of Heschel's Man's Quest for G-d from the library; I think we're going to be learning from that from now on. I've read it before, but it's very deep and I think we can get more out of it together than I was able to reading it by myself. Shoshana's never read Heschel before, so introducing her to him will also be fun.

Shoshana's nice, though. We've spent a fair amount of time talking--in fact, that's most of what we did the first meeting. (Opps.) She's pregnent, due in a month or so, and I don't know what's going to happen once she has the baby. The rebbitzen must have a way to work with such things, though. So many of the chevrusa partners have babies or are about to have babies...

Tour of the tombs

2009-09-01T21:29:00.006+03:00

Today Jeff Seidel took sixty of us on a tour of biblical gravesites. Before anyone freaks out, I would like to mention that yes, they are in the West Bank. The areas we went to are also patrolled by the IDF, and we were riding in a bullet-proof bus. Well, the whole bus thing is actually not reassuring at all, but I am happy to say that we were not shot at during our trip. Not that I thought we would be; I don't think the rebbitzen of the center would bring her two-year-old and five-year-old daughters anywhere she thought was the slightest bit unsafe, let alone a busfull of students that they're liable for.

The trip included visits to Rachel's Tomb outside of Bethleham and the Cave of Machpelah (the burial site of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca, and Leah) in Chevron. I was surprised by the difference between the two places. Rachel's Tomb is a tiny place, but heavily protected. In the photo below--the view outside the building of the tomb--you can see a large white wall; this wall spirals around and around, so the tomb is entirely protected. The building itself is tiny, intimate. It's like the Kotel in that it's separated into a men's section and a women's section, and people are gathered there praying. It's beautiful, in a classical Judaism sort of way. The video below is one that I took today of the women's side of the tomb.

The Cave of Machpelah is supposed to be holier than Rachel's Tomb - it's second in holiness only to the Kotel - but if anything, it seemed to be more commercialized to me. In Rachel's Tomb I felt compelled to daven, even though I had no siddur with me; I started mincha--what I know of it by heart--and it led to my own prayers, free-form, which I very rarely do. But at Machpelah, even with a siddur, I couldn't concentrate of the prayers. I wasn't compelled to pray; it felt like any other Orthodox synagogue. I felt more connection when I touched the wall near where our ancesters are actually buried (see below) than when I was inside the structure.

There's also an amazing difference in the outsides of the tombs. Rachel's Tomb is heavily protected, but Machpelah is completely out in the open. Note that the sound at the very beginning of the video is the end of the Muslim afternoon prayer; the whole thing played on speakers above our heads.

I think the number of tourists at these sights is particularly telling of the situation in Israel right now. These are extremely holy places, but we didn't see a single other tourist on our trip. There were people there, but they were ordinary Israelis, davening and studying. These places are in the West Bank; tourist groups don't dare go there the way they go to the Kotel or Masadah. Yet, take a look at one last picture:

This is the view of Chevron from the top of the Chevron Yeshiva. If this was just a random picture that I posted, wouldn't you think it was just another shot of Jerusalem?

A note on language

2009-08-31T10:03:00.003+03:00

An article in the NYT, "Modern Love: Once Political, Now Just Practical," has me thinking a bit about language, especially as I recently met a queer woman who is recently married and uses the word "wife." I really don't like the word "wife." I don't know why, exactly, but it sounds ugly. Maybe it's the historical background that this article talks about; I don't know.

Yet, our English words of "husband" and "wife" are far better than the Hebrew. Husband is בַּעַל - also the word for "owner." Wife is אִשָּׁה - also the word for "woman." A husband is the owner of his אשתו, his woman? That just reeks. And while I've never seen so many pregnent women in one place as I have since coming to Jerusalem, I have to wonder about these words in a time where women are enlisted in the army just like men are, if their mandatory service time is shorter (two for women, three for men). There aren't passive women here who are under the thumbs of their husbands. I can't imagine a woman coming back from service in the army only to become submissive to her husband.

I need to ask an Israeli about this. Is there, or has there been, a debate around this terminology? Are there people who use different words, like people in the US?

