Lovings in Jerusalem

Blog chadash (aka change is good)

2007-07-16T19:03:00.000-07:00

We have new contact information all across the board, so why not a whole new blog? Please update your bookmarks to:

Lovings in Cincinnati

Otherwise known as http://lovingsincincinnati.blogspot.com

Check for new updates there... at least it's easy to remember. :)

A different kind of culture shock

2007-07-14T15:15:00.000-07:00

There are some big cultural differences I've noticed between here and home. Like, there are African-Americans everywhere, but almost no Hispanics. I went on Wikipedia out of curiousity, and it said that the city is 52.9% white, 42.9% black or African-American, and 1.2% Hispanic or Latino. I've heard almost no Spanish, but there's quite a lot of German influence in restaurants and names of streets. Sadly, the Costco looked exactly the same, with only one black family in sight and the rest lily-white. (The pizza tasted the same too).

I've never seen so many churches in the same radius as here, either. Baptist, evangelical, Christian Scientist, you name it, there's a church for it, and the signs are big. Ohio isn't technically in the Bible belt, but Kentucky is, and Kentucky's a fast 10 minute drive away. When we came back from the airport we saw a huge statue of Jesus lifting up his arms, and not five minutes from our house is a gigantic billboard on how abortion is murder.

Everyone seems nice, and very friendly. People go out of their way to help you, whether it's the woman in Rite-Aid who showed me where the dollar aisle was, or the waitress who gave us her favorite recommendations and then told us what *not* to get. It's been a real pleasure talking with any of the locals so far - I hope the trend continues!

As far as our house is going, it's being put together slowly but surely. We've bought the little things that help it feel like home, like a laundry basket and plastic hangers. So clothes are in the closet, our one pot and pan are in the cabinet, and Jonathan's computer is proudly on display on the desk we bought from the previous tenants. The rest of our furniture and boxes get here Friday, and our mattress and box spring arrive Thursday. I think next Saturday will definitely involve unpacking, and poor Harry Potter will have to wait til later in the week.

Hello from the Midwest

2007-07-12T09:29:00.000-07:00

We did it! We moved. I write this from the city of Cincinnati, Ohio, home of Graeter’s ice cream and the best Thai food I’ve had (who knew?)

It was a travel experience not to be envied, I’ll tell you. Our flight from LAX to Atlanta was delayed an hour, which caused us to miss our connecting flight. We were scheduled on a new flight instead, one which left three hours later. Then *that* flight was delayed forty minutes in Atlanta due to bad weather. It was so bumpy that even I got queasy, and poor Osher threw up in his carrier case. I later found out, when opening baggage, that our bags had gotten left outside at some point in the Atlanta storm, as most of our clothes were soaking wet.

We finally landed, rented our car, and drove an hour to our new place. It’s totally empty, but clean, spacious, and has a great yard and ample storage space in the basement. We bought the cats a litterbox, blew up our air mattress, met our landlord, who’s quite nice, and then Jonathan and I went to buy little things for us – adult not-fun things, like sponges and dish soap and a toilet scrubber brush. Tomorrow it's off to Costco to buy food.

Dinner last night was the aforementioned Thai place, and the local ice cream sho for dessert. The DSL people came today, our car supposedly arrives in the afternoon, Jonathan starts work on Monday, and the moving van with our stuff arrives next Friday.

The cats are settling in nicely. A bit freaked at first, they’ve been very cuddly... nothing like two huge moves in two months to make a pet feel insecure and want love. In lieu of living with our little ones, we bought Jan two new baby rats before we left. They're adorable white balls of fluff. Ruthie, she hasn’t even named them yet. :)

Book recommendation

2007-07-05T19:48:00.001-07:00

On a totally separate note, my visit to Aunt Lois' has inspired a wholly new appreciation of nature in me. In search of understanding the world that is not-city, I just read Barbara Kingsolver's Prodigal Summer, set in the southern Appalachian mountains. Kingsolver (who also wrote The Poisonwood Bible) was raised in rural Kentucky, in the "wrinkle on the map that lies between farms and wildness," and she has a graduate degree in biology. It shows. The woman is a poet, and weaves three separate storylines of a park ranger, a farmer's wife, and an elderly organic farmer into a dizzyingly beautiful tapestry. I learned so much about nature, human relationships, and the connections between the two of them that I can't praise the book enough. Go read it. Now. Click here.

Jerusalem friends

2007-07-04T14:41:00.000-07:00

Mara and Mark were here for four days, and we had a fabulous time! They played tourist (Santa Monica Pier, Rodeo Drive and the like), we went to In N'Out, and they even rode the motorcycle with Jonathan. We were sorry to see them go, but at least Mara will be at the LA HUC campus, so I'll see her whenever I visit home.

Mara and Jonathan about to take off on the Hybusa. I think most people forget that we have one. It was one of the scariest things Mara did in her life, but it was worth it, she said.

Jonathan and Mark being tough and manly.

Me and Mark.

Moving

2007-07-04T14:22:00.000-07:00

Well, so there's been a slight change in plans. Turns out the movers are coming Friday rather than Thursday, which means there's no way that we can have everything shipped Friday afternoon and drive 10 hours north to be at a wedding Saturday morning. Instead, I'm staying here and Jonathan is flying up by himself. He'll come back Sunday.

I'm so sad! I had wanted to go! Shawn and Kristie, our cousins, had even asked me to do a blessing at the reception. I had to bow out... can't bless, must move.

Squee!

2007-07-01T14:02:00.000-07:00

Jonathan and I are going to four weddings in the next three months, and I need a good wedding dress. Yesterday Beverly and I went shopping and we put together a whole outfit. (pictures will follow)

The best part though? The dress I wanted, and ended up buying, wasn't on the rack in my size. The sales lady said hold on a minute, and then she TOOK IT OFF THE MANNEQUIN!

Ridiculous stress

2007-06-28T14:37:00.000-07:00

I locked myself out of my mother's house today. I was annoyed at myself, but it wasn't so terrible - I walked across the street to a neighbor's, borrowed a screwdriver to take a screen off an open window, and clambered through. Then I walked to the front, UNLOCKED the door, and went around back to put the screen back up.

And here is where I got stressful - as I walked in again, I promptly noticed that the cats weren't greeting me. Oh no, I thought, where are the cats? I couldn't find them anywhere. Then I knew - they must have gone outside through the open window! What cat could resist? They're always trying to get out the front door, this would have seemed a godsend to them.

I called Jonathan and my mom to come home from shopping, as I needed the extra pairs of eyes. I grabbed keys, my cell phone, and a cat carrier so that when I came across them, I could scoop them back up. Then I wandered around our neighborhood for half an hour calling, "Simcha! Osher! Come here!" I couldn't find them.

By the this time I was in tears, envisioning them getting in fights with the local possums, getting run over, or just getting lost in this new country (we've always kept them inside since we've gotten here). I had gone to three neighbors, two of which were outside helping me look.

After forty minutes I finally headed home, still calling their names. And as I reached the house, I heard Simcha meow in response to my calls. Hooray! I thought. But where IS he?! I circled the house trying to find him, calling continuously so that he would meow back.

Then it hit me - he was calling from INSIDE the house! That couldn't be! I had checked everywhere in the house! I walked in the front door, still confused, and I realized the meows were coming from Beverly's room, which was closed. I opened the door, and who do I see? Simcha and Osher, sitting on the bed meowing, looking at me like I'm absolutely nuts for being so stressed.

After getting over my panic, and wanting to both kiss and kill them at the same time, I thought through everything that had happened since I locked myself out. This is what I think happened: One door of Bev's room opens into the house, the other door opens outside into the backyard. The cats aren't allowed in there because she has lots of decorative masks with feathers, which they like to eat and destroy. So we always keep the doors closed. But when I left to put the screen back up on the window, I left through the back, and I think I probably left her door ajar. The cats must have gotten in and accidentally pushed it closed. Then, when I came in through the front and saw they were missing, I checked every room in the house, including that one. But they know they're not supposed to be in there, so, following past precedent, when they heard me come in, they hid under the bed! Forty minutes later, they were bored and wanted to come out, and so Simcha meowed in response to my calls.

Madness.

So here I am now, frustrated, slightly bedraggled, and calling all our neighbors to thank them for looking for my cats who weren't even missing. And where are they? Sacked out on the living room recliners, relaxing in the sunbeams.

Does that seem fair to you?

Cuteness

2007-06-25T13:42:00.001-07:00

You know you're in LA when...

2007-06-24T22:05:00.000-07:00

I'm out to lunch with my friend Danielle when we get onto the topic of celebrity gossip.

"I don't follow it much," she says.
"Really? I read it all the time," I say, turning my head to look at her.
"But you have to remember," she says, "I went to high school with Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie. They were a year below me, and didn't interest me then either."

I had forgotten she was from Sherman Oaks - turns out she went to school with Henry Winkler's daughter too. Then again, why was I surprised? In high school one of my friends did a commercial with George Clooney, and in college I went to dinner with Helen Hunt and Hank Azaria (I was friends with Helen's cousin).

It seems odd to me that this *doesn't* seem odd. Maybe it is time to move on.

Rabbinic update

2007-06-21T13:15:00.000-07:00

I found out that my student pulpit will be in Mattoon, IL, about four hours south of Chicago. It's a small congregation of nine families, and I'll go there once a month from Friday to Sunday, leading Shabbat services and teaching an adult education class.

I'll also be teaching/tutoring Hebrew twice a week in Cincinnati, at Rockdale Temple. That part will be familiar, as it feels similar to what I did at Temple Israel.

We leave for Ohio on July 11th, and have lots of plans in between (two weddings, trip to Tahoe, learning trope from my mom, more housesitting, Mara and Mark visiting, oy!). Had a fabulous time with Anne a few days ago, and a shout-out to Gwen and Sylvan, who now have this blog address.

Fun day

2007-06-18T12:26:00.002-07:00

Yesterday was the perfect social day. In the early morning was Holly's phone call, and a bit later on Jonathan and I went to Manhattan Beach to meet up with Ari and Kim, our jet-setting friends from Chicago who we first met at the Keren Hayesod intersection in Jerusalem.

In the afternoon I browsed Long Beach's Belmont Shore with Tara, a friend from high school. Greek food, Jamba Juice, and a year's worth of catching up... you can't go wrong.

For dinner Jan and Beverly took us to Claim Jumper as a belated anniversary present. We played checkers at the bar, laughed our way through dinner, and loosened our belts after the chocolate chip calzone... yum!

After dinner we headed back to Jane and Sheryl's, where we're house/pet-sitting. Their dog, Pandora, is so sweet - she keeps smelling Simcha and Osher on our clothes and gets confused.

We didn't take any pictures with Ari and Kim, but here are others from the rest of the day.

Tara and I going back to our 10th-grade roots in the hold-the-camera-out-and-take-a-shot-of-ourselves pose

I love this woman. Can you tell she's a toy designer?

Mom and Beverly. (Or Jan and Bev, whichever you prefer).

Us at dinner.

And because I find it fundamentally wrong to put up any photos without including ones of the cats.... :)

Happy Birthday, Gregory!

2007-06-17T08:55:00.001-07:00

Holly and Dan had a healthy baby boy today! He's 8 lbs, 20 1/4 in., and has blond hair. In the words of our sages, may he live to be 120.
Mazel tov!

(In my news, the eye surgery went well. I'm just not supposed to read or use the computer much... urgh.)

Scotland pics

2007-06-13T17:44:00.000-07:00

Finally! I went through the like 400 pictures and picked about 20. Enjoy!

Scotland the beautiful

(Edit: I had written descriptions for each picture, but they aren't showing up in the slideshow. Go to the main page if you want extra info.)

Last of the Israel photos

2007-06-13T17:17:00.000-07:00

Me with Deborah (my Berkeley-Tel Aviv Univ. medical school friend) at the top of the YMCA tower. The Dome of the Rock is behind us.

Osher hiding.

The larger context view of where Osher was. How did he get up there?!

Savta and Avraham at the restaurant the night before we left Jerusalem, when they took us out to a fancy dinner.

Jonathan's fine

2007-06-13T15:44:00.000-07:00

In his own words (from one of the comments):

Thanks everyone. The surgery went very well, and the doctor seems sure that it wasn't cancer [though they're sending it to Pathology to make sure]. I came home from the surgery and passed out for 4 hours. This went a little easier than last time thank goodness!

Again, thanks for all the good thoughts, I'm sure that's why everything went so well! =)

Wish us luck

2007-06-11T00:03:00.001-07:00

I haven't mentioned anything here before, but Jonathan has outpatient surgery tomorrow to remove a lump in his arm. With his history of cancer, we're all hoping for the best. Think of us tomorrow - I'm sure he'll be fine.

Northern CA

2007-06-09T01:25:00.000-07:00

To go back a few posts, here are some shots of the time we spent in Placerville.

The wagon train on the way to Tahoe. Remnants of the Wild West gold rush days are everywhere.

First view of Lake Tahoe. It's so pretty!

Jonathan with Tante Edna and Uncle John at the lake.

After we left Lake Tahoe, we drove straight down to Aunt Lois' and Mike's. They took us to a wonderful dinner for our anniversary (which was the 4th), and then the next morning we got up bright and early to look at the "Big Trees." Literally, that's what the sign said: Big Trees. It's a redwood forest in the Sierra Nevadas, and these trees are the biggest I’ve ever seen.

Jonathan and Aunt Lois on the trail. We quickly got lost, and by the end had gone over three full footpaths.

Looking up into the foliage. He's standing *in* the tree trunk!

My husband is 6'1". You'd never know it - doesn't he look tiny next to these giants?

We're all a bunch of tree-huggers in CA, you know. :)

After the day of hiking in the forest, we drove to Aunt Lois’ property. At 24 acres, they pretty much own the mountain. This will be the view from their living room window:

When we finally got back to civilization we were exhausted, so the day afterwards we just hung out at the house, and then went to Stockton for dinner to meet up with some of Jonathan’s friends from his Silicon Valley days. Thursday we drove the three hours to Fresno to see his mom and brother and sister’s families. Our nieces and nephews are all adorable – six-year-old Trevor was so happy we’re back. “My uncle was in the war!” he had told everyone. Yes, but he's home now, Trevor, and out of danger.

Of course, all good things must come to an end, and today was the long trek home (with one more stop in Burbank to see yet more people). Now we return to the familiar: LA is smoggy, there is lots of traffic, and what do you know, Paris Hilton's return to jail was the prime topic of all the radio shows. So here we are, tired, happy, and home, and glad to see the kitties.

Beautiful article on Jerusalem tensions

2007-06-05T12:30:00.000-07:00

Clashing values alter a city's face

Thousands of less devout Jews move out each year, many frustrated by the growing clout of the ultra-Orthodox. The trend may leave Israelis with a painful choice.

By Richard Boudreaux, Times Staff WriterJune 5, 2007

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-orthodox5jun05,0,7713016.story?page=1

Cows and cars. Not necessarily in that order.

2007-06-05T10:59:00.000-07:00

Aunt Edna and Uncle John live in Placerville, right near where the first gold nuggets were found. The town's oldest architecture is straight from the 18oos, and the town's nickname is "Old Dry Diggin's." They are amazing and gave (flat out gave) us a car to take to Cincinnati, a beautiful Toyota Camry that even has a sunroof. They've also given Savta a run for her money in the "feeding us til we burst" department. We hung out, looked through old photo albums - Jonathan was so *cute* when he was little! - and we went up to Tahoe with them yesterday, about an hour away.

Today we've moved south to the county of Calaveras. Not the town itself, but the county (I learned yesterday that counties are not always made up of various cities, but that people live in a county in the............... SPACE............ between towns). Aunt Lois and Mike live in a mansion four times the size of my mother's house, and they're going to build a house on their property of 24 acres. You can't see the house from the road, just the driveway. Cows and horses are everywhere, and wild deer came onto their property yesterday. Just.... there. Eating. By the side of the road. Deer.

