camel whisperer

Final Posts: Kelli

2006-10-27T04:55:00.000-04:00

Having sent our giant English-Hebrew dictionary home already in friends’ luggage, we’re left during these last few days with only the sometimes-reliable (and often amusing) electronic dictionary Sarah bought at the beginning of the year. Last night’s attempt to decipher cooking directions on a bag of frozen vegetable couscous: “It says something about an anthology…no, wait, it’s the juice of half a lemon.” I guess we shouldn’t have parted with the big dictionary so soon, but having sent some things home with friends means early efforts at packing are looking good; it seems there will be enough room now for what we brought plus what we bought.

The final photo album is up (click here; use sarandkel at yahoo dot com). Pictures run from mid-August through today’s break from packing—a trip to the Jerusalem Zoo, which has a giant Noah’s Ark (where else but in Jerusalem?). I’m sure Rebekka & Tom have some great photos as they took well over 1,000 during their two weeks here. [Update: the final total was 1,981!] It was like having a photojournalist along, documenting our daily lives with shots we would never think to take: our hummus seller (an Arab man born in our neighborhood before the war, when it was an Arab neighborhood) sharing his recipe with Sarah in the market, a major downtown intersection empty after the Shabbat siren, the desert landscape as seen from the whizzing car. And, we had our first rain in 5 months while they were here! It was just a brief spitting from a mostly cloudless, blue sky—I kept looking up, thinking I was standing under a leaking AC unit—but rain is rain, and it means autumn and then winter at last (my favorite).

Reflections… prize for Most Interesting Roadkill goes to the wild boars in the north (3 of them) and the hyena in the south. I’m going to miss eating fresh, as in picking an orange right off a tree. I’m going to miss the kind of safety I feel here; on the other hand, I look forward to less frequent, more subtle harassment. I won’t miss the disruptive movie intermissions, or the car alarms, which the populace as a whole hasn’t figured out how to turn off and has given up trying. I’ll certainly miss the “realness”—eating when I’m actually hungry, sleeping when I feel tired, and enjoying showers because I really need them after desert hiking, rather than having these things dictated by a schedule predicated on work. I neither love Israel less nor detest it any less than before. I’ve developed an even deeper appreciation of the history here, the ruins and the nature. And I’ve learned some things about myself that I want to change, a realization that probably wouldn’t have materialized during “life as usual” at home.

I still don’t understand this crazy region of the world, where the majority of Saudi Arabia’s produce, which comes from Israel, must go through Jordan first for reboxing because Saudis refuse to accept goods imported from Israel (even though both sides know this happens; hat tip to my mom for that one); where Jews and Arabs, united to prevent the separation wall from splitting a Palestinian village in two, can win their case in the courts and celebrate together with a big picnic; and where if you’re unfortunate enough to get into a car accident and it’s caused by the other driver, that driver will accompany you in the ambulance to the hospital, chewing out the emergency medics the moment they turn their attention away from you, while at the same time berating you for your reckless driving.

Here’s a good summing-up comment our landlady made when her family hosted us for Shabbat dinner during the Sukkot holiday: “You don’t just date Israel—you have to commit to it.” She certainly did, having come to the country from the US for a 3-week study program some 20 years ago, then deciding to stay. This mindset of digging in with your whole self is, I think, the only way immigrants who are successful here can approach life in Israel. Our time here was a 9-month “date,” and for the first time I’m leaving Israel without a sense of when I might return next.

And now, a big thanks to those listed below, who helped shape this adventure.
On the home front:
*Sarah’s dad, Bruce, for serving as Post Master General
*Every one of our visitors: Kyla, Bruce, Ben, & Dave Blattberg; our upstairs neighbor, Kelly; friends Meryl & Kyle (and for bringing Big Red gum); friends Rebekka & Tom (and for packing so little that they took back a bag of our stuff, lightening our load); and Jack & Charlie for trying
*Meryl & Kyle, for storing 1,286 boxes in their basement
*Our DC renter, Michele, for providing us with peace of mind about our home, and for express-mailing my replacement driver’s license
*All who kept in touch through e-mail, calls, and letters
*Both sets of parents, whose unexpected assistance made the prospect of a year without income a little less reeling
*Kyla & Bruce, for offering their Manhattan apartment for Phase II of this year’s experience
*All other offers (time-unlimited!) of places to stay in DC until we finally are back in our home in April
*Youtube, for making us feel like we didn’t miss out on every moment critical to American pop culture this year
*Heidi & Barb, for being the first faces we’ll see when disembarking in DC
*Every one of our blog readers and commenters. Thanks, too, to whoever invented the idea of blogs. It’s been a good learning experience.

In the holy land:
*Friends Jared and Elisa and their kids, Eliana and Aviel, for going beyond the definition of “neighbor” and adopting us into their family. May the Bank of Jared always remain open to those whose wallets are stolen.
*All the acquaintances who, upon just meeting us, invited us to join their lovely Shabbat dinners
*The yummy vegetarian restaurants that kept us happy, especially Village Green
*The people of Ulpan Akiva, who jump-started our Hebrew skills at the beginning of the year, then gently shoved us out of the nest and into the real world of communicating
*Those Israelis who showed patience with our Hebrew—in particular, postal workers for their encouragement, and bus and taxi drivers for the free practice sessions
*The crew at Avis
*The neighborhood vendors we’ve come to know: the staff at Little House in Baka (local hotel), the Fruit Guys, the Laundry Guys, the people at Pizza Sababa, Judy and the owner at the little health food shop, the Potato Lady, and the Crabby Man (who was later upgraded to the Sometimes Gruff Man)

Here’s how Israeli novelist Amos Oz describes his fellow citizens: “a warm-hearted, hot-tempered Mediterranean people that is gradually learning, through great suffering and a tumult of sound and fury, to find release both from the bloodcurdling nightmares of the past and from delusions of grandeur, both ancient and modern.” That’s pretty good.

Be seeing many of you soon, either in DC or NY!

Final Posts: Sarah

2006-10-25T06:19:00.000-04:00

I haven’t left Israel yet and I’m already missing it. This surprises me as much as it may surprise you, since I felt very ready to leave about two months ago. Now I’m not so sure. Monday we dropped off our last visitors at the airport, then went to return the rental car. When we told our Avis guy it was our last time, he was so genuinely sincere about us having a good flight back and that it “had been really nice” that I started feeling melancholy. The feeling was to intensify when I went to our local supermarket to do a bit of shopping. (Spent most of Rebekka and Tom’s visit on the road, so the cupboards were bare.) I asked some of the supermarket folks what the secret spice was for couscous (I’m sure there is one! Couscous just doesn’t taste the same at home), and they couldn’t come up with anything more than chicken broth. I was disappointed, but as I was leaving, one of the managers called me back, asked if I spoke French, then gave me his wife’s home AND cell phone numbers. So I had a lovely (halting) French conversation with Suzanne that evening. Would that happen in DC?? I recognize that may very well happen in small-town Iowa or wherever, but this is Jerusalem, Israel’s biggest city (700,000 people). Sigh. (p.s. Suzanne just uses soup broth, too, so I’m still stuck.)

This whole experience has been both exactly what I expected and nothing like what I thought it would be. It’s going to take some time for me to process it all, and by then we won’t be blogging anymore. I came to Israel with the fear that I might be totally changed and lose my sense of self. I come away with a strong belief that I am very committed to being who I am and perhaps too rigid to really allow change. A book I’m reading said it better than I can: “I understand now how little mere travel gives to a man. Unless the spirit expands with the explosion of space about him, he returns the same man as he went out.” (Morris West, “The Shoes of the Fisherman”) I came thinking I might feel a desire to incorporate more Jewish ritual into my life; I *think* I’m leaving with a deep questioning about the value of this (or any) religion at all. I try to approach everyone with friendliness (sort of hard to do given my innate distrust of people) and have found that Israelis (including Jewish, Muslim, and Christian) are, by and large, happy to have us here. It’s yucky in the context of broader politics, but so very nice on a personal, day-to-day basis. Kelli and I agree we won’t ever travel anywhere to such a warm welcome and feeling of belonging. We’ve had more than one person try to convince us to move since, in the words or our health food store owner, “Two such as you, with your wonderful smiles, we need that here.”

Enough heavy talk—on to a brief recap of our last visitors’ visit! We counted having met 6 different deaf people (what a difference signing all the time makes)—Arabs and Jews (Ethiopian, Russian, and ?). The last was during Rebekka & Tom’s final morning as we attempted to visit the Dome of the Rock—no access to non-Muslims as it was Eid al-Fitr, the holiday that marks the end of Ramadan. An Arab motioned that the door I was heading towards was locked, and since he was gesturing, I gestured back. Before we knew it, we were having a long conversation with him, learning all about his history, family, politics, and life in the Arab quarter of the Old City. Finally, we were invited back to his home. We couldn’t refuse. It was a wonderful ending to their whirlwind trip.

Stay tuned for Kelli’s final blog in the next day or two.

A different kind of Tent City

2006-10-08T10:28:00.000-04:00

{posted by Kelli}

While students at Gallaudet University resurrect their Tent City from last May to continue their protest of the choice of a new president, we in Israel can’t walk ten feet without bumping into a tent.

Sukkot has begun, the seven-day Feast of Tabernacles/Festival of Booths commemorating the Israelites’ wandering in the desert, where they constructed temporary dwellings, or “booths,” as they traveled. Unlike other holidays on the Jewish calendar, this one is celebrated by all—secular and religious. It involves building one’s own sukkah (rather like a tent) to exact specifications: a temporary enclosure with an entrance and the ability to see the sky, which usually means large palm leaves laid across the top so you can still see the stars. Live in a city apartment? With a few modifications, your balcony becomes your sukkah. Don’t have a balcony? Put a sukkah up in your building’s parking lot, or right out on the sidewalk (see first photo, which begs the question, if sukkahs are on the sidewalks, where will people park now?). Then let the decorating begin. People hang representations (or the real thing) of various produce that is in season, paper chains made by the kids, and silly lights inside their tents. Really religious sukkahs have little hanging Santas(!) A coffee shop in our neighborhood has a sukkah made of burlap coffee bean bags with hanging travel mugs decorating the ceiling in rows. Goofy and tacky are unabashedly the common goals, such that the tents look like rows of playhouses. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think the country was on a simultaneous remodeling spree.

Once your sukkah is ready, what to do with it? All meals for the week should be taken in the sukkah, and some people even sleep in theirs, making it a fun “camping” experience for kids, who are off school all week. What if you don’t feel like cooking? Practically every restaurant has a sukkah right now, from the top-notch establishments to the ice cream parlors to the Burger Ranch. Another requirement is to invite guests and strangers to gather in your sukkah for meals, and this is taken seriously. Tents are set up in public places to feed homeless and poor people so that they, too, can satisfy the requirement to eat in a sukkah. Friday night, the first night of Sukkot (which also happened to be Shabbat), we joined three other guests for dinner in our landlords’ sukkah, which had bunches of fresh dates, a chandelier, and plastic grapes that glowed on and off.

It is an incredibly festive week here, reminiscent of the height of this summer when countless festivals were happening. Having never spent Sukkot in Israel, this is fast becoming my favorite holiday here. Celebrations this week include festivals for tomatoes, grapes, olives, dates (no less than three of these), wine, the desert, film, dance, kites, science fiction, aviation, and New Age music. There’s a circus, the Taste of Jerusalem food festival, city walking tours, and guided hikes in the north where participants help clear and replant forests that saw war damage.

Before Sukkot began, we two took our last little road trip together, this one to the south. I did a couple of somewhat difficult desert hikes around the Ein Gedi oasis, where the rewards come in the form of hidden ruins and surprise springs. At one remote waterfall, I peered down a short, steep rock cliff with about a dozen iron handles sticking out of it—the way down to reach the pool at the bottom. Suddenly, up popped a leathery Israeli woman in a sport bikini and hiking sandals who, when my hesitation about descending the cliff became obvious, scrambled up the iron handles, then pointed down and said, “I’m 71. Now, go.” So I did.

Most refreshing was the swimming pool at Kibbutz Ein Gedi, where we stayed overnight. Such a wonderful setting, and I don’t even like deserts. On the way back home, we stopped at the secluded St. George’s Monastery, which was built in the year 480 CE in a niche in a deep ravine in the desert cliffs near Jericho (see second photo). You leave your car at the top and walk down a steep, narrow road between canyon walls, then come around a curve to see the monastery complex perched on the side of the cliff in front of you. We talked a while with one of the three Greek Orthodox monks who maintain the old chapels there. Another strange sight going back into Jerusalem was all the cars heading from the desert back to the city with palm branches for sukkahs strapped on their roofs. Reminded me of cars carting Christmas trees home.

Just before Sukkot, during the High Holy Days that mark the Jewish New Year, there were lots of year-end retrospectives in the paper, the kind we have in the states around Dec. 31. (Side note: one article examined the current status of Ethiopian Jewry in Israel, numbered at 105,000. You might remember Israel’s airlifts, titled Operation Moses and Operation Solomon, of Jews out of famine-racked Ethiopia in the 1980s. In Israel, where 26% of the population is living under the poverty line, they remain on the lowest rungs of integrated society here economically, socially, and educationally. The article was about Ethiopian-Israeli Jewish kids trying to juggle school (not generally valued by older generations) and family responsibilities, such as interpreting between their parents and doctors, teachers, banks, etc., while also working to earn money for “the usual things we need, like school books, student ID cards, removing the cross tattoos from our foreheads, and bus tickets.” Yes, removing cross tattoos from foreheads—remnants from pre-airlift days when Ethiopian Jews pretended to convert to Christianity but still practiced Judaism in secret—is considered a typical expense in these teens’ lives.)

Anyway, the timing of the year-end reviews rather matches the end of our time here, so it fast-forwarded me mentally to our leaving. We’re planning out the last few movies to rent on our 25-movie membership, and last movies to see with our local theater pass. Yesterday we finally went to the beautiful St. Peter’s Church, the site where Jesus was imprisoned before crucifixion, after a last visit to Sarah’s cousin in the Old City. Rebekka & Tom arrive early Tuesday morning, so they’ll get to see Jerusalem in the throes of Sukkot before we all head south for five days and then north for four. Then, just four days after they leave, we fly home. Only three weeks from yesterday, but I’m not counting ;)

News of the Weird

2006-10-01T09:32:00.000-04:00

Photo of graffiti on a trash can outside our post office

{posted by Kelli}

With the northern road trip done—a few hard hikes, yet more ruins, occasional sightings of Katyusha rocket holes, and the tranquility of a vegetarian vacation village—I am, true to form, looking ahead to this week’s overnight trip to the Ein Gedi Kibbutz, with more hikes and with pools both of the natural and built kinds. Taking a few moments now to share some odd tidbits from the news and a few observations.

>The Chicken-Swinging Holiday has come and gone. Friday’s papers were full of photos of a Jewish ritual, called kapparah, that I was hoping not to stumble upon as a witness: the symbolic transferring of one’s sins over the past year onto a live chicken, which is done by swinging the chicken counter-clockwise over one’s head while reciting “This is my exchange, my substitute, my atonement. This rooster (for men)/hen (for women) shall go to its death, but I shall go to a good, long life and to peace.” Then the chicken is slaughtered and is usually offered as food to poor people, similar to what happens to bulls after bullfights. This took place in markets and street corners throughout the city—even at the Western (Wailing) Wall. Animal rights groups in Israel are all over it; even people within highly religious circles are trying to put an end to it, claiming the practice is not in the Torah or Talmud but merely a superstitious custom.
In other holiday news, we’re in the midst of the month-long Muslim festival of Ramadan, where daily sunup to sundown hours of fasting are marked by cannon blasts.

>The two remaining embassies in Israel’s capital city of Jerusalem have joined all the other embassies in moving to Tel Aviv. Costa Rica and El Salvador recently relocated their embassies to the “cultural capital,” underscoring the world’s non-recognition of Jerusalem as the capital. (The original 1947 UN plan of partition, creating an Arab state and a Jewish state, called for Jerusalem to be an international city. In the ensuing War of Independence/Al-Nakba (or “disaster”; in our home we play it safe with the term “War of ’48”), Jordan won control of East Jerusalem and the Old City. In the 6-day war of ’67, Israel reunited/conquered Jerusalem and made it the official capital.) Is Israel the only country in the world where embassies aren’t in the capital city?

>The Israeli army, working with settlers, farmers, and left-wing activists, is promising a calm olive harvest for Palestinian growers this season, which runs now until Dec. Previous years have seen Jewish settlers burning groves and attacking farmers who attempt to harvest their crops. Central Command issued restriction orders for 16 right-wing activists, preventing them from entering the West Bank. Barring any violent incidents, some 40 tons of olives will be picked this year, although it remains to be seen what will happen to farmers who are cut-off from their fields by the separation wall dividing the West Bank and Israel. One glitch this year is that because of Israel’s policy of not talking to Hamas, each Palestinian farmer had to be approached individually for coordination purposes.

>In more successful cooperation news, there are no less than 200 “co-existence” programs in Israel, mainly targeting children. There are schools that teach Arab and Jewish students alongside each other, with curricula that include both groups’ languages, customs, holidays, and histories. There are mixed sports activities and art programs. There’s even a co-existence deaf school. On last week’s road trip, we tried (the timing didn’t work out) to arrange a visit to Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salaam, a village founded by Jewish and Palestinian Arab Israeli citizens and based on cooperation and equality between the two groups.

>Another theft of army weapons was successfully carried out last week. As in previous incidents, the unknown thieves stole grenades and missiles right off an army base. Before you assume these weapons will be used for terror activities (by either side), you should only know that they will most likely show up in assassination attempts of Israeli mobsters. Handguns no longer do the trick here since kingpins got bulletproof cars, so crime bosses have taken to firing missiles at each other. Ah, the ingenuity of Israelis.

>Had a taste of life on the other side of the wall recently. To get to Bethlehem, only a few miles south of Jerusalem, we first took an Arab bus (minivan, really) to the separation wall, then walked right through the checkpoint while showing passports, and then took a Palestinian cab the rest of the way to town. Coming back later that afternoon took considerably longer. The line at the checkpoint at the wall (which is covered in political graffiti—much in English—on the Palestinian side but is completely untouched on the Israeli side) was short but not moving. We stood with around 10 people also trying to cross into Israel, people who wait in this line, or any of the dozens of others along the border, each day with permits to work or visit relatives in Israel. Unlike most checkpoint lines, where you stand outside, this crossing is also used by tourists traveling between Jerusalem and Bethlehem, and it is in a large, sterile sort of warehouse where orders are barked through a speaker. No one tells you what the holdup is; you really can’t figure out what’s going on or how long it might take to get through. The people we asked around us said it’s always like that.

>For the first time that I can recall, Sarah isn’t attending any High Holy Day services this year—not Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur—nor fasting on Yom Kippur. A Tel Aviv blogger wrote that she’s fasting…between meals. (A note on Jewish identity here vs. in the diaspora: in the states, “Jewish” is defined primarily as your religion, so Jewish identity is commonly expressed through synagogue attendance, membership, and involvement. In Israel, much of the Jewish population has never set foot in a synagogue—even on important holidays—but nevertheless considers themselves 100% Jewish. Judaism is defined as neither exclusively a religion nor an ethnic group but a civilization that includes both of these features to varying degrees for different people. Here’s a great commentary on the different perspectives on Jewish identity: When Golda Meir was Prime Minister, back in ’69-’74, she tried to encourage Henry Kissinger to make Israel a top priority. He sent her a letter: “I would like to inform you that I’m first an American citizen; second, Secretary of State; and third, a Jew.” Golda responded, “In Israel, we read from right to left.”)

Getting back to Sarah…what’s more, for the first time since the Hoover administration, she’s not wearing her Star of David necklace. After removing it to swim with friends’ kids at our neighborhood pool last month, she didn’t feel like putting it back on. “So,” you say, “you go all the way to Israel for the year, and this is what happens?” Go figure. (A note on pools: there aren’t many here, aside from the fancier hotels. Our local one, Olympic-sized, is one of only 3 public pools in the city, reflecting the region’s never-ending problem with water supply. During the Crusader period, European-style castles were built all over the country—our favorite ruins to explore—with the standard moat feature. Not being natives, the designers never thought of the lack of water, which prevented their moats from ever getting wet.)

Friends Rebekka & Tom arrive a week from Tuesday. Hope they have high camera capacity, as their visit is twice as long as Meryl & Kyle’s was, and those two filled up two memory cards—that’s 400 pictures in 7 days!

Happy New Year

2006-09-24T15:02:00.000-04:00

photo of Meryl with her big archaeological discovery

{posted by Kelli}

Sept. visitors just left, and the country’s in the midst of the High Holy Days: Rosh Hashanah and, ten days later, Yom Kippur. Between these holidays we’ll make a four-day road trip to the north and an overnight trip to the south, after which friends will visit for a couple of weeks in mid-Oct. And we finally have tickets back to the states—Oct. 28! The few remaining free days between now and the end of Oct. will be filled with some of those things we haven’t managed to do yet—the Jerusalem zoo, more self-guided walking tours—and with goodbyes and thanks to friends and favorite restaurants and stores. Now that plans for leaving are definite, I’m finding it hard sometimes to stay present in what we’re doing here and occasionally slip into thinking about what the next phase, five months in Manhattan, will be like. I feel like I’m already starting to retreat from the people (meaning strangers and acquaintances) here—not an easy thing to do, since they mostly don’t allow such disengagement!

Highlights of Meryl & Kyle’s week-long trip here included important archaeological finds (for Kyle, a half-buried human bone and beautiful pottery shards from an abandoned 8th century CE—considered “new”—palace; for Meryl, a “sundial” among the ruins on Masada that strangely resembled a modern garbage can); learning how Jesus can be made into a commodity, even in the Holy Land; and daily doses of Nok Out ice cream bars. With no wars raging and school back in session, we four found the country’s tourist sites open and virtually empty—more deserted than I’ve ever seen, though tourism will pick up during the holidays, from now until Sukkot is over mid-Oct. Only half of the galleries and shops have reopened in the northern town of Tzfat, which received a few Katushya rockets over the summer; some residents have yet to return there. The other noticeable after-effect of the war is the reduced quality and quantity of produce for all of us, as much of the country relies on the north for fruits and veggies, and many fields there were unable to be harvested this year. Olive and grape season is just beginning and seems to be flourishing as usual, and pomegranates and fresh figs are back!

This week I saw what felt like a real first: a cloud. Not having seen a single cloud in the relentlessly blue skies over Jerusalem since April, I’m reveling in the advent of autumn here with its comfy temps in the 70s in the city. You’ll understand why I startled recently when the bright sun streaming through our windows suddenly went out as a cloud passed by. I truly didn’t know what had happened.

On the road tomorrow to do what I like best: explore a list of new places and revisit, once more, some old favorites.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

2006-09-13T05:45:00.000-04:00

{posted by Kelli}

Good:
Getting a call from dear friends that they’ll be coming to see you in Israel next week!
Yep, friends who had planned to see us in Sept. but cancelled due to the summer’s war will be arriving tomorrow for a week. This will be the Jesus Tour, as I’ve planned lots of pilgrimage sites for them—primarily Jerusalem, Nazareth, and miracles around the Sea of Galilee. And, of course, the requisite desert day at the Dead Sea, Masada, and Ein Gedi oasis.

Bad:
Having your wallet stolen out of your bag, right from under your nose.
Most items, like the bit of cash, weren’t important and can be replaced, but getting a new driver’s license from DC is going to take some time. Seeing as how I’m going to be driving a rental car something like 20 of the next 30 days, this could be a problem. I do have a police report as “proof” of license if I’m pulled over. Friends who immigrated here say they drove years without licenses and always managed to get away with it.

These are the times when you appreciate the US. Dealing with customer service at our credit card companies via the phone was like eating comfort food when you’ve have a bad day (for me, mac ‘n cheese and blueberry muffins—both the kind from the box). The caring, friendly voice. . . yes, I’m describing customer service in the US, something we often bad-mouth until we live somewhere that doesn’t have it at all. Shortly after making all the necessary calls to cancel accounts and so on, an unscheduled episode of “Friends” came on TV, and at that moment my new (albeit short-lived, I’m guessing) love affair with America grew even deeper.

Ugly:
Sexism.
We both are having an increasingly difficult time dealing with regions where Middle Eastern culture is still so heavily male-dominated. Our time in Jordan, experiences in certain areas of Jerusalem, and last Sunday in nearby Bethlehem are taking their toll. As women traveling without men in such places, there is nearly non-stop attention ranging from unwanted brushes in passing to serious offers of marriage. Our cab driver in Bethlehem offered Sarah no less than 100 camels if she’d just say yes. (In 1997, another cab driver in Bethlehem offered a male friend we traveled there with just 4 camels for Sarah. Inflation!)

The line is too thin between not wanting to disrespect cultural norms, such as hospitality, and perpetuating damaging gender roles. Our series of experiences has left a bad taste in my mouth—luckily, though, not of all of Israel, as this isn’t a problem everywhere. But I do think this will influence where I decide to spend time in the world in the future.

Can’t end on “Ugly,” so here’s another “Good”:
We’re planning to be home in time for our annual tradition of joining friends in their Halloween-celebrating suburb. This means dropping the idea of a week tour in Egypt after our Oct. friends leave, but given our current feelings described under “Ugly,” this doesn’t feel like much of a sacrifice. The stories from women travelers in Egypt are beyond disheartening. I don’t think my psyche could take it. After a few days in DC, we’ll go to NYC the beginning of Nov. to settle for the next five months.
This plan was just developed last night over dinner, so we’ll keep you informed if it changes.