Somehow, though, I like the word אִשָּׁה better for a gay marriage. Maybe because there's no more connotation of possession than there would be if you said "my girlfriend."

כדורגל

2009-08-25T21:23:00.006+03:00

Last night, Jeff Seidel took us to Teddy Stadium to see a soccer game between Beitar Jerusalem and HaPoel Tel Aviv. Soccer in Israel is intense. There were seats in the stadium, but nobody sat; everybody stood. The stadium was a sea of yellow (Beitar's color) with a small section of red (HaPoel's color). The fans screamed and cheered throughout the whole game. I took a few videos, but it was so loud that everything sounds like static. Think the Quidditch world cup from Harry Potter, only in a smaller stadium. That was the crowd at Teddy Stadium last night.

What surprises me is that team fan bases aren't based on geography. Some cities have multiple teams, and of these teams there are seven named HaPoel and five named Maccabi. An Israeli who went with us yesterday said that soccer in Israel isn't just a sport, it's politics. The match we saw was Beitar Jerusalem, a extremely right-wing team, vs. HaPoel Tel Aviv, a left-wing team. I was very surprised by the racism in the stadium. My attempt at video didn't work so well, but YouTube has a very clear one:

What are they saying? According to Shaga Elam, the lyrics are as follows:

What's Salim doing here? Don't you know?

What's going on here I ask?

Everywhere I hear that this is the land of Israel

Toama, this is the land of Israel

This is the land of Israel, Toama

This is the Jewish State

I hate you Salim Toama!

I hate all Arabs!

I am honestly appaled. Salim Toama used to be a member of HaPoel Tel Aviv; this chant is targeted straight at him. No wonder the Palestinians want the Jews gone, if this is how Israelis treat them! I know it's just a small fraction of the Israeli population, but sometimes it's the small fractions that make the most noise and cause the most damage. The mere fact that these people get away with such a chant is appaling. Is the government showing its approval through its silence?

Shabbat in Jerusalem

2009-08-22T19:28:00.005+03:00

When I describe BUCO to people, I say that it's like Shira Hadasha without the mechitza. I am proud to say that I attended services at Shira Hadasha last night, and it really is an accurate analogy. It was a wonderful service; I wish I lived downtown so Shira Hadasha could be my regular minyan.

I'm spending Shabbat with Ahuva. Last night we went to services and dinner at the house of one of her friends from HUC, and then we came back and collapsed. Well, Ahuva and I both collapsed--as soon as Mr. FuzzFuzz (Ahuva's cat) decided to give up his half of the couch, I was out. Actually, he never did give it up - Ahuva's friend Alexis had to move him.

The annoying thing about Jerusalem is that the busses stop running between 15:00 and 17:00 on Fridays and don't start running again until an hour after the end of Shabbat, thus why I'm on Ahuva's couch. In theory I could take a taxi back to campus, but I'm a cheapy who doesn't currently have the money for such things. We've had a really lazy day, lots of sleeping and reading and talking. The sun's going down; the first bus reaches here in an hour and a half.

I'm currently reading Ahuva's senior thesis, which is entitled "Concessions, or the Relationship between Sexuality and the Pursuit of Holiness: a Comparative Exploration of Virginity, Marriage, and Contraception in Roman Catholicism and Orthodox Judaism." I'm really enjoying it, and not just because it's an interesting topic. So far my only class here has been ulpan, and that's not academic in the sense of thinking and analyzing and the passage of knowledge from one person (or persons) to another. I'm realizing how much I miss such things now. I guess this is more proof that I'm going into the right field after college--what is sociology if not the making and passing of knowledge?

Spirituality

2009-08-19T19:06:00.003+03:00

I have taken on a new morning spiritual practice: the daily feeding of the strays. I've noticed people feeding the cats in the afternoon--Mrs. Law Librarian seemed pretty set up the other day--but I haven't seen anyone feeding them in the morning. Since I tend to get to campus about ten minutes early, I bought a small box of cat food and started feeding the cats who live in the Humanities Building courtyard. They seem to really appreciate it.