A very confused rooster crowed well before sunrise this morning. But what made Jonathan laugh rather than curse was that in my half-awake state, I mumbled, "wow, a rooster!" I'd never heard one before. I was gratified to find that the movies have gotten it surprisingly right - the crow really *does* sound remarkably like "cock-a-doodle-doo."

City girl, guilty as charged.

I'm taking my next vacation in Florida

2007-05-31T21:17:00.000-07:00

Harry Potter Theme Park Headed to Fla.
Thursday May 31 10:53 AM ET (Yahoo News)

Universal Studios is opening up a Harry Potter theme park in Florida complete with the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the Forbidden Forest and Hogsmeade village.

"The Wizarding World of Harry Potter," will open in late 2009 in Orlando, officials said Thursday.

"The plans I've seen look incredibly exciting, and I don't think fans of the books or films will be disappointed," said author J.K. Rowling, who has been working with a creative team to make sure the park resembles the books and films.

More than a dozen artists and designers lead by Stuart Craig, the production designer of the movies, have set up house in the studio where the movies are being filmed to make sure every detail is considered, according to Scott Trowbridge of Universal.

"We're really going to the people who know this world best to ensure that level of authenticity," he said.

The Potter park will allow visitors to view the iconic locations in Rowling's magical world, like Dumbledore's office in Hogwarts and the shops in Hogsmeade. Some locations may be in upcoming books, Trowbridge said.

Trowbridge said while there would not be any character lookalikes at the park, fans wanting to see Harry Potter and his magical friends wouldn't leave disappointed.

"This is Harry's world," said Trowbridge. "Most every fan wants to have an encounter with the star of the show."

Mundane errands

2007-05-31T20:44:00.000-07:00

I swear, I have never spent more time in waiting rooms than I have this week. We had pretty much postponed all of our medical appts for a year, so this week I've gone to the: dentist, doctor, obgyn, podiatrist, optometrist, and hairdresser. Then I have a cavity, so that's a follow-up visit to the dentist. Then my vision is deteriorating, so a follow-up appt with the doctor who did my PRK two years ago (it was like LASIK, but more invasive. Before the procedure I was legally blind). So it turns out my eyes are now reverting, so I have additional surgery scheduled for week after next. Jonathan has the same type of follow-ups, so we've definitely been grateful for the use of my mom's car.

We saw Pirates of the Caribbean, which I quite liked. Stay til the very end of the credits, that's all I'll say.

We've had lunches and dinners with people, and I'm falling back into totally unhealthy eating habits. And (Nicole and Joe, you'll love this) we became such tea people in Israel that my mother bought herself a kettle. Apparently she was laughing at us putting our mugs of water in the microwave, and decided to rectify the situation. :)

Oh yes, and the cats are adjusting much better now.

Simcha on the left, Osher on the right. "The sinks are our new home!"

Sleeping and cuddling and grooming. Oh what a difficult life.

Wow, this cat must be tense. See how he can barely relax?!

More comparisons

2007-05-28T10:41:00.001-07:00

Reverse culture shock, cont'd:

- Friday night I went to services at my home Temple, and there was *minimal* Hebrew. I'd forgotten what Classical Judaism was like! The rabbi asked me up to do the candle blessing, which was nice.

- I wore a skirt today, and was the only person I could see wearing one. At the movie theater ticket line, it was a sea of blue jeans and short shorts.

- Memorial Day here is *so* different than Yom Hazikaron. Instead of visiting cemeteries and mourning, here it was all about sales and "click it or ticket" (seat belt safety).

- Spanish is everywhere. I heard more Spanish in In n'Out (burger joint) than English.

- It's depressing how ubiquitous SUV's are. No more small cars. But at least people stop for pedestrians here.

- Candy bars are the new fruit and vegetables.

- Cell phones are just as popular, but are much more shiny and new. We're entitled to upgrades on our Verizon plan, and I almost feel wasteful. What do I need a camera phone for, when I had the lousiest Israelphone in Jerusalem and it worked perfectly?

One cool thing that I had completely forgotten about: I got invited to a free movie again! I love the LA area, where lots of times free tickets are given out for upcoming movies. The way it works is you see a mostly-finished movie (maybe the musical score isn't all there, or the ending will be changed, or a voiceover doesn't have the actor's voice yet) and fill out a survey on it. The studios incorporate the information, change the movie accordingly, and then it comes out months later. It's fun to see the work-in-progress and then the final version, we've done it with quite a few.

This time we got invited to "The Invasion," the one coming out in August with Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig. But I'm sad, we can't go! It's next week, and by then we'll be in Northern CA with Jonathan's family. We're road-tripping it from Long Beach to north of Sacramento - it'll be 10 hours up and down by the time we're through. Amazing that you can cross multiple states in that time back East.

Off to have lunch with Becca, who's in for a couple of days...

Anyone out there?

2007-05-25T13:33:00.000-07:00

Is anyone still checking this? Not sure if I should still be updating since we're home, or if everyone's assumed that *since* we're home I've stopped updating, so no one's reading.

Anyways, comment/email if it's interesting enough to continue.

Never travel with cats

2007-05-22T10:49:00.000-07:00

1) The last day in Jerusalem we hung out with Deborah and went to the top of the YMCA tower. Pretty view. Then we said bye to Joe and Nicole at night. Sniff.
2) My dad picked us up at 9am, we went down to Holon and spent the day there.
3) On the plane the cats meowed 10 hours out of 15. We were not happy. Our seatmates were even less happy.
4) We're now in California. Were I less jet-lagged, I'd say hooray.
5) My mother's cats do not like two new male cats in their territory. This is bad for them, but actually extremely amusing to watch.
6) I unpacked most of our six suitcases directly into boxes for Cincinnati. Oyness.
7) I *still* haven't had a chance to look at the Scotland pictures! But pictures are coming. Eventually.

And since I'm in list mode, here are some things I'd forgotten about the States:

Freeways are huge.
Fruit and vegetables are waxy.
Toilet seat covers!
Sunday is not a workday, but Friday is.
Starbucks is everywhere.
Jacaranda trees are gorgeous.
Young girls wear miniskirts.
You don't have to turn on the hot water an hour before you do dishes or take a shower.
Bacon and cheese are together. Everywhere.

And that's all for now. Jonathan and I will be here for a month, at my mother's number, before we move cross-country. We're toying with the idea of starting a "Year(s) in Cincinnati" blog. To be honest, I think I may find the Midwest just as foreign as Israel!

We're back!

2007-05-17T12:18:00.000-07:00

And oh my god, it was amazing. Truly and honestly, I've never seen such a beautiful country. So lush, with hills and valleys and lakes (or should I say lochs). And (because food is all-important) I even ate myself sick on Scottish breakfasts. They offered cereal, tea and toast... and then eggs, fried bread, sausage, bacon, tomatoes, mushrooms, fruit pudding, blood pudding, haggis, yogurt, cheese, and fruit. Jonathan and I never ate lunch, breakfast lasted us til at least 5pm.

We've been home for a whole day, and we've spent all of it cleaning and packing. Would you believe, we haven't even downloaded pictures yet! But have no fear, as soon as we see them, you all will too. :)

Picture post

2007-05-08T10:46:00.000-07:00

Mara, Judy and I at Cafe Rehavia

Jonathan with Simcha the Mighty

Cheese pastries in the bakery. Just because.

More cheeses. I love the shuk.

Me posing with Israeli Coke.

Judy and Jonathan in the Old City.

Spring flowers outside our building.

More pretty flowers.

Where did the time go?

2007-05-06T09:57:00.000-07:00

My apologies, I've been extremely lax about posting. We've been busy, and nothing particularly fascinating has been happening. But I'll record it anyway.

We went down to Arad to see my grandparents this weekend, and swam in the Dead Sea. Floating is fun. Mounds of food is even better.

Judy left today. Bless her for taking one of our bags with her.

We went to the Knesset for the last day of Israel Seminar, and heard a Member of Knesset speak. He's an Orthodox rabbi, but shocked me when he said that he thought that Israel should recognize Reform conversions, because being a Jew and being a citizen are different matters.

It's gotten very warm here, and the cats are melting. They don't even jump up to say hi anymore when we open the door. They just look up from their perch on the cool tile floor, then go back to sleep.

I finally finished all my papers, and took one final this afternoon. I have one Hebrew composition and five tests left. I'm jealous of my classmates - because the way the schedule worked out, most of them are done by Tuesday. I have my last final Thursday morning.

Lag B'Omer, the day of bonfires and the traditional unveiling of the Zohar, the Kabbalistic text, was yesterday. (Thanks Mara). I completely forgot about it - we were so tired we didn't go out to see anything, but stayed in and rented a movie instead. I think we got old somehow when we weren't looking.

Last but not least, Scotland on Friday. I can't wait. I just have to get through finals first.

Books are my personal Messiah

2007-05-01T08:46:00.000-07:00

As a stress reliever I just finished "The Autobiography of God" by Julius Lester. By far, it's the most intriguing book I've read this year. I don't even know how to start summarizing it: a failed congregational rabbi works at a small rural college and receives visits from God and those long dead. Has anyone here read it? I'd love to hear what you think. A woman from Temple Israel sent it to me, it was on the reading club's book list. Man, what I would have given to be there that day!

The week

2007-04-30T23:56:00.000-07:00

Just a quick update: Shabbat afternoon (Saturday) was wonderful! I went to Sharon and Nathan's for the afternoon. We ate a ton of food and then took a walk around one of the kibbutzim near their house, at Ramat Rachel. They have a viewpoint there where you could see almost all of Jerusalem, from north to south. It's gorgeous. And Bethlehem is the next hill over - I forget how close the West Bank is.

Judy is having a great time. She and Jonathan have been spelunking all over town while I've been in classes. I'm the lucky recipient of the baklava they bring home.

Two more days of school and then finals. Is it like this for everyone else, when the week before finals is harder than the actual final week itself? Maybe it's because I try to do the papers beforehand. Either way, between the imminent end of school and packing up book boxes, it's hitting me - I'M GOING HOME! And I'm not quite sure how I feel about it. It'll be wonderful to see people in the States again, but really, it's the people I miss, not the things. I like living in Israel - it's such a healthier lifestyle, and the culture seems more real, less polished. Maybe one day we'll make aliyah. Who knows. Right now, I just don't want to leave my Israeli family... as well as the Machane Yehuda vegetable market.

Winding down

2007-04-28T02:05:00.000-07:00

Life seems to be simpler lately – my time is split between friends and homework. Judy got here the day before yesterday, and it’s been great. We went to the shuk, out for schwarma, to the Old City. Yesterday she took a bus tour all day and I wrote a paper. It worked out nicely.

Last night was “Cincinnati Shabbat” at Matt and Erin’s, for all of us who are going to the great state of Ohio next year. It was wonderful getting to know people better, and I’m looking forward to having classes with everyone. One thing is sad though – everyone else at the table is only moving to Cincinnati in August! Guess we’ll be on our own the months of June and July.

The cats have been going CRAZY the past few days. It’s been getting warmer, spring has finally arrived…. And with it the psycho, demanding cats have returned. I think they’ve got spring fever too. Last night Simcha woke us up at 5am meowing and meowing. After yelling at him to no avail, Jonathan finally picked him up and plopped him on the bed. He nestled in the crook of Jonathan’s arm and fell asleep. You’d think he could just jump up there by himself, but no! He had to be hand-carried.

And on a slightly different note, I highly recommend the movie Pan’s Labyrinth. It’s a Spanish movie set after their Civil War in 1944, centering on one girl’s experience. It breaks between the world of reality and the world of her fairy tales, and she meets fairies, a faun, and all sorts of magical creatures that help her deal with real life.

And that’s about it on this front. My Liturgy paper is calling my name.

What I'll miss about Israel

2007-04-23T06:55:00.000-07:00

This year in Israel is coming to an end and one is inevitably drawn to reflection. Was it a good year? Was it a fun year? Was it a worthwhile year? There were many things that I found anywhere from annoying (see dranage pipe leaking on my head) to horrible (my first 36 hours with no phone, no internet, no food, and nothing open). With that said, I have to be honest. This has been the best year of my entire life.

This was the first year Michal and I lived alone together (I love you Jan, but would YOU want to live with your mother-in-law?). We found that the crucible of living in a foreign land bonded us closer together. I have traveled and learned about more of the world than I have in all the other years of my life combined. I have forged my own community for the first time and it has been wonderful. This past year I have had the life and marrage I have always dreamed.

So, in a nice way of review, I am going to list the things I'm going to miss the most about Israel, and then list the things I'm looking forward most to in the good ol' US of A!

What I'll miss in Israel...
(in no particular order)

1. Pita made fresh daily.
2. Walking down to the corner market for last minute groceries.
3. Talking to Nicole and Joe through their living room window from my balcony
4. Seeing my community of friends walk down my street on any giving day.
5. A city that stops for Jewish holidays.
6. The best baklava in the world (and at a price I can afford).
7. Humus as it was meant to be made.
8. Being a part of my wife's school.
9. Having people over just to play with our cats.
10. Never worrying about violent crime.
11. Being able to talk theology and politics with anyone on the street.
12. Being expected to break the rules.
13. Knowing that the person talking to you means what they say.
14. No one ever being insulted because you want to bargain.
15. Being forced to relax on Saturday mornings.
16. Being able to fill your grocery cart for less than $100.
17. Seasonal food.
18. Living with people who love to be spontaneous.
19. Being able to visit Savta and Avraham on any given weekend.
20. Having other people tell my wife how wonderful I am.
21. Knowing everyone.
22. Being on the far side of the planet from the nearest Republican.
23. Walking down the road to see 2000 year-old ruins.
24. Being 2 hours (or less) away from Europe, Asia, or Africa.
25. Being able to wear jeans to formal occasions.

Things I am looking forward to in the US
(in no particular order)

1. Being able to buy food on Saturday.
2. Ordering pepperoni and sausage on my pizza.
3. A real BBQ cheeseburger.
4. Cheap Indian food.
5. Eating out for less than $6 a plate.
6. Vehicles that obey traffic laws.
7. Customer service.
8. Well-organized business.
9. Internet that works as you were told it would.
10. Electricity that isn't likely to blow anything out at any given moment.
11. Not having Islamic terrorists trying to blow me up (and burn my cookies).
12. Being paid more than $3 an hour.
13. Being able to read EVERYTHING.
14. Never having to say "Ot Medaberet Engleet?"
15. Someone bagging my groceries for me.
16. A dishwasher.
17. Real Mexican food.
18. Police that actually catch criminals.
19. Jamba Juice.
20. Cheap computers/electronics.
21. Toilets and beds that fit me.
22. Minute Maid Orange Juice.
23. Thrifty Ice Cream.
24. Being able to rent and play all the movies at the video store. (I hate Zone 2 and the stupid MPAA)
25. Real broadband access (Okay, I know this seems like a repeat of #9, but I can't tell you how I miss my high speed access! *sniff*)

There are more things I think I can add to these lists, but these are my top 25.

Why do I admit these things?

2007-04-22T11:42:00.000-07:00

Due to reasons I won't even begin to go into, it has now been sufficiently demonstrated that I cannot do a push-up. This is sad, pathetic, and even mildly embarrassing (which of course is why I put it on the blog... go figure). Jonathan, Joe, and even Nicole all correctly performed at least two push-ups. They suck.