Back from "The Bubble"

2006-09-07T09:27:00.000-04:00

{posted by Sarah}

It seems to me that calling Tel Aviv “the bubble” is like dismissing DC as “inside the Beltway,” as if no real people live there, when in fact nothing could be further from the truth. Tel Aviv, a thriving metropolis that (right now) is a bit run-down, is indisputably Israel’s cultural capital. People from all walks of life find themselves there doing whatever it is people do. And since it’s on the Mediterranean coast, much of the doings involve the sea, which, at this time of year, is WARM!!! Delightfully so to my mind, having grown up near a much colder body of water.

We arrived in the afternoon on Tuesday, got ourselves to our hotel, and took off for the nearby beach. I almost cried that evening, sitting in beach chairs, enjoying a simple dinner and watching the waves. It was wonderful and set the tone for the week—some beach time every day. I had much fun jumping waves although I did get body slammed a few times and took in more salt water nasally than was desired. Not to mention the sand in every orifice and crease I have. How does it get there?

On Shabbat (Saturday), we went to the beach only to find what I think you could call baby tsunami waves. I’ve never seen waves that high, and the water washed all the way up the beach so much so that more than half the beach chairs that are set out (for rental) were sitting in pools of water. It was exciting, scary, and ultimately gross, since every wave picked up people’s stuff from the beach so that the “pools” became awash in cigarette butts, flip-flops, and other detritus.

Back to what makes up Tel Aviv people-wise. Tattoos, multiple piercings, and dreds seem to be the norm. It’s nothing to see a young couple, heavily inked and pierced, wearing the requisite black clothing, looking just a bit mean, toting their adorable 16-month-old around in a baby carrier. Welcome to Tel Aviv. Although there are religious people in Tel Aviv, it’s overwhelmingly secular there. On the train ride back, an Israeli woman could not get over the fact that a lesbian couple would choose to live in Jerusalem—which, after all, attempts to cancel or otherwise block the Gay Pride Parade every year—when in Tel Aviv you have to search for a straight bar. (Her impressions, not ours, since we’re not bar people and didn’t go to any bars or clubs while there.) While Kelli kept forgetting Tel Aviv is in the Jewish state, we both think the city epitomizes the Israeli state. Nothing says this better than the lifeguards’ comments. It’s been a while since I’ve been to an American beach, but I can’t remember a time when they yelled over the loudspeaker, “Hey, you! Guy with the red bathing suit—come closer in! The sea is dangerous today! What were you thinking?! Oy va voy!” (something like “Oh my God”) We heard such chastising several times a day coming from the big, wooden lifeguard shacks overlooking the shore, along with the threatening—and largely ignored—“We’re leaving in 45 minutes and you’ll all be on your own! Come out of the water, you’ve had enough for the day! Everyone start coming out, ‘cause we’re going home!”

Besides the beach, we went to a few stores (I’m on the hunt for my next Tarot deck and had to look despite knowing I already have the decks that would most likely be in Israel), and we ate. Boy, did we eat. Yum! Our dining ran the gamut from the 10 shekel (less than $3) delicious tofu sandwich we had at the pinko-commie-anarchist bookstore/café to the much more expensive meal we enjoyed at an all-organic restaurant which practically had Kelli in tears. The tofu was marinated in red wine and apples, and that was just the beginning of all the deliciousness there. Also, at a vegan snack bar called Buddha Burgers, we had the best lemonade with mint we’ve ever had, bar none. Not to mention our favorite vegan soul food joint that we always visit when we get to Tel Aviv.

Our hotel had AC and cable, 2 delightful inventions we don’t enjoy in our Jerusalem abode, so we also spent a fair amount of time channel surfing in a chilly room. It seems to be a truism that when you have cable, you must watch, even when there’s nothing on, and we could be found at midnight still channel surfing, just in case…

Lest you think we’re total sloths, we did make it to the Eretz Israel Museum, which has 8 different pavilions and active archaeological digs on site! Some of the pavilions we visited include the region’s history of coins (more interesting than it sounds), stamps/mail (hence the above blown-up picture of a real letter), ceramics, mosaics, and a really interesting exhibition on the Templer Society. I think we may have posted already on this community, but we live near what is called the German Colony, named after this group of Christian, pioneering Zionists who broke from the Lutheran church in the 1860s and were eventually expelled from Israel when their descendants became allied with the Nazi party during and after WWII. Fascinating story; more info can be found here.

We also went to the old port town of Jaffa, which is technically a part of the city nowadays but still has a different feel with a larger Arab population. I bought a swank pair of shoes that are made by a woman according to your specifications. You pick the shape, all the fabrics and color combinations, and the style, and they make the shoes! They have several ready-made examples, and that’s what I got rather than try to make all those decisions. We then bought some breadstuffs (yay for melawach!) from the famous Aboulafia bakery and walked along the promenade all the way back to our hotel at sunset.

Jerusalem the Mirage

2006-08-27T05:37:00.000-04:00

{posted by Kelli}

The photo is of a Rodin sculpture at the Israel Museum, where we went to the (unrelated) bread exhibit and festival, learning about—and eating—breads of various communities in the country. We especially liked the loaves stamped with various Christian designs that looked like coats-of-arms. There was a video showing a Muslim tradition where a couple on their wedding day splats a small hunk of bread dough with plastic flowers stuck in it over the pre-moistened doorway of their house. If the dough falls off, their relationship is doomed. Orthodox Christian Ethiopians bake a large, round loaf for a wedding, then punch out the middle and hold the ring of bread up to frame the bride’s face. Then her new name is pronounced to her through the ring by everyone assembled, one by one. There was also a video showing the production of matzah (tasteless Passover cracker) that you’d swear was on fast-forward, with workers scrambling to make a finished product in less than 18 minutes. Any matzah that passes this deadline, from the moment water is added to flour until it is done baking, must be discarded.

A recent mailing from the Jerusalem municipality lists the various “happenings” (an English crossover word used to mean festivals and the like) planned for the city for the rest of the summer. The Hebrew title of the mailing is “Yerushalayim—ein od ir k’zo!” meaning “Jerusalem—there’s no other city like it!” When you turn the mailing over to the side translated into English, however, the title is printed as “Jerusalem—there’s no such city!”
Darn. Just when I was getting used to the place.

As much as I do like Jerusalem, I’m very, very antsy to get back to our pre-summer activity of exploring the country, and with the northern war over, we plan to resume road tripping. . . just as soon as this heat goes away, which should be about another month. Every day it’s in the 90s in Jerusalem, which, considering there’s no humidity, beats summers in DC, but still precludes much activity. We’ve been bearing it by continuing to spend the hot days inside where only a ceiling fan helps move the air around (no AC) and not going out until after sundown. We did finally break down and get a floor fan, which means fairly comfortable sleeping at night again.

Our first trip begins Tuesday with a week in Tel Aviv. I know—it will be humid there in addition to hot, but we had previously agreed to our landlord’s request to vacate the apartment the last week of August during their son’s bar mitzvah so that grandma can stay here. And since our visa extension appointment at the Ministry of Interior was a big success—we are cleared to stay another 3 months, which is more than enough to make it to the planned departure date of early November—we no longer have to leave the country in August in order to get new visas. And since we’ve spent almost no time in Tel Aviv this year, that’s where we’re headed, with a list of things to see and do that will probably go mostly ignored as we rediscover the wonder that is air conditioning.

There is much post-war fallout in Israel now—the discussion kind of turmoil, not the low-level bursts of violence that continue here and there in southern Lebanon and in Gaza and the West Bank. A loud clamor has risen from the Movement for Quality Government for a Supreme Court-led investigation into war missteps. Then there are the reservists who were called up to serve in Lebanon last month who are now calling for all the top dogs to resign over their shoddy handling of the war. Israel’s active army is quite small, so when something breaks out like it did in July, it’s mainly reservists who drop everything and join in when they get the (newly automated) phone call. Their complaints include that they were unprepared (lack of clear directions), ill-equipped (having to find food in Lebanese homes and stores), and unnecessarily placed in harm’s way (due to lack of overall planning by the top brass). Protesting daily outside the prime minister’s office, we now have both the Movement for Quality Government and, just down the sidewalk, the reservists’ group joined by families of soldiers who died.

The Kadima party’s plans for evacuating most of the West Bank have been pushed to the back burner so far that they’ve fallen behind the stove. Seeing as how that issue was what gave Kadima its big win in the spring election, no one knows where this plan—or this fledgling political party—is headed now. Many predict Olmert’s not going to last long. And then there are the recent charges, first of indecent assault against the justice minister, who stepped down, and now of sexual assault against the president. There’s a call from some in the Knesset to do away with the institution of the presidency all together (along with the president himself), as the position isn’t even significant enough to be called a figurehead. All these challenges, plus putting the north back together, are consuming Israelis these days.

Next post will be next week’s report on the “bubble” that is life in Tel Aviv.

Operation Back to Normal

2006-08-16T08:10:00.001-04:00

{posted jointly}

FROM SARAH
Here’s the crazy thing about Israel: rockets were falling (let’s hear it for ceasefires!) and people were dying and all manner of bad things were happening and still do happen and yet, there we were in our favorite veggie restaurant, which is on a BUSY main street, and a young mom had to take her 5-year-old son to the restroom, so she LEFT her 3-year-old son alone outside the restaurant (they have outdoor seating as well) and she sort of motioned to us with a smile to keep an eye on him through the window from our indoor table. Crazy. Of course, we didn’t take our eyes off him, but we could have been anybody. Don’t child kidnappers often appear to be friendly and harmless?
I’m going to miss that—the sense that it is safe here, that people can generally be trusted and you can walk late at night without worry. I’m especially going to miss the latter. I almost never walk after dark in my own neighborhood (a very desirable area of DC), and I hate that I don’t feel comfortable when I do.

WorldPride has come and gone, and I have to admit that we didn’t take part in very much of it—a movie here, a rally there—so I can’t comment on the overall success or lack thereof. The events I did attend didn’t draw more than a few hundred people and close to no protesters at all. For instance, the gay youth meeting at the Knesset, with about 90 participants, was supposed to have attracted 2,000 religious opponents outside the building; six showed up and stood around, shuffling their feet. As a volunteer during the week, I was privy to much of the disorganization of the hard-working planning group which, predictably, made me crazy and impatient, even if it is the Israeli way. We were in the office one day, offering to do whatever needed to be done, and it wasn’t until a few hours before the main protest that someone finally asked us to design and paint huge banners in English and Hebrew. Well, there wasn’t much time left at that point to do a bang-up job, but a banner did get made, which you saw if you looked at our latest batch of photos linked in the last blog post.

We did, however, attend the international arts and crafts fair one evening to see one of our favorite Israeli bands, Tipex (or Tipeks, or, most hilariously, Tea Packs), perform in the outdoor space known as Sultan’s Pool. [From Kelli: I love that in Israel, titles like these aren’t just for show. The venue, an excavated archaeological site, actually used to be the pool of the sultan. On the other hand, another venue here, the Yellow Submarine, is neither yellow nor a submarine.] I was surprised to see what a multi-generational crowd Tipex drew. Although they were playing late at night, many families were there with very little ones, and the teenagers were dancing up a storm in front of the stage. A good time was had by all, even the grandmother I saw chair-dancing across the aisle!

Another performance I saw recently was a one-woman show by a Japanese-American who was a dancer in LA and NY before meeting a Jewish man, converting, and beginning the journey to becoming orthodox. He wasn’t religious before they met but said he couldn’t marry a non-Jew, so she started studying and converted; my guess is it was a Reform conversion. After their first son was born, they met an orthodox mohel (the person who does the circumcision) who introduced them to other orthodox people, and voilà! Now she wears a wig and lives in the Old City. The performance was for females only, since a religious woman wouldn’t perform in front of men. I was the only woman there wearing pants. And from what I could tell, I was the only one who didn’t think the performance was “awesome!!!!.” She announced that she’d been unable to find a babysitter, so her two little sons were there. After some serious disruptions by the older one, a friend in the audience took them outside. In a surprising twist, my cousin was in the audience, so we got to visit a little, which was nice. The show was held in a community center housed in a bomb shelter; now I can say I’ve been in one.

FROM KELLI
With yesterday’s tenuous ceasefire, northern Israel is determined to immediately return to normal life. I don’t know about you, but I always thought a ceasefire was something to be watched closely for a little while before making any big decisions. Not so here. Something called Operation Back to Normal (I’m not making this up) was instantly put into place yesterday. The bus and train companies are shuttling northern residents back to their homes for free, and all the media outlets talk about the war as part of recent history. “Now that it’s all over, let’s analyze the government’s missteps.” “Here are the final casualties and costs from the war.” “How Israel won, and why Hezbollah lost.” It’s weird, but it works psychologically at some level. Maybe if you get enough people on both sides talking about it in past tense, you really think it’s over, and then it really is.

There are some who are returning to “normal life” more quickly than others, as with these enterprising entrepreneurs in an article in the paper “Ha’aretz”:
Extreme travel: Tour guides sell 'Katyusha circuit'
Travel agents recently asked the operators of Gonen Holiday Village to arrange a "Katyusha trail" tour of the area and sightseeing at damaged locations throughout the Galilee. Ori Alon, marketing director of the kibbutz resort, located near Kiryat Shmona, said that "people want to come and express solidarity, and see what took place in the North over the past month." She said the site is planning a package that will include visits to Kibbutz Kfar Giladi, which suffered both casualties and property damage, visits to homes in Kiryat Shmona that were hit by rockets, and meetings with people who spent time in bomb shelters. The package will also include visits to regional historic sites and an evening sing-along.

A sing-along? Is this like that high school cheer, “We’ve got spirit, yes we do. We’ve got spirit, how ‘bout you?”

About 40,000 of the 500,000 northern residents who left their homes became temporary guests here in Jerusalem, in some cases staying in empty school buildings and being paired with local families for meals, laundry, and shower needs. They received discounts at some restaurants and free or reduced entrance to the many festivals, concerts, etc., going on. The city even changed the weekly siren announcing the beginning of Shabbat to play music so as not to further alarm the temporary residents. Jerusalem found itself in an interesting situation of reversed roles. Whereas the rest of the country usually points to the capital as the most dangerous area (and it often is, what with suicide bombings during intifadas), this summer J’lem became the place to be. The city did much to help those who stayed in the north, too, sending “From Jerusalem to the North with Love” bus caravans to the shelters, carrying food, wheelchairs, vets, a children’s library, fire fighters, and counselors who advised northern counselors on helping people there cope with the kind of anxiety more commonly seen in Jerusalem. There was even a traveling petting zoo! One big turtle made the northern rounds a couple of times and became a popular “mascot” for the kids.

Northerners, too, helped fellow northerners at the height of the war, as in this case, reported in “Ha’aretz”:
Conversations with foreign journalists at Hotel Hagoshrim teach that at the end of four weeks, the war is continuing to be a major issue in the media worldwide. The Foreign Ministry has also realized the potential and two weeks after the start of the war it set up a permanent station in the lobby, in an attempt to make matches between foreign correspondents and "human stories" from the Israeli home front. Last weekend, for example, it was suggested that reporters cover the enlistment of the Association of Gays, Lesbians, Bisexuals and Transgenders in Israel [an organization in the north] to cheer up the children in the shelters in Kiryat Shmona. “The interaction between the basically traditional and conservative population in Kiryat Shmona and the gay association is unusual and interesting to view," declared the Foreign Ministry bulletin board in the lobby at Hotel Hagoshrim.

Because nothing says “national unity” like a visit from gay boys with feather boas.

There are, of course, the emotional long-term effects on both sides. From a “Ha’aretz” article called “Confessions of a Traumatized Society”:
"I'm afraid of taking a shower, afraid of leaving the house, of the rockets reaching me. We live opposite a valley. At night the cries of the jackals sound like alarms. I don't dare go out to the balcony to hang the washing. I'm afraid of falling asleep. The thought that an alarm will sound soon makes me nervous. I'm scared I won't make it in time to the shelter. That I'll get caught in the blanket. That I won't find my spectacles." A young Haifa woman offered this touching description in an anxiety relief workshop run by NATAL (The Israel Trauma Center for Victims of Terror and War), held last Thursday at the Eden Inn in Zichron Ya'akov. For the last three days, she has been situated at a fairly safe distance from the rockets. But as with most of the refugees there, and more so since an alarm sounded in the vicinity of the hotel, she reports of her fears in the present tense—as if she is still in the war zone.

A possible long-term result of this war is the internal discussion about where to go with Prime Minister Olmert’s convergence (now called “realignment”) plan—the one where illegal Jewish settlers will be forced, over the next few years, to leave most of the West Bank. Early discussions in the papers look like even those who were all for the first stage of the plan—the removal of settlers from the Gaza Strip exactly one year ago this week—are now second-guessing the wisdom of unilaterally turning over more dunams of land to the “other side” with no guarantee of receiving anything in return. There’s lots of “I told you so” going on right now, particularly in the press.

Off soon to Hebrew class, then meeting each other afterward at the Art & Pasta Festival downtown on the piazza outside the Museum of Italian Jewish Art.

New photos are up

2006-08-13T02:36:00.000-04:00

You can now see album #5, which begins way back in May with the trip to Turkey and ends with World Pride, which finished up yesterday.
Click here.
Then enter sarandkel at yahoo dot com.

Ain't Misbehavin'

2006-08-07T08:28:00.000-04:00

Originally uploaded by sarandkel.

photo: volunteering at World Pride

{posted by Kelli}

“Welcome to World Pride! We’re behaving!”
With that carefully rehearsed but ultimately erroneous phrase—confusing the verb “to behave” with “to volunteer”—ready on my tongue, we arrived yesterday at our first shift of the week at the information table at World Pride. Realizing my linguistic mistake in time, I decided it would be best to leave the Hebrew greeting to the native Hebrew-speaking volunteer working with us while Sarah and I would handle visitors who use English, French, and American Sign Language (not that we expect any Deaf Americans, but you never know).

Which do you think would be the easier language for me at this point: French, having taken a three-week class almost three years ago; or Hebrew, having taken classes, some of them intensive, off and on for eight years? While I can certainly have conversations in Hebrew that I can’t have in French, it is so frustrating to walk past a telephone pole here and be able to understand the French flyers with some ease but really struggle with the Hebrew ones. I frequently remind myself that French and English are related at a level that Hebrew can’t begin to approach—for starters, sharing the same alphabet—but still...

Hebrew class has proven to be the one refuge from the frequent intrusion of war. Twice a week, after the last student enters the room, my teacher closes the door and begins with, “Are we ready? Good.” and proceeds with class. She has made it clear that whatever is happening out there (north), for the next two-and-a-half hours we’re here learning Hebrew together. It’s very rare for “the situation” to creep into our lessons, but it did once, briefly and in a humorous way. We were learning the construction for “rather” as in “I don’t have a master’s degree; rather, a bachelor’s.” The tendency for many students is to use the Hebrew word for “but,” which is incorrect. The drill involved the teacher holding up a picture of a famous person and asking, for example, “Is this Indira Gandhi?” And we would answer in unison, “No, that’s not Indira Gandhi; rather, it’s Madonna.” Then she came to this one: “Is this Nasrallah?” To which we correctly said, “No, that’s not Nasrallah; rather, it’s Harry Potter.” Later, trying to come up with a possible connection between the two characters, I did think that perhaps they’re similar because their days are rumored to be numbered?

Proud yet modestly artistic puppets that are ethnically disruptive
Not only is it World Pride week here, but the following events are also going ahead as scheduled:

>Modesty Parade, the local Jewish extremists’ response to World Pride. I’m not sure how having a paid-ticket-only event inside a stadium counts as a parade, but there it is. Don’t even think of showing up without your floor-length skirt and long-sleeved shirt.

>annual International Arts & Crafts Fair, which is purported to be an incredible display of items from around the world. We’ll be there Thursday night when one of our two favorite Israeli bands, Tipex, is performing.

>annual International Puppet Festival, featuring an amazing array of performances in our neighborhood, many geared to adult audiences and featuring no language barrier

>Israel's Communities: A Festival of Ethnic Cultures, this year spotlighting Russia, Latin America, Persia, and Ethiopia

>queeruption, the 9th international, counter-cultural, queer gathering (for those for whom World Pride is, admittedly, rather mainstream)

When it rains (rockets), it pours (tears)
Things in this region remain the same, with no end in sight yet. Friends scheduled to visit in Sept. understandably cancelled; possible Oct. visitors still have some time to wait and see. We do expect to get together with a couple from our synagogue in DC planning to be in Jerusalem for a family wedding next month.

We’re excited to check out life in Manhattan for a few months this winter but are determined not to leave here on a low note (unless that note is coming from an air raid siren), and so wish to remain to finish Hebrew classes and do a little more sight-seeing in Jerusalem and points south before heading back to the states. Sarah’s mom said if we come home right now, she’d get us a dog. Meryl sweetened the deal by offering a year of free pet sitting. Sarah is considering rigging up an e-bay-like auction for the best “bring ‘em home” bribe.

Don’t mess with our Bamba
From the “Jerusalem Post”—
“Regulations issued by the Emergency Economy Board, an umbrella organization coordinating between major companies and the Israeli Defense Force with the ultimate responsibility for keeping the country running in times of war or natural disasters, require all sorts of workers in essential services to carry on their daily lives as if their homes weren’t literally under attack. The list includes the obvious employees of the national electric, water, and phone companies along with emergency personnel and journalists. Strangely, it also covers workers at the Bamba factory. In 1991, during the Gulf War, then-IDF spokesman Nachman Shai advised parents to take a packet of the peanut-flavored snack into shelters with them to keep their kids calm. It was decided that the country should not have to survive a crisis without the puffy peanut pieces. As these kids come of age, the term ‘bamba’ has entered army slang and refers to rookies.”

While we agree Bamba is good—imagine a peanut butter Cheeto—we both prefer its rival, Bisli.

“The treasure of the world is Jerusalem. The dew which descends upon Jerusalem is a remedy for every sickness.” ~Barhan ed-Din el-Fazari, lecturer in Damascus, circa 1300.
Yeah, well, there wasn’t any of that dew here to provide us with relief from this stomach thing that whacked both of us a few days ago. Our plan had been to travel to Tel Aviv to join the first day of queeruption’s festivities, but instead we spent the day—which was, ironically, Tisha b’Av, the fasting holiday marking the destruction of the first and second temples—dealing with an unwanted fast of our own. All is well now. More another time…

Observations Part III

2006-08-01T05:11:00.000-04:00

Originally uploaded by sarandkel.

We title this photo, taken at a small museum in northern Israel, “As the World Crumbles” (photo credit: Ben)
{posted by Kelli}

The nice thing about being bored is that I finally have enough time in my life to read books, surf the web, cook, write a blog, keep up with e-mails—all without feeling the pressure of time. Life is different without the rat race . . . though sometimes I miss the other rats.

INDIVIDUAL AND NATIONAL EFFECTS
In addition to chickens in the north laying fewer eggs due to stress (I still find that one fascinating), the following results of war have been noticed:

>Right after this week’s airstrike on Qana, we began to hear a bit more than just a peep out of the peace movement in Israel. Anti-war protests are drawing slightly bigger crowds now, and the first Israeli soldier refusing to fight in Lebanon has been jailed, with a few others promising to follow. The “refusenik” movement in Israel has never seen large numbers, but it always creates healthy debate about personal ethics vs. the aims of the state.

>A Tel Avivian we met recently at a Shabbat dinner described the “ready kit” she keeps by her door in case the warning siren goes off: medicine, water, pillow, etc. Neighbors in her apartment building got together and transformed an unused entry hall into a makeshift shelter. She said she has progressed over the last few days from sleeping in her regular clothes to going back to pajamas, although her shoes are always with the kit by the door. This is someone who in 2001, a few months after moving to Israel, survived a suicide bombing in the big market in Jerusalem, which left her deaf in one ear and with visible scars.

>Also about sirens and shelters: the current war has pointed out the inequities of services in different communities in Israel. In Nazareth, for instance—a sizeable, mainly Arab Christian town—there is no siren system. The family of the two little brothers playing in their yard there last week didn’t have a chance to save them.

>Several of our friends who work in Israel as tour guides are reporting many cancelled groups, though some are still arriving. One guide said she tried to return a family’s deposit when they cancelled their upcoming trip, but they told her to keep half of it to cover the time she had put into planning their trip, and to give the other half to various vendors and businesses who are suffering financially from the lack of tourists here.

>”Quiet” radio stations have been established in the north so that Orthodox Jews can leave their radios on during Shabbat. In keeping with Shabbat laws, nothing is broadcast unless there is a life-threatening emergency in the area.

>There is much discussion about national insurance in Israel, which apparently compensates some people for lost wages due to disruption of work based on government actions, like engaging in war. For those who aren’t covered, the coffers are being scraped to come up with compensation packages. (I’m still learning about how this system works. . . )

>Every day, the newspaper prints “ads” from people inviting northern Israelis who are leaving their homes (about half of the region so far) to stay with them—no conditions, no timelines. Can you imagine printing your name and home phone number with such an open invitation in the country’s top newspaper? Sometimes it’s like living in a huge family here. The result is some interesting cross-cultural mixing, such as secular families experiencing life in a kosher home for the first time, and religious families getting used to their new guests driving to the beach for Shabbat.

>Northerners impacted by the situation are being granted additional time to pay bills and can receive discounts on staples. This hit home for us when, at a recent Shabbat lunch with friends, the 5-year-old, who was about to stage an impromptu puppet show for us, realized she had run out of “tickets.” One short—what to do? She told the ticketless guest that she could see the show for free because, “We can pretend you’re from the north.” Out of the mouths of babes!

To read a well-written, right-wing (you can’t say I’m not fair :) take on things, click here.
As for how we’re dealing, we’re keeping our heads low and remembering my grandma’s advice over the phone the other night: Don’t talk to strangers.

MORE ON WORLD PRIDE
Yes, the topic’s getting a bit old to us, too, but you’d be amazed at how obsessed some people get with blocking this event, despite war currently waging on two fronts.