The reason I call this a spiritual practice is how calming the process is for me. It doesn't involve much, just throwing some handfuls of dry cat food on the ground. Cats come running; I put more food in front of the new cats, and then just sit down and watch. I don't do anything, just watch, and it's very calming. Of course, Naftali wants to do more than just eat and watch others eat; twice now he's climbed into my lap and tried to stick his head in the box of cat food. He's very disappointed when I have to force him off to go to class. The rest, though, just eat. I like it. I don't necessarily need to pet the cats; just having them around me, happy, is an amazing experience.

Beer

2009-08-18T18:45:00.003+03:00

Maybe I'm just sheltered, but beer is a much bigger thing here than anywhere I've ever been. The first sentence on the Student Resources page of Hebrew University's overseas website starts with "There's nothing like a beer after a long day of studying." At the lecture on Sunday night, the main rabbi of the JSSC asked if anyone wanted a beer. Last night I sat down in a park and a guy sat down next to me with a beer (and offered me one). I went to a social event at the Jerusalem Open House, and it was a "beer and pizza" night. I got on the bus to go home and there were two guys in the next row with beers. Today I went to a lunch & learn at Hebrew University's synagogue, and the rabbi announced that there were "cold beers in the fridge if anyone wants." JSSC has a Shabbaton this weekend, too, that's advertised as rafting/zip-lining/all-you-can-drink. Even though I'd like to go rafting, I'm skipping the Shabbaton because of that last part--I'm not ready to be stuck in a hostel with a bunch of drunk college students for Shabbat. Somehow, I've managed to avoid doing that so far, even after two years at Brandeis.

I know that the legal drinking age is 18 here, but I still can't believe how visible things are. It seems like everywhere I turn there's someone drinking and/or offering beer. Is it like this in the US, too, once you're 21? Are there rabbis offering beer?

Jeff Seidel Student Center

2009-08-16T21:08:00.005+03:00

There's this thing here called the Jeff Seidel Student Center. I'd like to compare it to Chabad; it's a religious family who invites students into their house for Shabbat and Jewish learning-type things. Only, the family's not Chabad, and the house is more than a house - it's a student center with (supposedly) wireless and computers and a tv and free laundry. They also have this program, $$$ for Learning, where you attend a weekly lecture followed by chevruta learning every Sunday night and earn $60 a month, $100 a month if you also attend lectures at a yeshiva. Doing the math, that's $7.50 an hour, but I don't think I would do it if I wasn't interested in the learning in the first place.

I went to the student center for the first time tonight, mostly for the promise of free Chinese food. The Chinese was fairly awful--okay, really awful--but the lecture was interesting. A Rabbi Friedman talked about the different levels of pleasure--physical, love, meaning, and spiritual. It actually made me think; he said that you should be able to give up one for the next, though you don't necessarily have to. Would one really give up love for spiritual fulfillment? Not infatuation--he talked about the counterfit pleasures on each level (drugs for physical, infatuation for love, looking good but not thinking/acting good for meaning)--but pure love, like mother for child. Is spirituality inherently higher than love, or is this a religious belief? How inherent are our religious beliefs?

I had a good time tonight. I did get the talk about the invalidity of my conversion, and Tzipora (the head of the program for women) did say some obviously biased things about Conservative and Reform Judaism, but I can either keep my mouth shut about certain things or try to refute them when they're too outrageous. (There are more women graduating from Conservative rabbinical school because men no longer feel it's their place, they need to find something different? BS.) Overall, though, I think it will be good. I'm glad; I feel like this kind of learning is a big part of the Israeli experience--or at least, the religious Israeli experince--and I'm glad to be able to take part in it.

Shabbat

2009-08-16T12:37:00.005+03:00

This weekend I had my first real Shabbat in Jerusalem. Last weekend was a bit of a let-down--on Friday night we students davened with a random group at the Regency Hotel who turned out to be some branch of Sephardim that mumble through everything, and then I slept through Saturday morning. This weekend was better. I moved into religious housing for the Shabbat aspect, but it turns out that my roommates either go home or visit family for Shabbat, so I had the apartment to myself. Friday night and Saturday morning I attended Ramat Gan, a Masorti (Conservative) synagogue just five minutes away from Kfar Studentim. I was really surprised to find a Masorti synagogue so close; Orthodox synagogues abound in Jerusalem, but Masorti synagogues are harder to find.