All this as a long way of saying that school was boring today, but the evening has turned out quite nicely. After talking with my dad on the phone, I went upstairs to see where Jonathan had disappeared to - and was immediately fed dinner and dessert by our erstwhile neighbors. Over dinner we had a very interesting and serious conversation about Yom HaZikaron, Memorial Day. The siren had sounded for two minutes at 8pm tonight, and from tonight until tomorrow night is the day of remembrance for all Israeli soldiers who lost their lives in defending their country. Tomorrow night turns to Yom Haatzmaut, Independence Day, which is a day of jubilation. How interesting that the holidays are juxtaposed - extreme sadness and grief gives way to celebration, as it is recognized that Israel would not exist without the sacrifice of those who fell while founding it.

All this, of course, was mere build-up to the demonstration of exercise prowess. I still maintain that I outshine them all in leg strength.... but if the laughter was any indication, I don't think they really believed me. Hmph, I say, hmph.

Homeward bound

2007-04-20T12:18:00.000-07:00

We go home in exactly one month, and life is starting to turn more towards the States than Israel. It's hard to be present and in the moment when so much stuff is going on; finals, Scotland trip, moving to CA, moving to Cincinnati, finding an apartment, insurance, Jonathan finding a job, etc. We've even packed up three boxes of books to take to the post office and ship home. Whenever anyone came to visit, they always brought stuff with them; it was fabulous at the time, but it's proving more difficult now to schlep it all back. (Though never let it be said I’m ungrateful – I don’t know what I would have done without a new book infusion every now and then.)

Taking the cats home is becoming somewhat of a hassle, too. They need health vaccination forms at the vet, papers and stamps at the Ministry of Agriculture (which we can only visit on Wednesdays between 1:30-3pm), and then more papers with the customs agents at LAX... it's totally worth it, though, of course. All I'm saying is that they better appreciate it and snuggle with me lots!

On our way to dinner last night at Sharon and Nathan's, the visually-impaired woman I read to once a week, we had a mini-bus adventure. Jonathan, myself, and Rebecca (who had stopped by to chat and walked us to the bus stop) waited 20 minutes, which is a pretty long time for the #7. We got into a great discussion of how we are best suited to various rabbinic professions (e.g. should we be professors, congregational rabbis, chaplains, directors of a camp, or work in a college Hillel?) We saw the bus coming, hugged goodbye… and then it just whizzed right past! It didn’t even stop. We had to wait another 20 minutes to catch the next one. Needless to say, we were a bit late for dinner.

Jonathan has been making more oatmeal cookies to replace the batch that was burnt in the bomb threat, and the HUC students he's shared them with love them. Sharon, Nathan, and my dad’s family, however, didn’t. I had totally forgotten that Israelis don't like sugar. Nathan told him, “Whenever I have a recipe, I always halve the sugar.” “No kidding!” Jonathan said. “I always double it.” It's a cultural thing, I guess - Israel is so intent on veggies and whole wheat, that sugar and many processed foods aren't nearly as popular.

School-wise, nothing much interesting is happening. We had a ceremony for Yom Hashoah, and walked outside for the two minutes – it was amazing seeing taxi drivers stop their cabs and get out, and hearing construction noise stop for two minutes exactly. Aside from that, though, the only news is non-news…. It seems like all the teachers have realized that we only have two weeks of classes left, and they apparently have a month’s worth of lesson plans. I’ve never had so much work! It feels like I’m back in high school – I’ll have two finals per day during finals week, and three papers and two Hebrew compositions due beforehand… thank goodness I wasn’t behind at all, otherwise I’d be really lost.

One fun anecdote though: in discussing our upcoming final yesterday, my teacher, Osnat, informed us that we will be tested on all the verb form possibilities at once, not one at a time like we've been doing. We were a bit surprised, then worried - that makes the test much much harder. Then we asked if the verbs would be all mixed up, and she looked horrified. "Lo, lo!" (she explained, "no."). "Ani lo l'hiot sneaky!" (I won't be sneaky!) I loved her use of language, just as much as her announcement making it an easier test.

Oh, and Joe got his visa! We wanted to see it, but it was safely tucked away in the HUC safe. I’ve never been more happy with my Israeli passport. It’s saved so many problems. Even little things like paying for the water bill - they always want ID, and giving them the Israeli passport number saves on the explanations of "This is a CA Driver License? You don't own your apartment? Who is the landlord? How long have you lived there?" etc.

Oy, it got late. Off to light Shabbat candles...

Reasons Israel is different

2007-04-19T04:24:00.000-07:00

#128 - Islamic terrorists might burn your cookies.

I suppose such bold statements require explanation, so let me tell you what happened to me today.

Several events have happened recently that inspired me to make a fresh batch of cookies. For one, my downstairs neighbor was broken into (the third apartment in my stairwell in the last 30 days) so I figured a few oatmeal cookies might be nice. We were invited for dinner at someone’s house who asked that we bring the dessert; well…I’ll just make a bigger batch. Oh, and I got a call just a few hours ago from our upstairs neighbor (who also got robbed a while ago) that Joe, her fiancé from England, just got his US immigration papers, he’s going to be an American soon (‘cept with a much cooler accent). So, I whipped up a big batch of oatmeal cookie dough and put a batch into the oven.

I had just closed the oven when I heard a loud (boom!). Now, despite my Mr. Mom lifestyle, I am a guy and have in the past been very familiar with guns. That boom sounded very familiar. In a few moments I heard it again. I started to patrol my windows and I heard it again. It sounded like a shotgun, very much like one, but it couldn’t be a gun fight for it was too spaced out and no sounds of gun fire (I have been in vicinity of a gun fight in the past while living in Monterey). Now, there is a ton of construction near my apartment, so maybe they are using small explosives to open up some rock. Or maybe the crane keeps dropping large objects. I’m puzzled and annoyed because the sound makes my cats jump a foot every time it goes off; so I figure I will take 3 minutes out and walk out to the construction and see what is making the sound of a shotgun.

I have excellent night vision, but in really bright sunlight I’m almost blind without sunglasses. Unfortunately I left in such a hurry that I had forgotten my sunglasses and my dim light adjusted eyes were not adapting well to high noon sun reflecting off the white Jerusalem stone walkway. I kept walking out, I figured I would just squint really hard - it can’t be that hard to find a loud booming object.

I walk all the way to the street and see a police car down the hill about 100 feet, I think “hrm… maybe they are keeping people back from the construction sight.” He takes notice of me and starts yelling at me in very animated Hebrew and waving a lot. Now, my Hebrew is pretty bad, I have a hard time understanding even bits of it spoken slowly, so I really had no chance of comprehending this long string of continuous syllables spoken at warp speed. I figure I would walk towards him and find out what the fuss is about. I knew I couldn’t have done anything wrong; I just walked out of my apartment.

I get closer and I can make out the words “POH, POH” (here, here) repeated again and again. “Oh," I think, "he wants me to come over to him!! I understand what he is saying!” I was very excited about my language breakthrough that I didn’t stop to understand why a policeman was running over to escort me away from my apartment. Suddenly realizing that something might be up, and English might be the better choice, I ask him, in Hebrew, to speak English to me. He then said, in a very thick Israeli accent, “There is a bomb! You have to stay away!”

He puts me behind a car about 100 feet from were I was and I squint real hard. My eyes are finally if painfully are adjusting to the light and right were I was standing is a mechanical robot with what appears to be a big mechanical arm and a top-mounted cannon. I literally was standing just inches from it when I stepped off my walkway.

I try not to dwell on my near life-endangering experience and watch the robot closely. It is in front of a satchel. I ask someone nearby and they tell me someone left a satchel unattended and the bomb squad is here to see if there is a bomb in it by detonating it with the robot. I watched as the robot shoots another round of compressed air, basically a blank shotgun shell, that hits it with such force that the bits of plastic shell are blown all the way through the satchel. That was the shotgun sound I had been hearing.

I admire the genius of the process; the hard localized concussion from the top-mounted cannon on the robot would set off any motion or shock sensitive explosive device. Then the robot’s mechanical arm rips open the hole it had made with its repeated shots and a mini-camera, also on the robot, peers into the sack. About 5 minutes later a man looking the part of a space marine in his heavy armor ambles to the satchel and examines it thoroughly himself (there’s a job I would never want). It appears to have been a harmless backpack that some absent-minded student had put down while talking to a friend and then forgot to pick up before going on their way. I ponder the look on their face should the police contact them.

The bomb squad wanders off with the backpack and I stand around bored, in the sun and blinding light, for what seems forever before I’m finally allowed to return to my apartment. I open my door to the smell of burnt oatmeal cookies. *sigh*

You see, in a country where Islamic terrorists aren’t trying to blow up any random Jews they can, that backpack would have just remained there for the absent-minded student to return. At the very worst, some backpack-deprived person would have donned it on as their new find. But, here, in Israel, where people have been blown up by random backpacks left behind by Islamic fanatics, we have to call a bomb squad to pummel it for 30 minutes with high powered plastic packed shotgun shells. Inevitably, overly curious domestic husbands wander out and get caught up in the mess, and end up with their cookies burnt. Damn those Islamic terrorists.

Oh, and for the record, I want to go home now.

Yom HaShoah

2007-04-16T07:34:00.000-07:00

The Holocaust killed 6 million Jews, of which 1.2 million were children. It is, as all of us know, the worst tragedy of the Jewish people in modern history, the worst atrocity of the industrial age, and an utterly horrible thing to think about. The day of remembrance for those who died is a national memorial day called Yom HaShoah. It is always on the 27th day of the Hebrew month of Nisan.

Today is the 27th day of Nisan, and Yom Hashoah is commemorated in Israel in a way that only Israel can. Since the Jewish day starts at sundown, not sunrise, shops and services close the night before. All government agencies shut down, and a special siren is sounded at 10 AM the following morning. Something unbelievable happens at the moment that the siren sounds across the hills of Jerusalem; something that I have never seen or heard of in any other culture. When the siren sounds at 10 AM, the entire city stops for the duration of its wail, as if the siren itself were the screams of the 6 million who died. EVERYTHING STOPS! People stop where they are walking, conversations end, traffic no longer moves, and people get out of their cars and stand, with heads bowed, in silent tribute. No one talks, as if unwilling to break the sound of those who had died.

The wailing siren last for 2 minutes, but in a way it seems to echo for eternity. In that time I can see everyone around me on the busy street of Keren Heyesod stop and reflect on the tragedy that changed the world. In a way, these 6 million men, women, and children died so that their descendents could stand where they are, right then. Had there been no Holocaust, it is unlikely that Israel would have become a reality. Conversely, I wonder if the Holocaust would have happened had there been a Jewish state.

For the past year I had become somewhat jaded by the politics of Israel, the frustration of its disorganization, and its rude social behaviors. In those two minutes all those feelings were changed. In those two minutes as I stared at all my fellow tribe members, heads bowed in respect of all those who died because there was no Israel, and I renewed my vow, “Never Again.”

May article for Temple bulletin

2007-04-14T16:04:00.000-07:00

It’s amazing to me that almost an entire year has gone by. Ten months went like that – POOF and they’re gone. I leave for the United States in five weeks, and I find myself musing on what lessons I will take from my time here.

- Buying shwarma in pita for lunch from an Arab vendor, I remind myself that Israel is culturally Middle Eastern, not simply Ashkenazi.

- Listening to my Philipino neighbors argue in Tagalog, I remind myself that not everyone is Middle Eastern, or even Jewish.

- Watching a young Orthodox mother struggle to corral her payos-bedecked children into car seats, I look down at my spaghetti with meatballs and parmesan, and remind myself that even amongst all the Jews in this country, not all Jews are the same.

It’s hard to remember these things in a city of black hats and ghost-town Shabbats, a city that looks down upon women with kippot and sees Reformi as uniquely odd. Tel Aviv is familiar in its secularity, comforting in the fact that it feels just like home. Jerusalem is messy in its religious divisions.

And then I think about it – Jerusalem will never be uniform, for it is, in a sense, a microcosm of Judaism. Jerusalem contains so many different types of people and nationalities (Jews, Arabs, Russians, etc), so many types of Jews, and so many political viewpoints that it’s bursting at the seams. To the tourist, the city seems both ideal and idyllic, but underneath the surface, the city is fraught with tension.

Judaism, too, is similarly divided. The Conservative movement is weakening, Reform is becoming increasingly assimilated through intermarriage, and Orthodoxy is on the rise. In Reform Judaism alone, questions abound: should we include more Hebrew in services, how do we deal with issues of kashrut, what do we do to even the gender gap and bring boys back into camps and youth groups. Who hasn’t heard the joke that when there are three Jews in the room, you get four opinions? Or the one about two Jews stranded on the desert island? They built three shuls: one that Person A goes to, one that Person B goes to, and one that neither of them would be caught dead in. To a Jew, the separations are clear; to the non-Jew, the tensions are minimal, and denominations and divisions are blurred and indistinct.

Luckily for us, Jerusalem is Judaism in miniature not merely because it is split into many factions yet presents a united front: in addition, both the city and the religion also contain a sense of solidarity and spirituality. No other religion in the world incorporates a sense of cultural belonging in its very bylaws; no other city dresses all in white and smiles on Yom Kippur. All Jews worldwide ate some form of matzah this Pesach, and every Yerushalmite in every corner of the city mourned the loss of its children in the last Lebanese war. Judaism is wrapped up in the history, the land, and the people of Jerusalem… and I count myself lucky, and proud, to have been able to live among them.

Have a wonderful month, and I will see you all at services and oneg on May 25^th!

Tales of a divided Israel: A kosher McDonald’s in a secular area, and a sign requesting modesty outside ultra-Orthodox Mea Shearim.

A lazy Thursday and my domestic god

2007-04-12T12:05:00.000-07:00

Today was the best day – shuk with Mara in the morning, visiting with Abba at lunch, watching Brokeback Mountain in the afternoon, and cookies with Nicole and Joe in the evening. They have their big appointment at the consulate tomorrow (to get Joe's fiance visa into the US), so we wanted to wish them well.

And then the funniest thing happened that reminded me why I married my husband.

I’m online reading Google News, the modern equivalent of a newspaper. I look over next to me to see Jonathan sewing. I reach for one of the cookies he had made right at the moment he starts cooing to a cat. Then we catch each others’ eyes and burst out laughing. Mr. Mom and the working wife, indeed!

Yasas and ciao!

2007-04-11T11:59:00.000-07:00

Where to start? I could write pages on the Parthenon, and the ancient Greek agora where Socrates taught. The Mask of Agamemnon at the Greek National Archeological Museum, and the flea market at Monastiraki Square. The metro stations displaying the archeology found when digging the subway, and the cheery faces of every Greek we met. Then of course moussaka, spanikopidas, ouzo, and yogurt with honey.

At the Temple of Hephaesteon in Athens, overlooking the Acropolis and ancient agora

In Rome I could speak of the immensity of the Colosseum, the Roman agora, and Palatine Hill. The beauty of the Vatican and Sistine Chapel, and the surprising number of open squares scattered across the city. The Trevi Fountain and Spanish Steps with their trillions of tourists. The crypts and catacombs under Rome, churches with unbelievable art, and the hostel where Maxi and Elke served homemade hot chocolate in the mornings.

Us at the Trevi Fountain. We got a miniature version for the cats to serve as their water bowl. :)

Streets of Rome.

Inside of Colosseum.

In Florence there was the Ponte Vecchio bridge, the outdoor courtyard/museum in the Piazza della Signoria, and the Santa Croce church with its elaborate tombs of Michelangelo, Dante, Galileo, and Machiavelli. Through it all was gelato once a day, pizza cut by weight and folded in half, and lasagna and spaghetti to die for.

Ponte Vecchio bridge in Florence.

All-important gelato, Italian ice cream.

We have hundreds of pictures, literally - three memory cards' worth. I think we have one card's worth of art alone. Jonathan has already started sorting them, so he'll put up a huge picture post in the next week or so. Here's some art as a preview.