From blogs.chron.com—
“The lack of response to yet another rabbi’s [this one from NY] promise of “bloodshed” if World Pride happens is disappointing. If the leader of a Muslim group in New York made those kinds of comments, you'd hear outrage. You'd hear people talking about the violence of Islamic fundamentalists, the FBI would be investigating him and his group and its donors, you'd hear conservatives demanding the other Muslims denounce such threats of violence. That would be appropriate; people who threaten violence when a government doesn't enforce their religious laws are rightly regarded as threats to peace and freedom. Except, I guess, when they are friendly with American conservatives and give speeches to anti-abortion rallies; then we give it a pass.

Interestingly enough, though, this kind of insanity doesn't reflect Israeli attitudes about gay people. Israel is remarkably progressive when it comes to its gay citizens. Employment discrimination is illegal, same-sex common law marriage is recognized, and gay Israelis serve openly in the military [and adoption of partners’ children is allowed—KS]. That last is particularly interesting, given the often-repeated claim that openly gay soldiers in the US military would somehow damage the effectiveness of our forces; this doesn't seem to have been a problem in Israel.”

LET’S END WITH A JOKE
Such heavy topics lately, with no end in sight yet. Sigh.

A woman is conducting a survey. She encounters a Russian and says to him, “Excuse me, what is your opinion on the meat shortage?” The Russian answers with his own question: “What is an ‘opinion?’” She approaches an American and says, “Excuse me, what is your opinion on the meat shortage?” The American answers, “What is a ‘shortage?’” The surveyor approaches a third person, this one an Israeli. “Excuse me,” she asks, “what is your opinion on the meat shortage?” The Israeli has his own question: “What is ‘excuse me?’”

Ah, that it were only a joke.

Of This and That

2006-07-30T15:51:00.000-04:00

Originally uploaded by sarandkel.

Wasn't there a time when the Jews and the Americans were the good guys? (Sigh.)
{posted by Sarah}

Had a rude awakening just now as I was searching for plane tickets home. Looks like one-way tickets in early November will cost us considerably more than $1,000. Each. Ouch. It doesn’t help that I’m trying to find a way to earn miles so that we can fly to Hawaii in March (for a wedding) free…oy.

There’s not that much to report from here. With the days continuing to be too hot to do anything and the bulk of the video projects (movies) finished, Kelli is reporting herself to be b..o..r..e..d. Imagine!

LINGUISTIC FUN
At Hebrew class last Thursday, we had a guest speaker for an hour. She brought in old photos and her topic was “Yerushalayim, Az v’Achshav” (Jerusalem, then and now.) The pictures were quite hilarious, i.e. people grazing their goats in the 1930s in what is now the popular, pedestrian Ben Yehuda Street. But what really tickled me was how the Hebrew language academy came up for the word for “train” when this new contraption was introduced.

A bit of background: Hebrew, although widely known among religious circles, had pretty much ceased to be the lingua franca around the year 200. (I am sort of making this number up! But the point is, a looong time ago.) So when, in the late 1800s, people were trying to revive Hebrew, they looked to ancient sources for words or roots that might fit more modern concepts. They would have looked in vain for “train,” but they did find in the Talmud the word indicating the chariots that were used in Egypt—you know, the kind that Ben-Hur or someone rode on, the kind you hold on to and stand up in. They further found a vowel pattern used to indicate a multiple number of camels like a caravan, where one animal is tied to the next. Thus, the “multiple chariot” representing “train” was born. Is that awesome or what?! (Extra credit: the word for train in modern Hebrew is rakevet. See if you can figure out the name for the chariot and how you’d say a caravan of camels—“camel” is “gamal”—in Hebrew.)

MARCH PERMIT GRANTED
Yes, folks, you heard it here first. The march has been given a permit. Oh no, not the WorldPride GLBT march. Sorry, security issues won’t permit that. No, no, we mean the permit for Women in Green, a right wing organization, to march through East (Arab) Jerusalem and around the walls of the Old City on this week’s holiday of Tisha B’Av. As the full-page(!!) ad states: “Our walk begins…we pass the New Gate, Damascus Gate and the Flower Gate. At the Lion’s Gate we will assemble to proclaim our eternal bond to the Temple Mount, where our First and Second Temples stood, and where the Third Temple will be built, speedily and in our days…” ‘Cause you know, that’s not provocative or anything. Jeez. I suggested (only half-jokingly) that all the GLBT folks in Jerusalem should show up at their march with our placards and have a ball. If it’s the only march in town that’s been given a permit, then we should be there, too!

In case something is not clear here, let me reiterate that in order for a Third Temple to be built, the mosque and shrine on the Temple Mount (Al-Aqsa, and Dome of the Rock, respectively) would have to be destroyed. The third holiest site for Muslims, built in 691, would have to go so that Jews could get back into animal sacrifice. Woo-hoo! Forgive me if I won’t be gnashing my teeth and crying on Tisha B’Av (historically commemorated as the day both Temples fell).

WORLDPRIDE THEMES
Despite the cancellation of the march, there will be much to do and see, and Kelli and I intend to be busy. To that end, we went to the Jerusalem Open House on Thursday evening to be briefed about the schedule and to sign-up for volunteer shifts at various venues. There was a discussion about the principles of non-violent struggle which we are engaged in. Then we were given a summary of the themes for WorldPride:

*a demonstration of human rights
*Jerusalem chosen as the site because it is an international symbol and a city shared by many different populations
*a struggle for the image of Jerusalem as a city for all
*a demonstration for the values of tolerance, equality and pluralism
*a demonstration where obeying the law and avoiding violence are part of our core messages

NEWS FLASH: MINISTRY OF INTERIOR ANSWERS PHONE
Which means that we now are the proud holders of an appointment. Said appointment should result in an extension of our tourist visas, negating the need to leave the country during this 3-month period to renew them. We are thrilled with this development and have made our August plans accordingly. Tel Aviv, here we come! (Readers with good memories will remember that we have to be out of our Jerusalem apt. during the last week of August and that we were bemoaning the lack of a heat wave anywhere in the world to escape to. Spending the week in Tel Aviv, while hot, is at least cheaper than flying to Europe, and it’s close to the beach. Plus, there are a bunch of new vegan restaurants to try out. Exciting!)

INTERESTING CHARACTER #1
The last Afghan Jew. Someone needs to use this to title their next book. According to a foreign service officer we met at a friend’s Shabbat dinner, there is only one Jew left in Afghanistan. He considers himself the protector of Afghan Jewry; there is a synagogue in the middle of the bazaar in Kabul that does have some ancient articles, so he may be right in staying. But his whole family has emigrated to Israel. I have a hard time imagining what his daily life is like. Must be lonely on the one hand, but maybe he also feels a little like a celebrity?

INTERESTING CHARACTER #2
From the pages of our newspaper comes the unlikely story of Margalit Nirnberg, the 83-year-old author of a new cookbook that deftly includes her own life story along with her collection of recipes. Too bad the book is only in Hebrew, because her life alone is fascinating. Some tidbits to savor:

*she was born in 1923, a third-generation Jerusalemite to a family of 8 surviving children (10 didn’t survive)
*girls were married by 13 years old, so she was considered an old maid when she was still single at 15
*she was married (at 15) to a 24-yr.-old whom she first met on her wedding day, and soon had four children whom she had to raise alone for a year when her husband was taken prisoner by the Jordanians during the 1948 war
*he came home, only to die shortly after in a car accident on his way to a reception in honor of the returned POWs
*she tells of the camaraderie that existed before the ’48 war among various women in the Old City—breastfeeding each other’s babies, Arab and Jew alike
*she outlived four husbands, and from the family of each she learned a different kind of cuisine: first, Sephardi cuisine from her mother, followed by Kurdish, Egyptian, Ashkenazi, and Hungarian dishes

I think we may purchase the book anyway. It will give us impetus to continue with our Hebrew once we return to the states, and perhaps some interesting meals will come out of it.

EERIE ARCHEOLOGICAL FINDING
In Ireland (did anyone hear about this?), a construction worker digging in a peat bog came across a medieval-era book of Psalms that had been preserved in the mud. It was open to Psalm 83, in which Israel (the people) complain to God about other nations’ attempts to wipe out the name of Israel. Somehow, I don’t think Hezbollah are moved, but I got goosebumps.

Coping Strategies

2006-07-23T05:23:00.000-04:00

Originally uploaded by sarandkel.

Photo of a tower of spices in the Arab market

{posted by Kelli}

“The whole religious complex of the modern world is due to the absence from Jerusalem of a lunatic asylum.”
~Thomas Paine (1737-1809)

Two days ago the GLBT community center in Jerusalem announced it is canceling the World Gay Pride march set for August 10 based on the police department’s denial of a permit. Citing security concerns, the police on Friday said they could not ensure participants’ safety from protestors. Other activities planned for the week—symposiums, films, etc.—will go on as planned. Religious extremists, who had been blaming the current war with Lebanon on the planned gathering of gay people in Jerusalem, are dancing in the streets. (These being the same folks who blame gay people for Katrina, 9/11, and rising US gas prices.) So I expect the war up north to magically cease any moment now.

It would have been interesting, participating in the march and comparing it to those in the states. The blog at goodasyou.org put it this way, referring to the bounty mentioned in my last post: “Now don’t you feel stupid for complaining about your local Pride parade’s annoyances? Somehow, overpriced water, excessive advertising for various Bravo shows, and ‘the same ol’ queens performing the same ol’ numbers’ now seem like minor problems in comparison.”

JERUSALEM SYNDROME
In other bizarre news, there is a documented disorder that strikes some visitors here consisting of “religiously-themed infatuations and delusional experiences triggered by a visit to the Holy City.” Some 1200 tourists over 13 years have been treated for “Jerusalem-themed mental problems,” termed “Jerusalem Syndrome.” Strangely, the typical victim is the 40ish, Christian stock broker from Minnesota who refuses to board the plane home with his family after vacationing here, preferring instead to shout bible verses from a busy intersection while wearing a loincloth. This is real, people.

A RUN ON EGGS
Here in J’lem, with war feeling like a world away instead of only a few hours, life still continues as normal. I did, however, start to feel some effects of the situation during the last week. Maybe I’m like the kibbutz chickens in the north who are laying fewer eggs due to the stress they are starting to feel. Having spent many of the past days alone at home while Sarah attended the last week of her study program, and feeling that the weather outside was too hot to go out and do anything, I started getting edgy. The morning that I saw a tiny ant crawling toward the nectarine I had just cut up into a bowl and shouted, “MY breakfast!” I realized I needed more opportunities to connect to people. So I joined Sarah’s program at lunch time, talking and listening to other non-Israelis’ take on the situation. And I find myself reaching out more to the few friends we’ve made here, getting together more often for meals and conversation. Friday we held a “screening party” for the movie about Israel we made for our friends’ 3-year-old back home. The test audience included the 3-year-old across the street, who had a starring role in the production.

I noticed how, rather quickly, our breakfast conversations at home have gone from, “Which book are you starting to read today?” and “Can I review my Hebrew homework with you?” to, “Remind me to ask so-and-so where the nearest bomb shelter is” [across the street in our friends’ apartment building] and, “If anything happens in Jerusalem, the plan is to meet at home.” (A solid plan indeed.) In a short time, we have learned what the bomb siren would sound like if it goes off here (which it hasn’t), and that if you’re in the house during a siren, it’s better to head straight to your safest room (that’s the bathroom for us) instead of out to the nearest bomb shelter.

After ten days of this, I feel calmer—resigned?—now; getting used to the situation, I guess, as it loses its “novelty,” changing very little from day to day. J’lem streets are still teeming with people, although the demographics have changed in just the last week and a half. Gone are the summer tour groups of teens from the states, replaced with northern Israelis fleeing their towns. Between 30-50% of the northern population—up to 500,000 people—has migrated south, which is opposite what normally happens this time of year as Jerusalemites usually leave these hills every August and head to the cooler north on vacation.

An interesting article about the war that I saw in a popular Israeli paper can be found here.

HEAT WAVES
Temperature-wise, we are faring better here than many people across Europe and the US. We had an early wave in late May which made me fear that the entire summer in J’lem was going to be miserable, but most evenings it does cool down enough for me to venture out. It’s a little like living as mole people, though, going out some days not until well after sundown.

PROGRESSING BEYOND CARROTS & KETCHUP
Hebrew classes continue their ever-challenging course. Fellow students in my class are from Arab parts of Israel, Russia, Australia, Peru, Krzykstan (I think), the US, England, and Germany. Sarah also has classmates from these locations plus Colombia and Holland. With about 20 students per class, there’s such a mish-mash of accents speaking Hebrew.

The vast majority are immigrants; only a few long-term tourists like us. Over time I’ve come to recognize what seem to be interesting cultural patterns related to classroom learning. Going out on a limb with some undocumented observations here, but I think I can make a few generalities:

1) Arab students tend to shout out the answers—no hand-raising or turn-taking.
2) Russian students tend to work together in pairs, constantly helping each other with exercises and even tests. They take turns providing loud, running explanations in Russian to each other about what the teacher is saying to the class in Hebrew.
3) We westerners tend to spend the majority of our time glaring at the offenders in 1 and 2 above.

Ah, well. All different kinds of learners and ways of learning in the world, I guess. Let’s hope that people in this region learn a way to get out of this mess soon.

A bounty on our heads

2006-07-18T00:43:00.000-04:00

Originally uploaded by sarandkel.

{posted by Kelli}

UNITED IN FAITH
Great news—at last—from the region! In an unprecedented move, heads of the world’s three great, monotheistic religions have come together, here in the heartland of the world’s three great, monotheistic religions, to raise a united cry. Not against the bombs raining down on Lebanon, nor the rockets landing on Israelis, nor the recent kidnappings of soldiers. Jewish, Muslim, and Christian leaders have raised their voices as one against . . . gays???

We have just learned that we’re worth $4500—each! Hundreds of leaflets from the “Red Arm of Salvation” were distributed in the mailboxes of Jerusalem’s orthodox neighborhoods recently, offering 20,000 shekels to anyone who “will cause the death of one of the Sodom and Gomorrah people.” The flyers give detailed instructions on how to prepare for next month’s World Pride march by making Molotov cocktails, dubbed a “Schlissel Special” in honor of the haredi guy currently in jail for 12 years for stabbing three people in Jerusalem’s local Pride march last year.

The first World Pride was in Rome in 2000, and if you’re thinking World Pride in Jerusalem sounds familiar, it’s because it was originally scheduled for last year but happened to coincide with the disengagement from Gaza, so it was postponed to this year. It’s like the city-wide Pride festivals you see in the states and other countries, only on an international scale and lasting a week. The schedule is set with seminars and workshops on GLBT health, youth empowerment activities (including a trip to talk to Knesset members), a religious conference with supportive clergy of the three faiths, and the big march on Aug. 10.

Will we be there? You bet your Molotov cocktail we will—if it happens, that is. It’s still up in the air as to whether or not the police will grant a march permit, which either way means Supreme Court involvement with a suit from either the ultra-religious camp or the free speech camp. The topic is topping many Knesset meetings--incredulously, even during war time--with one of the Arab parties’ leaders stating it just isn’t relevant to his constituency since gay Muslims don’t exist, which reportedly caused a ripple of laughter in the room. The city has been of no help, granting World Pride the customary funds allotted to cultural events only after being forced to do so by the Supreme Court. The mayor, Jerusalem’s first ultra-orthodox one, loudly and regularly warns men on his cabinet not to walk up behind one of his cabinet members, the gay one, for fear of what might happen—you know, approaching the gay guy from behind.

WHY I’M TICKED OFF
In similarly disturbing, though not as bizarre news, things between Israel and Lebanon continue to escalate. It has cooled off a bit in Gaza, what with the distraction provided in Lebanon, rather like how crime in the US drops dramatically every year on Superbowl Sunday (except for domestic violence, which rises). Perhaps my response is like going through Kubler-Ross’ stages of grief; I’m somewhere between leaving denial and entering anger.

Top 10 reasons why I’m ticked off:
1. people forget when and why Hezbollah was created—in 1982 in response to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon that lasted 18 years
2. Hezbollah shares Hamas’ perspective that human life is for sacrificing, and thus launches rockets out of civilians’ homes, which leads Israel to bomb civilians’ homes
3. Hezbollah, which holds 14 of Lebanon’s 128 parliamentary seats, really does want Israel to disappear entirely
4. Israel insists on trying to maintain a Jewish majority in the country no matter the cost
5. I have to keep altering the itineraries for our friends’ visits in Sept. and Oct., each day carving out more and more of the northern region (my favorite area)
6. I can no longer treat Israel as my playground . . . and feel uncomfortable with the fact that I ever did
7. we two have the privilege of leaving whenever it gets too “hot” for us, while most Lebanese and many Israelis don’t have that option
8. “increased security” in Jerusalem translates into the bus guard carefully scrutinizing me as I boarded recently, wearing a top with a flower design embroidered by a Palestinian women’s cooperative
9. only 500 people showed up for an anti-war rally in Tel Aviv, and it was barely mentioned in the press
10. some assume our staying here is a kind of statement of Zionist commitment when it’s anything but

Which brings us to the question, why are we still here? Life continues to be completely normal in Jerusalem and most of the country, and as long as it stays that way, we intend to stay until some time in Nov. when all our planned activities here are finished. If we feel unsafe, we will leave earlier. Honestly, our US choices of “home” don’t look so appealing right now. Did you hear about the random chainsaw attacks on the NY subway? Or about DC’s recent 14% jump in crimes in neighborhoods like ours, prompting the chief of police to declare a “crime state of emergency”?

CULTURAL EXPLOSION CONTINUES
While the north part of the country is all but shutting down, summer in Jerusalem still means lots of interesting happenings. The other night I walked home from Hebrew class and passed four simultaneous, outdoor events within two blocks of each other. The old train station had an open-air showing of “The Chronicles of Narnia” (captioned in Hebrew), there was a jazz performance on the roof of a conference center, an orthodox concert was happening in Liberty Bell Gardens, and an Israeli band played Irish gigs on a plaza overlooking the Old City. Sarah and I ended up meeting at the Irish concert.

Sadly, the film festival is over. A correction: the 11 venues showed 290 films in all, not 190 as was printed earlier. One of my favorites was a story about what happened when an Israeli filmmaker taught a filmmaking class to black Bedouin women. It changed my image of Bedouin people immensely; they’re not all desert tent-dwelling, nomadic goat-herders, although this is the majority. These women live in a Bedouin town comprised of “whites” (Bedouins of Arab descent, not at all what the west would consider white) and “blacks” (Bedouins from African descent, whose mannerisms are remarkably similar to African-Americans’). During a class assignment to interview family elders, the women discovered that their ancestors, rather than coming of their own free will as had been believed, were brought from Zanzibar to the Middle East by Arab slave traders during the same time as the slave trade was flourishing in the Americas. It was amazing to witness these people discovering their secret history, one that had been unknown to the outside world as well. To top it off, some 25 black Bedouins from the movie and the town where it was filmed were present and honored after the film ended.

In the final days of the festival, I saw some good shorts made by Israelis of all stripes; a French film uncovering the police and government cover-up of the October 1961 killings of Algerians in Paris; and for fun, a delightful, fictional piece about a kids’ summer camp in France. I definitely recommend “The Film Class” and “Those Happy Days” if you ever get the chance. We don’t recommend “Darkon,” the painfully long documentary on a group of people meeting every two weeks in various forests in Maryland for their Lord of the Rings-like, role-playing game.

ON A FRIVOLOUS NOTE
The photo above illustrates what is referred to as “frippie” fashion, a term created from the crash of “frum,” Yiddish for “religious life,” and “hippie” styles. The religious influence offers long, loose, layered pieces while the hippie part brings mix ‘n match casualness to it. At home we two virtually never dress similar to each other, but when it comes to Israeli fashion we both fell for the frippie style here years ago.

We’ll keep you regularly posted as things continue to progress/regress. Before everything broke out, our weekly readership was averaging 160 hits, half of them unique; it’s higher now. I know some of you have blogs with that many readers in one day, while others are probably wondering what “unique hits” are.
Thanks for reading and for all the concerned e-mails!

Safe, Studying and Smart Silliness

2006-07-16T10:37:00.000-04:00

{posted by Sarah}

It has been pointed out to me that I’m behind in the blogging business. I have a good reason for this: I’ve been studying Torah eight hours a day plus Hebrew five hours a week for the last two weeks (one week to go with the Torah!). Before I go into what the study program is about, I want to take a minute to comment on the “situation” here. Or rather, not comment but explain why I’m not going into it.

The truth is, I’m not any more informed than any of you may be. I’m getting my news from CNN, Ha’aretz (Israeli newspaper), the Washington Post, and bloggers who live where these events are unfolding. Mostly, I manage not to get completely freaked out by the fact that people are dying and killing just a few hours away. I swing violently between the ever-ready feelings of Jewish victim-hood and the more realistic picture that says for every Israeli killed, 5 have been killed in Lebanon or in Gaza. The latest figures I’ve seen claim 21 Israelis (both civilian and soldier) and 93 Lebanese. There’s a lot of heated rhetoric on both sides and good people on both sides screaming for peace. I can’t do it any better than they can. I encourage you to check in with your various preferred news sites and also direct you to one blog that I check in with frequently; you’ll notice the author has a ton of links on her blog, so you can easily get many different views just from her site alone. Rest assured that should it get hairy where we live (we’re quite a ways from the range of the Hezbollah missiles), we will be cutting our Israel experience short—a fact I hate to admit, as it feels wimpy and undermining of Israel’s morale, but a fact nonetheless.

Back to our regularly scheduled programming.

I’m studying alongside almost 100 people from all over, most from English-speaking countries, of all ages and at all different places in life. One rabbi wanted to take some time for himself and get re-energized about study, something that might be difficult to do when you’re leading a congregation; one principal of a Hebrew school wanted to challenge herself to study Torah in a non-reform environment; several people wanted to learn how to learn Jewishly; one non-Jewish woman wanted to figure out why she’s so attracted to Judaism; and one guy made aliyah (moved to Israel) less than a week before the program started and wanted to have some structure in his life. My reason for attending was that I thought it would be ridiculous to have come to Israel for so long and not to do any Judaic learning. If not here, where??

I’m really tempted to get all boring on you and give excruciating details about Jewish texts and learning—we have been at this for approximately 4-5,000 years, so there’s a lot of material to cover—but I won’t. I’ll go with the broad outlines and leave you to comment or ask if you want more info.

I. Beginning Chumash—otherwise known as the “five books of Moses” (chumash is related to chamesh, the word for 5 in Hebrew), or the Old Testament. This class has been the most useful and the most frustrating experience for me—useful in that it is very basic, and we’ve learned some tools for how to learn Torah, how to ask questions of the texts, how to go to various commentators to find possible answers, how to chunk the texts to see themes as well as how to hone in on one word to derive multi-faceted messages from it; but frustrating in that the teacher is an orthodox woman who is unwilling/unable to approach the texts from a non-believing position. Nevertheless, as you might expect, I’m still the most vocal person in class. (And often, without knowing it, posit questions that the ancient commentators have asked, or ask a question that it seems no one has asked before, so she likes me anyway!)

II. Maimonides’ 13 Principles—the title is somewhat misleading because we’re only dealing with four of the principles. Maimonides (also known as the Rambam—an acronym of his name) lived from 1130-1215, primarily in Egypt, and at the age of 23(!) compiled a book that was a major re-statement of Jewish law. No slouch, he. During his lifetime, the questions “who is a Jew?,” “what do Jews believe?” were important (much like today), and he sought to answer these questions with a set of principles that all Jews should adhere to. We’re looking at his principles and commentaries about the ideas through the ages, including modern times. We’re asking, and attempting to answer, the question “what happens to traditional Jewish belief when it is challenged by new ideas?”

III. Interpersonal Ethics—in a way, this class shows how varied Jewish tradition is and how interpretations color all. Our teacher has compiled all the places the concept of “rebuking” comes up in Jewish sacred texts with an aim to understanding something about interpersonal ethics and how concepts can be interpreted to meet modern-day challenges.

IV. Life and Justice—or, why do bad things happen to good people? I definitely can’t get behind the rabbi’s perspective on this, but I so enjoy his pedagogical approach that it’s ok. He’s clearly spent many, many years in yeshiva (school for Judaic learning), and he delivers his lectures in the quintessential, sing-song voice of the Yeshiva environment, even when speaking in English.

In addition to the regular classes, there are special, one-time lectures throughout the week, and one of these really blew my mind. We read something that looked (to me) to be redundant, and the teacher was able to tease out the differences and come up with a paradigm of the three fundamental pillars of Judaism (the people, the Land, God). Awesome class. And just today we had the treat of learning a bit of Talmud (commentary on the Torah) from a guy who uses tiny ninja figurines to do his teaching/theater. Really.

Carrots & Ketchup

2006-07-13T08:39:00.000-04:00

{posted by Kelli}
I PROMISED TO WRITE ABOUT GAZA
Uh, and Lebanon, too, since as of yesterday, Lebanon has thrown its lot in with those in Gaza, and Israel has reacted in its typical bull-in-a-china-shop fashion. What ever happened to the days of sending Shin Bet operatives in, James Bond style, to retrieve kidnapped soldiers? When will they get it that large-scale destruction aimed at a despondent people with nothing to lose only stirs them up more?

Many of you are concerned about what Israelis call “ha-matsav,” or “the situation”—a Hebrew term that’s been used for decades to describe the ongoing tension between Palestinians and Israelis. I don’t know how else to describe it than this: you know the news you get of Iraq, the stories of kidnapped American soldiers and harsh American military strikes and so on? How do you react? Concerned, but not enough to stay home from work or to actually leave the US, right? That’s how it is here for us, at least at this point. If we didn't seek out the news (papers, internet, and brief radio bits), we wouldn't know anything was happening in Gaza or Lebanon. “Bunker mentality” doesn’t set in here until after a string of suicide bombings hits a particular area. I don't know if that's a testament to Israelis’ perseverance, ignorance, or apathy.