Ramat Gan definitely has an older population, but the congregants are friendly. I met multiple people who had ties to Brandeis, and others who were just curious about what I was studying. I find some comfort in the fact that I was able to understand when the gabbai called out page numbers in Hebrew, even though that's simple vocabulary--Level Alef (1)--and they weren't my page numbers anyway since I was davening out of my Sim Shalom. The d'var Torah was entirely in Hebrew, so I didn't catch much of it--he was talking about democracy and connecting it to the parsha somehow. Maybe I would have understood more had I read the parsha, but I don't know. I think the man who gave the d'var was American; he definitely didn't have an Israeli accent, and I could understand him better than I can understand Israelis. He spoke slower, too. But what good is my Hebrew if I can't understand it when Israelis speak?

I have to go back to class now. Break is over.

Cat food

2009-08-13T20:54:00.004+03:00

Today I followed a string of meows and stumbled upon cat feeding ground. There I found a woman surrounded by what seemed like every cat on campus. The woman, I discovered, is a law librarian who took over the feeding while her friend was away. The cats are taken care of after all; my skinny cat even has a name already, Neftali (which is much better than calling her Bone(s)). Even with the food she brought, though, many of the cats didn't get to eat anything, and those who did eat did so by pushing each other out of the way. None of the cats ate much, but I could tell how glad they were to get what they did.

I think that I'm going to buy a box of cat food next time I go to the grocery store. It doesn't cost that much--10 NIS--and maybe it'll make some of these cats trust me a bit more.

More adventures with Egged

2009-08-10T22:45:00.004+03:00

Tonight I went to visit Ahuva and her friend Alexis. Alexis is also a student at Hebrew University, so I just rode the bus home with her. We had a nice night (dinner and grocery shopping). I am now the proud owner of two bottles of shampoo.

And the night ends. Alexis took me to the bus stop for the 30, the bus she takes to campus every morning. After waiting for 35 minutes, we discovered that this particular bus stopped running at 20:00, and it's now 21:50. Okay. The 19 stops just down the street. Except... there's construction in Jerusalem, so all of these streets are one-way. We essentially wandered from the YMCA to the Old City without finding a stop headed in the right direction. Everywhere we turned there was a 19 headed away from campus, but I didn't want to repeat Tuesday's experience without knowing whether the bus would still run to take me back. It was a bit of a nightmare.

I ended up taking a taxi back, and getting ripped off while I was at it. In Israel you agree on a price before you get in the taxi--in this case, 30 NIS. Only, the taxi driver changed it to 40 NIS right after we left, and I'm exhausted enough that I didn't think to argue and/or find another cab. So I got ripped off. I think I've learned for next time. Only next time, I hope I won't have to take a taxi.

Let me say this once and for all: I HATE YOU, EGGED.

(I think if some third party rode the buses around and created a map of the system, that person would make a whole lot of money...)

Movement

2009-08-10T14:36:00.007+03:00

The first question in a series of yes/no questions on the Hebrew University housing application is "Do you want to live in a shomer Shabbat apartment?" I left the question blank; I am not typically shomer Shabbat, but I wanted to live with other religious students. As a result, the school put me in non-religious housing. My first Shabbat came and went without even feeling like Shabbat. I slept in on Saturday morning and then spent the day on my computer. Friday night meant very little to me--we went to services, but with a minyan which mumbles everything. I know myself. If I'm not with other religious people, I'll ignore everything. There's no reason to do that while I'm living in Jerusalem. So I switched. My new roommates seem nice--a girl from CT named Esti and an Israel whose name I have yet to learn. I like the feeling of sleeping on sheets rather than having a sleeping bag spread over a bed as I had before I moved. The experience will be interesting, I think. Esti said she'd teach me enough about keeping a kosher kitchen that I won't mess up.

My room also has an excellent view. Take a look at this:

(It's even cooler if you click it.)