Caryatid at Acropolis museum in Athens.

Inside of St. Peter's Basilica

Part of a bronze door relief in Florence, by Bernini (same guy who designed St. Peter's square)

"Rape of the Sabine Women" in Florence

Ceiling of the Map Room at the Vatican.

Back from Rome

2007-04-10T05:27:00.000-07:00

I’m sick. I’m sure I got whatever it is I have while being squeezed like a sardine in the Vatican museum where I was breathing in the exhales of 20,000 people in a room with no open windows and only two open doors (both plugged with yet more people). Tip of the day is, “Never visit the Vatican Easter weekend”.

So some typhoid mongrel in the room gave me his phlegm filled disease. Fortunately, I was on so much adrenaline while in Rome that I didn’t care and didn’t let it slow me down much. It wasn’t until I was on the flight home that I was smacked down by the cold. It seems my ears, clogged from my congestion, decided to punish me for the change in air pressure by giving me the sensation of a metal spike being driven into my skull. Loads of fun during landing let me tell you. Thinking about it I probably infected people in the plane from all my coughing. I can only hope it was one of the family members of the bastard that gave it to me. Not that I'm bitter.

So, I’m in bed right now, angry at my maligned ear that still hasn’t decompressed from the flight and feels like someone stuck a helium balloon in it. My throat is a bit sore, but most annoying is the cough that I’m sure is going to hurl out my lung at some point. The constant expelling of green goo is no fun either. I’m sure my wife has had a grand time sleeping as the bed quakes from the hacking fits I get about every 10 minutes.

Either out of pity for me, or a desire to sleep tonight, she called the doctor. Interestingly enough, they do house calls in Israel, so he came right to my bed. Nice. Less nice was the fact he spoke no English, just Hebrew. Fortunately my brother in law, Doron, was here and acted as interpreter. He made me do uncomfortable things, like breath, while he listened with his icy cold stethoscope. After much strange gesturing and poking, and a mish mash of almost intelligible Hebrew he announced that I had bronchitis, or possibly Bacchus disease, which if I use my newly attained Latin skill is the disease of too much wine and partying. It was in Hebrew so translation was sketchy. In either case I am to stay in bed and take antibiotics. As a bonus the drugs are even free. Let's just say that I’m becoming a real fan of socialized medicine.

And before you ask, Rome and Athens was so worth it.

I’ll post more on the trip later. If I don’t die from Bacchus first.

Fatima and Iman

2007-03-28T15:56:00.000-07:00

Okay, so that last entry was going to be the last entry before vacation – but I had such a good time at school today, I have to share. We met with Israeli Arab/Palestinian women who are studying to be teachers at a college in Baka el Gharbiyya, a town near Afula. (An Arab Israeli is someone who lives inside Israel and is considered to be a full citizen, unlike someone in the Gaza Strip). After a beginning lecture and a short getting-to-know you period, we split into groups to learn about the other. Four HUC students and myself walked around Jerusalem with Fatima and Iman, two women from a town near Nazareth. They wore the full coverings, from head veil to body-covering robe… and they managed to break all my stereotypes.

It started off with basic questions – what’s your name, where are you from, how many brothers and sisters do you have. Then it got into politics. We talked about how strange it was that the Israel/Palestinian conflict doesn’t personally enter into any of our lives, that we would expect more tension but really don’t experience any. We commented on how they travel easily to Jordan and Egypt, places we don’t go.

After everyone loosened up the conversation got even better: we discussed dating and engagement, how Islamic women, depending on how religious they are, can choose their partners or have arranged marriages, that usually marriage occurs at ages 20-22. Some families have 3 kids, others 10. That when you’re engaged, you’re allowed to kiss and hug the boy you’re with, so it isn’t new when you’re married. That PDA is shameful, so even married couples would never kiss in front of anyone else. They were surprised to hear that I grew up with two moms, since it was obviously not acceptable in their culture.

Then we got onto women’s rights. Fatima and Iman were amazed that Jonathan did the cooking in our home, but didn’t seem surprised that women make less money than men. We talked about how it relates to religion – they told us that whenever a woman is not allowed to leave the house without a man, it isn’t because of Islam, but because of tradition and custom. They wear jeans at home and dresses outside, and consider the separation of spheres and gender roles as fitting and right.

We bonded so much that we all exchanged emails, and at the end they offered to show us pictures of them without their head coverings from their camera phones! All in all, it was great fun, and extremely enlightening. Talk about giving voice to the unspoken Other.

Now off to bed, and tomorrow off to Greece! I just finished Saving Fish from Drowning, the new Amy Tan novel, so tomorrow on the plane I think I'll go for a radical change and start on The Historian.

Directions for a weekend getaway

2007-03-27T12:47:00.000-07:00

Going on weekend trips is fun. Cats think so too, and usually want to come along.

First things first: when one arrives at grandparents' houses, one must EAT:

(There was still more in the kitchen when this was taken)

Then one must play Rummikub, watch fun movies (in this case My Big Fat Greek Wedding), and stay up talking until all hours. On the way back one must see pretty scenery, like camels grazing:

Then, when one returns, one should nap.

Since Jonathan and I had such a good time last weekend, we didn't even notice how fast time went... and here we are, it's almost Pesach. My last day of class is tomorrow, and we leave for Athens Thursday night. Wish us well, and I'll resume posting when we get back! Chag sameach l'kulam.

Going to the back of the bus

2007-03-24T12:11:00.000-07:00

Historically, riding in the back of the bus has been quite controversial. Bus seating can be quite the social statement during certain times and places in history. Yesterday I was moved by the social statements I found in the back of the bus to Arad.

Now, I love sitting at the back of the bus. Not because of some great social statement, but because the back of the bus is the only place with a seat in the middle aisle that allows me to stretch out the legs of my 6’1” body. We were traveling from Jerusalem to Arad and it’s a 4 hour process that would otherwise require my legs to be squished for that length of time. My wife prefers the front as her 5’4” frame has no issue with the bus seating, but she tolerates my preference.

During the last leg of our trip from the city of Beer Sheva to Arad we sat ourselves down next to a young woman with a pink backpack on her lap. She looked to be in her early 20’s and was very carefully dressed. She had a beautiful ankle length pink patterned skirt, a black turtle neck top that covered her from her wrists to just under the chin, and a pink and black head scarf that covered her entire scalp, including her ears. It was clear that everything she was wearing was folded or pinned in place so that it would not shift to reveal an inch of skin that wasn’t her face or hands. The woman, round and dark, greeted us with a warm smile when we sat down.

Michal and I were unsure of our next stop so Michal turned to the neatly dressed woman and asked her in Hebrew if she could help us recognize the stop we wanted. As in many cases with us in Israel, an innocent question turned into a deep and bonding conversation. She was younger than her face revealed, only 18. She was Bedouin, and for those of you who don’t know, the Bedouins predate the Jews, Christians and the Muslims in Israel. Traditionally they lived harsh nomadic lives, living off the herd animals they bred. Though most Bedouin now live in small makeshift houses in random locations in the desert, their lives have not improved much. I suspect it is beyond the American experience to understand the level of poverty that whole communities live in here in Israel. Most Bedouin have no plumbing and have minimal electricity, living in what would look to the outsider as communities of ramshackle shacks set amongst the sand dunes. Actually, they live a life much like the American Indian, at least the ones still living on reservations.

Our dark-skinned Bedouin, Haneen, appeared in better straits than most. She was dressed well and was in a position to afford schooling. She was fluent in both Hebrew and Arabic, and was very excited about her skill in the English language and her dream of being a journalist. “English” she said to us, “is the international language. I MUST learn this if I am going to be free.” She went on to show us her notebook with her English assignments. On the front page, nestled amongst the Arabic notes was the word “Freedom” written in large stylized letters. She pointed to this word and told us, “I wrote this after I saw this movie about this man in Scotland who was killed and yelled FREEDOM before he died.” I told her the movie she saw was about William Wallace, my ancestor. Her eyes lit up as if she was talking to Mel Gibson’s friend.

As I looked at the word passionately scribbled in her notebook I was immensely touched. Not because she was almost romantically in love with my mother tongue. Not because she had been moved by the story of my family ancestry. Not even because my American culture had managed to penetrate even this remote village community. Though these are all wonderful reasons to feel connected and even flattered by her, what moved me most was what she revealed about herself.

In that moment she revealed the passionate dream of her future, and in turn the dire oppression of her life. Her dream spoke of her hope to live a life of choice and self- direction. She described the importance of speaking a language that would allow her to talk to people she is now forbidden to talk to. In a life of her tradition she would marry a man of her parents’ choosing, her love of him would not be an issue in the matter. A man that would be in his right to beat her if he chose and she would have no place to go. She would not be allowed to choose where she could travel, and her life would be to bear children and serve her husband, nothing more. Her life would be not much more than one of servitude. She may at best be a pampered slave, but she would still be, in most regards, a slave.

Haneen had chosen a life of beyond this, a life of Freedom. Her family, blessed as they must be, seem to encourage it, or at the very least, not to forbid it. She made a point to state, that it will not be IF she becomes a journalist, but WHEN she becomes a journalist. She held on to her dream with the passion of the young, and the convention of the oppressed. With those seven letters in her notebook Haneen had written a novel.

I had never met someone, face to face, that actually lived a life that in my mind, had become extinct seven hundred years ago. It was surreal. I was strangely both sorry and proud of Haneen. She had more ambition than I ever had, and was overcoming more roadblocks than I could have ever imagined at her age.

It was strange to think that in Tel Aviv women walk around half naked if they like and seemingly have all the freedoms of their male counterparts: To marry the man that they love, to choose to work or to be a mother, or both. Two hundred miles away and the clock is set back seven hundred years. In the same country the life of a woman can take dramatically different paths. Israel believes in not interfering with the cultures of the ethnic groups that live within its borders, but I question the wisdom in that. In the United States, we have shown that separate is not equal, and the ways of some of the RESIDENT cultures are not only out of date, but ethically conflict with the learned ethical values. The simple idea of equal value on all human life is beyond these traditions and will forever be in conflict with the progression of this country. But then again, this is Israel and struggle is this country’s name.

Me, well I just like to ride in the back of the bus.

(Some pictures of Bedouin Women)

Food and politics, the stuff of life

2007-03-21T05:24:00.000-07:00

I love food. Yes, I realize this is known, but I just thought I'd reiterate. Let me list the multiplicity of love...

1) Pizza with Joe and Nicole. I hadn't realized there was order-in Pizza Hut in Israel!
2) Homemade pasta at Mara's with a parve (non-dairy and non-meat) ice-cream seeming-cake.
3) Fettucine with Miriam. Mmm.
4) Reese's pieces that Sandra sent. They're going fast.

In other, non-food news....

Monday my Hebrew class went on a short tiyul to the outskirts of Jerusalem. We read a few passages in the Bible about "the surrounding hills of Jerusalem" and were confused... there ARE no hills surrounding Jerusalem! Then we passed Mt. Scopus, where Hebrew University is, and it clicked - we don't even notice the hills today, they're incorporated seamlessly into the city. The ancient city, however, was tiny in comparison and sat in the middle of the (non-populated) surrounding hills. Nothing like literal geography to help make sense of text.

Today was also interesting, we participated in a student simulation of the Israeli government. Israel's governmental system is based on the British/European model, and makes very little sense at first glance to an American. There are many political parties, and there is no such thing as separation of powers (much less separation of church and state). The Knesset, or the Israeli governmental body, is comprised of 120 members. The public votes for one party that they want in office, and since there is no constituency, Knesset membership is based on the proportional percentages of the country's votes (e.g. if half the population wants Likud, 60 seats go to Likud). The Knesset is the governmental body, but not the government itself - since no party ever gets 60 seats, the parties form coalitions to work together and pass decisions. It is this coalition that is the actual "government," and so non-coalition parties (including big ones and minor ones like the Arab parties or the ultra-ultra-ultra Orthodox), sit in Knesset and are outside the government, either supporting it or working for its demise from the outside. The Knesset is elected every four years, but if a coalition falls apart before then, there can be a new formulation of coalition/government, or even a new election. The Prime Minister is the head of the majority coalition party and holds most of the power, and the President is like Britain's Queen, mainly ceremonial. Interesting, no?

In our simulation I was a member of the Shas party, one of the right-wing Orthodox parties. We were really a swing factor in formulating the coalition, because the right likes us (we're Orthodox and want to give tons of money to yeshivas), but the left also likes us because we're willing to give up land for peace. It was actually quite intriguing to watch - if there was such chaos at HUC, I can only imagine the real thing! At the end real life had flip-flopped - we're all liberal, but we formed a completely right-wing coalition, because none of the leftists could agree.

I'll end on a fun side note. I miss Hidalgo, yes... but our current pets are just as cute.

Jonathan cuddling with Osher.

A very unhappy Simcha after his bath.

Hidalgo

2007-03-18T11:50:00.000-07:00

Hidalgo
December 2004 to March 2007 (Click on Image for bigger version)

On March 17th at about 1 AM, Hidalgo passed away. For those who don't know, Hidalgo was a black and white pet rat that I adopted with his brother Gesundheit from our friends, Jane and Sheryl (and Ruthie and Caleb). From the very start he showed that he was an animal with outstanding courage, unafraid to love or explore his world. While his brother was known for his love of food, Hidalgo was known for his athletic climbing and jumping ability and his love of exploring new places. It didn't matter if it was a new person, place, or thing, he wanted to run all over it and sniff every nook and cranny. He was even known to touch noses with the cats that lived in the same house, confident that they would adore him as did every other person who handled him. Such was the confidence of Hidalgo.

After his first year with Michal and I, he developed the ability to chatter and communicate with us as we would with him. He would do his best to imitate the behaviors we made with him in his effort to express his excitement or desires. Often, when we had been gone for a while, he would leap onto the side of his cage, suspending himself off the ground and chattering away to us to express his desire to be greeted properly.

Michal and I were not alone in our love for him. Jan, Michal's mom (whom we were living with at the time), had developed a close and loving relationship with him. She would often take him on her shoulder to watch a movie, surf the internet, or even water the lawn. Jan had even taken him with her in the car as a companion on her errands! Hidalgo loved to have Jan introduce him to the Hebrew students she would teach from home. Most of her students are around the age of 11 and 12, and they delighted in his friendly, explorative nature. No matter how many times his tail was yanked, his fur ruffled, or his body squeezed, he never attempted to bite anyone. He usually expressed his displeasure with a few drops of pee or a loud "squeeee" if he was handled too roughly.

When the time came for Michal and I to leave for Israel, it became apparent that we could not separate Hidalgo and his brother from Grandma Jan. Their bond with her was as strong, if not stronger than their connection to either Michal or I. So with a luxury four-story cage and a handful of handmade toys we left Hidalgo and his brother with Jan.

Well-educated in animals, I knew the reality of little Hidalgo's lifespan, and that I would most likely not see him alive again. With that in mind, I said my goodbyes to him when I left for Israel, knowing he could be in no better hands in his final days. When the time came, Jan's close bond with him told her his end was near. She took him with her to the living room where she reclined with him resting on her bosom. There he passed away gently, warmed by her chest and comforted by the sound of her heartbeat. I could not ask for a better end for anyone.

I would like to ask anyone who had a good memory of him to please leave a comment and tell us how you remembered him. Below are some pictures and a poem that I wrote in his memory.

-----------
Hidalgo

Snow-white stalks on coal-colored field; his whiskers twitch with every sniff.
Small pink hands grasp the food offered and an excited “thank you” chatters back.
The world is so large and there is so much to see; I’m sorry, but I can’t let you just hold me!
I jump an impossible jump and the world is mine!!! To sniff all new scents is so divine.
Down a shelf I clamber and under a couch I scoot, what new treasures can I find?
A find! A find! A stale french fry is all MINE!
A momentary pause to enjoy the simple things.
I am a rat and I am wise, for I have learned the lessons you humans wish to surmise.
To never let pass the opportunity
To always sniff the passing rose
And, all the world for that matter.