Typical day: yesterday morning I got up and checked the news on the internet, reading the Israel articles right after first reading the “American Idol Contestant on Porn Charges” piece. Our proximity to Israel—sitting smack in the middle of it—doesn’t come with any insider information, so the news we have access to is exactly what you’re getting in the US. Sarah headed to her 8:45-5:00 Torah study program. I did my Hebrew homework then wrote some birthday cards and mailed them along my walk to an afternoon showing of the (overall outstanding) European Film Academy Short Film Competition 2005 (more on the film festival below). Then I grabbed lunch at our favorite veg restaurant downtown before beginning our weekly babysitting gig for our friends who live across the street. I was with the two kids at our neighborhood playground for a little while until Sarah, done with her studies for the day, showed up to switch with me so I could catch the bus to my 6:00-8:30 Hebrew class. After my class, we met at the little hotel in our neighborhood for a late dinner and comedy show by a very funny man, Yisrael Campbell, who converted from Catholicism to Judaism some years ago.

This morning we got up, checked the internet news, Sarah went to her program, I worked on the home movies we’re creating on the computer. . . you get the picture of our daily life.

If this sounds ordinary, it’s because at least for us foreigners here, nothing has changed—despite the fact that Gaza is less than two hours from Jerusalem, and the Lebanese border is some four hours away. Israelis, naturally, feel closer to what’s going on. In a small country, a disproportionate number of people—something like one in seven?-- know the kidnapped soldiers or their families or grew up on the same kibbutz, etc. And nearly everyone can relate to army service, as it is compulsory for almost all of the population here. In other words, there is much less distinction in Israel between “soldier” and “civilian.” Yesterday in a shop that had the radio news playing, one person said something to another about “catastrophe” and “chaos,” which I assumed was in reference to the news about the 8 subway bombs in 11 minutes in India. I realized later, after checking the internet news, that they were talking about the new developments in Lebanon. Still, “catastrophe” and “chaos” are more fitting descriptions for 200 commuters killed in bomb attacks, I would think.

CHANGE OF PLANS?
In completely unrelated news, we’ve been talking about leaving Israel a little sooner than planned and returning to DC later than we thought. Construction of our DC renter’s new home is taking longer than expected, and she’s asked to stay on through March—a development we see as an opportunity, since everything about our place is already arranged for us to be away, so why not take advantage of that. Meanwhile, we don’t have any plans here post-November, and Sarah’s parents’ weekend apartment in Manhattan is an inviting home base while testing out interpreting work in NYC for a few months. So we are talking about possibly spending Dec.-March in NYC instead of staying here through January.

Interestingly, we specifically chose Israel for the full year experience thinking we might get into the Jewish calendar and overall swing of things. Turns out the Jewish schedule is a royal pain, trying to figure out what places are open on which random holidays. I still don't want to become a Jew, and Sarah is less interested in Jewish life herself. Some days I'm ready to head to France for the rest of the year. . .

But enough dreaming of chocolate croissants in pretty alleyways. We’re here for now, and World Gay Pride is happening in Jerusalem the second week of August, so things are really going to shake up here soon!

I LAUGHED, I CRIED
Initially, the Jerusalem Film Festival was turning out to be a big bust for me. I had painstakingly narrowed down the 190 choices to my top 40, then, facing financial realities, pruned that list to what I was sure would be the best of the best: 12 I-can’t-miss-these films. One we both wanted to see, about archeological research into the fact and fiction behind biblical stories, was sold out. Then the first three I went to stunk: a documentary on American customer service call centers in India (lots of potential, but it just didn’t pan out), a series of clips from films about Jerusalem (didn’t notice in advance that none of them were subtitled, so I was lost except for the one clip in English—a bit from Alfred Hitchcock’s 1965 visit here), and a documentary on nomadic sheepherders in Turkey (yes, you can only blame me for that choice). Just as I was getting concerned that the entire festival was a waste, I saw “October’s Cry.”

This movie was about the ongoing fight by victims’ parents to bring to justice those police and government officials responsible for the October 2000 killings of 13 Arab-Israeli citizens during a week of demonstrations held in Israel. What’s key to point out here is that the police shot, in some cases point-blank, 13 citizens of its own country who were taking part in demonstrations held inside democratic Israel. This wasn’t about Palestinian civilians and Israeli soldiers fighting each other in the Occupied Territories. The film was well done, but what really got me was at the end when the filmmaker asked the family members we’d just seen on the screen to stand. I had no idea the audience included a dozen of the very people whose painful, six-year struggle we’d just witnessed. When the stoic, erudite father highlighted in the film—whose teenaged “Seeds of Peace” camp participant was one of the 13—stood up right behind me, I couldn’t keep from crying. Crossing my fingers for the week’s remaining films.

THEY MAKE ME GIGGLE ‘TIL I SNORT
It’s time for some funnies of the linguistic variety. Some of these gems are from the newspaper, proving once again that perhaps it’s best for us westerners to leave our languages at home so as not to further contaminate the delicate, still-developing, modern Hebrew language.

>bekex: the Israeli mangling of the English “back axle.” Funny, but even more so when you realize that they also say “bekex kidmi” for “front axle,” which, of course, is actually saying “front back axle.”

>fillim: used for “film” like one puts in one’s camera; more or less like the English pronunciation. Here’s the problem: to make a masculine noun plural in Hebrew, you add “im.” The result of the infiltration of the English “film”? Israelis wanting just one roll of film enter camera shops and ask in Hebrew to buy one “fil.”

>Here’s a non-Hebrew mangling just for fun, also printed in an Israeli newspaper. An Eastern European handyman working at a London home rushed into the house to announce to the owners, “Hitchcock in the back-front!” Investigation resulted in a dead hedgehog in the back garden.

>A sign in English we saw in Turkey in May: “Welcome to Old Town, full of history-smelling atmosphere.”

I’ll end with a couple of Hebrew doozies recently uttered by yours truly and Sarah.

>Kelli (in front of the whole Hebrew class plus the teacher): “He must go through with the bar mitzvah ceremony in order to become a full-grown carrot.”

>Sarah (in response to the Burger Ranch worker asking, “What’s your name?”): “Ketchup.”

How could we possibly leave Israel now, just when our Hebrew is finally taking off?

Ok, ok--I'll write about Gaza

2006-07-13T02:38:00.000-04:00

I'm working on it. . .
Post coming hopefully tonight. . .
~Kelli

Adventures in Body Rafting

2006-07-01T14:44:00.000-04:00

Originally uploaded by sarandkel.

Photo of a performer at the Jerusalem Festival

{posted by Kelli}
ALL IN A DAY’S WORK
I’m standing on the edge of the Jordan River as dozens of college students plunge into the swirling water. Wearing a skirt and t-shirt instead of a swimsuit under my life vest (“it’s a water hike, wet only up to your ankles” we were told that morning), there’s nothing to do but join the fray. My deaf clients have already leaped in; every second they’re floating further away, making visual communication increasingly impossible.

“Will any instructions be given along the way?” “Yes.” (interpreters needed)
“Is there a path along the bank?” “No.” (interpreters can’t follow along the side)
“Well. . . all right.”

And so this “water hike” became an hour-long struggle to remain in one piece; a futile attempt to keep some part of my person dry; and a hopeless experiment at interpreting while being washed downstream, trying to dodge underwater surprises like hidden boulders, logs, and big turtles. Within two minutes of entering the river, Sarah lost her watch and sunglasses, which were tied around her neck. Halfway into the experience, having managed to at least keep my bra dry by wading instead of floating, I banged my shin into a hidden tree trunk and flipped forward, instantly changing the nature of the sport of body rafting to “face rafting.” The absurdity of the situation became clear to me when I finally regained my footing and found myself shouting into the din to no one in particular, “I’m a professional! I work in offices!”

It was a fairly typical day of the last three weeks spent interpreting for tour groups visiting Israel. My initial impression of working again after nearly five months of not moving my hands in a linguistically meaningful way was twofold: I was instantly reminded that I generally like being around deaf people; and I realized that I like how signing feels on my hands, the kinesthetics of it. It all came back as if it had never left.

WHAT’S NEXT?
Work for this year came to a screeching halt Wednesday when we saw the last group off at the airport. Predicting that without some sort of schedule, I might start feeling the slump again that I experienced in May, the following day I signed up for a two-nights-a-week Hebrew language class downtown that runs through mid-Sept. Sarah also registered for Hebrew (different class, different nights) as well as an intensive Torah study program (called Pardes) that runs all day for the next three weeks.

After five slow years, Israel—Jerusalem in particular—is experiencing a sharp upswing in cultural activities. The summer months are jam-packed with events, most of them on the international scale. There’s the ongoing French Festival, trying to strengthen ties between the two countries. (France was, after all, the only country to give a point to Israel’s contender in this year’s Eurovision contest.) And the general Jerusalem Festival ended just in time for this week’s Jerusalem Film Festival—ten days of 190 movies from all over the world! It took us a combined four hours just to read through the 300-page program.

YOU CAN NEVER GO BACK HOME
This summer was my 20th high school reunion. I got the scoop from my friend from junior high who attended some of the events, and I also caught up on my classmates’ lives via an online “profile booklet.” I attended a school district where less than half of the graduating class (we were around 380 total) went on to any kind of school or training—university, community college, vocational school. Reading these bios about staying home with four kids, being active in church, and working in “freelance skin care” or part-time as a dental assistant (five of these, with two more in training), I never felt more like a foreigner. Female classmates married men who hunt year-round and build 4x4 rigs in the garage. One family enjoys bull riding, while another “puts on a great Rock Crawl and Mud Bog every May with our Jeep club.”(??) Our class’ greatest claim to fame is the ESPN Great Outdoors Games competitor ’02-’04 for speed climbing (that’s trees) and tree topping. One student “dumped that loser I ran away from home to live with,” while another, divorced twice, says she “never plans to marry again. . . not beyond shacking up though!”

I always thought my hometown was ordinary, in that way most people do. It wasn’t until I drove Sarah past my old elementary school some years ago and she asked about the cows meandering in the playground that I started rethinking the Puyallup, Washington, version of “ordinary.”

MYSTERY SOLVED
Remember that perplexing TV commercial I described where the woman drives up to a mini-mart and swaps a goat from her back seat for a carton of milk? Well, we learned about a Hebrew idiom that clears it up. It’s something like our “get the monkey off your back.” When you have something weighing on your mind—like trying to remember to bring home milk—and you finally take care of it, you “get rid of the goat.”

Let's talk Turkey

2006-06-05T13:01:00.000-04:00

Let's talk Turkey
Originally uploaded by sarandkel.

{posted by Sarah}

Antalya, Turkey—host of the International Sand Sculpture Festival starting June 30th. Aargh! We went too early. Sand sculpture is so cool, no? Check out this website if you’re not yet astonished by the creativity of the human animal. Aah, well, we found other ways to entertain ourselves last weekend while visiting Turkey’s Riviera. (Yes, they really call it that.)

We hadn’t done any of the research that usually precedes one of our trips. Kelli says half the fun for her is in doing the research and planning. My responsibility (much like a groom’s, so I’ve heard) is to show up. Like I said, she hadn’t done her homework, so we ended up booking a package deal (our first ever) through a travel agent that included pretty much everything as previously reported on this blog, and we had no schedule other than to get to the airport on time.

I slighted myself when I said I had no responsibility. One of my main jobs is to worry over every possible thing that could go wrong. So it went something like this:
“What if our bus is late?” “What if we don’t know which terminal to go to?” “What if we can’t find the right gate?” (We only had the abbreviation CAI and had no idea whom we were flying, despite much web searching.) “What if the flight is late and our transportation on the other end leaves without us?” (Our flight was delayed 2 hours; the van waited.) “What if we don’t like the hotel?” “Or the food?” And the most pressing— “What if they forget to come pick us up on Sunday for the airport?” (Our travel agent warned us that this had happened in the past, so it wasn’t a groundless concern.) Seriously, with me in the world, you can all just stop worrying; I’ve got it covered.

So, there we were, in the first country we have visited in 4 years where we had absolutely no language—we drove through Scandinavia in 2002 (and they do speak English there) but since then have repeatedly visited places we can more easily navigate—and people really don’t speak English in Antalya, nor French, nor Spanish, nor Hebrew, nor Russian, but apparently German is a safe bet. Just our luck—I look German and speak not one word of it! Turkish sounds (to our ears) like Finnish at times, and it turns out there is some historical connection; Turkish is in the Ural-Altaic language family (more than you could possibly want to know here ), which includes Finnish, Japanese, Mongolian, Korean, and a whole host of languages you’ve never heard of. Anyway, we could not make any sense of it, but, armed with the words for “meat” and “dairy,” we fumbled through. We also had the long, 3-word phrase for “thank you” under our belts, and I used it extensively—especially when our hotel’s chef kept bringing us extra tidbits like mint tea and a plate of freshly procured cherries.

We had a lovely time. Antalya surprised us by being a bit like paradise, i.e. on the coast with magnificent waterfalls that crash right down cliffs into the sea (see above), lots of parks, gardens, green spaces, a quaint “old town” with cobble-stone streets and brightly painted houses all hiding beautiful courtyards and tiny pools, segments of the ancient city walls and gates and towers, an extensive archeological museum, a tram line, and plentiful cabs. Can’t really ask for much more, can you? Except for the humidity, which we could have lived without, we enjoyed ourselves. And, despite the humidity, we spent much of our 2 days there walking—from a waterfall back to the hotel, from the museum at one end of town down to the historical part, and all around on a self-guided walking tour and around the harbor.

Unlike Israel, Turkey does not have a water problem, and we were shocked to see sprinklers watering asphalt and running hoses left in the streets! Strange--our world is increasingly small with global interdependence and wars and diseases knowing no boundaries, but there are still distinct separations, too. Kelli kept expecting security guards to check our bags when we entered places but, of course, they don't do that there (although given their recent spate of violence, maybe they should). And upon our return to Israel, we learned that the power companies had "used up the electricity"(?) Not sure exactly what that means in the big picture, but what it means for us is brown-outs and black-outs each day we've been back. Thank goodness the laptop can run on battery power! As for Turkey, we do hope to return some day to see more of the country, including the many ruins, goddess sites, and main cities, but that will have to wait. For now, we are gearing up to work—something we’ve not done since January(!)—for the next 3 weeks straight with only 1 day off to do laundry between tour groups. (I’m making my “eek” face now.) We may not have any internet access while away and certainly won’t have time for blogging, so see you in July!

The green(er) side of the line

2006-05-29T06:24:00.000-04:00

Originally uploaded by sarandkel.

The photo is of Israeli strawberries, an ugly fruit that grows on trees and that Israelis seem to take much pride in.

{posted by Kelli}
HOW MANY TURKEYS DOES IT TAKE TO . . .
On Thursday we go to Turkey—not so much by choice as necessity, since the next round of our 3-month visitor visas is about to expire and we need to go out of the country briefly, anywhere, cheap and fast. I had promised a treatise on Israeli bureaucracy and can think of no better way to describe it than by sharing here our visa experience.

With a tourist visa (we don’t qualify for worker or student visas), you are allowed up to 3 months at a time in Israel. Then you have to leave the country but can return right away, receiving a new visa stamp in your passport good for 3 more months. Long-term visitors all over the world do this all the time. We met a British guy working at Christ Church (first Protestant church in Jerusalem, “missionizing to Jews since 1849”) who has left Israel 4 times a year for 17 years. He says it’s easier than going through the immigration process here, and I believe him.

After our first 3 months here, we got our next 3-month visa by going to Petra, Jordan—a place we long wanted to see, so that worked out fine. In August we have to leave our apartment for a week (pre-arranged with the landlord), so we’re thinking about somewhere with a cooler climate, maybe Ireland. And in Nov. it will probably be the Egyptian pyramids. That left us with what to do in June.

We saw on janglo, the online list-serve for Jerusalem Anglos (there’s also tanglo for Tel Aviv Anglos), that other visitors have had success getting a one-time, 3-month visa extension at the Ministry of Interior. That would mean we could skip having to travel out of the country this quarter. Despite all the horror stories of dealing with bureaucracy here, we figured it was bound to be easier and cheaper than taking a trip somewhere. So began the visa saga.

It started with a trip downtown to the Ministry of Interior office. We knew better than to expect to take care of this on the spot, as an appointment is required; this was simply a fact-finding mission. In an environment that looked like your typical urban Department of Motor Vehicles complex, we waited in the general info line to ask the harried worker how to get an appointment. He gave us a phone number, which we called repeatedly for half an hour, only getting an automatic hold message. So we waited in the general info line again and were told to just keep trying the number. Then Sarah decided to sneak into the visa department to see what might happen there while still calling the number. After nearly an hour of getting the hold message—which, because we have a cell phone, eats up our minutes, slowly but mercilessly—we realized that the visa clerks busy helping the customers (who all had appointments) were never going to answer that phone. Excruciating, standing in front of a row of clerks and hearing your call ring from the phone on the counter right behind them, knowing that the only way to talk to them is if someone answers the phone. Finally Sarah jumped in between customers and asked how to possibly get through by phone; “just keep trying” is the party line.

For the next 3 weeks we kept trying, phoning every day from home or wherever we happened to be, always getting the automatic hold and using up phone cards. During this time we learned from sympathizers on janglo that Jerusalem has another Ministry of Inferior—er, Interior office. Sarah conducted a painstaking web search using a “special character palette” (?) to decipher their odd business hours and phone number, listed only in Hebrew. After just a few days of calling, we got through. But it turns out they no longer have a visa department. Back to trying the main office.

And then one day, miraculously, someone at the downtown office picked up. We got through! Sarah explained that we needed appointments to extend our visas for 3 months, and the woman offered a date 3 weeks out. Problem is, we have to take care of this before we start our interpreting jobs lined up for June, since we’ll be on the road with tour groups when our visas expire in late June. And we’d already lost 3 precious weeks being on hold. The woman responded with, “You’re not allowed to work on a visitor visa!” to which Sarah said, “No, no—it’s an American job” [which is allowed]. And the clerk said, “Do you want this appointment date or not?” “But we can’t be in Jerusalem then.” “Okay, bye.” Click.

And with that click, all hope of getting the 3-month extension was trampled.

I’ve decided the general problem is a defeating combination of bloated bureaucracy and absence of customer service. With few exceptions—our travel agent and the wonderfully patient postal clerks at our local office (yep—happy postal clerks!)—there simply isn’t customer service here. It’s not just that Israelis don’t put emphasis on it; they actually don’t ever experience or expect it. You might stand for a while at a fast food counter, waiting only for your change, while the worker gets distracted by something happening in the kitchen. Or stand around waiting until the pharmacist finishes a chatty personal call and is finally ready to notice you. It’s like when a government worker hangs up on you after you’ve tried for 3 weeks to get someone on the line. Problems are seen as belonging to the person who is experiencing them; they are not for other people to solve for you.

So it’s off to Turkey! Not such a bad thing, really, when you have all the time in the world to take an impromptu trip. We found a great travel agent—good enough to start removing the bad taste in my mouth of Israeli customer service. . .oh, wait, she’s Russian—who has dealt with people in our situation many times. After sincerely sympathizing with us over the Ministry’s inability to provide services, she found us a 3-night flight-hotel-meals package to Antalya, on the Mediterranean coast. Not many sights or ruins or anything, but it’s where people with expiring tourist visas go, as it’s the cheapest option compared to Istanbul and Cyprus. We have no idea what we’re getting into and don’t have much time to do research. One thing I must look up, though, is the name of Turkey’s currency so I can stop saying things like, “How many turkeys will it cost us to . . . ?”

MISSING PLASTIC LAYER
The absence of customer service fits very well with a dead-on description of Israeli society that I read on a blog. The western author calls it the “missing plastic layer.” Every interaction with native or long-time Israelis is conducted without the accompanying niceties we often use and expect in the west. This can be physical, such as bumping and crashing against each other in passing, even when there’s plenty of room on the sidewalk to avoid contact. For weeks I tried pushing back, to “make a point,” until I realized my actions went entirely unnoticed. To them, I’m not pointing out their “rudeness” or even seen as rude by shoving back; I’m just doing what everyone is expected to do. The “missing plastic layer” also applies to how interactions are conducted, which is, in a word, bluntly. We’ve had more arguments with strangers here—store clerks, fellow bus passengers, cab drivers—than in all our years of living in DC. The thing is, the act of engaging in an argument shows the level of commitment and attention you are receiving. If you weren’t important in some way, they wouldn’t bother.

WALKING THE GREEN LINE
I went on a day-long bus tour yesterday held in conjunction with a photography exhibit called “The Green(er) Side of the Line,” in which a Parisian photographed a long, green ribbon he placed at several locations along the armistice line dividing Israel from the West Bank. The trip, organized by the Center for Jerusalem Studies of the (Arab) Al Quds University, took us along and occasionally over the line to see its impact on villages. I found out about it when reading a *monthly* publication called, oddly enough, “This Week in Palestine” which contains articles and events of a different slant.

Three points to share:
>I knew that the reason for the name “Green Line” is because those on the Israeli side who drew the boundary used a green marker on a map. I also knew they used a very thick green marker, which is what led to the “no man’s land” problem where you have spaces sometimes as wide as 200 meters where it was impossible to determine who gets that strip because on paper it was entirely covered under the thick marker. What I learned on the tour is that not only did the Israeli drawers use a fat marker but they used a small-scale map, further compounding the problem of precision.

>The Arab village of Barta’a has the distinction of being split in two by the Green Line. We walked along the market street and were shown exactly where this t-shirt shop ends the West Bank side and the t-shirt shop next door begins the Israeli side. There is no visible division, but the residents definitely know where the line is. Half of Barta’a has an Israeli ID, the other half West Bank ID; crossing the line with the wrong ID results in arrest. This divided village is a result of the Israeli drawers’ using an outdated map, which showed Barta’a being much smaller than it really is. To this day the line cuts through the home of a Muslim dentist who has 2 wives—the one holding Israeli ID has her bedroom in the Israeli side of the house while the West Bank wife sleeps in the West Bank bedroom.

>The proposed site of Jerusalem’s newest museum—the Museum of Tolerance—is a Muslim cemetery located downtown.

One of us will write again post-Turkey and pre-work trips.

Movie tip: if you see “X-Men 3” (I know, I know—most of you won’t), stay all the way through the end of the credits for the very last scene.

Standing again at Kampala

2006-05-24T12:23:00.000-04:00

{posted by Sarah}
Warning: heavy theory ahead. Skip down to the Jewish Community of Uganda section if you haven’t the stomach or inclination.

Some of you know I was a women’s studies major in college. Haven’t ever quite gotten over my love of the hard theory stuff. You know, reading articles with titles such as “(Re) Contextualizing the Multiple (S)Elf: Legolas’ Hair in ‘Lord of the Rings.’” Love it, love it, love it. So I was thrilled to come across a flyer announcing that Judith Plaskow (author of "Standing Again At Sinai") was coming to Jerusalem to give a talk.

Back-story: in the summer of1999, Kelli and I attended a feminist yeshiva (study program) in Jerusalem where we looked at Jewish texts from a feminist standpoint. JP and her partner, Martha Ackelsberg, were our program orientation facilitators. I still have my notes from that time about how to approach texts with a “hermeneutics of suspicion.” Love it, love it, love it.

Fast forward to last Thursday night: a crowd of approximately 60 people, mostly students of Pardes (a more conventional, albeit egalitarian yeshiva), gather to hear JP expound on her 30+ years as a feminist theologian. What follows are some of her points and my musings thereon…read at your own risk!

Her basic contention is that we, as feminists (or whatever your preferred label is) can’t ignore the painful, difficult, and oppressive aspects of our tradition. This applies to any tradition, but since she’s Jewish, that’s the context in which she’s working. So right away, she’s bumping up against some more liberal strands of Judaism that have “re-interpreted” prayers to say only the nice things rather than the nasty stuff. Here’s just one example: there is a prayer that observant Jews say every day, and less observant Jews still probably know if they go to synagogue every so often, that’s called Aleinu. In it, Jews thank God for not making us like other people, like the “nations of other lands,” or the “families of Earth” (or dirt, if you’d prefer). Really can’t pretty that one up, but oh, how the reform branch and the reconstructionists try. Some synagogues just don’t translate that bit into English, or they change it, preferring to say, “…who hast given us our heritage and hast given all peoples their unique heritages and destinies” or other similarly watered-down words. And now that I think about it, that’s a rather minor example.

There’s a command given by God in I Samuel about genocide: “Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.” (What did the poor ass do?) Before you think this has no relevance to today—who’s Amalek?—here’s a direct quote from someone on the web (I didn’t look to see the name):

HaShem [God] commanded the genocide of Amalek to keep the present situation in the Middle East from happening. HaShem was not trying to be cruel but He knew that Amalek and other tribes were heathens filled with jealousy and hatred toward the offspring of Ya'akov [Jews]. This jealousy and hate was passed on to the offspring of Amalek. . . If all the people in each heathen tribe had been completely eradicated, there would be no problem in the Middle East. Israel would not have enemies on every side tormenting her relentlessly.

Umm…and why am I still a Jew? Anyone who opens up the Torah and reads, really reads, would be tempted to slap a “Rated R—for violence, sexual violence, and violent language” on it.

“But,” I hear you groaning, “the tradition is old, old, old. People were writing in the context of their historical moment.” (I can’t even begin to address the idea that God wrote that stuff.) “We need to select from this rich and diverse tradition the ethics and morality codes that work for us today. Why not simply focus on the respectful-of-all, multicultural, love-thy-neighbor parts?” Yes, good question. JP’s answer is that we can’t afford to look away from the hard parts, and that a refusal to look doesn’t make them go away. In fact, their negative effects continue to “fester like a hidden sore.” (see above quote) The texts support objectification of the “other,” and therefore destroying the other becomes not only reasonable but divinely ordained!