A move that happened, and another one that didn't. I have a love/hate relationship with ulpan right now. We're doing things that I learned freshman year at Brandeis and/or senior year at AHA--יהיו, תהיה לי, בואי! עליו etc. It's boring. I went to Eilat, the head of the ulpan, yesterday, and she told me that I couldn't move up because I don't have the vocabulary down. I went to her again today, and was told the same thing. I need to work on my speaking skills. I need to work on my reading comprehension. She can't move me; I just need to concentrate on understanding what I hear, and I'm to listen to the CDs of the textbook to learn to understand what I hear. And that's it.

I know that I have this problem. I had it in high school, and I never worked to fix it. I remember, senior year, we had an oral test in Hebrew class on a day that I missed, and Ms. Livnat never made me make it up because she liked me and she knew I'd fail. We didn't have oral quizzes and tests at Brandeis. I passed the classes, but every time it seems like I do it knowing less and less of what I should. Now I get to pay for that, I guess. I'm stuck in bet.

Then, of course, there are the things that are always moving: the cats. I have three whom I've named so far.

The first is WinkieTwin, the first cat I met here. I named him that because he reminds me of my friend Nonny's cat, Winkie. I'm not quite sure where to put him on the friendly scale. He let me pet him the first time I met him, but he ran away the next time. He let me pet him and lay down in my lap, and then he scratched me the time after that. I don't quite understand him.

(Picture to come when I can figure out how to get it off my phone.)

The second cat I've named Malka because I met her on Friday, when one of our teachers likened Shabbat to a queen. She's a friendly one. When I first met her on Friday morning, she followed me halfway down the hill from Kfar HaStudentim (the student village). I saw her again on Friday night with LynleyShimat, an aquaintance from NUJLS. Yes, she is sitting on my skirt. She is also the cat who taught me that cats, even street cats, don't eat PB&J.

The last cat I've already mentioned here, the skinny tabby. It's so sad; he's just skin and bones, and I found a host of wounds on his head and neck today. He's a fighter, I guess, even without getting enough food. I just want to pick him up and take him to a vet and take care of him... out of all the cats around here, it seems like he's the one who takes to being a stray the least. Some of the others--like WinkieTwin and Malka--seem to be doing okay, but he's not. I'm not quite sure about his name yet, but I'm thinking something like Bone or Bones (after the show, not The Immortals Quartet). I'm just not sure how I feel about calling a cat that yet.

זה כל. More later.

Ulpan

2009-08-07T16:10:00.003+03:00

Today ended my first week of ulpan, the two months of intensive Hebrew that come before a semester--or a year--at Hebrew University. I'm really bad at leanguages so I've been joking for a while about it being "two months of torture," but it really isn't bad. In a way, it feels more like CTY camp than actual school. We're in one class for four hours a day, and then we're free. The only difference is that here they give us homework, whereas homework wasn't allowed at CTY.

My class is small, hovering around fifteen people, but I'm amazed at the range of students we have. At least half of the students are older, in their thirties or higher. We have students from Holland, Spain, France, Germany, and a couples places that I don't remember. It's interesting because it means that Hebrew really is our common language; although most of us can speak English, at least one girl can't. It's also a nice break from being around some of my fellow students who are making good use of the fact that the drinking age here is 18. Julia, a 31-year-old German woman, is my first friend here.

Surprisingly, I'm not drowning in my Hebrew class. I have to wonder whether I should be in level gimel (3) instead of level bet (2)--where I placed after forgetting four years worth of barely-learned Hebrew last year--but I like not feeling lost all the time. I may know most of the grammatical concepts we're doing, but I don't think I have enough vocabulary to survive level gimel right now. I do think I'm learning something, though, even if this probably isn't the right level for me. There's a big difference between a Hebrew class where speaking English is allowed and one where there's only Hebrew. We're not memorizing vocabulary based on translation; we're learning it by concept. I think it may actually stick this way, so I'm reluctant to even put words on flash cards as I normally do.

The worst thing about being in level bet is knowing that I will never be able to take a class in Hebrew. You have to be in level hey (5) or vav (6) to do that, and even with ulpan and two semesters in Israel, I won't be able to get that far. There's a class on Israeli children's literature during the spring semester; maybe I can convince the teacher to make an exception. Children's literature's got to be in easy Hebrew, right?