Hidalgo getting his favorite food, Peanuts!

(click picture for bigger image)

Hidalgo (left) and his brother Gesundheit(right) with Jan.

(click picture for bigger image)

The week, aside from snow

2007-03-17T10:27:00.000-07:00

I just realized that I never wrote about last week's Israel Seminar Day (Wednesdays). This past week was on women in Israel. We heard one amazing feminist speaker and then I went to the Jerusalem Battered Women's Shelter. I've been to a few such shelters in California, and this was sadly similar. There were only two aspects that I thought were particularly "Israeli" - one, many of the women in the shelter are Ethopian immigrants (many of them who still don't speak Hebrew) who suffer from their husbands' response to the sudden lack of a patriarchical society. And two, during the Intifada the shelter was almost empty, because no matter how bad it got at home, women didn't want to leave their houses.

Thursday night was burrito night with Jaimee, Helayne, and Matt (thank you Becca for the fixings!). Early Friday we left for Holon. My sister's birthday is March 25th, so we had a joint celebration. It was a fun couple of days, but crowded - at the dinner, and staying in the apartment, were me, Jonathan, my father, stepmother, sister, brother, my stepmother's sister, and her daughter. Plus the dog. At least I got to speak a lot of Hebrew. We also saw an American friend of mine, Deborah, who's studying medicine at Tel Aviv University. She, Jonathan, and I met in the bus station McDonald's, of all places, because it was easy to get to and open on Shabbat.

I'm excited for school tomorrow, because it marks only TWO WEEKS LEFT until we go to Europe!

It's SNOWING!

2007-03-15T05:54:00.000-07:00

Like a hundred thousand tiny angels descending from the sky, the snowflakes fall. Some as big as a baby's hand. It's like a momentary gift from God above. With my cats in tow, I hurry to the kitchen window and open it up. I lean my head as far out as I can so I'm able to see the skyline; my cats join me. As far as the eye can see, small white flakes float from the heavens. The cats are amazed. They take turns, targeting a single flake from the hoard and carefully watching its individual descent until it falls from view. Alternating kitty heads bob up and down in rhythm to the flakes. At times, one of their chosen takes notice and floats down to greet them. Simcha jumps back in surprise when it lands on his nose. "What strangeness!" he thinks. He shakes his head and it's gone as magically as it appeared.

As much as I complain about the underlying conflict that plagues the populace here, there is an undeniable magic to this city. On days like this, I am reminded of it. There is something truly holy here that struggles against the flowing tides of hate and conflict. In a brief moment of triumph, let it snow.

Snow from our kitchen window.

What IS this white stuff?!

Look, Dad, SNOW!

Ugh, it got on my head.

Impossible weather

2007-03-15T01:02:00.000-07:00

It's snowing again. Hard. And it's beyond cold.

It was just spring last week. What happened?!

March TI bulletin article

2007-03-13T15:48:00.000-07:00

The other night, my friend Mara went to the restaurant “El Poyo Loco” for chicken wings, and then went bowling. She told me that she and her table were the only Americans in the restaurant and the bowling alley – “It’s like we were experiencing Israeli culture,” she said, “only it happened to be American!”

Her words struck a chord. I’d always contemplated the differences between Israel and the United States, and sometimes even the similarities, but I’d never before considered how they meld. Israel has truly become Americanized, in food, culture, and even language. Israeli fast-food can be schwarma (meat roasted on a spit and put into pita) or kosher McDonald’s. Jonathan and I rent movies from Blockbuster, and the expression “kol b’easy” means a task will be simple. Has American culture been transplanted to Israel, or has Israeli culture assimilated aspects of America? In many cases, I think the answer is one and the same. The two are inseparable.

Israel is still definitely Israeli, but it is not purely so. On one hand, Purim is a huge affair with costumes donned by adults in grocery stores and banks alike. The shuk, or open market, is standing room only on Friday mornings before Shabbat. Ultra-Orthodox Jews run their own bus system between B’nai Brak in Tel Aviv and Mea Shearim in Jerusalem, the two ultra-religious havens in the country. Bedouin shepherds harass their camels to cross the road on the interstate to the Dead Sea, and in the far south, kibbutz members pick pomellos under the blazing Sinai sun.

On the other hand, chicken wings and bowling may have been solely “American” at one time in the past, but they are now thoroughly Israeli. The Russian influence is equally large, as almost one-fifth of Israelis come from the former Soviet Union. During the month of December one can see Christmas trees in department stores, and many restaurants now serve pork. In the main hospital in Beersheva, the “Exit” sign is in Hebrew, Arabic, and Russian, but not in English. Russian music pours out of Russian clubs, vodka outsells schnapps, and customer service lines have recorded messages in Hebrew and Russian only (the option to speak in English is found only in the Hebrew menu).

This cultural clash is not uncommon in today’s world, no matter one’s country of origin. I picture the contents of my refrigerator in Long Beach before I left - I always had certain staples on hand, and wedged in among the milk, cheese, and orange juice were the constant package of tortillas and the container of salsa. Was I adopting Mexican culture by considering burritos a comfort food? No, burritos were my culture, just like freeways or hamantaschen. Certain facets of Mexican culture have been adopted by southern California, as bean and cheese burritos, El Pollo Loco and churros at Disneyland are now as de rigueur as baseball and apple pie.

Not all southern California culture is Mexican, and not all Israeli culture is American or Russian. But the intermixing is easily apparent, just like it is in the rest of the world. The Euro is widespread across an entire continent, Starbucks is found in China, and the internet connects people from Tibet to Alaska. The world is shrinking, and only so much originality can be retained in the face of globalization. Outside influences are unwittingly absorbed into a native culture, no matter its location. In the case of Israel, I am left asking if it is for the better.

I love birthdays

2007-03-13T14:00:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was amazing.

I was born at 11:17am on March 12th, and every year I always check where I am at that time, sort of as a symbol of time passing and what the future year will hold. This year I was in Hebrew class, discussing (in Hebrew) if the nostalgia for the Temple and the Jerusalem of old in Psalms is the same as wishing for a true reversion to a past, or if the past is really a metaphor for a hopeful future. If where I am on the minute of my birth is a sign, and I was discussing Hebrew philosophy in Jerusalem – then next year will be great!

Instead of school ending at 5:30 like it was supposed to, my last class was cancelled. So I skipped home cheerily to open the door and find… the smell of a bakery! Jonathan made batches upon batches of chocolate chip cookies. He cut up Elite chocolate bars instead of using regular chocolate chips. Then he decorated some with frosting, like such:

We dressed up and went to dinner at an Indian restaurant, and after pigging out on chicken tikka masala and garlic naan, we promptly fell into food coma. A few hours later when we’d recovered, we watched a movie, had ice cream cake and then I opened up the package that had been tantalizing me all evening: jewelry, and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and HP: Goblet of Fire in Hebrew! Yes, I am a geek. I love it. He knows it, it’s wonderful. And the cats even seemed especially snuggly.

Talmudic musings

2007-03-11T09:46:00.000-07:00

Tonight’s readings for Rabbinic Literature have left me quite thoughtful. Prior to coming to HUC, I had always thought that Talmud = Mishnah + Gemara. (Mishnah is a compilation of laws redacted circa 220 CE, and Gemara is a compiled commentary on the Mishnah written a few hundred years later.) But after speaking with my professor after class today, I found out that many people often use the word “Talmud” when referring to the book I knew as “Gemara,” because they both mean the same thing, “study.” (“Gemara” is merely Aramaic while “Talmud” is Hebrew). “Talmudic” as an adjective is actually used generally in reference to early rabbinic literature, meaning anything from the 2nd-7th centuries (including Mishnah, Gemara, and Tosefta, an additional commentary on the Mishnah). In terms of content, Mishnah delineates specific laws, while Gemara broadens the Mishnah to form larger concepts; first came the particular, then came the abstract.

What’s most interesting to me is how it plays out in real life. Together, Mishnah and Gemara comprise a system that imposes legal boundaries on relationships. In the eyes of the ancient rabbis, the relationship between a person and another person, and a person and God, were one and the same. Both people and God were subject to the same obligations, since even God obeyed God’s decrees (e.g. according to them, God rested on Shabbat and put on tefillin, the boxes on the head and arm). The paradigm is hard to fathom today because it anthropomorphizes God to an unheard-of extent in today’s Reform Judaism. But the point is crucial: since there is no difference between people’s relationship to God and their relationship with each other, civil, ritual, secular, and religious law become embedded within the same structure. Religion and law are interwoven, to the extent that concerns of religious practice are not separated from what we today would call “secular” issues.

To quote one of my readings, Silberg in Talmudic Law and the Modern State: “The relationship between man and God, which, practically speaking, is the relationship between man and himself, between man and his own deepest moral and religious sentiments, is caught up in the network of juridical relationships, is integrated into the complex of juridical categories that were created by the lawgiver… [This outlook] renders impossible any division of religious and civil law into separate spheres. Both religious and civil law are cast into similar molds since both types of law involve the structuring of legal patterns of relationships, whether between man and man or between man and God. As a result of this obliteration of all boundaries, the entire range of religious practice is embraced within a network of purely juridical concepts.” (85, 83)

It’s really fascinating how the relationship with God is like that of people with each other, and how it underlies all daily transactions. In many cases God is even a character, a pseudo-person who has to be dealt with legally. For example, there is a law that says that if an ox of a lay owner gores an ox belonging to the Temple, or vice versa, then no one is held responsible or should pay damages. The reason, you ask? Turns out that God is the property owner of the Temple, and so technically owns the ox. Since, according to Exodus, liability can only found between “neighbors of a people,” and no lay person can ever be the neighbor of God, no one can ever be at fault.

One of the tenets of Reform Judaism is that is non-halachic, meaning it does not conform to Talmudic, rabbinic law. (That's a huge difference between Conservative and Orthodox Judaism, by the way, since they are halachic.) But even though Reform Judaism long ago rejected halacha’s normative quality, I think we still carry its essence with us. Religion and law is no longer the same thing, but our relationship to other people is still an inalienable part of our relationship with the divine. One cannot ask forgiveness from God on Yom Kippur before first asking forgiveness from other people. In the Amidah, the central prayer, we ask for wisdom and good leaders before asking for the Messiah. The relationships between us and God and us and each other are moral, not legal - but does that diminish the power of the Talmud? How much wisdom can still be gained from this antiquated rulebook/anthology if one looks at it through a strictly moral and/or spiritual lens and not a legal one? Then again, I wonder if it’s even possible to do that, because we might not be able to separate the legal from the moral without separating the religious practice from the secular - and in that case, we destroy the Talmud’s very foundation.

I’m sure that all these questions have been addressed and answered by someone else – I just need to spend some time in the library and read more books. I know that none of them are new to the world, but they’re still all new to me… and I have to admit, the process of asking them is just as much fun as finding the answers. :)

JOE AND NICOLE MADE US COOKIES!

2007-03-10T11:04:00.000-08:00

Bless them. They were chocolate chip and wonderful.

It was the perfect end to the perfect day. It started at noon when we got up and had brunch - Jonathan made french toast with last night's challah, topped with sugared strawberries and vanilla ice cream. Then we washed the cats, I did some fun reading and Jonathan played a game, and later on we went to a wine and cheese oneg hosted by Elyse and Danny, the two rabbis I've mentioned earlier. They must have bought out the cheese guy at the shuk - I consider myself a cheese aficianado, and I was even introduced to some ones. Mmmm new cheeses.

After making plans for next week with Miriam, Rebecca came home with us from the oneg and helped me with Hebrew. Hifeel, Nifaal, dageshes and falling Nun's - UGH I suck at it. Rebecca showed me that apparently there is a method to the madness, and patterns to the chaos.

After the Hebrew lesson we made Havdallah, and right after we finished Nicole and Joe called us upstairs. Nicole had fallen down today and hurt her foot, so to help her feel better we brought over some chocolate liqueur... and lo and behold to go with the liqueur they had made us cookies! (They were in thank you for Jonathan's help with the lock, and our lending them dishes for their dinner party last night).

And now, here I am, skimming work and looking up celebrity gossip, and Jonathan is sewing the tallit he made a few days ago at the tallit workshop he attended. I'll post pictures of it when he finishes.

Shabbat may be officially over, but the warm feeling remains alive in our household tonight. :)

Husbands and trees

2007-03-09T08:55:00.000-08:00

I’m not quite sure what it says about me that I slept until 2pm quite easily today. I feel great! I was, however, just slightly abashed when I got up – apparently Jonathan had been up hours and hours before, and had done all the dishes, taken apart and fixed Nicole and Joe’s door lock that had broken, gone to the hardware store with Nicole afterwards, and then stopped by the market for fresh challah. *Must* he be so productive while I’m out cold?! It’s a wonderful trait in a husband – he didn’t even say anything besides “I’m so glad you slept in” – but really, it does inspire a small sense of guilt on my part.

Anways. So I never did blog about Wednesday. It was “Environmentalism in Israel” day, and my group went to the Hebrew University to hear a speaker, and then went outside Jerusalem proper to hike in the surrounding hills and hear a talk by a conservationist group. The first speaker was incredible; he was funny, engaging, and used post-modern lingo to discuss different models of environmentalism over the years (nature preservation, environmental sciences, and place-based environmentalism, he called them). For the first time in a looong time, I really missed Whittier College and the post-modern paradigm. Then, to top it off, he started talking about Kant and the inherent rights of nature – "I TAUGHT THAT AT CSULB!!" I wanted to say. But I didn’t. :)

The nature hike was a bit unexpected, but really beautiful. Apparently the Jerusalem municipality wanted to build hundreds of new homes and thought there wasn’t any room in the city, so they were going to annex the surrounding hill country. One of the environmentalist groups got up in arms and hired architects and surveyors to canvass the city and publish detailed reports saying where exactly more room can be found in the city itself. The municipality caved, and the hills were saved. Yay hills. Oh so green and pretty, makes me want to start singing
"Edelweis."

The most interesting thing for me was on the macro level: for years this country has only had the wherewithal to worry about the Arabs/Palestinians. Now it’s grown up a bit and has the interest and resources to address issues like environmentalism, feminism, etc. Lobbyist groups and NGOs (non-governmental organizations) are sprouting up all over, and the country is quickly developing infrastructure paralleling the US. In one way, it’s positive, of course. But in another way, I miss the old-world charisma of Israel. It feels so modern to me now, compared to what it was in my childhood. I guess it’s the difference between a country as a child, and a country in the midst of teenage growing pains. I wonder what Israel will be like in another 20 or 30 years as it comes into its adulthood.

Cat pictures

2007-03-07T21:35:00.000-08:00

Both Simcha and Osher were born in March of last year, so in honor of their joint birthday and their transition from kitten- to cat-hood, here is a new batch of pictures.

Jonathan was writing on the white board, and Simcha jumped from his desk chair to his back! He immediately made himself comfortable, much to Jonathan's amusement.

Cuddles are such lovely, lovely things.

A cat after my own heart! I'm in the middle of writing a paper on the Mourner's Kaddish. When I went to grab one of the books, lo and behold, Simcha was asleep on them. This was taken right after I took a book out from under him.

If you like these, more cat pictures are here.

Argh

2007-03-07T21:25:00.000-08:00

I was up at 5:30 this morning because a mosquito was eating me alive. I am choosing to see this as a sign of spring.

It also helped that I used the time to write my Hebrew composition, now entitled "Scourge of the Earth." Nothing like venting in a foreign language to help one feel better.