She made the trenchant point that picking and choosing what’s good and beautiful and just (in our eyes) is not deriving values from our tradition but rather seeking support for our own convictions. People like to argue about what the “real” tradition teaches as if the other guy’s opinion was made up entirely out of whole cloth, but obviously there’s some proof text for his stance, too. Think about it in another context: Bush and other Americans, both Muslim and non, rush to say the “real” Islam is peaceful; the terrorists have perverted it for their own reasons. But the Koran has some pretty harsh things to say about infidels; that, too, is “real” Islam. Only by acknowledging the hard stuff and grappling with it will we have the opportunity to shape tradition.

Only, here it gets fuzzy. What does it mean to shape tradition? One of JP’s answers was to expand what is meant when we say Torah. We have thousands of years of literature, not all of which got be included in the canon. Suppose it were? Suppose those creating, writing, and thinking today got to be considered “Torah,” every bit as important to study as Deuteronomy? What would it mean to take women’s words as Torah?

Jewish Community of Uganda
And then it gets weirder and more wonderful. This past Monday evening, we headed over to the Conservative synagogue for their “Monday Evening Forum.” The title of this forum was “The Indigenous Jewish Community of Uganda: A Most Unusual Story” with Gershom Sizomu, the first Ugandan rabbinical student and the spiritual leader of approx. 750 Ugandan Jews. Huh?

A brief timeline:
1919—missionaries (of the Christian variety) select certain local leaders of various villages in Uganda to learn, in hopes that they will then turn around and preach the gospel to their fellow villagers (in their native language, which the missionaries don’t yet know). One such fellow, upon learning English and reading the Bible given to him by the missionaries, comes to the conclusion that the New Testament is bunk and that he’s better off following just the Old (i.e. Jewish) Testament and begins to preach to that effect. (I can only imagine how the missionaries felt!) By the way, he circumcised himself (eek) and his sons and his servants as a covenantal mark à la Abraham, the Jewish patriarch.

1926—Two merchants from then-Palestine (Israel under British mandate rule) visit Uganda for business, hear about a community of practicing Jews, and end up staying 6 months to teach Hebrew to the community and donate books. The community still has the first Bible in Hebrew that they received from Yosef and Moshe.

1960—Israel gets an embassy in Uganda, makes contact with the community, finds out that they still perform sacrifices (like killing a lamb before Passover in order to spread its blood over entryways), and tells them that Jews don’t actually do that anymore, so that practice is ended. They also learn they’d been mispronouncing Hebrew words. Apparently, Ugandan words always end in a vowel sound, so they’d been putting an extra sound onto Hebrew words. For example: Adon became Adoni, Olam became Olamu and so on. The old-timers still sing the songs that way.

1971—Idi Amin comes to power and immediately expels all Asians and Israelis, closes the Israeli embassy, and bans Judaism. All Jewish books not hidden are destroyed, and the synagogues turned into schools, shops, or allowed to deteriorate. Many of the Ugandan Jews continue to practice in secret.

1979—Idi Amin overthrown in April, and the community celebrates a Passover Seder which forever symbolizes both their liberation from Egypt and from Idi Amin.

In more recent history, several trips have been undertaken by American rabbis to formally convert all members of the community; not being born Jews, it’s a necessary step to being considered Jewish despite the fact that they’ve been practicing Jewish rituals for 80+ years. Most members of the community live rurally and work as farmers, a holdover from the times when they had no Jewish schools and were forced to attend either Christian or Muslim schools where they were harassed, so most dropped out. Gershom Sizomu is the first in his family to attend college. Now they operate the only schools in their area, and all are welcome to attend regardless of religious affiliation; the other kids sit out the 1 hour of Jewish studies a day.

You can hear (and buy) the community’s Grammy-nominated album here
or by googling Abayudaya (“those who belong to Judah”) at Smithsonian Folkways Recordings.

Hell froze over

2006-05-22T11:21:00.000-04:00

Originally uploaded by sarandkel.

{posted by Kelli}
“It’s Official. Hell has Frozen Over. Finland has Won.” So claimed the main Finnish newspaper after Saturday night’s Eurovision competition. (No, I’m not quite done with this topic yet.) With their catchy, albeit entirely screamed tune “Hard Rock Hallelujah,” the heavy metal band Lordi (pictured above) brought their native Finland out of a pit of humiliation and embarrassment (ironic!) after decades of last-place finishes in this annual singing contest. Second-place Russia is protesting the results, deeply offended that such monster nonsense could even be included in the contest in the first place. Eddie Butler of Israel placed a dismal 23 out of 24 finalists. International press had a hey-day with it all. (Was it covered in US media?) There hasn’t been such an uproar at Eurovision since Dana International, the transgendered diva representing Israel, won in ’98, raising eyebrows as well as peyes (Jewish men’s side curls) across this country.

Sadly, every year this event loses more of its ethnic diversity, as increasingly countries stretching from Iceland to Russia strive to find their best Christina Aguilera look-alike. Still, from a newcomer’s perspective, there was some variety. As described on one viewer’s web site, there were “Orcs and Klingons, Latvians with robots, Germans in cowboy hats, and a Russian woman stuck in a piano.” Die-hard fans just can’t give it up; in the words of one who flew from London to Greece to see the finals in person for the first time, “You don’t imagine something so bad could be so good.”

Be sure to read Ben’s comment (linked at the end of our last post), which explains the reason for Lebanon’s absence as well as why countries like Lebanon and Israel are eligible for something called EUROvision. Also, I forgot to mention last time that the year ABBA won (’74), they beat out the young Olivia Newton John, who came in fourth for her native England. And remember Katrina and the Waves from the ‘80s (“Walking on Sunshine”)? They won for the UK in ‘97. Now we’ll see where the Eurovision title takes the monsters of Lordi.

Back now to the very trying task of figuring out how to get our next 3-month visa, which most non-residents accomplish by leaving the country and then returning to get another 3-month passport stamp. Travel to Turkey? Sinai peninsula? Cyprus? Paris? Amman, Jordan? Aqaba, Jordan? We need to come up with something pretty quick so it’s taken care of before we start working in June.

Eh—on second thought, I’m ready to take a break from it, so we’re going to make a fruit salad and take it over to the promenade park—with incredible Old City and East Jerusalem views—for dinner while we check out the temporary “Peace Tents” exhibit in the park.

Scratch that. We’ll do the park exhibit tomorrow morning. Just learned of a lecture tonight by the first Ugandan rabbinical student, called “The Indigenous Jewish Community of Uganda: A Most Unusual Story.” Good thing we’re flexible.

A poll, 3 goats, a couple miracles, and Finnish heavy metal

2006-05-20T06:32:00.000-04:00

Originally uploaded by sarandkel.

{posted by Kelli}

The next photo album is up. Go here to see the pictures. As usual, type in sarandkel at yahoo dot com.
Taking a break from today’s exotic, life-in-the-Middle-East activity—defrosting the mini-freezer in our mini-fridge so that it will be useable—to create another post. Sarah pointed out that today’s project is so far requiring 2 rolls of paper towels, 2 beach towels, and my pants to mop up the years of ice that I’m chiseling off.

YOU TELL US
Our dismay at the dearth of comments posted on our blog has changed to delight now that Sarah has enabled some do-dad that counts the number of hits we get. Not only that, it tells us how long the reader was on and their location. If it feels a little Big Brother to you, it does to me, too. Anyhow, we were pleased to find out that last week, for example, camelwhisperer had 69 visitors, some repeat and some new. Maybe now is a good time for a brief poll, as we near (sort of) the half-way point (almost) of this year’s experience. What do you, our readers, want more of? Based on your e-mail messages, it seems politics is a popular topic. More of that? Day-to-day stuff? Travelogues? Observations? Bizarre customs? Botany? You tell us, and we’ll respond accordingly.

ANALYZE THIS
Here’s a TV ad we keep seeing but are so far unable to figure out.
(Black and white.) A woman is driving a car when she looks in the rearview mirror and suddenly sees 3 white goats in the back seat. She lets out a scream straight out of “Psycho” (the original). (Switch to color.) The driver pulls in to a 7-11 type of store called “Yellow” where she takes a carton of milk from the shelf. Then, with a smile, she hands over one of the goats to the cashier.
That’s it. Any ideas? We’d love to hear your interpretations. The billboard follow-up around town shows one of the goats baying at a full moon . . . ???

MIRACLES
Last week’s road trip was to the Sea of Galilee—actually a freshwater lake and famous for its Christian sites. (Here’s where Jesus performed this or that miracle, etc.) Highlights:

*A hike in the Golan region to hexagon pools (see photo above) and waterfall pools. Our hiking days in Israel are over until autumn when it cools down again. I continue to be amazed at the number of trails in this country—easy and difficult, desert and mountain, remote and trafficked. The hiking book we had listed some fascinating info. You can’t make this stuff up; miracles, for sure.
>The little shorelark bird has black spots on its head, remnants of days when it was horned!
>The wild carrot lures potential pollinators by growing an insect look-alike bud in the midst of its blossoms so that real insects feel the competition. (see online photos)
>The echium, or viper’s gloss, saves pollinators time and trouble by indicating through changing colors exactly which blossoms have been pollinated; pink means not yet pollinated, blue means already pollinated.

*Stops at several sites of Jesus’ miracles, live baptisms in the Jordan River, and yet more ruins from, primarily, Roman and Crusader times, including Megiddo (the site of Armageddon).

*Nazareth Village, the living reconstruction of life in biblical times on the site of ruins of an early Christian village. Just the right amount of “cheese factor” for us, with costumed actors weaving, cooking, herding sheep, and so on.

*The most amazing church we’ve ever seen, anywhere, which is the Basilica of the Annunciation. Many churches are built on the site of a Crusader chapel or a 5th century basilica or a pagan altar, but you can’t ever see these original structures underneath. This enormous church in Nazareth, built in 1969, showcases previous religious structures—going back to 356 CE—and also a structure thought to be Mary’s house by building the modern church around them so that they remain as sunken chapels still in use within the church. The architectural incorporation is magnificent. We erased every photo we took of it, as they just couldn’t begin to capture the idea. You have to come see it for yourselves.

*The 30th annual Jacob’s Ladder Festival, celebrating folk music from the US, UK, France, Canada, and Ireland. We went to the Irish dancing workshop (think “Riverdance”) and the country dancing workshop (Dolly Parton and John Denver tunes), where everyone from little kids to teenage boys to seniors delighted in learning the steps, applauding wildly for themselves en masse when the group of 150 or so eager students finally mastered a tricky step together. Next we wandered among the various stages set up on the beach at the Sea of Galilee. There were many impromptu jam sessions around the grounds, giving it a great feeling. Made me miss the annual Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival.

*Catching an old rerun of “Mad About You” in our beachside hotel.

HISTORIC MOMENT
Groupe F, the world-famous pyrotechnics company that does many of the Olympics fireworks shows, put on a show in Tel Aviv this week that was one of the biggest fireworks displays anywhere, ever. Which led to the worst traffic jam in Israel, ever. After watching the fireworks, which were set off from a barge in the Mediterranean, from the balcony of our DC neighbor’s hotel room (he was in Israel for the week; we took him on the Kelli-n-Sarah Old City Tour one day), we sat in our car in the parking lot for 2 hours before even turning the car on. We didn’t get home until 1 a.m., and learned the next day that we had been participants in double historic events.

HOOKED ON EUROVISION
Thank God it’s only a two-night thing and not a regular show. Eurovision is Europe’s “American Idol,” annually pitting singers of various European countries (plus Turkey and Israel) against each other with the winner determined by viewers’ telephone or text voting. This year’s contest, broadcast live, celebrates 51 years of national rivalries, unspoken political tensions, and ghastly sequined costumes. My favorite, the rock opera group from Poland, didn’t make it from last night’s semi-finals to tomorrow night’s finals; the frightful monster costumes and pyrotechnic antics, à la KISS, of the Finnish heavy metal band Lordi did. Israel has won the crown three times so far. This year’s Israeli entry is Eddie Butler from the African Israelite (Black Hebrew) community.
Eurovision is big—really, really big. And it’s coming to the US; NBC has plans to run a state vs. state version. Before you dismiss it entirely, know that both ABBA and Celine Dion were discovered at Eurovision. You can’t make this stuff up either.

More another time about Israeli society, in particular the ongoing saga of trying to extend our visas, and the “missing plastic layer.”

12 years ago today...

2006-05-10T15:35:00.000-04:00

Independence Day
Originally uploaded by sarandkel.

{posted by Kelli}

MORE HOLIDAYS
They never seem to end in this country. The photo is from the recent celebration in Jerusalem of Yom HaAtzmaut, or Independence Day, which is always the day after Yom HaZikaron, or Memorial Day, marked by a siren during which everyone stops what they’re doing, just like during the Holocaust Remembrance Day siren last month. Each year for Independence Day, the city chooses a different neighborhood and holds a variety of activities highlighting that particular area’s history. This year’s festivities were held in the Russian compound neighborhood. Besides kids’ crafts and a police dog trick show(?), there were musical groups and roaming actors in period costumes, including “prisoners” in the Underground Prisoners’ Museum. The museum was free for the day so people could wander about and gawk at the British mandate-era, Jewish freedom fighters/prisoners going about their daily task of sitting in the corners of their cells. The funny thing about the day was that there were so many interestingly-dressed people in the crowd that it became difficult to know who was in costume and who was dressed for real--as an Ethiopian monk, a Hassidic Jewish mother of 6, a Russian Orthodox priest, an African family of 4, or a Scottish bagpiper. Ok—that last one was a costume, but the others were authentic, modern-day Jerusalemites enjoying the party.

REFLECTIONS ON VISITORS
We both got caught up in the good times with Sarah’s family here last month—to the point where we completely forgot it was my birthday until a hotel clerk, writing our receipt, asked what the date was. I took it to mean that we have come so far out of our daily routine of life in DC that we forget such a thing as a birthday. For a first-hand perspective of the trip from Sarah’s brother Ben, go to his blog. It’s easy to become jaded after living somewhere a while. Sarah and I usually go on our way, not giving the archaeological dig/glittering mosque/Roman columns a second thought, because we see them all the time. Having visitors here made us stop and look at things with new eyes again, and that was good. Friends have asked about any post-visitor “letdown.” Once her family left, Sarah said, “Ok, I’m done with Israel. I could go home now.” And I once more started fantasizing about living in France again. (For a kid who grew up becoming terribly homesick just half an hour from her house, something changed along the way. . . ). Living abroad, you really have to know yourself, or be willing to learn the subject. It’s work.

HOW DAYS ARE SPENT
But now we’re settling again into some regular activities punctuated with more sightseeing. After a whole year here, we won’t come anywhere near seeing everything in Jerusalem, let alone the country. So how are we spending our days currently? Sarah began a Hebrew language course that runs Monday and Wednesday mornings, plus she’s occasionally attending community, drop-in classes on Torah, etc., at the Conservative Yeshiva while also exploring options for more intensive Torah study later in the summer. I have yet to find a Hebrew language class that fits my level without meeting every day for 4 hours. There’s a group of volunteers I joined this week that is working to restore a 19th century garden on the grounds of an unused hospital. I wanted to do something outside with the land. It’s a very international mix: Dutch, Israeli, French, Australian. The common language is Hebrew with enough English to make sure I don’t pull up the 2-inch-high sunflower plants while I’m weeding and putting in basil seedlings. Another project is the movie about Israel we’re creating for our friends’ daughter in DC. Tonight we started Israeli folk dancing on Wednesdays at a school in our neighborhood. From time to time we help out our friends across the street when they need someone to watch their two little ones. And I began again one of my favorite activities: planning road trips. Tomorrow we head to the Sea of Galilee for 5 days of hikes, sightseeing (primarily Christian places like Nazareth, Capernaum, baptisms in the Jordan River), and to attend a folk music festival that sounds really fun. All this activity is only for the month, because we booked interpreting work for most of June. So everything changes once again next month.

WHAT’S THE BIG DEAL?
From Barbara Sofer’s “58 Reasons Why I Love Israel” in last week’s “Jerusalem Post”:

#1 Big news here was our success in getting a 2,000-year-old date seed to sprout on Kibbutz Ketura. The tree is now 92 cm. tall and 65 cm. wide. Myrrh and frankincense are next (really!).

#2 At Kibbutz Revivim, water from fish tanks nourishes alfalfa for ostriches. Go figure.

#5 You can pick up fresh rolls at the corner store before 6 a.m. (and pay for them later).

#10 The doctor who briefed the world press about the prime minister’s health report was really an obstetrician. [Only in Israel.]

#16 No matter what’s happening outside, inside our hospitals, disease is the only enemy. [For example, injured would-be suicide bombers are brought to hospitals alongside their victims.]

#17 Its value may fluctuate, but we call our money “shekel” just as we did in biblical days.

#21 The interim prime minister leaves his house early in the morning so security won’t disturb the school traffic on his block.

#28 Our old-fashioned, hand-counted voting system ain’t broke, so we don’t fix it.

#38 We don’t debate immigration. We’re the world’s largest per-capita immigrant-absorbing country.

#48 You can buy kosher chicken schnitzel in the shape of dinosaurs in the supermarket and still believe in the story of Adam and Eve.

#54 We have the highest computer ownership per capita and can read the news on-line, but still keep 32 different newspapers in business.

Sarah remembered that it was 12 years ago today that we met, working at Deaf-REACH!
Until after our road trip . . .

Gettin' muddy at the dead sea

2006-05-02T15:23:00.000-04:00

gettin' muddy at the dead sea
Originally uploaded by sarandkel.

{posted by Sarah}

New pictures are up! See them by clicking here: www.clubphoto.com
Where it says “enter friend’s email,” type sarandkel at yahoo dot com (with the actual punctuation).

If you’ve been wondering how the visit with the family went, this is the post you’ve been waiting for! After all the preparation and the countdown, they were finally here. Kelli and I took 3 buses out to the airport to get them and waited with everyone else in the arrivals lounge. I love that part of an airport; everyone is so happy to be expecting the arrival of someone, and you get to eavesdrop on bits of conversations and relationships. Of course, after an hour, one does begin to wonder what might have triggered security to hold one’s family for strip-searching. As Kelli wryly remarked, “That’s the first and last time they’ll question (my mom)” while we imagined the earful she might be giving the poor 20-yr.-old on the other end. But at last they emerged, tired but in one piece. So it was Mom, Dad, and one brother; the other brother would be joining 10 days later after brother #1 left to get back to teaching h.s. science in NYC.

After Kelli and I had been to Israel a couple of times, she put together a list of the “perfect first-timer’s trip to Israel” (people who know Kelli are not at all surprised by this, huh?) which was modified from time to time with, principally, my family in mind. So we were both pretty wound up with excitement and anxiety about how this visit was going to go. It’s weird to be hosts for people in a place that you have ambivalent feelings about. It’s easy to show someone around a place you love (Whole Foods, for example) but weird to be wanting people to really enjoy themselves and feel enriched after visiting a place that still pushes your buttons.

That being said, the visit, overall, was wildly successful. They had an interesting, fun time while learning that some of their assumptions about Israel were misconceptions. For instance, my Dad had heard so many times that Israel was small (and it is, in terms of being a whole country) that he was surprised at how big it actually is; it took longer to get places than he expected. Mom couldn’t get over the heterogeneity of people here. Arabs can be Christian, Muslim, Druze, Jewish, etc., for example. Everyone got along famously. (I got dealt a great hand in terms of family, so this isn’t such a shock, but still, traveling can be stressful for anyone). Kelli was the consummate chauffeur/tour guide, getting us to and from all sorts of places, all the while pointing out things of interest on either side of the road.

So, what did we do and where did we go? Here’s the list:

*picnicked with friends in our local park with a great view of the Old City, East Jerusalem and the “security wall”
*explored the Old City: Jewish quarter (the Western Wall and my cousin with her 3-day-old baby), Muslim quarter (Arab market and the Dome of the Rock plaza), Christian quarter (the Via Dolorosa and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre)
*visited the “new” city: the shuk (outdoor market), religious neighborhoods (just the edges since we didn’t want to offend or feel uncomfortable), the Ethiopian church, the Museum of Psalms
*hung out in our neighborhood: a street fair, all the shops on our main drag, services at the local reform synagogue, and the super veg restaurant not too far away
*went through part of the Israel Museum (Mom thought it’d take us 2 hours tops—we spent that much time just in the Shrine of the Book where the Dead Sea Scrolls are displayed)

And that was just Jerusalem. We also went to the north:

*Moshav Mishmeret, where we learned all about bees and honey harvested in the village (a private tour for the family)
*Zichron Ya’akov for lunch and clothes-buying at our favorite shop
*Moshav Amirim, the mountainous vegetarian village that was our home for the north trip
*Tzfat (see archived post from Feb. about this mystical town)
*Banias national park--springs, Pan’s temple, Crusader ruins, and more
*Tiberias for dinner (as the guidebook “Let’s Go” puts it “a city that is flash and trash”)
*Caesarea—fantastic ruins of a major harbor in the time of Herod and after
*Ulpan Akiva to show them where we’d been “breaking our teeth” (a translation of an idiom in Hebrew)
*Baha’i gardens in Haifa—stunning, stunning, stunning
*Akko—the remains of an underground Crusader city
*Montfort, an excellent hike up to very cool ruins, also Crusader era
*Nahariya, a beach town that was our home on the 2nd north trip, with brother #2
*Rosh Ha-Nikra, the northernmost town in Israel on the west (Lebanon) side for the grottoes
*Akhzibland, where Eli Avivi established his own country in ’52. We have probably invalidated our passports with entrance and exit stamps from his country. Oops.
*Daliyat al-Carmel for an authentic Druze lunch
*visited Mom’s high school friend, my other cousin, and family friends

And we went south:
*Ein Gedi for a hike to waterfall pools while viewing ibexes and hyraxes up close (very different animals despite the similarity in name)
*Masada for the last stand of the Jewish zealots (yes, it’s where we get the word) against the Romans in the years 66-70 C.E.
*Dead Sea for the requisite mud coating and sea floating

Not all was fun and games. As you may know, there was a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv while my family was here. We were in the north at the time and didn’t even hear of it ‘til later the next day when we checked the news online. I’m not sure what we expected afterwards, but life absolutely continues unabated for most of the country, and after feeling upset and off-kilter for just a bit, we got on with our plans. Strange, but human nature, I think. Also, Yom HaShoah (Holocaust remembrance day) was last month as well. The tradition is that a siren goes off all over the country at 10 am, and everyone stops whatever they are doing and stands silently for 2 minutes. We were driving, so, like everyone else, pulled over, got out, and stood. It was eerie and moving. Finally, being in Israel over Pesach (Passover) is decidedly inconvenient! If you’re not all that religious (we do a rather non-traditional Seder meal and try to eschew bread for the week, but that’s about it), the fact that everything is closed can be off-putting. We even had a few truly uncomfortable minutes when we were driving back to Jerusalem on the 7th night of Pesach and found ourselves driving amidst religious families walking on streets without streetlights. We kept coming up to blocked intersections and kept having to turn around and re-route to get back home.

Priceless quote of the visit: “They don’t have ANYTHING like this on Long Island!” I’ve actually no recollection what this was in reference to, but it symbolizes the trip in more ways than one. And another good sign is that my folks are talking about regular family trips on an international scale. Of course, the catch is that is has to be somewhere we (K and I) have been and know well so that we can put it all together like we did Israel. Guess that means we’ve got to figure out a way to make our travels pay our mortgage! :)

Observations Part II

2006-04-11T07:13:00.000-04:00

{posted by Kelli}

Here’s a photo of Passover preparations, which for many people include having their dishes “kosherized” by giving them a dunking in the neighborhood boiling pot of water.

One more set of observations~

WHAT DAY IS IT?
We both agree that one of the hardest adjustments to living here is getting used to a “work week” beginning on Sunday. For the majority of people in Israel, the weekend runs from Friday afternoon (sometimes morning) through Saturday night, then people return to work on Sunday. This throws us off each week, thinking Sunday is Monday and so on. Not having any kind of regular schedule yet doesn’t help.

OBSERVING SHABBAT (from an article in “The Jerusalem Post”)
Good news! The Institute for Science and Halakha (Jewish law) can tackle any puzzling question you put to them regarding conflicts with properly keeping Shabbat. This institute has developed all sorts of gadgets to help religiously-observant Jews avoid breaking the multitude of Shabbat taboos, such as lighting a fire (which extends from candles and cozy fireplaces to using electricity and starting a car engine, as this uses combustion), carrying anything (some places, like Jerusalem, are given an imaginary “line” circling the city wherein it’s permitted to carry), creating anything (writing, playing music), and destroying anything (including—hold on to your pants—ripping toilet paper to use. A common pre-Shabbat activity, if you don’t have any of the store-bought, pre-ripped kind, is ripping toilet paper to have it ready for Shabbat. If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes—and even taken part myself in the preparatory ripping at an Orthodox youth hostel we stayed at here in ’97—I would think it a ridiculous rumor.).

But what about the hospital patient who needs to push the button by the bed to summon a nurse? Not to worry; the institute has designed a clever, non-electrical device called the “grama switch” (from the Aramaic for “indirect action”) whereby the patient flips a switch that releases a small flap outside the door, exposing an already-lit bulb that alerts the nurse. This hospital also uses a phone that does not complete an electrical current, and even has a writing pen for medical staff that avoids the writing-on-Shabbat problem because its ink disappears in a few days! The institute is frequently contacted by many companies seeking ideas; for instance, when Israel was preparing to send up its first astronaut (on the ill-fated Columbia in ’03), the institute’s advice was sought as to what time exactly the Jewish astronaut should make kiddush (say the blessing over wine at sundown at the beginning of Shabbat), since in space, sunrise and sunset occur every hour-and-a-half. (The answer: follow the time Shabbat begins at the site of launching.)