Of travel and cats

2009-08-06T08:06:00.003+03:00

I can't say that I was a fan of the MBTA bus system when I rode it last summer. Busses to Waltham run infrequently, they don't always stop, and passengers don't only need to know what stop they need to get off at, but also the stop before.

The MBTA bus system is perfect compared to the Egged busses in Israel. Stops are not announced on the busses, so you have to know not just the street address of where you're going, but what the area looks like. Bus stops are not clearly labeled with which busses stop where, and the Egged website is really unhelpful—especially when the Trip Planner seems to be broken, because there is no other way to get the bus schedules.

All this amounts to one lost Dev. A friend from Brandeis is finishing up his time at the Conservative Yeshiva, so I went to spend time with him at Ben Yehuda. Had it not been for a friendly Israeli who heard me asking Ari about landmarks, I would have missed my stop entirely. Then, on the way back, I got on the bus in the wrong direction—because Hadassah Hospital and Hadassah University Hospital are not one and the same. I left Ben Yehuda at 9:23; I got home around 11. It was not fun, and I'm not particularly inclined to take the bus again any time soon. Then again, I'm going to have to—taxis are expensive, and there's no other way to get downtown.

In other news, I saw my first indication of kitty hardship yesterday. I sat down on the grass with two cats after class; one a skinny tabby, one a normal-sized black & white. There was no mistaking the tabby's hardship: I could feel his ribs, there were bumps in his fur near his neck, and the fur on his back was oily. The black & white cat didn't come to me for attention as the tabby had; he lay down on the grass a few feet away. He looked like a normal, well-fed house cat at first. Yet, when he got up, I saw a big, furless red patch on his skin where he'd gotten into a fight. Neither of these cats had both full ears—come to think of it, I don't think I've seen many cats with both ears intact, period.

Ulpan has started. I'll write about that later.

Arrival

2009-08-04T07:17:00.000+03:00

I arrived in Israel yesterday, safe and sound but exhausted. The first thing I learned about Israel is exactly how informal things are; as another student put it, they basically said to us, “Great! You’re here! Now go at it.” We arrived at Hebrew University a bit before 8am; the only thing they had scheduled for us after we went through the registration process was a campus tour at 4:30 (16:30), which I slept through. Today’s a bit better: campus tour at 16:30, orientation at 17:30, shopping trip at 19:00. I wonder, though, how they’re going to orient us in an hour and a half to a whole new country. Somehow, I have a feeling that they’re going to leave us to our own devices, to figure out what stores are nearby and what interesting and exciting things are on which bus route—or even how the busses work! That’s what the madrichim are for—our Israeli RAs—but sometimes “just down the street” isn’t literally just down the street, and “the best place to exchange your money is the postal bank” doesn’t necessarily mean the people at the post office will know what you’re talking about.

I seem to have beaten the jetlag. I’m not sure what my body feels like right now, but I think it’s closest to “I just woke up at 7am and am still tired” than anything else—which is exactly where I want it to be. Minus the whole awake-at-7am part, of course. Maybe I’ll take a nap later; there’s only so much time that unpacking can fill, and I’m hesitant to wander around on my own, even with a map.

People say the cats are like squirrels here, and they weren’t exaggerating; they’re everywhere. (Story is that when the Russian immigrants got here they brought cats into the city to get rid of the rats, and they brought just a few too many cats.) I can’t adopt one because we’re not allowed to have pets in the dorm, but maybe I’ll make friends with one or two. There’s one cat that was hanging around the Social Sciences building yesterday who looks like a long-haired version of my friend’s cat Winkie, and I sorta fell in love. So cute; so friendly! My first kitty friend.

I have yet to meet many (any) students other than those who were on my flight with me. I don’t know if it’s because I’m antisocial, because I was absolutely dead yesterday, or whether it’s because most students are arriving today. It’s probably a mix of all three, but I refuse to generalize about my classmates based on meeting only six of them.

More updates to come. This is just the beginning.