Brief language interlude

2007-03-06T05:46:00.000-08:00

I missed two class sessions of Biblical Grammar a couple weeks ago, and since that class is like math and builds on what came before, I’m a bit confused as to what we’re doing now. Not getting anywhere by myself, I decided to call my professor and set up a meeting to go over the material.

When she answered the phone, I said this, exactly:

“Sima? Hi, ze Michal m’kitah bet b’HUC. Yesh li harbeh tzurres be kitah shelach. Eefshar lifgosh eetach b’shavoa haze o haba l’deber al hashiur?”

Literally, this translates into, “Sima? Hi, this is Michal from Kita Bet [class level 2] at HUC. I’m having a lot of trouble with your class. Would it be possible to meet with you this week or next to talk about the lesson?”

Halfway through my sentence Sima started to giggle, but then she immediately caught herself and stopped. We set up an appointment for next week. But I didn’t know why she laughed – my Hebrew was good, I thought, what was the problem? Then I realized – “tzurres” is Yiddish!

Purim

2007-03-06T01:03:00.000-08:00

Purim in Israel is definitely an experience. Think Halloween but with nothing scary – Purim is happy, fun, everyone is dressed up and in a great mood.

The season started a few weeks ago when bakeries began selling Hamantaschen, three-pointed cookies with filling. In the States the fillings are things like cherry, apple, and poppy seed; here the fillings are chocolate, fig, and date.

Even the stores got in the act, selling Purim costumes, foods, baskets, and everything else commercial you can think of. Here’s one aisle in our local supermarket, and our cute little Purim basket.

But how did we celebrate, you ask? First we dressed up in our beeyootiful costumes:

I went as a clown, Jonathan went as me (he even carried my purse!)

Then we arrived at HUC. The “service” was hilarious, because it was so tongue-in-cheek – instead of usual prayers we sang contemporary songs on the topic (ie. instead of Mi Chamocha, praising God for getting through the Red Sea, we sang Disney's "Under the Sea", and instead of Ahavat Olam was "Can you Feel the Love Tonight?"). The main part of the evening was the Megillah reading, aka the reading of the entire Book of Esther. The cantors learned the special Esther trope (singing) and did beautifully, but even so, it was over an hour.

Service leaders Phil Monroe and Frum Josh.

After the service ended, everyone headed over to the moadon (large room with a small café) for a falafel dinner and the Purim Shpiel. The Shpiel is a traditional part of Purim, and usually involves retelling the story of Purim in a wacky way. This one wasn’t actually about the holiday, but was a fabulous spoof on professors, students, and life at HUC. There were skits on Celebrity Jeopardy featuring professors, a Chasidic Ladies Man skit, an ad for why you want to work out at the HUC gym (located in the bomb shelter), and even a SNL Cheri Oteri/Will Farrell cheerleaders sketch on cheering for the various parts of the service (“how long is silent prayer going to last already?!” and “ooh ooh better get people prepped for the Torah service so they don’t fall asleep!”)

After the Shpiel, most people went out for the traditional drinking and partying. (It says somewhere in the texts that you should get so drunk you can’t tell the difference between Mordecai and Haman, the hero and the villain). But Jonathan and I are old, apparently, cuz we stayed home and were really happy. I got up really late the next morning and spent hours on email… a very good vacation, if I may say so myself.

Here are some more pictures.

Nicole the pomegranate, Joe the lemon tree, and us.

Mara the fairy and I.

Jonathan, Ethan, Kim, me, Nicole.

Mara and Sleeping Beauty Rebecca.

It's March!

2007-03-03T08:10:00.000-08:00

Hooray for March. This means we leave the country in less than three months! I still love Israel, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't ready to go home. Apartments with insulation, customer service in English, tortillas on demand, and carpet in every building... I'm shivering with anticipation already.

Nothing particularly eventful has happened this week. We had an extremely forgettable field trip to Tel Aviv on Wednesday, I had a test on Thursday, and since then I've been sick. (I blame the test). I think I just overexerted myself, what with getting no sleep on the tiyul and then staying out late the other nights due to HUC programs. But Jonathan has been fabulous about making me eggs, toast, and tea and Savta sent over her jello recipe, so hopefully I'll feel better by tomorrow or the next day.

Joe's friend from Scotland is visiting him and Nicole, and upon meeting him and saying hello I grinned - I'd never actually heard a thick Scottish brogue in person. It took a few minutes for me to understand what he was saying! Now I'm even more excited for our Scotland trip.

Jonathan has been doing lots of Cincinnati research, and he's been finding some great deals on houses. I love Craiglist. Let's hope that at least some of these places are still on the market in May, or that they're replaced by even better ones.

As comfort food, I finished As A Driven Leaf for the umpteenth time. Such a good book. I also read a great mystery that Becca had brought me called The Fig Eater, and I'm partway through Arthur and George.

That's the bad thing about being sick - I feel well enough to read fun novels, but not coherent enough to write papers or concentrate on Hebrew homework... if only teachers would understand! Thankfully we have tomorrow and Monday off for Purim, so if I'm feeling better we'll go down to Holon for the Purim Parade. If not, we'll stay here and I'll luxuriate in my pajamas. :)

Jewish Pluralism

2007-02-27T10:58:00.000-08:00

Can it exist? That is the question. Last night HUC rabbinic students met with rabbinical students from the two Conservative movement seminaries, The Jewish Theological Seminary and University of Judaism, as well as from the Modern Orthodox seminary, Yeshiva University.

My group went on a site visit to the Old City, where we took a tour and learned about disabled accessibility in Jerusalem. It’s really interesting – this organization has made so many minute changes in the Old City, from paving cobblestones for wheelchair and cane access, to switching some of the water drainage grates from vertically-oriented to horizontally/width-oriented, so wheelchair wheels don’t get caught in them. The tour was amazing, and I learned so much about the difficulties of the mentally and physically challenged in this country.

After that came the dinner, and my table was wonderful – it was held at Yeshiva University, and I sat with a bunch of male Orthodox students. We got into great talks about the Orthodox world and coming to Israel, whether Reform Judaism isn’t a “pick-and-choose” religion, and other things. All in all, I had a good night. The only negative thing I picked up on was that the YU rabbi (dressed in a black hat) refused to say the word “rabbi” in his speech in reference to the non-YU students - he kept referring to “future Jewish spiritual leaders.”

The experience for other HUC students, however, was not nearly so uplifting. One of the other site visits was to an organization that – I’m not quite sure I have this right – take in immigrant Jews to the army, and make them “Jewish” by converting them patrilineally. (In “traditional” Judaism, you’re only a Jew if your mother was Jewish). Suffice it to say that the Conservative and Reform rabbinic students thought very differently on the issue from the Orthodox, and were told by them and the organization that they weren’t “really” Jewish anyway. I don't know all the details, but the HUC students I spoke to were very upset.

After the return to Yeshiva University and before dinner (and before my bus arrived), was time for evening prayers. YU has a sanctuary with a mechitza, a screen dividing the men and women. The Reform and Conservative students wanted to hold an egalitarian service where men and women could pray together, but were told that they couldn’t have such a service in the building. So they went outside and pray in the rain! How ridiculous. The only redeeming factor was that the wife of one of the YU students went inside and brought them back prayerbooks. But really, could they be any more insulting?

It makes me question the validity and wisdom of Jewish pluralism as a whole. Yes, we all want to be friends. Duh. But can we be? Tales abound of Reform and Orthodox rabbis who are good friends but just don’t talk religion or politics. My response to that is, how much of a friendship is it if they’re not talking about what’s most central to their lives? Richard the Lionheart and Saladin deeply respected each other too, but they weren’t exactly peaceful - respect isn't everything. Judaism really needs to take a look at the relationships between its denominations, otherwise the movements will only continue to split further apart.

Tiyul to south

2007-02-25T08:49:00.000-08:00

I’m back! The tiyul was fabulous. I came back exhausted and dirty, but it was worth it. We left at 8am on Wednesday to go to the deep south. My grandmother lives in Arad, which is usually the farthest people go down into the desert. Our whole tiyul was much farther – we were in the southern half of the map of Israel, in between Beersheva and Eilat. It was quite unlike the other two trips the school has taken us on, because we didn’t have any text study or Israeli history – it was all geology, natural science and spirituality through nature, plus Reform Judaism through kibbutzim.

First was Ein Avdat, which is a hiking area outside Mitzpe Ramon, a huge crater in the earth. How it got to be a crater is kind of complicated; you can read it here if you like. The hike lasted about an hour or so, and we saw a waterfall that’s the source of much of the water for wildlife in these parts. Would you believe that when it rains, the water stays in the mountain for over 50 years before it comes out in the waterfall? Crazy. Afterwards we went pretty high up and saw a cave leftover from Byzantine ascetic monks – they lived their whole lives in the desert meditating. (I couldn’t do it.)

This was taken right after we climbed up - the sign says "Abyss Ahead."

After afternoon services and another bus ride, we got to Kibbutz Yahel, one of the two Reform kibbutzim in the Arava, the lower section of the desert and the valley that forms part of the border with Jordan (Arava link). We picked pomelos, these huge citrus fruits, off the trees – apparently the kibbutzniks call them “pomelos for peace,” because the Jordanians come over the border to collect them, and the local settlements on both sides of the border have a great relationship, in part due to shared fruit.

Picking pomelos.

The next day was the major hike. We had been given two options: the easy hike or the challenging hike. Well, the name was a misnomer: I went on the easy hike, and it was HARD! Thank goodness I didn’t go on the “challenging” hike, I probably wouldn’t have been qualified. We literally hiked up a mountain and then down, through a sandstone canyon and then over more hills. The area is bleak, desolate, and beautiful in its rawness. This is where the Israelites wandered for 40 years – at one point, looking up at the mountain above me that I had yet to climb, I understood why a golden calf seemed like such a good option.

The dots halfway up are people. This was the small mountain before we got to the main one.

Me on the mountain.

Red sandstone in the canyon.

We got back from the hike six hours after we left, and headed straight to our Bedouin tent. The dinner there was particularly delicious (but then again, I’d been hiking for six hours, so I’m sure bread and water would have been scrumptious). It felt like my high school Jewish youth program, as 70 of us were in this huge tent-like structure, sleeping in sleeping bags, giggling at all hours of the night and waking up incredibly early to see if we could catch the sunrise. (And no, I haven’t changed that much, people – I was up at 6:15, but the sun was already high. I’ve only ever seen sunrises from pulling all-nighters).

Friday morning we went to Kibbutz Lotan. It’s the other Reform kibbutz in the area, and is well-known for its ecology. It’s a Green Party member’s dream. This place was so original, I’ve never seen anything like it. The majority of their buildings are made from mud brick and trash. Literally, old tires, tin cans, bottles, etc, all put together with hay stacks and mud to make a building. They have compost toilets that use no water, a bird park and vegetable garden with no pesticides, watsu and water massage, etc. The kibbutz has about 150 people on it and four cars for all. It’s socialism and ecology to the extreme, and though I think I’m a bit too capitalist to live there, it was fascinating to explore.

Me at the entrance to Kibbutz Lotan. My camera batteries died right as we got there, so I'll have to collect pictures of the inside of the kibbutz later. Know that the wall is made of garbage and mud brick.

I also learned one interesting Biblical piece: the Jews became slaves in Egypt because Pharaoh refused to give them straw to use in making brick, and so they went into debt and became slaves. I never really knew what that meant until I actually *made* mud brick at Lotan. First we mixed together dirt and water and shaped it into mud patties – they broke apart. Then we did it again adding straw – and the things stuck together! We put the mud/straw mixture into metal frames so they took on a square shape. After we packed it in well, we took off the frame, and there we had a mud brick! The whole process took under two minutes. Imagine, said the man from Lotan, if instead of the Red Cross sending out metal and insulation to make buildings in 3rd world countries, they send out people to ask the local elders their recipe for mud brick. I don’t know how well that will work in reality, but the whole experience definitely gave me something to chew on. If you want more info on Kibbutz Lotan go here.

After Lotan we headed straight down to Eilat and snorkeled the coral reserve. The water was freezing, but the fish were pretty. (To tell the truth, I was a bit disappointed, they had built it up so much. I have to remember though that the last time I went snorkeling was at the Great Barrier Reef, so I can’t really compare). Anyway, once we got all cleaned up back at the kibbutz, we had dinner and services. The best part of the day was oneg Shabbat with Rabbis Elyse Frishman and Danny Freelander. They’re kind of the who’s who of rabbis – she’s the editor of the new prayerbook that’s coming out, and he’s the vice-president of the Union of Reform Judaism. Their talk was amazing, completely inspiring – they gave a sort of biography of their lives, and discussed the challenges and experiences that have shaped them as rabbis. I want to be them one day!

Since Jonathan didn’t come with me on the tiyul, I roomed with Melanie, and it was great. She performed in a cantorial concert in the evening, and then the next morning, she read Torah and two other cantors led services. Lev, the man who had read Torah for the first time last month, gave the d’var Torah. It was really, really good. This week’s Torah portion is all about the details for how to build the ark, this cubit by that cubit from this wood and that measurement, etc. Lev shared with us that his father was a carpenter and a “joiner,” specializing in the joining of different pieces of wood. Joiners like trees like maple or oak, because the slabs of wood can be bigger, and there’s less joining. Yet the ark has to made out of acacia wood, which is a relatively small tree. Lev then jumped to the bus rides on the tiyul; he had sat across from me, and our section of the bus had spent the time debating the nature of prayer, what is kashrut and should Reform Jewish camps keep kosher, what are the differences of values between Reform and Conservative, what makes a service a service, etc. He said that just as the ark is made from multiple joined pieces of wood, Judaism is a tapestry of different opinions. Only after all the pieces have been joined together can you create a whole community, just as only after the ark is made of multiple pieces of acacia wood can you create the solid gold covering on top. I loved the parallel.

Following the service we spoke with a panel of kibbutz members and their teenaged children about being a kibbutz in 2007. Obviously the original socialist model wasn’t working. How do they separate the kibbutz community from the agricultural business, how do they distribute money (since most of them have jobs outside the kibbutz), what is the difference between members, who own the kibbutz, and residents, who rent, and how is Reform Judaism integrated into daily life? It was quite interesting, and not at ALL the Hebrew school model of what I thought kibbutzim would be. Once the panel ended, I went to nap, and then after another short Havdallah service to end Shabbat, we headed home. The bus ride was so choppy I was glad to be on solid, unmoving land, and so I got home at 10pm and headed right to bed!

Click here for the rest of the pictures.

Picture post

2007-02-20T14:13:00.000-08:00

This afternoon in my Islam class I was shamed by Mara and Jessica for not updating enough. So I dedicate this blog to them.

First – the time with Becca was amazing. She’s going to write a guest blog all about her experiences and impressions, so I won’t tell you much more besides the fact that the two weeks were a blur. We saw literally almost all of Israel (with the exception of the far south). We ate TONS of food. And we watched enough Star Trek to write our own Nitpicker’s Guide. Visiting my grandmother was wonderful, as always, and we discovered something completely, utterly random – my grandmother and I always play Rummikub, and apparently it’s Becca’s family’s game, too! Suffice it to say we brought it back to Jerusalem with us and played a good few games before she left.

And now what you’ve all been waiting for – pictures!

Becca at the Western Wall.

Buying olives in the shuk.

Creating a tallit (prayer shawl) in Tzfat.

Me hiking in the Golan Heights.

Becca floating in the Dead Sea.

The final Rummikub board!

Click me for many more pictures.