ORANGE VS. BLUE
You probably recall the evacuation of all the Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip last August. The settlers and their supporters adopted bright orange as the color for their movement while Israelis in support of the forced evacuation chose blue, the same medium shade as on the Israeli flag. [Side note: I learned about bright orange being the color of settler supporters as I was simultaneously interpreting this fact last summer to a group in Israel—while, without a clue, wearing bright orange!]

Beginning months before the evacuation and continuing still today, you see orange ribbons everywhere—on car antennas, attached to teens’ backpacks, streaming out of purses. Even though the Blue Team is statistically the majority, the Orange Team, fearing future West Bank evacuations, is keeping up their presence much more. My favorite statement on all this was the car I saw with one blue and one orange ribbon hanging from the rearview mirror, entwined, representing yet another opinion: such issues shouldn’t divide people.

WHO ARE YOU? Identity in the Middle East
In college, it was always, “What’s your major?” In DC, it’s, “What do you do?” meaning career-wise. On the dating scene, I suppose it’s, “What’s your sign?” Here, upon meeting a new person, the first question inevitably is, “Who are you?” How is one supposed to answer that? Do I give my name? First and last? Or where I’m from? Or what I’m doing in Israel, or in Jerusalem, or in this particular spot? We’ve both tried a variety of answers such as these but haven’t yet hit on one that seems to satisfy every situation.

In such a multicultural place, you can count on your nationality being incorrectly guessed. Once I was seen as French based on my pronunciation of a Hebrew word; we have both been mistaken for German and Mormon; Sarah was once assumed to be Arabic, based on how her headscarf was tied at that moment. How one dresses here has much to say to others about identity, even down to little details like the color and size of someone’s yarmulke, not just whether or not he is wearing one. Different attire evokes different responses from those we interact with.

And then there’s the name issue. With a name like Sarah, you belong everywhere. When we were in Jordan, Sarah was proudly told her name is Arabic. When we met Deaf Italians, she became “one of them.” And of course, there is no shortage of Jewish Sarahs in the world. But with the name Kelli, it’s a different story. People can’t hear it clearly, and they certainly can’t pronounce it right. Here, after clearly and slowly stating my name, I have been immediately called Kathy, Karen, Carli, Collie, and Keelee, that I can remember. The Israeli name Ayala is sounding pretty good to me right now . . .

CONVERSATION ON A BUS
In Hebrew, from the old lady sitting next to me: “Are you cold?” “Excuse me?” “Are you cold?” (Not waiting for a response.) “This coat (fingering my jacket)—it’s not warm like mine is. But what can you do?” She sighs and turns back to the window.

WHEN SIGNING COMES IN HANDY . . . AND WHEN IT DOESN’T
When I wrote before about visiting Petra, Jordan, and the incessantly annoying hawkers of trinkets and donkey rides, I forgot to mention our seemingly brilliant plan for keeping them at bay. Our first day walking through Petra, we were mobbed like everyone else. The second day through the sites, we decided to try a ploy we’ve used when visiting other places—it’s particularly useful on NY subways—of pretending to be deaf, which we show by being apparently caught up in a signed conversation with each other (but which is actually something random like reciting the national anthem), thus effectively ignoring people who want to get our attention. It was working fine at first and led to an interesting discovery, which is that some Deaf American must have had contact with the Bedouin camel owners at some point, because many of them, after calling out to us and getting no response, actually made the sign in American Sign Language for riding an animal! Waving them off usually ended the interaction. In the afternoon, though, our plan backfired when one hawker said, as we walked by him, signing away, “Hey! I saw you here yesterday, and you were talking!”

That’s probably it from me until May, after Sarah’s family’s visit!

Observations Part I

2006-04-08T13:33:00.000-04:00

{posted by Kelli}

Photo taken in a Palestinian shop window in East Jerusalem.

FORECAST: DUSTY
I’m starting to miss the good ol’ days (last week) when the daily forecast called for dust. Don’t think I’ve ever lived somewhere where this was a climactic category. The last 4 days have seen rain and more rain. Each day’s forecast says it’s the end of it, but still it won’t stop. I hope it ends before Sarah’s family arrives on Wednesday.

AUDITORY ODDITIES
Every Friday at sundown, the start of Shabbat is heralded by the “Shabbat siren”—a foghorn-like sound lasting several minutes that is sent throughout the whole city as a reminder of the weekly holiday. (Keep in mind that over half the Jewish population of Israel is secular and doesn’t observe Shabbat “laws.”) It’s really something when the Shabbat siren, various church bells, and the broadcasted muezzin (Islamic call to prayer, played 5 times a day) go off simultaneously.

Each morning, Sarah wakes up with the theme from “The Andy Griffith Show” in her head. She blames this on the unusual song of a certain type of bird in our neighborhood whose trilling, she swears, sounds like the beginning of that old TV show.

Another daily auditory ritual is the snippet of “The Way We Were”—the elevator muzak version, without words—that plays at 8:15 a.m. Israeli schools use a bit of recorded music rather than bells or alarms to signal the start of the school day, recess, etc. Nice idea, but we wish they’d switch up the tunes once in a while.

SURVEY SAYS. . .
As you may have heard, the Kadima party won the election. Yesterday Ehud Olmert was officially recognized as the new prime minister by Israel’s president. (Does anybody anywhere know who this is? He’s not even at the level of figurehead.) Now Olmert’s task is to somehow form a coalition government from the 12 different parties that won seats in the 120-seat Knesset (parliament). A whopping 31 parties ran, from Labor and Likud—both easily won enough seats to be included in the Knesset—to the Power to the Poor Party, Party for War Against Banks, and even the Green Leaf Party—none of which won enough votes to be represented. One party that came out of nowhere, winning 7 seats, is the Pensioners’ Party. As their name suggests, their sole focus is on rights of the retired. Other issues—the economy, education, the occupation—“can be looked at later.” We did hear at a post-election panel of lefties that voting for the Pensioners became a sort of joke among young voters. Seems no one thought this party could pull it off, but they were the big upset. As in previous elections, 3 Arab parties won 3 seats each, and several Jewish religious parties won plenty of seats as well. Pulling people with such wide-ranging pet issues together into one functioning government will be a major headache. One unifying fact is this: of the 120 Knesset seats, 100 went to individuals willing to make land concessions for peace. I’m curious to see where that leads. An interesting note is that the voting pattern in Jerusalem, with its 30% ultra-religious population, was way different than the overall country’s total, where only 11% are ultra-religious.

Despite the novelty of a strong, new party at the forefront of the election, voter turn-out was low, at 49%. In elections past, Israel has had the highest turn-out in the world, with over 80% voting. Then again, there was the Israeli couple permanently living in Brooklyn who flew over just to vote, so it was important to some.

MISSING PARIS
I don’t miss being in DC, just our friends there. While we were first getting settled in Jerusalem, the moments I felt “homesick”—which happened, I think, when a situation was too different/frustrating/confusing, or when I experienced a string of such moments—I found myself missing Paris. I think what this shows is that even during a difficult moment, I don’t wish to be back in the states but rather still living abroad, just in a place that is more like what I am familiar with. Good to know.

THE POWER OF LANGUAGE
Signs marking streets, sites of interest, and so on, come in many languages here. Hebrew, Arabic, and English are most commonly printed together on one sign, but sometimes you might also see Russian, French, Armenian, Amharic, and more. Just as important as which language is listed is the order they are listed. There are Jews who still feel slighted about the Arabic first, English second, Hebrew third street signs in the Old City left over from the British Mandate period, which ended in ’48, which highlight, they believe, the Brits’ favoritism of Arabs over Jews. Depending on what neighborhood you’re in, you sometimes see signs in the 3 major languages, but the Arabic is spray-painted over.

KEEP ON DIGGING
The Old City of Jerusalem—only 1 square kilometer within its walls—is an archaeologist’s dreamland, with 22 layers of civilization representing 12 distinct periods of history piled upon each other. Israel has the most archeological sites in the world. What kills me is the approach to digging here that I have encountered in some European countries, too. There is just so much underground that when they come across ruins—in the process of building a new development, say—they either leave what they found and simply move their building project a little to the left, or call in archaeologists who dig up some but never ALL of it. I don’t know how many places I’ve been where an ancient house/church/street/market had been discovered yet only partially uncovered. Tour guides are often heard saying, without enthusiasm, “What you can see today is about 15% of the wall surrounding the Second Temple,” or, “We’re currently standing over several tombs that have been discovered through radar but left untouched.” I’m of the camp that wants to see it all!

Gotta work on my taxes now!

I'm 34!

2006-04-05T13:53:00.000-04:00

{posted by Sarah}
Hideous Kinky—Esther Freud
The Menorah Men—Lionel Davidson
Dune—Frank Herbert
The Last Jew—Noah Gordon
Pigs In Heaven—Barbara Kingsolver
A History of God—Karen Armstrong
Undiscovered Country—Christina Koning
God: A Biography—Jack Miles
The Secret Sister—Elizabeth Lowell

Just some of the 22 (22!!) used books I bought for my birthday (April 3rd). It’s become somewhat of an annual tradition for me, and having spent the last 2 birthdays at the Green Valley Book Fair in Virginia (which is wonderful, if you ever have the chance to go; http://www.gvbookfair.com), I wasn’t about to pass up a book-buying birthday just ‘cause we’re in Jerusalem where, you know, everyone’s reading in Hebrew. Luckily, many, many people are also reading in English. Consequently, we mapped out 10 different places one can acquire used books in English cheaply ($3 or less) and set off for a full day of walking, shopping and, unfortunately, carrying. The places were a mix of bookstores, libraries, and community organizations. While I was browsing at one such organization—AACI, Association of Americans and Canadians in Israel—a woman appeared with boxes and boxes of books. I had first pick! Only found out afterwards this was half of the library of a recently deceased person. She or he was pretty darn educated, and there were tons of books on Biblical syntax, semantics, and other types of linguistic concerns. I didn’t get any of those. I did, however, get 2 books of Hebrew grammar in an attempt to get back on track with the language-learning thing.

So that was Monday; Tuesday was our “Christian Pilgrim” day. It started out with a cab ride with a driver who thought we were Mormon, so we were off to an interesting start! He explained that it was a natural assumption, given where we were going (Mount of Olives, which houses the Mormon University along with several Christian sites) and the fact that we spoke Hebrew with obvious American accents yet weren’t dressed as religious Jewish women. Most Israelis don’t have much contact with us secular Jews from the US, I guess.

You perhaps are wondering why we, champions of public transportation that we are, would have taken a cab. They don’t have bus transfers here! So it would have taken many a bus to get from home to our destination. Plus the weather’s been iffy, and we wanted to try to beat the spring rain. Anyway, though the cost of a cab irked me (it really wasn’t that much, but when you’re not earning anything…), it ended up being great because we had 20 minutes of Hebrew practice with the driver, which is hard to come by these days.

Our first stop was the Pater Noster Church. You can google it for more information than I can give, but the coolest part about it is that in tiles lining the walls it has the “Our Father” prayer in 80-plus languages, many of which we’d never even heard of. As Kelli said, “When did Béarnais go from being a sauce to a language?” Plus it’s also in Braille in Hebrew, English, French, Italian, and more. Kelli reminded me that the first time we went there, back in ’99, I ran around writing down all the languages, ‘cause that’s just the kind of nerd I am. :)

As we went down the hill from church to church, we kept running into the same Christian tour groups. Who knew so many Nigerians come to Israel? I swear we have seen a Nigerian tour group almost every other day here. I’m not assuming they are Nigerian, by the way; as some of you know, I freely talk to strangers, and I have asked them where they’re from. At one of the churches, we saw some people signing (though not American Sign Language), so we went over to investigate. Turns out they are a group of 20+ Deaf Italians and 2 Deaf Brazilians with nuns as interpreters—1 Italian nun who was called Mother General, and 1 originally from the Philippines. This is the 4th time we’ve met Deaf people on the trip so far—Jewish Israelis, Arab Israelis, Norwegian, and now Italian and Brazilian. We’ve again discovered that Deaf trumps any other kind of identity. They were happy to meet us, and we ended up being in their pictures (and vice versa) and their videotapes. They’ll probably forget our names, but we’ll be known as “the 2 interpreters from America we met at the Church of All Nations.”

Our final stop was at a place called the Garden Tomb. Some say it’s the site of the crucifixion and resurrection; others vote for the Church of the Holy Sepulchre for those events. At any rate, we thought we were just going to a lovely garden spot but instead wandered into a free tour from a born-again Brit called Reg. Everyone else on the tour seemed to be of similar faith, and it was kind of trippy for us. Other groups were singing all sorts of Christian songs (“The holy ghost is in this place” ring a bell for anyone?), and there were lots of “amens” and readings from the Bible, and one group even took Communion in the garden. I freaked out a bit when I thought the man was going to come offer it to us. I mean, I did take Communion once when I was seven years old, but, you know—once ought to be enough for any Jew, no?

In preparation for next week, when our first visitors—my family—arrive, we spent tonight cooking some of the foods we’ll be making for our Passover Seder to test our limited fridge space and burner space, etc. The days leading up to their arrival are spent doing “dry runs” of various walking tours and other scheduled events to make sure we know where the restrooms are and all that. On Shabbat, we went to our local park for a picnic lunch and ran in to friends, one of whom is a licensed tour guide. When we told her what we were doing, she commented that it was more strenuous than the required 2-year course tour guides take in Israel! Go us! So April is pretty much going to be taken up with the family stuff; I couldn’t be happier. Looking ahead, in May we’ll buckle down and get serious about Hebrew language study again; I want to start Israeli Sign Language classes; and Kelli wants to do some volunteering, in a garden and/or with a peace group. And in June we are booked to work 22 days in a row interpreting tour groups, so we’ll finally be earning some money!

Back from the Road

2006-04-02T11:25:00.000-04:00

{posted jointly}
(by Kelli)
Another successful and enjoyable “vacation within a vacation” is over, this one a week through the south. We witnessed the daily ceremony of school children in the insular African Hebrew Israelite community in Dimona, learned about David Ben-Gurion’s vision of making the desert bloom at Kibbutz Sdeh Boker, hiked up a canyon to a waterfall at Ein Avdat, explored ancient Nabatean ruins at Avdat, and slept in a desert mud hut on the edge of Makhtesh Ramon, the world’s biggest crater. That was Friday.

Rather than go through the daily itinerary, we picked three highlights to share. But first, I’ll just mention some of the other things we did:

>Hai Bar Nature Reserve, one of those drive-your-car-on-safari places, where we successfully dodged bold ostriches and saw, up close, ibex (like a mountain goat-deer mix), oryx (white antelope-type things with big horns that, when viewed from the side, look like one horn, possibly giving rise to the unicorn story), and wild asses of the equestrian variety. The park’s goal is to reintroduce animals mentioned in the bible as living in the region.

>5 hikes, including a short one to a series of waterfalls at Ein Gedi Nature Reserve where I went into a waterfall pool

>4 sites of ruins, mostly from the Nabateans, who worked the ancient Spice Route; also the cave at Qumran, where in 1947 they discovered the Dead Sea Scrolls (oldest copy of the bible)

>3 kibbutzes, including the lush, tropical grounds of Ein Gedi Kibbutz, a true oasis in the desert built in the midst of a botanical garden

>the mini-Hawaii setting of Eilat, Israel’s southernmost city, situated on the tip of the Red Sea where Egypt and Jordan are on either side and you can see Saudi Arabia in the distance

>the requisite Dead Sea float, still a bizarre experience on this, my fourth time in it

>“desert drain”—that immediate slowing down the body goes through upon entering the desert, where time just doesn’t matter

Now on to the highlights.
KINGDOM OF YAH (by Sarah)
Since we returned from our trip, I’ve been unable to get this chant out of my head: “Emunah, Emunah, Emunah! Yesh Emunah b’Ahava, Yesh Emunah b’Rabi, Yesh Emunah b’Ami, Yesh Emunah bi!” Loosely translated: “I have faith in love, my teachers, my nation, myself.” It’s part of the ceremony that the children of the African Hebrew Israelite nation begin each school day with.

For our first overnight stay, we pulled into Dimona, a sleepy desert town with a nuclear power plant that Israel doesn’t acknowledge, and a thriving community of African Hebrew Israelites—also called Black Hebrews, but not to their faces. I have been wanting to visit this village for some time; they are a completely vegan community and make the BEST vegan soul food you’ve ever tasted. If you’re lucky enough to live in Boston, Chicago, Atlanta, Tel Aviv, or DC, you can check out their restaurants. I didn’t know much about them, but we learned quite a lot in our short stay in their village. Visiting their community is like being in three places simultaneously: part African village, in terms of clothing and connection to African heritage; part Israeli kibbutz, with the Negev desert location, some Jewish practices, and communal living known as “all things in common”; and part US metropolis, as evidenced by African-American speech and mannerisms. If you close your eyes, you swear you’re in southeast DC; look but don’t listen and it’s a village in the Saharan desert.

Their spiritual leader, formerly Ben Carter of Chicago, received a visit in 1967 from the angel Gabriel who told him that he was a descendant from the tribe of Judah, after which he changed his name to Ben Israel Ben Ami and began preaching his teachings, which stressed the importance of living in Israel. Israel was not overjoyed to see Ben Ami and his followers and refused to grant them citizenship—given to any Jew who wants it—since, in the eyes of the government, they weren’t (and still aren’t) Jewish. So they lived for 35 years as temporary residents, unable to vote or serve in the army, until 2 years ago when they were granted permanent residency status, though not citizenship. So now they can die in the army but they still can’t vote in the national elections. (They can vote in the mayoral elections of Dimona, the town they were sent to when they arrived.)

Colorful outfits and monochromatic school uniforms greeted our arrival along with the cadence of African-American English as kids played with water bottles, splashing each other and running through the lanes of what the inhabitants call “The Village of Peace,” an abandoned absorption center for new immigrants. The community is very invested in explaining their ways to outsiders and as such assigns hosts to visitors to take them on a tour of the village and cheerfully answer questions. Beitkia, one of our 4 hosts, explained some of the guidelines of the community while we had a tour that included their small business row with a grocery, clothing store, sewing notions shop, and shoe store; a gym with sauna, jacuzzi (for “chillaxation”), and massage rooms; a sewing center for making all their clothes; and dining hall for the children’s daily lunch.

After our delicious evening meal, our next host, Sharshiya, came to spend a couple of hours with us, answering questions and just being with us. She was born in the village, is 23, has never been to the US, yet sounds exactly like young African-Americans in DC. Wild. We woke the next morning to Na’ama knocking on our door, ready to escort us to the school for the morning ceremony, which we had asked to see. In addition to the above chant, the students chant the 10 commandments (the long version), sing the national anthem (of the Kingdom/nation of Yah, not of Israel), chant the Sh’ma (Judaism’s central prayer), and hear a bit from the Torah—all in Hebrew, which is the language of instruction.

I could go on for pages about their culture but will just outline some of the more surprising lessons we learned:
1) Men can have up to 7 wives, although most don’t. Ben Ami has 4 with whom he has 20 children.
2) All adults, whether parents or not, tithe the same amount for the educational costs of all children. In that way, larger families are not unduly burdened financially.
3) All men are referred to as “Brother” and women as “Sister,” although they use the Hebrew terms and don’t pronounce them quite right, so it comes out as “Ahk” and “Ahkote” (the “k” should be pronounced as that throat-clearing sound). Beyond that, there are titles for all stages of life; Sharshiya, being young, is still in the CFF community (Chosen First Fruit) and will later become a Senior Sister or even a Crown Sister if she is recognized as one of the mentors of the community.
4) Rather than having a Bar or Bat Mitzvah at the age of 12 or 13, they observe a “coming in” ceremony at 18 or 19.
5) Everyone must exercise at least 3 times a week, and a monthly massage is mandatory.
6) They don’t call themselves Jewish. Beitkia explained that Jewish means “like Judah,” and since they ARE Judah, no need to be “like” anything. This is what has led to the conflicts with the government of Israel, who says it will accept them if they convert, which they find unnecessary.

After spending the night in the village, meeting and talking with different members—all of whom were open and welcoming—we still don’t have them fully figured out.

PETRA, A WONDER OF THE ANCIENT WORLD (by Kelli)
Ranked up there with the Egyptian pyramids is the Nabatean city of Petra, located in southern Jordan. To get there, then, we went to Jordan, for the first time. The crossing from Eilat (southern tip of Israel) is quite simple; you get a visa on the spot at the crossing, then walk the 1 kilometer no-man’s-land, then you’re in Jordan, after paying exit fees and visa fees and having your stuff scanned and rummaged through and your passport stamped and checked half a dozen times. It was actually pretty quick.

We ended up sharing the 2-hour cab ride to Petra with a couple of Americans living in Jerusalem. He was born in East Jerusalem to parents serving as community organizers in the West Bank, where he grew up, and currently works for Seeds of Peace, an organization bringing Palestinian and Israeli youngsters together for summer camp in Maine. She comes from “hippie Christian” parents and works here with Quaker peace groups and teaches English in the West Bank. With his fluent Arabic, we were able to get a cab ride and tour guide in one, with the driver pointing out various places along the way.

Petra is like the Disneyland of the ancient world—mile after mile of hundreds of sites, each of which would be a miracle alone anywhere else in the world. In about 200 BCE, Petra was the main stopping point on the Spice Route for Nabateans, a nomadic Arab people who carefully guarded their techniques for surviving in the desert in order to gain wealth by bringing precious spices and herbs from Yemen to the port in Gaza to be shipped to European markets. They cleverly hid their trails and water sources from others. Some time after Rome conquered Petra, it lay in ruins, known only to local Arab tribes who kept it a secret, until 1812 when a Swiss explorer, impersonating a religious pilgrim, was the first westerner to enter Petra in thousands of years. Now it’s a tourist attraction, considered the most astounding ancient city left to the modern world.

In terms of size, Petra once housed 30,000 people. Today there’s the stretch of a couple of miles that is open to tourists—who walk with gaping mouths between enormous tombs and temples carved into the sides of rose-colored stone canyons—plus the 50 km of pathways and old caves still inhabited by Bedouins who make their living tending goats or selling trinkets, colored stones, and camel and donkey rides to those with tired feet. To see Petra for yourself, see our latest photo album (the second one) at clubphoto.com and type in sarandkel at yahoo dot com, or rent “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.” If you can ever go there, go.

Our hotel near Petra was really great! A pretty swank place with lots of Eastern silks and such, it cost $45 for the night, including dinner and breakfast. They also had a Turkish bath with steam rooms, exfoliating scrub down, massage, and jacuzzi. At first I wasn’t too keen on it, but then I thought, when’s the next time I’ll be at a Turkish bath in a Jordanian hotel with an Egyptian masseur? So I did it and don’t regret it.

It felt very different being in Jordan. Compared to home and to Israel, it’s a blatantly male-dominated country, with many more men out and about than women. They are very familiar, you might say, in their interactions with foreign women, which is difficult to respond to when you’re a friendly female foreigner, Arabic dictionary in hand, who likes to interact with new people. Just as the sites at Petra defeated our bodies after 2 days, so the male presence drained us emotionally. It got to the point where Sarah thought the tourist info clerk at Petra, who asked, “Are you at the Al-Anbat?” (referring to our hotel) was asking, “Are you married?” And this was in English! An understandable mistake, given that’s often a question men ask.

HUMPY THE CAT (by Kelli)
We met Humpy at the studio apartment we rented for 2 nights in the resort town of Eilat. A stray cat that is looked after by the apartment’s owner, Humpy every year looks forward to the annual, 3-month visit of 2 Dutch sisters who rent apartments from the owner. They have taken Humpy under their wing, calling the apartment owner every month to check on Humpy between their visits. The owner swears Humpy knows the day the sisters will arrive, as he gets all “excited.” The best story happened a few years ago when, due to Mad Cow Disease, the sisters weren’t allowed to bring Humpy’s annual feast from Holland. So they arranged for the apartment owner to buy some food and bring it to them at the airport when he picked them up so that they could arrive at the apartment with Humpy’s gift in hand. Little Humpy never knew his special treat was actually from the grocery around the corner. People!

The election has come and gone, but the issue of politics never dies down here. I’ll post a bit about it next time along with some more random observations.

Of Politics, Pizza, and Palestinians

2006-03-22T13:22:00.000-05:00

{posted by Kelli}
I call this photo “Still Life with Stuffed Animals.”

I bet you just can’t wait to read a post about politics, eh? I’ll try not to make it too dry. The country is in a frenzy right now, leading up to the national election that will take place March 28. The ultra-religious parties have even closed down their religious upper schools in order to send their students out to campaign—not for their guys but against all the other guys. True-blue Israelis talk politics to the exclusion of nearly all other topics. I’m going to cover politics briefly here in light of the upcoming election, then I’ll go into some interesting stats and personal accounts regarding “the situation,” which is how the word for the never-ending conflict between Israelis and Palestinians—hamatzav—translates into English.

POLITICS—Do not read this part if the topic bores you!
The other night, we went to a lecture called “So What is the Election Really All About?” given at the Conservative Synagogue. First, a bit of background so we’re all on the same page. You’ve got your two main political parties in Israel (plus plenty of little ones): Labor, akin to our Democrats; and Likud, similar to our Republicans. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, from Likud, has been in a coma following a stroke over 2 months ago, so Ehud Olmert (also Likud) is acting PM. Shortly before his stroke, Sharon underwent what’s being called nothing short of a major transformation, from “hawk” to “loverboy” (to use the lecturer’s term), as evidenced by his surprising, lefty decision to force the withdrawal of settlers from the Gaza Strip last summer. One of his last acts as PM was to begin to develop a third political animal: Kadima.