Going back to school has been hard since she left. Conjugating verbs just aren’t nearly as interesting when you’ve spent the whole weekend spelunking in ancient caves and floating in the Dead Sea. Tomorrow will be a drastic change from that, however – HUC is taking us on another tiyul, this time to the south. We’ll stay at a kibbutz and spend most of the days hiking, according to the schedule. Jonathan is staying home (hiking in 80 degree heat isn’t his thing), so I’ll be rooming with Melanie from tomorrow night til Saturday. Thank goodness HUC heard our pleas – we only get back at 11pm Saturday, so they moved our first class to 10am on Sunday!

I'll end with a fun picture of cute boys.... Jonathan and Joe got their haircuts a week apart. The blue shirts were a coincidence, but when we saw them today Nicole and I both cracked up.

Adar is here!

2007-02-19T00:03:00.000-08:00

Adar, for those of you uninformed about the Hebrew calendar (which would have included me until this year), is the month of celebration. Today's service included Purim melodies, and when I went up the stairs I saw the kindergarten class ahead of me (from the preschool attached to HUC). They were adorable, all decked out in costumes with funny hats and painted faces! For the story of Purim, go here. It's actually one of my favorite holidays - I was born on it in 1981!

Also about this morning - I had to fight my way to school by avoiding the multiple news vans and camera crews. The sidewalk was PACKED. Condaleeza Rice is here again, and fortunately or unfortunately, HUC is right next door to the King David Citadel Hotel where she stays. There's nothing like stumbling over camera wire and seeing nine or ten illegally parked vans to perk you up in the morning. :)

And now off to class...

Temple Israel March bulletin article

2007-02-18T10:27:00.000-08:00

Over the past month I have had two friends from the United States come to visit. It has been wonderful to chat and catch up, but even more than that, it has been an unexpected blessing to see Israel through their eyes. My friends have pointed out things that I, as one who is now intimately familiar with the country, have been prone to overlook.

For example, take economics. My father lives in a 7th –floor penthouse apartment. Comparing to Israeli standards, the place is huge and he is quite well-off. But I forget; according to American standards, the apartment is small and he is merely middle-class. The economic situation in this country seems, at least to me, to be a bit more lopsided than it is in the States. The country is still growing, barely 60 years old, and white-collar office jobs are scarce as compared to home. The majority of people work blue-collar jobs, as taxi drivers, construction workers, truckers, etc. Offices do exist, of course, in the downtown areas of all cities, but the gap between rich and poor is higher, and the middle class as a whole is a smaller entity than in California. Many of the ultra-religious fall into the poor category (if they don’t work and have many children), and the upper classes tend to be comprised of jobs like media and “hi-tech.”

Religion – it’s everywhere. Now don’t laugh – I honestly had forgotten it. My friends were amazed that on their way back to my apartment, they passed an Orthodox man davening afternoon prayers in his shop, laying tefillin and swaying. They then stepped aside to let the Greek Orthodox priest dressed all in black to pass them on the street, and as they entered my building, they could hear the Islamic muezzin call Muslims to worship from a tower in the nearby Old City. Instead of being separated by class, neighborhoods are divided by religion. It’s not a fenced segregation like the West Bank versus Israel, but more of an unofficial grouping of the religious Jewish area, the secular neighborhood, the European Christian section, and the Muslim neighborhood. It’s true that with enough time one becomes inured to almost anything. I have lived almost eight months at the center of a religious maelstrom, and now I don’t even notice it.

Food – my LA college roommate was honestly confused when she went into the grocery store. Where are the soup cans? There are only packets made for a serving of six. Where are the soda cans? There are only 1-liter bottles. Where are the microwave meals? There are none. Israel is based on a culture of home-cooked meals. Fast food restaurants are few and far between, and much more expensive than their American counterparts. What is sold in stores is conducive to preparing and serving food at home, not quick put-them-together-in-five-minutes type microwave meals. Lunch is the main entree here, like in Europe, and people linger over a repast of bread, pasta, rice, or meat. Dinner is usually a short, quick affair involving a vegetable salad and pita, instead of the usual American grand banquet. I have become acclimated to not being able to buy a single can of coke for the way, or make myself a single serving of soup. The system is healthier, for the majority of a day’s food in ingested in the daylight hours when one is active, and eating at home also brings families closer together. Plus, for a single person or even a couple, it provides a lot of leftovers!

Shopping - The attitude of customer service is different as well; customers will be served, but only at the convenience of the shopkeeper. Getting ice cream one afternoon last week, the man behind the counter told us to “hold on a minute” and turned away, continuing to talk on the phone to his girlfriend before finally coming over to help us. Later on at a nice restaurant, we waited over 20 minutes for the waitress to bring the check, not because she didn’t see us, but because she was talking with another waiter.

Chutzpah - Calling the internet company to fix my IP address got me nowhere until I brought my problem to HUC. The head of student services called the company for me, and got results only after threatening to cancel my account and using language such as “Do you not understand me?!” and “This is either incompetence or criminal; which is it?!”

Crowds - Traveling to Tel Aviv last week proved a problem. Usually I hop a sheirut, or 10-person cab. That day, however, we had to quickly change our plans, as the one sheirut that arrived at the station was literally bombarded by 24 people hoping to board. I thought I was going to be run over, and the driver said absolutely nothing, just waited patiently as people jostled and yelled at each other.

I’m very grateful that I’ve gotten this opportunity to look at my adopted country in new ways. Life here is so different, yet at the same time so similar to California, that it constantly amazes me. Of all the things my two friends have said about this country, perhaps the most poignant is this: “Obviously I’m halfway across the world, but it doesn’t feel like it. I was expecting something more… foreign.” And it’s true, Israel may not be entirely foreign – but it does provide enough caveats and sideways twists to make life just a little bit more exciting than at home.

Sorry all..

2007-02-14T04:23:00.000-08:00

Just a warning that this blog will be quiescent for a little while longer. It's so hard to write when there are so many things to do, new foods to eat, and places to go! We've spent the last couple days in Jerusalem, which has mainly involved me catching up on homework and Becca going souvenir shopping. Tonight we go to the school's production of The Vagina Monologues, and tomorrow morning we head to Savta's as our base to explore the south. I have a huge backlog of pictures piling up that I haven't even looked at, and as soon as things slow down, I'll post with more regularity. (Although to be honest, HUC is taking us on another tiyul from next Wed-Sat, so it may be a couple weeks before things get back to normal).

Our trip to the north

2007-02-11T10:11:00.000-08:00

Wow did we go EVERYWHERE! We went to Holon on Thursday night, sang Happy Birthday to my brother (he turned 21), and then got up early Friday morning. I don’t have that much time to write, but here is the rundown:

Friday
Caesarea, site of Roman town
Haifa for Bahai gardens and falafel lunch
Odelia’s military base in the north to visit her. She has a big gun.
Adi-am kibbutz and winery (they have wine made out of passionfruit, even white, milk, and dark chocolate! We bought blueberry.)
Town of Migdal and around Kinneret/Sea of Galilee

Saturday
Drove through Tiberias
Went to kibbutz where my father was in high school
First hydroelectric plant in Israel, Jordanian border with Peace Island and memorial (where a Jordanian soldier shot 6 Israeli schoolgirls and the Jordanian king came to Israel in person to visit their families and apologize)
Baptismal site on Jordan River
Ate at Burger Ranch, Israeli McDonald’s
Drove all along Golan Heights for the view, from the very bottom almost to Kiryat Shemona at the top
Hiked at El-Al waterfall. Muddy shoes!
Stopped at Tel Beit…(can’t remember the name) where could see Jesus walking on water and the two fishermen who became Jesus’ disciples were from)
Stopped at bombed-out mosque from 1967 war
Dinner at Lebanese restaurant in Tiberias, walked around

Sunday
St. Peter’s Catholic church at Sea of Galilee where Jesus walked on water
Drove to Tsfat via Rosh Pina and a ton of other little cities
Caro, Abuhov, and Haari Synagogues, wandered through artists’ colony, modern Tzfat, places where my dad grew up, pizza lunch

My dad was a fabulous tour guide and took us to all the places tourists DON’T go, the tzimmer (bed and breakfast) we stayed in Migdal (10 minutes from Tiberias) was wonderful, and the trip back was long. The cats are like teenagers and had trashed the place. And tomorrow, Monday, and Tuesday I go to school. Ugh. But at least it will give me time to put up all the pictures!

Touring

2007-02-07T00:42:00.000-08:00

Becca is here, and we have gone everywhere there is to go in Jerusalem (practically). Yesterday she came to classes with me and we walked around New Jerusalem, the day before that was the Kotel and every off-the-beaten-path place in the Old City, and today is Mea Shearim and 2 Old City museums, the Burnt House Museum and the Herodian Quarter Museum (remains of aristocratic priestly houses from the Second Temple period). Tomorrow she and Jonathan go to Yad v'Shem in the morning (Holocaust Memorial Museum) while I'm in school, and then we head down to Tel Aviv! Then my dad is going to drive us all around the north for three days. So no updates for a while, but have a marvelous week and weekend, everyone!

Shabbat dinner

2007-02-03T09:38:00.000-08:00

Gingi (aka David), one of the rabbis at HUC, came over with scrumptious chicken cooked in apricots and cranberries. Hayley, who professes she can't cook, created delicious rice with cinnamon, raisins and almonds. Jonathan, who was worried that he couldn't make something edible with the few veggies we had in the house, whipped up a carrot-potato dish with brown sugar and thyme. I, the lucky girl I am, got away with only making a cold veggie salad and buying dessert.

We talked, we ate, we read a short story by a feminist Israeli author, and they left at 1am. Jonathan and I were so hyped up that we (unwisely) stayed up afterwards and watched a movie. Now it's Saturday evening, and I only have to get through one more day of school before Becca comes in and we go traveling!

Adieu.

HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS COMES OUT JULY 21ST!!

2007-02-03T09:29:00.000-08:00

July 13 - the fifth movie comes out.
July 21 - the seventh book arrives on my doorstep.
July 30 - Jonathan's birthday.

The end of July is so, so beautiful this year.

Tu Bishvat Fair!

2007-02-01T12:14:00.000-08:00

Jonathan and I went to the shuk with Jeffrey, and lo and behold, there was a fair for Tu Bishvat! It’s a minor holiday that in the States is known as “the birthday of the trees.” Here in Israel it grew in popularity because of the early Zionists, and is now probably one of the few national “secular” holidays. Look here for more info on the holiday: Wikipedia Tu Bishvat entry

Here is a link to our pictures of the fair. Here are some teaser pics to convince you to go there..

This guy wasn't standing behind a table, the platform with olives was attached to his outfit. Jonathan asked him, in English, if we could have an olive. "You couple?" he asked. Yes, Jonathan nodded. The olive guy handed me an olive and said, "You eat olive, you have boy in one year." I ate the olive, so we'll have to wait and see! :)

For once in his life Jonathan was short enough to serve as a chair!

There was definitely a variety of dancers too...

After the shuk we went back to school to hear a great speech by Rabbi Eric Yoffie, the president of the Union of Reform Judaism and the one who’s pretty much the head honcho of the entire Reform movement. I realized why he was president about two sentences into his speech – the man is brilliantly smart, articulate, witty, and is a dynamic speaker who has a real vision for the future. He’s been president since 1996 – why haven’t I heard him speak before?!

Anyway, after the talk we had a Tu B’shvat seder with the fruits of the season, and then dinner. Then we came home, I went to the landlady’s to pay rent, and now here I am, eating treats with Jonathan and Joe and making plans for our possible joint trip to Scotland in May!

Oh, and here's a bonus picture of Simcha getting comfy on Jonathan's legs as he had kneeled down to pick something up:

Making Aliyah (Permanently moving to Israel)

2007-02-01T11:51:00.000-08:00

Yesterday’s program was “immigrant day,” and it was incredible. At 8:30am we met in classrooms to talk about the Law of Return, in which anyone Jewish will be granted citizenship and rights. Is this law still needed? Is it useful today, 50 years after the country was founded? What do we think about immigration in Israel and how has it changed?

Afterwards, we all gathered in the Auditorium to hear from an Ethiopian Jewish immigrant. His story is amazing – he and his community of 500 lived in a small village in Ethiopia. Each family had 8 to 11 children, worked in the fields, and were dirt-poor. They thought of themselves as having been Jewish since some Jews migrated to Africa after the Babylonian exile in 586 BCE. The Torah was orally transmitted since everyone was illiterate, and they observed Shabbat and other commandments. They pictured Jerusalem as the end-all-be-all of life; they didn’t know that there were separate cities in Israel, just “Jerusalem,” paved with cobblestones and looking like how it is described in the Bible.

Our speaker left Ethiopia when he was 10 years old with his family, walking across the desert for two months until they reached Sudan. The story he told of the journey was horrible – people dropping like flies, endless sand and no water in sight, a guide who stole all their money and left them stranded. When they got to Sudan, with the intention of walking further into Israel, they were kept in a refugee camp for years. Finally, in the 80s when Israel got a hold of the story, Israel sent planes to the Sudanese desert in “Operation Moses,” and took the immigrants on trucks to a plane which brought them to the Holy Land. As the speaker said, “There were toilets in the rooms! Food for everyone! Big buildings and trains that took you to different places! It was truly Jerusalem as we’d pictured it!”

But then the problems began. Israel did its best to integrate them, but it didn’t work; the children went to boarding schools and became increasingly Israeli, but then came home not being able to speak to their parents in Amharic. The family structure fell apart when their strict patriarchy was no longer respected. Jewish practice in Ethiopia was completely different than practice in Israel, and the immigrants felt that they had moved to a land not their own. Cultural differences were huge, and Ethiopians couldn’t, and in many cases don’t, understand Israeli customs and vice versa. Problems still abound, and much of the population remains unassimilated, even though new immigrants come every day and go through absorption centers.

After his speech ended, I went with a group to Moadon Ha-Oleh (“Immigration Center”), which is coincidentally where Jonathan had gone for ulpan. We visited an ulpan class and spoke with them about why they made aliyah, if they experienced culture shock, etc. We spoke Hebrew with them because the class was at Level 6 - unfortunately, the higher up you get in ulpan levels, the less diverse it gets. Jonathan had been in Level 1, and in his class was someone from Denmark, Chinese immigrants who had been sent to learn Hebrew by their companies, and others. This class was almost entirely Orthodox Jews who had made aliyah for religious theological reasons. They were much more interested in why women could be rabbis, and what we were going to do in the rabbinate, than they were in explaining their own situations. To them it was simple: they were Jews who felt outside the mainstream in their home country, so they moved here in order to be religious. It was rather unenlightening, to tell the truth; the class was mostly from the United States (lots from NY) and France (which are the countries known for their religious immigration today) and the conversations weren’t very surprising. The best was when I asked one Frenchwoman why she came to Jerusalem, and not Tel Aviv or Ashdod: “Tel Aviv is like Paris!” she exclaimed. When I laughed she quickly added, “Of course, we are all am Yisrael, one people Israel, so it really doesn’t matter.”

After the ulpan class we had lunch and went back for one last talk, this time by a Russian immigrant. So you know, Israel has absorbed over 1 million immigrants into its then-5 million population in the last 10 years; it’s a huge number and has completely changed the dynamics of the country. The issues faced by the Russian immigrants and by the Ethiopians are like night and day! The Russians came from a Westernized life, they were chemists, doctors, musicians, and so it wasn’t nearly such a huge change (in fact, so many Russian immigrants are musically talented, there’s a joke that if an immigrant from the former Soviet Union came off the plane without a musical instrument case in hand, they were obviously a pianist). Once the immigrants arrived en masse, they founded orchestras, theatres, Russian-language newspapers, and even their own political party. Most of them aren’t religious but totally secular, and many aren’t even halachically Jewish (Jewish according to Orthodox law); they came to escape persecution and to have a better life. They became quickly integrated into mainstream Israeli life. As the speaker said, the Russians are the only immigrant population that has refused to have a “desert generation” – e.g. instead of waiting for the generation of the children of the immigrants to feel like Israelis, ALL Russians want to be immediately Israeli (unlike in Exodus, when the Israelite slaves died off in the desert and only their children entered the Promised Land).