Now for the new part, from the lecture by political analyst Jim Liederman. Kadima is NOT centrist. Many people think it is because it has somehow, magically, managed to pull people from the absolute left—the ultra-secularist Shinui (meaning “change”) party—and from the very far right—the National Religious Movement, which seeks to take all of “Greater Israel” (the West Bank). This is a phenomenon never before seen in Israel, and one we also can’t imagine happening in the states. It’s like Pat Robertson bedding down with Malcolm X.

So how did they possibly create this party, and why is it that all the polls predict it will win? Kadima is, it seems, the first party that attempts to listen to the public. Sounds simple, but it’s revolutionary. The majority of Israeli citizens supported pulling out of Gaza, and so Sharon responded accordingly. The public is fed-up with being left out of the political process and is ready to engage in a rational approach to governmental decision-making as opposed to the traditional approach based solely on ideology. An example: Likud and Labor have in common the desire to reach an agreement with the Palestinians—Likud through using force to dominate them into submission, Labor through repeated attempts at negotiation. But the public has had enough of this static situation and, as a whole, has decided that there is no partner to reach an agreement with, especially now that Hamas is in power. And so the majority support drawing a permanent border separating the two groups once and for all, and this is exactly what Olmert, with Kadima, is doing by continuing work on the separation wall/security fence/Berlin Wall/whatever you want to call it.

I also think there is an interest in simply having a third alternative, like what we saw happen in the states when Ross Perot ran for president. I suppose it’s not any different from Palestinians recently voting for Hamas, the new kid on the block, out of frustration with Fatah, the old kid on the block.

Walking all the way home after the lecture, trying to sort through it all, we stopped
for pizza that we thought would have onions (“batzal”) but instead had eggs (“beitza”) because we ordered it with “beitzal,” which isn’t a word and apparently sounds more like the word for “egg” than like the word for “onion.” Turns out that hard-boiled egg on pizza is actually quite good!

We will be following the election results as best we can from our week’s trip to the desert; probably buy a newspaper the day after to see what happened. When we’re at home, we get our Israel news from the nightly, 15-minute broadcast in English (which comes between the Spanish and Russian-language news), plus from the Friday newspaper (which has a good list of events for the week in Jerusalem) and the occasional check of international news on the internet. Decided against cable TV after all, as the advice we received from friends is that it’s expensive and doesn’t include much. And so we are adjusting, grudgingly, to a screen-free life. So far, TV for us—channel 1 and channel 2—has consisted of reruns of “The Simpsons” on Saturday nights.

PALESTINIANS
I culled some statistics from the newspaper, the likes of which I don’t usually see in the states. From a poll conducted shortly after Hamas won the election:

*66% of Palestinians favor talks with Israel
*12% said they chose Hamas for its political agenda, while 43% said they did so because they were fed-up with corruption in Fatah, the previous government
*58% hope for a two-state solution, 22% want one binational state, and ONLY 10% want a Palestinian state on the entire land

The last one is most interesting to me. One frequently hears—here and in the US—about how the Arabs want nothing more than to “push the Jews into the sea” (force Israel’s eastern boundary all the way to the Mediterranean, thereby wiping Israel off the map). But such a statement is never coupled with the fact that this is the goal of a minority—extremists—only, certainly not the typical Palestinian. Contrast this with another poll showing that about 60% of the Jewish Israeli public supports “encouraging Arabs to emigrate to Arab states.” A party campaigning to do just that has the potential support of 34% of the Jewish public.

On the other hand, I’ve been surprised at the number of isolated incidents against Jews here: daily stabbings, a number of thwarted attempts by suicide bombers to enter Israel. This, too, we don’t hear of on a daily basis in the states—only the bigger, “completed” attacks.

As I expected—and kind of hoped for—trying to understand “hamatzav” here, while living in it, is even more complicated. One problem is that I’ve come across more than a few instances of conflicting histories. The old hospital building in Tzfat illustrates this. We overheard a tour guide in Tzfat tell her group that the Jews of the early 1900s were forced to build their own hospital because the only one in town at the time—the Scottish Hospital—only served Arabs and Christians. But the plaque outside the old building says it served all people in its day. And my guidebook says the Jews of that time chose to build a separate hospital out of fear of being baptized on their deathbeds without their knowledge or consent. Conflicting histories.

I promised a more personal account of relations between the two groups here, and so I’ll recount the experience of Avraham Robinson, the husband of a teacher at the language program we were in back in January. Avraham is one of the survivors of a bus bomb that went off 4 years ago. He is a Jewish Israeli who is a professor of Arabic language and literature and has, over the span of his career, developed close ties with Arabs, from his students and colleagues—Palestinians and Israeli Arabs—to Bedouins, the nomadic people who live in the desert regions. Since the attack, he has added “public speaker” to his work, supporting other survivors of terrorist attacks and continuing with his pro-peace message. Throughout his story—the moments leading up to the explosion as well as details of the aftermath, how his family coped, and his years of recovery and post-traumatic stress disorder—he spoke of the extraordinary kindness of Arabs, both friends and strangers, and I was struck by his decision not to allow his perspective on the goodness of people to change as a result of what he went through. While in the hospital, all of his fellow survivors were visited by Arabs who expressed their disgust at the attack; Avraham estimated between 60-70% of all the patients’ visitors were Arabs, most of whom were strangers. One morning, the surviving victims woke up in their hospital beds to find a rose, a chocolate, and a written blessing on each of their pillows, left there the night before by an Arab woman who slipped into each of their rooms to leave this message. It was discovered later by hospital staff what this woman, who didn’t know any of the patients, had done and how she did it surreptitiously in order not to arouse suspicion as to her intentions. Avraham’s most valued possession he had with him at the time of the explosion was a special copy of the Koran he used for teaching Arabic. All of his belongings, which were blown over a large area, were returned, but his Koran couldn’t be found. Months later, he received a call from an Israeli cop—a Druze man—who said they had found it. Still recovering and unable to make the trip north to retrieve his Koran, Avraham contacted a friend in that area, a Roman Catholic priest, whose wife (yes, it’s allowed here if the man is already married before becoming a priest), who is Protestant, retrieved the holy book of Islam from the Druze police and returned it to the Jewish professor!

These are the kinds of stories we never hear, ones of not just tolerance but kindness and cooperation among ordinary people who are supposedly at war. The people Avraham spoke about—who represent the majority of Palestinians—are the moderates with whom a lasting peace can be found.

LAST NOTES
You’ll notice the ability to post comments on the blog is back up, so comment away, if you like.
We leave tomorrow for the desert and Jordan, and we don’t expect to have e-mail contact for the week. The next blog post will take you on our trip!

A Day in the Life

2006-03-17T12:27:00.000-05:00

{posted by Sarah}

Happy St. Pat’s day! You know you’re living in the Middle East when you have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA that it’s St. Patrick’s Day. We only realized it this evening when Kelli glanced at her calendar book.

I thought I’d explain our day yesterday since it was a good day (almost perfect, Kelli said) and sort of emblematic of what living here can be like. (Note to my family and other potential visitors: don’t worry—we won’t push you to do this much in 1 day!)

First things first, we turned on the hot water for our showers. While we were waiting for it to heat enough for 2 showers, we had bagels for breakfast (tofu cream cheese!).

There’s a listserv called Janglo for English speakers here in Jerusalem where you can post just about any request to the online community and it will likely be filled. So this guy had posted a desperate plea for a copy of the Oscars, which he’d forgotten to tape, and I sent him an e-mail asking to borrow it once he was done. Once showered and dressed, I headed out to meet him a few blocks away for the hand-off.

Then we were ready for the planned activities: go to the Old City to visit my cousin who lives there and do some research for my family’s visit in a few weeks. Since we didn’t want to show up empty-handed at my cousin’s, we had a fruit basket made at a local produce stand, and it was really quite comical how the fruit guy wanted everything just so, with a handful of kumquats here and a persimmon nestled with a kiwi there. We had to admit it looked lovely. And we had our first taste of the fruit from the sabra cactus. It’s very mild but a bit strange.

Of course, we didn’t know exactly which bus to take, so we got on one and crossed our fingers. Well, I exaggerate; we speak Hebrew well enough to converse with the driver about his (and our) destination and had a pretty good sense that we’d be, if not very close, at least within comfortable walking distance to my cousin’s house. Anyway, she lives deep in the Jewish quarter of the walled Old City, so it’s not like you can take a bus to her doorstep!

We entered the Old City through the New Gate (only from the 1800s), which we haven’t been thru this trip yet (there are 8 gates to the Old City) and immediately came upon a women’s cooperative I’d read about in the newspaper. It’s a Palestinian group of 500 women who do AMAZING embroidery work. We had to stop and visit and ended up buying a scarf and a shirt. The work is all done by hand, and due to the difficulties Palestinian men have coming into Israel proper to work (checkpoint closures, etc., due to the intifada) the income brought in by the women is sometimes all the family has to live on. The cooperative is called Melia Art & Training Center.

Finally we got to my cousin’s. She’s pretty much staying home since she’s in her 9th month (of her fourth pregnancy) and the baby could come any time. So we visited for a couple of hours then headed to go eat at a self-service cafeteria that hovers above the Western Wall.

We hoped to be able to visit the Dome of the Rock plaza with its various mosques and stunning architecture but found out (at several different entrances) that we were too late for visiting hours. It’s a weird thing; we saw several Muslim women walking straight by the Israeli police while they jumped up to intercept us. We had to wonder what might have happened (or not happened) if we had been dressed differently…although it’s such a sensitive area, we’d never take the chance to offend people or get in trouble that way.

I’d also read in the newspaper about an organization that arranges tours of the Western Wall for people with special needs and we thought to make them aware of us should any Deaf Americans be in touch with them. But of course, we had to visit 3 different office locations before we got to someone who seemed to be the right person to introduce ourselves to, and on the back and forth walking, we passed a guy 3 times who we’d bought falafel from some time last week and he remembered us! (Guess he doesn’t get that many people asking if his falafels are green or yellow inside! Trust me—the yellow has a better flavor.)

Our business concluded, we went to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (yes, again) with detailed guidebook in hand to clearly figure out what we wanted to share with visitors. We really could be tour guides; while inside, we helped a trio of young men with some of the details about the church. (“They didn’t have a guidebook?! Who comes here without a guidebook?” Kelli exclaimed afterwards. It was a bit traumatic for her. :)

Then we headed out Zion Gate to go to a photo exhibition. It turned out to be in a dormitory building where theology students from Germany, Switzerland and Austria live. We learned that they come for 8 months (fully funded) to study theology, archeology, culture, and Hebrew, plus make trips all around the country and surrounding areas. We got a personalized tour and explanation from one of the students. The pictures were taken by an Israeli woman who has forged a strong connection with a particular village of Bedouin people in the Sinai. She has been able to take pictures of Bedouins going about their daily life—scenes that no outsiders are usually privy to. In Bedouin society, women are, generally speaking, not in the public realm. (This isn’t as awful as you might imagine; generally they have acres and acres of roaming land, so it’s not like they’re stuck at home. That only happens when they’re forced to move into villages, as the Israeli government “encourages.”) But Ligad Givon was able to take very intimate pictures of the women in particular. And the pictures were printed right onto silk squares with borders of traditional Bedouin cloth. An interesting show, displayed innovatively.

After the photo show, we walked to the new city and had some dinner at a veggie restaurant that was featuring a poetry reading by M.L. Lieber, an American poet. He hails from Detroit and does poetry with musical accompaniment with a Motown flavor. I really liked his stuff; here’s the opening paragraph to one poem I especially like (the murals he refers to are by Diego Rivera):

“Save the Frescoes That Are Us”

These murals would have existed here,
In Detroit, even if Diego had never painted
Them. The sweat and labor of this city,
Along with the sacrificed blood
Of its workers, would have stained
These walls. No matter what.
---M.L. Liebler

We caught a bus home, settled in to do some taxes (yes, we have to file from here!!) and watched some of the Oscars we now have on DVD. All I have to say about that is, when did Helena Bonham Carter marry Tim Burton? What happened to Kenneth Branagh? And what’s Emma Thompson’s take on it? Anyway, it wasn’t a cheap day—all told, about $145 spent, which is certainly more than a typical day—but it was a good one.

Special Purim post

2006-03-15T03:55:00.000-05:00

{posted by Kelli}
Happy Purim! Yes, that IS Condoleeza Rice riding George W. Bush in the photo, with Osama Bin Laden dangling in the giant mouth behind—one of several odd floats in the Purim parade we went to today in Holon, a suburb of Tel Aviv that has the country’s biggest Purim parade each year. Overall, the parade was….mmm…Israeli; that is, somewhat disorganized and lacking in aesthetics. Most of the entries were groups of little girls in cheerleader-type outfits doing semi-organized routines. There was a small bagpipe contingent(?!). The floats were strange and fanciful—mostly cartoon characters and superheros that were recognizable but had altered features. Batman and Spiderman, with grossly bloated bodies, were squaring off in a food fight. Kermit and Miss Piggy were there, too, as was Pippi Longstocking. It was fun to see lots of grown-ups in costumes, including our friends who live across the street—parents of 2 little ones—with whom we spent the day at the parade. It’s definitely a children-oriented holiday.

All of the country except for Jerusalem celebrated Purim today, whereas Jerusalem will celebrate tomorrow, which actually means it starts tonight, as the constant firecrackers are reminding me. It’s something to do with the fact that walled, Jewish cities (which includes Jerusalem, at least the Old City part) celebrate Purim a day later than everyone else. (We find this impossible to fully understand, so look it up online if you want!) So tomorrow we’ll go hear a reading of the Book of Ester, where the audience takes part in the story.

I’ve been wanting to describe a typical day, but we haven’t had any yet. There isn’t the time pressure that accompanies usual travel, so it’s not racing from site to site but rather going somewhere and seeing what happens when we get there, which is a new experience for me. Even when we were in Paris for 4 months, I usually set out each day with some sort of plan. Every day here is something new—a discovery (English library!), a disappointment (no decent margarine anywhere), or a challenge. The latest hurdle was trying to find the temporary ice skating rink the city set up after getting the residents excited about a predicted snowstorm a couple of weeks ago that never materialized. We went to the park where we thought the rink was but didn’t see it, so, not knowing the Hebrew words for “ice,” “skating,” or “rink,” we approached some park workers and asked, “Where are the people walking on the ice cream?” Blank stares. “Not ice cream, exactly. It’s like ice cream. It’s cold, and you wear special shoes.” Ah, yes! Ok, now we’re getting somewhere. And so we found the rink. Renting skates: too expensive. Being a spectator: free. Watching Israelis try to ice skate: priceless.

In just over a week, we will once again do the most dangerous thing that anyone can do in this country. It’s not getting on a bus or going into a market or disco or other typically targeted location. It’s getting on the roads. Israel has a terrible record when it comes to driving accidents, often involving pedestrian fatalities. It’s a problem with patience. Nevertheless, we’re renting a car again, buckling up, and taking off for a week-long trip south into the desert and to Jordan. One of the reasons for our trips around the country is to do “research” so we’ll know better where to take visitors, how to get them there, and what to do with them once we’re there. In our apartment I put a big map of the country on the wall where I’m tracking, with color-coded dots (I did say this is MY project, right?), where we want to go, where we’ve been and want to go back, and where we’ve been and don’t plan to return. The goal by the end of the year is to get as many green and orange dots (want-to-visit, and want-to-return) changed to red dots (been there-done that-don’t need to go back).

One of my 2 journals is for daily writings (though I get to it maybe once a week), and the other is for lists I’m keeping of cultural differences, interesting observations, meaningful moments, news events here and abroad, advice we receive, goals to accomplish, people we meet, and the like. Occasionally I’ll glean some interesting tidbits to share in the posts. Here is my first set:

>>The level of security is more or less the same as on previous trips. Before entering nearly every restaurant, café, mall, transportation station, theater, etc., you must first present your bag for inspection and, in some cases, walk through a metal detector. It becomes routine after a little while. Most tour groups have a guard with a big gun accompanying them. One new security measure I noticed this trip is the occasional guard stationed at a bus stop who watches as people get on a bus, then hops on to ride, watchfully, for a while before doing the same on another bus.

>>There seem to be more foreign workers than ever before, many of them hired by senior citizens to help them with daily things. Their status is much like Latin American workers in the states—often illegal, usually with families in home countries that they are trying to support, sometimes taken advantage of.

>> Some fun, and funny, cultural observations: 1) the wrist-twist, used to indicate impatience, exasperation, lack of understanding, or frustration—when one gets stuck in traffic, for instance; 2) that “tsk” noise to mean, simply, no, as in, “Do you have any stamps?” “Tsk.” 3) the expectation of arriving late to everything. Here’s a clipping I cut from the newspaper: “Moshe, the manager of the Shahar club in Givat Olga, worries that blustery weather and prejudice will keep parents from attending the opening meeting of the new democratic school in Givat Olga. But 15 neighborhood parents who are fed up with the conventional education system arrive only a quarter of an hour late to hear what the democratic school has to offer their children.” This was obviously a very important event if participants were “only” a quarter hour late.

The national election will take place just before we return from the week-long trip, so I plan to post some political stuff before we leave next week.

Lions, Harry Potters, and Bishops--Oh, my!

2006-03-12T07:17:00.000-05:00

{posted by Sarah}

Things I hate about Jerusalem:
1) Men freely urinating outside against bushes and behind bus stops and dumpsters. Seriously, they have public bathrooms in this city, so it doesn’t make any sense to me.
2) Construction, construction, construction. It seems they’re ripping up every other block here which means more often than not, you end up having to walk in the street—not so safe.
3) City bus map—there isn’t one. There is no way to know which line goes where except by asking the oldtimers at the bus stops or getting on a bus and riding it. And it’s not a security thing; I asked about that. It’s just one of the things that make this so clearly not a Western place.
4) Garbage. Too much of it and in the wrong places. In DC, I have been known to pick up litter and hand it back to the offender (“You seem to have dropped this”) but haven’t tried that here. (Note to self: learn the word for “drop” in Hebrew!)
5) I think I already complained about having to turn on the hot water in advance, no?
6) Being blonde here is weird. Kelli says it gives me more chances to practice my Hebrew since men talk to me all the time, but oy—enough already. “No, I don’t want to see your shop. No, I don’t need a guide. No, I don’t want to marry your son/nephew/uncle/self. And what part of ‘lesbian’ is unclear to you?” I should just cover my hair, but then I’d be in line with…
7) Gender rules—with the upcoming holiday, they’re even more blatant than usual.

So, Purim is coming, and it looks like they begin celebrating about 2 weeks before the actual holiday; at least, we’ve been seeing kids of all ages dressed up for about that long. (photo #1) For those who don’t know, Purim is very much like Halloween in practice although its origins are totally different. It’s fun to see even older kids getting into the spirit, although I’m not looking forward to a whole drunken country. One day, we were at the pedestrian mall area and I was trying to decode a plaque on the wall but having some difficulty with it. So I flagged a teenage boy in a Marilyn Monroe wig and dress over to help out. He started to answer and then got flustered and made sure we knew the outfit was a Purim costume. God forbid we should think he dresses like a woman regularly. We haven’t decided exactly what we’ll be doing for Purim, but I think we’ll be going to a party and then services (to hear the whole story of Purim—the whole megillah) the next morning. As services go, it’s very participatory with the crowd drowning out the name of the bad guy and sometimes acting bits out.

Still on the theme of costumes, it’s Lent, and you know what that means. Well, ok, probably not, and we didn’t either. At the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (where Jesus was killed), 6 denominations jointly, though uncooperatively, own and administer the space, and every Saturday during Lent you can see a procession of Franciscan, Armenian Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, Coptic, Ethiopian, and Syrian friars/monks/bishops and the like, which we happened upon and followed into the church. (photo #2) It fits right into our quest for free cultural activities, which brings me to a sum-up of the week. We went to the Israel Museum (the main, big one) on Thursday ‘cause Thursday is the day of 4 (four!) free walking tours in English. (A friend here said we were like junkies in need of a culture fix. “Give me another free tour!”) We learned a lot but a few things in particular stand out:
1) Prior to 1947, when the Dead Sea Scrolls were found, the oldest copy of the Bible was the Aleppo Codex, from the 10th century. The Dead Sea Scrolls are from 1000 years prior yet strikingly similar to the Aleppo Codex.
2) The aridity of Israel (especially the South) means that much is preserved, including bodies. We saw a few specimens of buried (and exhumed) people who are part of the Museum’s temporary exhibition “In the Beginning.” Because the Kohanim (current descendants of the priests of Israel from the tribe of Levi, or Aaron’s peeps) are not allowed to be near dead bodies, the Museum has them (the bodies, not the Kohanim) placed under double panes of special glass so all can enjoy seeing teeth still in the skulls of our ancestors (loosely understood).
3) There’s an exhibition on Jewish wardrobe where we learned that, generally speaking, what looks like “traditional” Jewish clothing is actually what used to be non-Jewish clothing popular in its time. You know about this with the Chassidic men who wear special black suits and funny fur hats (streimels), which is actually how the aristocracy of Eastern Europe dressed in the 18th century (and which, by the way, it totally inappropriate to Middle Eastern weather), but it’s also the case with “traditional” Moroccan, Yemenite, Bukharan, etc. clothes. When certain styles went out of fashion among the non-Jews, the Jews seemed not to have gotten the memo and continue wearing them.
4) At the end of our fourth tour, we happened upon a cultural event—the Korean ambassador and wife (Mr. and Mrs. Park) were at the museum to inaugurate an exhibition of traditional Korean clothing. There was a dancer as part of the festivities. (photo #3)

Also happening this week, many, many calls and visits to various ulpan programs, community centers (which house lectures and other activities), libraries (I’ve yet to get a card but will do so, if only to attempt to keep up with my book club back home), and markets every day so that we can eat. Having a small fridge means daily shopping, but it also means fresher food.

Who has time to work?

Here in Jerusalem

2006-03-05T12:47:00.000-05:00

{posted by Kelli}
To see our first album from Israel, go to clubphoto.com. Where it asks for “your friend’s name,” type sarandkel@yahoo.com. No need for a password or to join Club Photo. Also, we now have a mailing address in Jerusalem, so if you want that info, send us an e-mail.

END OF ADVENTURE #2
We’re here now, in Jerusalem! But first, some final notes about our last days up north.
There is a program for young Jews in Tzfat called Ascent, which gives free lectures daily, usually on Kabbalah, so we went to two of these and had some of the predictable arguments we usually have with strongly religious Jewish leaders. Speaker: “Animals are here for our use. We elevate animals spiritually when we eat them.” Sarah: “I disagree.” Kelli (thinking): “How can it be that people elevate animals when he said earlier that animals are already at a higher level than humans?”

We met some really cool people who follow Kabbalah, including an artist who moved to Tzfat several years ago from Michigan just before he was to leave for India for some soul-searching; Kabbalah grabbed him first. And there was an older woman who taught the two of us how to practice Otiyot Khayyot (“living letters”) in her living room one night. It’s basically like Tai Chi but forming the Hebrew letters and vowels with your limbs.

The movement teacher mentioned a gathering taking place the next night—our last night in Tzfat—of Jewish women residents of Tzfat who were hosting a group of Druze women for the day from a nearby Druze village. So we went to that event, held in a family’s beautiful home. There was drumming and singing of Druze songs (in Arabic) and Jewish songs (in Hebrew), and some fun dancing, too. (That’s what Sarah and a Druze woman are doing in the photo above.) Representatives from both groups spoke about their cultures and religions. Sarah pointed out that it took a while before we finally got into the “groove” of Tzfat and hooked into some of its interesting activities and events, just before leaving.

BEGINNING OF THE REST OF THE YEAR
“Jerusalem is one of the few places of which the first impression is not the best.” –Arthur Penryhn Stanley, Dean of Westminster, 1853

Luckily, we are well past the first impression stage, this being my sixth trip to Israel and Sarah’s fifth. Since we had all our stuff with us (refer to luggage photo in the first posting), we rented a car for the day to drive down to J’lem, about a three-and-a-half hour drive. On the way south, we stopped at our ulpan program for lunch with the staff and with our classmates who continued. We also stopped at a kibbutz that we stayed at a few days back in ’99 when we were here to attend Bat Kol, a feminist yeshiva that used to be in J’lem in the summer. Sad to say, Kibbutz Gezer—of which we have fond memories—is no longer a kibbutz. As with many kibbutzim, communal living at Gezer has become a struggle. Many residents are opting to move away or to make changes that eventually replace founding socialist principles with capitalist ones—a practical decision that is usually based on economic survival. About 300 kibbutzim are left in Israel today, which sounds like a lot (I don’t know how many there used to be), but only 2% of Israelis live on them now. Kibbutz Gezer has fallen to economic struggles and, while still a community, is now made up of independent residents.

And so we arrived in J’lem on Wed. evening and got settled into our studio apartment (photo #1). It’s big enough for us and in good condition, not to mention clean, by Israeli standards. There is a little couch, table and two chairs, two big closets, little kitchen, tall windows and tall ceiling, and a loft with a ladder to the futon bed. The internet connection is free, which was an unexpected perk, though you have to take the laptop to the top of the ladder to get the connection(!). The negatives (which we already knew about): no laundry, oven, or outside space (courtyard or balcony). As for the location—which we picked specifically—we are very close to flower shops, health food store, bookstore with used English books (even romance novels for Sarah!), laundromat, newspaper stand where on Fridays we buy the International Herald Tribune with the Ha’aretz (Israeli paper) insert, cinema, small hotel for visitors, synagogues, bagel place (NY style, not Israeli bagels, which are like big, thin loops of baked bread), and many other restaurants and shops. The bad thing about choosing the Baka neighborhood is that there are lots of English-speakers here, plenty of Americans, so we will have to work extra hard to find ways to practice Hebrew. Our place happens to be across the street from friends we’ve known since our first visit here, in ’97. Within half an hour of our arrival, we ran into 3 people we know. Happens a lot in Baka and in Jerusalem in general.

We went to Shabbat services last night at Kol HaNeshama, a Reform synagogue we’ve gone to before. Virtually all synagogues in Israel are Orthodox, so Kol HaNeshama is a bit, well, unorthodox. We spent our first Shabbat day (today) washing windows, catching up on computer stuff, and going to a movie—all of which are banned for Shabbat-observant people, though in some neighborhoods (including ours), not everyone avoids such activities; the movie theater was pretty full. Finally saw “Brokeback Mountain,” which we tried to see in our neighborhood at home the night before leaving for Israel, but it was sold out. Movies are so disorienting when I watch them in other countries; when I left the theater and entered the bright sun, I partly expected to be in the wilds of Wyoming. Really, really hoping to find a place where Americans (or whoever) are watching the Oscars next week, as our TV only gets channel 1 and channel 2, both in Hebrew. Will be investigating the possibility of cable.

ONE THING I FORGOT
When I wrote a while ago about Israelis playing in the snow near Mt. Hermon, I forgot to share that a lot of people, before leaving to drive back to their (non-snowy) homes, carefully packed snow onto their cars as “proof” to neighbors of their snowy adventure.

"DANGER: MINES" When you need a dictionary to go for a walk

2006-02-27T09:51:00.000-05:00

{posted by Kelli}
END OF ADVENTURE #1
The first photo is another one of the apartment we have in Tzfat for a few more days. It shows the cave-like ambience, which is so hard to describe.

The second photo is taken at a hike that went along 4 waterfalls, each one unique. I'm the little head near the bottom.

As Sarah last wrote, our ulpan is over, our Hebrew is better, and we moved on to the next (short) phase of this year—2 weeks exploring the north, based in the mystical town of Tzfat. The last day of class, some of the French immigrants who were my classmates took us 3 Americans from class to town for pizza, which was such a nice surprise. With the majority of classmates from France, my Hebrew began to take on an occasional French accent by the end of the month-long session, which really doesn’t help my communication skills here. I am very curious to see the long-term effects of so many Francophones in Israel, in particular the influence on language (Israelis are starting to say “voila!”), on cuisine (several “French” bakeries and bistros have popped up), and on fashion (anything will be better than the Russian immigrants’ gift to clothing design here: ugly sweaters).

This time at ulpan (we were also at the program in ‘03), I became more aware of Hebrew’s “vocabulary poor” status as compared to a language like English. We learned from a linguist’s lecture at the program that Hebrew currently has about 34,000 words while English has about 110,000. The academy in charge of resurrecting Hebrew to make it a living language again—a process they began just 50 years ago—has a daunting task: how to create vocabulary for modern concepts—electricity, bicycle, jet-lag—when you’re working with ancient terms from biblical times. And so you get ingenious inventions constructed from new combinations of biblical terms. Nerdy stuff, but we like it!

ON TO ADVENTURE #2
Last week we had a rental car, so we hiked in no less than 7 national parks plus the highest mountain in Israel and other sites in between. I am truly impressed at the work Israel puts in to its national parks, not to mention the sheer number of them—64, in a country about the size of New Jersey. Given that it’s still technically winter (even though daytime temps are around 70), we had the trails almost entirely to ourselves, and so went waterfall-hopping, ruins-exploring, and wildlife-seeking. Ruins—many very well-preserved—span the ages from a temple to the Greek god Pan to Crusader castles (considered recent!), often along the same trail. As for wildlife, we saw a very cute Syrian rock hyrax (sort of a cuddly woodchuck) sunning on a rock, the smallest hummingbird ever—barely an inch long!—and turtles, lizards, a big freshwater crab, vultures, storks, herons, and more.

At the Hula Valley nature reserve, we saw lots of migrating birds, but unfortunately the water buffalo were already far out in the field. The indoor entertainment there was just as exciting as the outdoor animal life. They have a new 3-D film about migrating birds that includes clips from the film “Winged Migration” (imagine it in 3-D!), complete with water and air and bubbles and steam that spit at you from your seat. And the seats move up and down as the birds fly on the screen, so it’s a very interactive experience. After the movie, the guide takes you through some “living dioramas” that are very well-done, and the finale is an interactive trivia game where they flash questions about the reserve and the animals on a big screen, and you answer by punching the buttons on your console. There’s a big “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” flashing-lights moment when, after the game, they put a spotlight on the visitors who, based on their answers, came in third, second, and first place. Since the whole game was in Hebrew, we didn’t win!

We turned the car in to the nearest city—Tiberias—on Thursday, then took the bus back here to Tzfat where we’ll stay until going to Jerusalem on Wednesday. So we have some time over the next few days to investigate the winding lanes of the Jewish and artists’ quarters. Today we went on a Shabbat hike, which ended up being a very good, albeit unplanned, 5-hour experience. We began by walking down out of Tzfat through the large, ancient cemetery that has graves of many Kabbalist rabbis from the 1500s. Then we came to a highway that we had to figure out how to cross to get to the forest where we thought we’d find a trail. So we got across the highway (under it, actually) and wandered around the forest a while before finding a sign for a trail that led way down the side of a canyon and into a wadi (dry stream bed). We met 3 people coming up the wadi who said we would come to the water pools if we kept heading down. So we decided to do it and eventually came upon a place with streams tumbling together to form pools, and a lot of people enjoying them. (This is the only hike so far when we’ve come across lots of people. Hiking is a popular activity on Shabbat for religious and non-religious people.) We asked to see someone’s map; we didn’t have one because we entered the reserve through a “back door” trail. They gave us an extra map, and although it was in Hebrew, it helped immensely in getting us headed in the right direction to eventually get out of the reserve. Then we were faced with the problem that we were miles from Tzfat with no way to return by foot, as the road goes way around and would be too long of a walk. Also, no buses were running because—if you remember—it was Shabbat. So we decided to “tremp” (hitch) the few miles back into Tzfat, hitching being a very common thing for people to do here (though not so much for us). The third car that came along picked us up, and so we got to meet and (briefly) practice Hebrew with Sultan, a Druze man who sells produce; the back of his van was filled with oranges. (More on Druze in a bit.) So the day worked out, even though it wasn’t planned well.

The thing about hiking here is that you think you could be almost anywhere—the Alps, the states—except for the occasional reminder that it’s Israel, such as the practice(?) shelling you sometimes hear near the Lebanon and Syrian borders, and the “DANGER: MINES” signs that are posted along some trails to keep hikers on the safe side of the fence. While several of the signs giving directions and warnings include English, not all of them do, so by the third day’s hike we decided to bring along Sarah’s new gadget: a little electronic Hebrew-English dictionary. The trail signs are especially common in the Golan Heights, which has many of the best hiking routes. The Golan was taken from Syria in the ’67 war and was subsequently annexed by Israel. Random roadside tanks, along with memorial sculptures, are left as markers of where certain battles happened in the region.

Luckily, I have been able to get my blooming tree “fix”—almond trees here, in place of the cherry blossoms I’m missing at home—and a snow fix the day we went to Mt. Hermon (in place of the snow I missed in DC recently). The most fun thing that day was watching Israelis play in the snow in the foothills of the mountain. They made some pretty funny looking snowmen; one had whole oranges, plucked from a nearby orchard, as eyes. Also that day we drove through Majdal Shams, a Druze village on the Syrian border. Druze are a people who split from Muslims in Egypt in the year 1017 and developed their own, secretive religion; the details are even kept secret among themselves until a person reaches adulthood. The few facts known to the outside world include the belief in reincarnation and that no one can opt into or out of the Druze religion. Some identify as Arabs (though not as Muslims), while others feel they are a distinct ethnic as well as religious group. Today there are Druze communities in Israel, Syria, and Lebanon, with 85,000 living in Israel. When the Golan region was taken, it split some Druze villages right in two, with a UN-patrolled strip down the middle. To this day, residents of Majdal Shams gather every day on a hill on the outskirts of town to shout news through bullhorns to relatives living on the Syrian side. Until today’s ride with Sultan, The Orange Seller, the extent of our experience with Druze people has been brief explanations given to visiting groups, and fantastic food. In some places here in the north, Druze have roadside stands that sell rice-stuffed peppers and cabbage rolls, a tasty lentil and rice dish, and big, flat pita that is crispy (not like the fluffy “Wonderbread” pita we get in the rest of Israel and the states) and filled with honey or za’atar (a spice along the lines of oregano, from the hyssop family).

The next post will be from our place in Jerusalem, where we expect to spend the rest of the year. It’s small, but not as small as our 100-square foot studio in Paris those 4 months back in ’03, so I think we’ll be fine. I love Tzfat, and the north is my favorite region of Israel, but I’m ready to get settled in “permanently.” After we get set up, we’ll post an online photo album to share pictures taken so far.

Communing with nature and mystics

2006-02-19T13:52:00.000-05:00

(posted by Sarah)
I’m sitting in the dining area of our apt. in Tzfat (the photo), where we are for 2 weeks between the end of our ulpan program and our Jerusalem apt. being ready for us. It’s cold, but we haven’t turned on the heat ‘cause it’s quite expensive and it’s also sort of impossible to heat this place as it’s cave-like (very, very neat-o, but whew! cold). Kelli is running a load of laundry that has so far taken an hour and fifty minutes (just to wash) and is still not done. A little while ago, a large group of young people went by our door, singing loudly, but except for that and the rare car, it’s very quiet here. A nice reprieve from ulpan where we were harassed nightly by the groups of Israeli teenagers also staying on the compound.

So, yes, ulpan is over. There’s no question that it’s a very strong program. I found that by the end, I could even make out many of the captioned words on tv. (It helped that I heard the English and could compare or find the words I had just heard.) We had our exams on Wed. and a final celebration with class skits on Thurs. before we left. Folks got really worked up about the exam, so much so that some people skipped school that day. Kelli and I didn’t, of course. We both did quite well, better than expected, but suspect the teachers were a little lenient. (For the curious, we got a 98 and 100.)

Then we were off in our rental car—a little, tiny thing crammed with all the luggage (see first post photo)—to Tzfat, town of mystics, kabbalah, artists and folks who never have come back from that last acid trip. Tzfat is built on the 3rd highest mountain in Israel and has a great view of the Sea of Galilee on a clear day. It’s all cobblestone streets, stairs and hidden alleyways, and the best way to see it is to get lost in it. Our rental apt. has a microwave and fridge but no oven. Cooking is rather basic and we’ve been doing some eating out—altho’ strange to say, while there are at least 6 pizza joints on the main stretch, there’s not much else, except our favorite falafel in all of Israel is here. We don’t have a tv and I, particularly, feel the lack of it. But it’s a very interesting space with 3 separate areas altho’ it’s all open. They decorated it with painted wood pieces (like a screen to separate the bed from the main space), silk throw pillows and original stone walls. There’s even a crevice with what is clearly an ancient water spigot—perhaps this was a Roman bath??

We’ve been making some day trips while we have the car and went up to Mt. Hermon to see the skiing and snowboarding. They run one chairlift just for riders (people without skis who just want to go up and down) which is neat but the line was too long and the lift disappeared into the clouds. I wasn’t too keen to try it. Today, we went on a hike alongside the Jordan River. It was very beautiful; it challenges one's notion of Israel as only desert. There are spring wildflowers everywhere (mostly cyclamen, red anemones, and larkspur), blossoming almond trees, waterfalls, and green hills dotted with stones that look like a shawl of white lace (to me, anyway).

For Shabbat, we donned our “frum” wear and went to a Chabad service. One of the ancillary programs at ulpan was Torah study, so I was actually prepared for the service this week. Good thing, as the “mechitzah” (the separating wall between women and men) was a total one—no peeking on the other side where the Torah is kept and where the men are doing the chanting; very frustrating and hard to follow since you can’t always hear them clearly. Afterwards, we made the rounds of some open art galleries and came home to sit out in front of our place, reading in the warm sunlight. We left the door open to get some fresh air inside (it’s musty due to the dampness) and so many passersby snuck a peek that I suggested we ought to have laid out some wares to sell and thereby make a little extra money! ;)

Some of the differences we’ve been getting used to: you must turn on the hot water for about an hour before you want to take a shower, the supermarkets have much less choices (which is nice, in that you don’t have to stand in front of a gazillion toothpastes trying to figure out which ones will whiten, brighten and yet not give you cancer, but can also be difficult when you’re searching in vain for relish to make the tuna palatable!), the washing machine works really, really slowly but darn if those clothes don’t just pop with color and bright, bright whites.

Well, the machine has stopped finally! We’re off to grab a bite to eat at Café Baghdad and send this from an internet café.

Ulpan Life

2006-02-08T03:48:00.000-05:00

[posted by Kelli]

FREE TIME
First, about the photo. Sarah and I took the train (a new form of transportation in the country) last weekend—the free weekend in the middle of our language program—to an artists’ village in the north called Ein Hod. It’s on the slopes of Mt. Carmel, and the beautiful apartment we rented for two nights had a huge balcony looking out to the Mediterranean. Ein Hod was established in 1953 by a Dada artist. We saw a funny little film in the one museum there titled “Excuse Me, What is Dada?” Many of Ein Hod’s artists—sculptors, painters, potters, jewelry makers, stained glass artists, etc.—offer demonstrations and workshops; we chose a basic lesson on the potter’s wheel. There are many random pieces of art--like a giant bronze sculpture of a couple in a sardine can--scattered around the village.

It felt sort of strange to be in a totally secular place in Israel over Shabbat, where day-trippers arrived by car on Sat. to buy art and eat out—all of which (driving, spending money) isn’t done on Shabbat in much of the country.

The weekend was our first taste of what the year will be like once our structured school days come to a screeching halt on Feb. 16. Looks like in order to ward off boredom, we will have to create some degree of routine in our daily lives. Our most exciting moment on the get-away weekend came when, shortly after carefully composing our personalized ring tone (the melody from “The Godfather”) on the new cell phone we just bought, we received our first phone call. . . a wrong number.

ULPAN PEOPLE
A few new immigrant students have joined this session, most notably from Guatemala and Iran (a Jewish family). There is also a Palestinian nurse studying Hebrew here for his work. It’s not uncommon for Ulpan Akiva to have Palestinians studying Hebrew, usually doctors whose work benefits from being at least bilingual. We have had some good dinner conversations with this student, finding out how long he gets held up at checkpoints when he crosses from the West Bank to Israel to come to class each week, what he thinks of the recent, unexpected Hamas victory, and about the birth next month of his first child. We’re hearing from a few sources that the majority’s vote for Hamas was more out of disgust with the decades of corruption within the ruling Fatah party than it was in favor of Hamas. Many Palestinians’ perspective on Hamas is that they have transparent financial dealings and provide many crucial social services to an occupied people who have no infrastructure. And, of course, Hamas appeals to the extremist vote because they currently continue to espouse violence.

I am coming to see that while this year for us seems at times exotic and adventurous when I think about it—a year spent living in the Middle East!—it’s really all relative when you’re sitting at dinner next to someone like the Canadian woman for whom the stopover at Ulpan Akiva is just a small part of her solo, year-long, worldwide trek through African, Asian, and South American countries, beginning with her participation in an international women’s summit in Thailand. Other interesting students include a Japanese woman studying the pedagogy used here at Ulpan Akiva so that she can apply techniques to her English teaching back in Japan. And then there’s the couple in their 70’s who have lived in Manhattan’s Lower East Side for some 40 years. It’s just like having George’s parents from “Seinfeld” around :)

There are also differences in religious backgrounds. Barely half of the students living on campus are Jewish; there is one Buddhist and one Muslim; the rest are Christian, with some of those attending churches at home (and during their time in Israel) that combine Christianity with Judaism. Some of them come with the goal of learning more Hebrew so they can continue proselytizing to Jews—one person tried this here and wound up emptying the room—while others are studying in order to read the Hebrew bible themselves. One woman has spent years in various African countries doing literacy work with indigenous languages, with an emphasis on translating the Christian bible. Sometimes this requires much time spent on developing ways of writing languages that have historically been transmitted only orally.

There are advanced students here who are teachers of Hebrew in their home countries, and there are those who arrived not yet knowing the alphabet. My favorite “newbie” story comes from a 70-year-old student in level one who spent a weekend in Jerusalem wondering who “Ken” was and why everyone she saw was talking to him on their cell phones. (“Ken” is Hebrew for “yes.”)

ULPAN SCHEDULE
Here’s a typical day:
7:30—breakfast

8:00-1:00—class (with 3 breaks). For an hour during this block, there is something different each day, such as a guest lecturer on the next holiday coming up (this session it’s Tu B’shvat, Festival of the Trees) or on current events; lectures are in your choice of language—Hebrew, English, French, or Russian. Or your class might have an hour in the audio lab or computer lab doing exercises in Hebrew, or go to singing class.

1:00—lunch; the students recently set up a Hebrew-only table for those of us wanting more practice.

2:00-6:45—unless there is a half-day trip scheduled (about one per week), this is when you might go see a tutor for one-on-one help with homework, work individually in the audio or computer labs, join a conversation session, or join a session of Torah study focusing on the linguistics of Biblical Hebrew (many differences from the modern Hebrew we learn in class). These choices are offered on different days. Or you might just do homework on your own, or go swimming, or walk on the beach. The campus is just off the Mediterranean Sea, a little north of Tel Aviv. Birds migrating from northern Europe to Africa fly right through every day. It’s an idyllic setting, if you block out the occasional gunfire from the army practicing on the base on a nearby hill.

6:45—dinner

7:30—usually an evening activity, such as Israeli folk dancing, more Hebrew singing, or an Israeli film. Then you finish your homework and hope that the hordes of Israeli teenagers also staying on campus who are banging on your door, jumping out of second story windows, and blasting dance music will stop at a decent hour so that you can get about 6 hours of sleep. So goes life here!
If you want to know more about Ulpan Akiva, they are at www.ulpan-akiva.org.il.

That’s plenty for this posting, so I’ll sign off. It was a long day—the one full-day trip of the program. We went south to the Negev desert to see ancient ruins and to walk around the biggest mahktesh (sort of like a crater) in the world.

Aetheist Peaceniks

2006-01-30T12:46:00.000-05:00

[posted by Kelli]

In my first post, I am going to try to answer some FAQs from you all. For some of you, parts of this are review.

#1: Why did you go to Israel for a year?
To answer this, I’ll take from one of those new sit-coms that started in the states in January and title this “Kelli’s Reasons Why Not”:
A. We saved enough money.
B. We have the time.
C. We have the flexibility.
D. We have the desire.
So the answer to this one is, because we want to and we’re lucky enough that we can.
We both identified pushes—fed up with much of life in America right now, feeling trapped in routine—as well as pulls—wanting to improve our Hebrew, live in another culture, have an adventure—that led to the decision last summer to do this. We also considered this year in France but decided on Israel mainly because of the “knowns”—it’s a place we frequent, so we already know the region and have some friends and family here.

#2: But really, what are a couple of aetheist peaceniks thinking by moving to a militaristic country based on, and run by, religion?
This place is full of contradictions and conflicts that I hope to delve into more deeply this year—not only those between Palestinians and Jews, but also between Israeli Arabs and Israeli Jews, secular and religious (and between religions, and between sects of religions), “hawks” and “doves,” ancient and modern, and between immigrants and sabras (meaning born in Israel—a word that is the same as the fruit that grows on a kind of cactus here that is prickly on the outside and soft on the inside).

#3: What do you hope to accomplish from this experience?
We’re purposely leaving things as wide open as we can so that whatever comes along that is of interest can be pursued. This might include more Hebrew classes after our current program, Torah study for Sarah, volunteer peace work, definite road trips around the country, and a couple of “vacations” to other countries (Jordan and Egypt are on the list).
The idea of a one-year period is to be able to experience the full Jewish calendar of celebrations and events. Seems every time we’ve come here before, there’s always an interesting holiday or custom occurring just after we leave.

#4: Any reservations?
We miss our friends, family, and co-workers; our Whole Foods store; and our home. It will take perhaps longer than one year to get used to all the abused and ignored stray cats here, not to mention the smoking that is ever-present in both smoking areas and “non-smoking” areas. Safety isn’t something I generally worry about here; Sarah says she worries no matter where she is.

#5: Are you going to work while you’re there?
Nope. Technically, we’re not allowed, although Sarah has a letter from our rabbi attesting to the fact that she is “Jewish by birth and by faith,” which, along with a statement of willingness to hire from an Israeli employer (whether they actually hire her or not), could suffice if she really, truly got worried about finances.
We do know of 3 or 4 tour groups coming in the summer that include deaf people and that will want interpreters, so we will definitely be doing that.

#6: What about your condo in DC? Did you sell your home?
Absolutely not. Still way too attached to it to sell, so we hired a property manager who found a wonderful renter with whom we both feel very comfortable.

#7: Where is all your stuff?
Our place is rented out with furniture, dishes, etc., so we only had to store those personal things we didn’t bring with us. Friends M. and K. graciously offered their basement back when we thought it would be about 20 boxes and didn’t make a peep when that number soared to around 50.
Everything we think we need—most-loved clothes for all seasons, some books to get us started, lots of wires and speakers and technology things—we packed into 2 giant bags each plus 2 carry-ons and the laptop (see photo above). We thought the maximum weight allowed on the plane was 50 pounds per bag, so the weeks leading up to departure were spent “creatively packing” then stepping onto the bathroom scale with each bag in an attempt to distribute the weight so that we would have to pay overweight charges on only 1 or 2 bags. Turns out we bought our tickets just in time, right before the reduction of the maximum from 70 pounds to 50 pounds, so our bags were fine. We could have brought more, but it would have killed us! Oh, and then there was the stroller that we agreed to bring for a friend. Long story, but the stroller made it, as did everything else, and the flights here were blissfully uneventful.

#8: What about the Hamas party winning the Palestinian election this week?
We don’t know what it means yet; nobody really does. There is always something happening here that is important—Arafat’s death, Sharon’s coma, evacuating the Gaza Strip—yet these things don’t impact most people’s daily lives in Israel.

#9: How do we stay in touch?
Both our e-mail addresses remain the same. Yesterday we bought a cell phone, so if you want that number, just e-mail us. [Factoid: Israel invented the cell phone and has the highest usage per capita.] We will have a mailing address once we’re settled in Jerusalem in March.
And of course, there is this blog, which is a totally new thing for us. In the beginning, while at our language school, I imagine there will be more to report than there will be later, when we’ll be on our own and have a much slower schedule.

My next posting will be about life here at Ulpan Akiva (our language program) and the remarkable people we’re meeting.

cukes and tomatoes again??

2006-01-25T00:48:00.000-05:00

(posted by Sarah)
It's like we never left our "home away from home"--Ulpan Akiva. Even the cafeteria staff remembers us. (Kelli suggests this may be because being vegan, I was a major pain in their necks 3 years ago. I prefer to think they remember my sunny smile and disposition!)

We flew out Sat., arrived Sun., and 8:00 Mon. morning, there we were taking our placement exams. No rest for the weary! Later that same day, we attended an orientation meeting where I found myself interpreting into spoken French for the many immigrants from France. (For those keeping track, this was still before getting any real sleep!)

School began for real today (Tues.). So, we’ve got the 5 hours of class a day then the x hours of homework, plus additional activities daily—like Hebrew songs and folk dancing and Israeli movies—and extra lessons on top of that, but it’s great fun (besides hard work).

Kelli, tasked with finding us an apt. in Jerusalem once the language program is over, is relieved to be able to report that we finally have one. She began working on that via the web back in Aug. (altho’ it was just looking at that point to see what was out there), and after having a few fall through, she was getting a bit worried. We’ve not been there yet (just saw pictures), but it’s on the street that is the epicenter of the neighborhood we want to live in, so we’re quite excited. (No space for visitors since it’s a studio, but there is a great little hotel nearby.)

The strange effects of being in a right-to-left language environment are starting to appear. I was writing a draft of a story for homework in transliteration (using our alphabet but writing Hebrew—e.g. ani noladati b’new york aval akhshav ani gara b’vashington, dc v’ani ehgor b’yerushalayim b’april) and I found myself writing the transliteration from right to left involuntarily! Funny experience. Kelli found herself opening her journal up from the right (i.e. beginning to write on what we would consider the last page).

Ulpan classes run from “aleph” (absolute beginners—level 1) to “dalet plus” (very advanced; level 8--here, anyway. I’ve heard other ulpanim go up to vav—level 10 or so). When we were here 3 years ago, we both placed into the 3rd level (level bet). We were hoping not to have to repeat bet again, and based on our placement exams yesterday, we don’t! Kelli is taking “bet plus” (level 4), and I skipped that one in favor of “gimel” (having less patience than Kelli, it’s better for me to be in a more challenging learning situation).

Then there’s the French problem. When we were here 3 years ago, most of the new immigrants in the program were Russian, and while there are still many Russians here, the largest group of immigrants now is French. This is a result of the rapidly increasing level of violence against Jews in France. So, instead of dealing with Russian language intrusion in my brain (I don’t have enough Russian knowledge for that to have been a real problem), I’m switching between Hebrew and French constantly. The student who sits next to me is French but originally from Tunisia, and we check each other’s comprehension in both languages. Oy.

My class has students from Russia, Ukraine, Latvia, Holland, Japan, France, and the US (only 2 of us). Kelli’s class has students from Russia, France, Scotland, Turkey, Argentina, Ukraine, and the US (4 of them). Other levels currently have students from Switzerland, Sweden, Canada, Romania, and Australia.

Tomorrow is our first trip with the program, this one to a village that makes honey. L’hitraot! (until next time)

countdown begins...

2006-01-13T20:56:00.000-05:00

or rather, continues, since we've been planning this adventure for roughly 7 months now.
Stay tuned to this site for our musings and kvetching.