I could keep going, but you get the main gist. The day was very well put together and was quite insightful, and gave us a good look into both the marginalized, and the not so marginalized, aspects of being an oleh (immigrant) in Israeli society.

Gargantuan cats

2007-01-30T07:02:00.000-08:00

Simcha weighs 11.9 pounds. Osher is 11.4. And to think that they started out so pitifully scrawny!

Simcha tried to escape today by running out the front door. He got as far as the platform one floor down... and then he heard the pounding rain and felt the cold wind. He came back very quickly, tail between his legs.

Some thoughts on prayer

2007-01-29T09:25:00.000-08:00

It is no secret that I’m not such a huge fan of services. I freely admit it; it's something I work on. Today’s service at school, however, blew me away.

During the Torah service, the first reader came up to the bima, and then the second. The third reader, a cantorial student in his 30s, looked very nervous, and as he finished chanting the portion, a few people called out “yasher koach!” ("good job," basically). I was a little confused – what was so special about this third reader, named Lev, that he would get a yasher koach and no one else?

After the voices died down, Mary, the cantor who was leading, explained. Today was the first time Lev had ever publicly read Torah, and so it was, in effect, his Bar Mitzvah. Mary then gave a small “Bar Mitzvah speech" talking about all of Lev’s accomplishments this year, and how proud we all were of him. She said the traditional blessing over the Bar Mitzvah that’s found in our prayerbook… and then she reached underneath the bima, took out a wrapped package, and presented him with a Bar Mitzvah kiddish cup from this year's cantorial class. (which I realize is probably only funny if you're Jewish, because that's the stereotypical gift given to a 13 year-old from a temple Board). Everyone in the sanctuary broke into the traditional song, “Siman tov v’mazel tov,” and we cheered and clapped. Lev was literally shaking, he was so moved. I had tears in my eyes, and I wasn't the only one, by far. It was the first time our community had come together in such a way (I felt), and I was truly impressed with the caliber and warmth of my classmates. Mary, Lev, and the whole congregation were so genuine and honest in their emotion, it was very touching. It was a glimpse into the kind of clergy we will become.

Immediately following the Torah reading is the d’var Torah, or sermon. This week's Torah portion is the poetry section where Moses and the Israelites sing after crossing the Red Sea, where God is praised as “ish ha-milchama,” the man of war. Jessica gave her d'var Torah on the nature of peace and war – are Jews a peaceful people, or a warring one? Is God vengeful or just? A seeker of peace or one who necessitates death? She explored the many facets of God as seen through Torah and rabbinic commentary. In the end she came to the conclusion that just as Shrek says to Donkey, “people are onions” and have many layers, how much more so must have God – only that instead of seeing one layer at a time in people, we see them all at once in God. I kept thinking of Whitman’s “Do I contradict myself?/ Very well then, I contradict myself;/ (I am large – I contain multitudes.)” [From Leaves of Grass, which is just as potent now as when it was published in 1900. Online version found here]. Jessica’s blog is now linked to ours, so hopefully she’ll post it soon. Go read it for a wonderful theological take on the qualities of the Divine.

Much later today, in my last class, someone else said something which struck me. This classmate commented that she feels less alone when she prays, because often the words in the book mirror her thoughts. She said that she feels that she is a part of an everlasting community because her thoughts had been thought by someone else over a thousand years ago. This had never occurred to me in such a fashion – not only is prayer a hearkening back to community, but it means that yes, we may be a speck in the universe, but we are not a speck ALONE in the universe. Other specks in other ages have had the same thoughts, feelings, and diatribes that we have, and by speaking the same words of prayer for countless generations, we specks become linked in a chain. L’dor v’dor literally means “from generation to generation,” but this was the first time in Israel that I've felt wholly part of that chain; not just as a future rabbi, not just as a Jew, but as a person, universally, who has loves, hates, fears, and dreams in a manner remarkably similar to everyone else in this world, in every time and place. Prayer is not just repeating by rote, but is a strand into our collective past, and a direct link to the hearts of our ancestors.

It may sound corny, but this whole day has felt like a moment of learning, of connection, and even of Torah.

This entry is completely disjointed. I'm in a weird mood. Bear with me.

2007-01-27T04:44:00.000-08:00

Jonathan got up today at 8:32am. On a Saturday. I promptly rolled over and got up at 1:43pm. I feel GREAT!

You may or may not know, but Jaimee and Helayne are from New York. This is not a problem in and of itself. What IS astonishing, however, is that they’d never had Mexican food (no, Taco Bell does not count). So the four of us went hunting for separate ingredients and last night, for Shabbat, Jonathan and I provided them with honest-to-God, SoCal Mexicana. I made fresh salsa, which turned out quite well if I may say so myself, and Jonathan turned pinto beans into refried beans. We had to go to the specialty cheese shop to get cheddar, it’s such a foreign concept here. And tortillas – they were so small, and a package of 8 cost 20 NIS ($5)!!! [At home they’re the equivalent of Californian pita, and you get them fresh-baked for a pittance. Ah, imports.] We warmed the tortillas in the pan, covered them with beans, cheese, shredded lettuce, and salsa, showed them how to wrap a proper burrito, and voila! It was so good I felt homesick.

Becca is coming in a week and a half!! My dad is driving us for three days up north, we’re going to go south to the Dead Sea, and we'll wander all over Jerusalem. I’m planning on taking some days off of school, and I’m realizing that the best strategy is to tell them I’m taking off, not to ask. Does the school infantilize us? Yes. Are we really adults? Yes too. What’s the worst they’re going to do, kick me out of the program?

When the Dean came last week, each student met with him for an hour to sort of introduce ourselves and ask questions. He is truly wonderful, but now I feel done with Israel… if I’m here to learn Hebrew, make friends, and love the land, check, check, and CHECK. Been there, done that, let's move on. It’s very hard to stay focused on the present. So Courtney and Jeffrey are going to come over today for movie-watching, and we’ve specifically banned all talk of Cincinnati. We shall be unstressed, yes we shall!

Supersol, the main grocery store near us, closed at 2:30pm yesterday for Shabbat. The nerve! I had to go all the way to the little makolet, neighborhood store, 15 minutes down just to get my paper towels. I can’t wait til it starts getting dark later, then things will stay open more. Yes, I love the peacefulness of Shabbat, but when it gets dark at 5, how early must one close?!

Jonathan has been sick all week, and pining for Savta's jello. I've promised that next time we're over there, I'll watch her and learn how to make it. Jello is like chicken soup in my family; if you're sick, a jello mold is always waiting to soothe your throat, and make you feel all better.

I have realized that I really, really like dried cranberries and dried apricots mixed together. I never knew this before. Oh, and fresh kiwi is quite good. I used to hate it as a child, but it's so tasty here. Wissotzksy brand chai tea is excellent too. [And hmm, I talk about food quite a lot, don't I? Let's not analyze this...]

Now don't laugh at me, but I learned three fascinating things about the letter hay this week. In Biblical Hebrew, it has at least three different uses when placed in front of a noun. One, it can be a definite article, “the.” Two, it can serve as a question word – “(hay)good and (hay)bad” is not necessarily “they were good and bad” but can be “Is it good or bad?” depending on the vowels underneath the first letter. And three, hay as a suffix can be directional. Byte is house, and byta is in the direction of home. Tzafon is north, tzafona is to the north. I’ve mentioned this before, but now it makes more sense in light of the hay - Yameen today means right. The ancient world saw east as north, for they based everything off of the rising of the sun, so their right was actually south. Ben-yameen meant son of the right (or the south), and the tribe Benjamin was the tribe that faced the southernmost direction! I'm giddily geeking out in Biblical Grammar.

In terms of cat news, we've found that Osher now likes to play fetch, just like Simcha. He's fond of the bigger balls with more texture, so he can track them more easily. In my Cincinnati goodie bag I had gotten a stress ball and he's pretty much claimed it as his. (I also got an HUC Cincinnati t-shirt that fits Jonathan, a Cincinnati Reds bumper sticker, a piece of chocolate from Graeter’s, their big ice-cream/chocolate store, and a packet of Cincinnati chili. But oops, I'm not talking about Cincinnati, so never mind).

And this camera is fabulous, I shall end on some pictures.

The cats tore down the screens on our kitchen windows, so until they get fixed, we've left the windows only partially open so the cats don't fall out. Here are the kitties fascinated by the great outdoors. Osher's on the left, Simcha's on the right.

Osher sleeping with me this morning. You can see the top of my hand underneath him - he always has to be touching some part of us!

Obligatory cat pictures for Mara

2007-01-24T13:28:00.000-08:00

Mara the brave with Simcha the curious.

Dad snuggling with boy. No, we're not ready for kids, not at all...

Someone looks comfy. The cat sleeps like the dead, he didn't even blink when the flash went off in his face!

(And for the record: yes, we love Osher too, he just isn't as photogenic.)

The joy of Gregory Maguire

2007-01-23T15:45:00.000-08:00

I'm now a big fan of his books. After finishing Wicked, I had read Son of a Witch, the sequel (which I didn't like nearly as much). But he just redeemed himself with Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, which I think is his best by far. It's the story of Cinderella but set in 17th century Holland. While Wicked and Son are planted firmly in the fantasy land of Oz, Confessions is part historical novel/part fantasy/part suspense with a a dash of Isabella Allende-type magical realism thrown in for kicks. The historicity mixed with mythology was beautifully done; I highly recommend it for anyone who liked either Wicked or Girl with a Pearl Earring.

A very good day

2007-01-22T09:47:00.000-08:00

Holly and Dan are having a boy! I just found out, and I’m so excited. Even if you don’t know them, cheer them on anyway. :)

In terms of more Jerusalem-centered things, Simcha was a big hit in class. My presentation was at the beginning of the second period, so Jonathan came into class during break, and we let Simcha run around the room so that he could explore and smell everything. He was loving it, and was very social when everyone started trickling in. But then my teacher came in and said, “Kitah Gimel [the class above us] wants to see the cat too! Is that okay?” Uh, sure, I replied – and it was fine for me… but the poor kitty got a bit overwhelmed with 25 people and lots of noise in the room. He looked adorable when Jonathan was holding him, but he was majorly unhappy when we tried to pass him around. That said, everyone loved him, and I felt that my presentation stood out against the usual.

Last night after the Cincinnati dinner we walked home with Jeffrey and Courtney, and spent forever on the street talking. This morning Jonathan came with me to the student service, since it seems like all our close friends took part: Nicole was a service leader, Melanie was the cantor, Courtney gave the d’var Torah, Mara and Ethan read Torah, and Rebecca served as golelet (the one who dresses the Torah).

After the service it turns out one of my classes was cancelled, so I went home til after lunch. Joe and Nicole’s power had gone out, and I joined Joe upstairs to act as translator when he was talking to the electrician. I felt so badly for Joe, but I loved helping; it really cemented my resolve that this is the right place for me. This is what I want to do, to make a difference in people’s lives (however small) for a living. There's an ironic beauty in the fact that both times that I’ve felt this surety about my path, I've been far far away from an actual classroom.

After this wondrous revelation, I of course went back downstairs and promptly indulged in chocolate. One should always take every opportunity to celebrate, right? Right!

Bringing in the big machers (aka the big bosses have arrived)

2007-01-22T09:36:00.000-08:00

The deans of all three stateside campuses (Cincinnati, New York, and Los Angeles) are in for the week, and have been quite helpful in giving out information for the upcoming four years. I won’t go into all of it here, but let’s just say that in addition to normal classes, I’ll have a High Holy Day pulpit next year, will be teaching Hebrew school once or twice a week, and have the option to have a monthly pulpit. Life seems like it will be affordable, the school provides insurance, and the dean is so genuinely *nice* that I’m really looking forward to moving (read that as: both eagerly anticipating and scared out of my wits).

Today’s Rabbinic Forum was a panel of the three deans: the LA dean, Rabbi Richard Levy, talked about the holiness of everyday life, and Rabbi Ken Kanter from Cincinnati gave us wisdom story tidbits from his 26 years experience as a pulpit rabbi (as opposed to a chaplain, or an administrator, or a college Hillel rabbi, or any of the other numerous types of rabbis one can be).

The presentation I found most interesting was from NY campus Rabbi Shirley Idelson, who spoke about the challenges to us as rabbinical students next year when we return to the States. Here in Jerusalem, for instance, we’ve taken Shabbat for granted, and it may be hard to culturally acclimate back to the US where Shabbat needs to be actively made, rather than just happen. Friends won’t live within walking distance, work doesn’t stop, etc; how will we deal with it? We will need to search even harder for the balance between academic graduate studies and religious seminary work, because juggling a busy schedule will make it easy to overlook spirituality.

She reminded us that the congregants in our student pulpits will most likely be extremely intelligent, complex people, and just because they may not know the Alef-Bet doesn’t mean we can talk down to them, or try to dumb down Judaism. She challenged us to respect other people’s traditions and knowledge, and not to impose our way of doing things on others. In that same vein, she also spoke of our first Holy Day pulpits, and cautioned us against being so wrapped up in logistical concerns that we forget to pray ourselves. The best part was when she said that it's okay, and almost expected, to feel that we're absolute frauds and be completely terrified come September - what do you mean, they’re calling me Rabbi?! She's the only person from the "establishment" who's said that! It was quite reassuring, because I'll tell you, at this moment, the thought of *leading other people* on Yom Kippur makes me feel decidely queasy.

Each campus also sponsored a dinner last night with the respective deans. The information presented was good, but in terms of food, I felt shrifted! LA and NY went to nice restaurants, one Mexican, one Italian, but we went to an Israeli hole-in-the-wall falafel place outside of the shuk! Hmph. I think there’s a definite Midwest slight… our last “catered” meal came from tinfoil-wrapped take-out containers. The LA lunch, in contrast, was at the King David Citadel Hotel. I wonder if it’s for financial reasons, like maybe the Cincinnati campus sponsors allocate the money to other places or something? I think I’ll do some detective work and find out.

And there's more to say, but I'll take Becca's suggestion and separate the entries for length and comment purposes.

Aah, the Orthodox

2007-01-20T11:35:00.000-08:00

On Friday we went to the house of the man who I met in the grocery store, for Shabbat dinner. It was interesting – let’s just say that they think differently than Jonathan and I do, and leave it at that. For instance, over dinner we talked about mikvahs (ritual baths), kashrut (dietary laws), modesty laws and niddah (purity regarding women), and we disagreed on almost every point. The discussion became, ahem, *heated* at the point when the daughter’s boyfriend said that any person who converted under Reform or Conservative auspices wasn’t really Jewish. Yeah. That said, the food was excellent, their apartment was beautiful, and they were very warm, loving people. We invited them over to our place for movies, so we’ll see if they take us up on it.

We got back from their place at around 10, and then Nicole and Joe came over a bit later and we watched Shrek 2. They took some pictures of us still dressed up (you can't see it in this one, but I'm wearing a floor-length skirt).

After a late night, we got up at an ungodly hour this morning. The first thing we did was wash the cats in preparation for Simcha’s big day – tomorrow he’s going on a field trip! Everyone in our class has to give a 20-minute presentation on something, and rather than show pictures of a trip or event, which is what most people have been doing, I’ve decided to bring in warm fuzzies. Jonathan’s going to come down with him at the appointed hour, and he'll hold him and pass him around while I do the required Hebrew talking. I can't wait!

Nature reserve and Qumran

2007-01-20T10:37:00.000-08:00

Thursday afternoon Jonathan and I went to a nature reserve and to Qumran, where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. We went with a bunch of Israeli soldiers, on that same program that had fed us all lunch before.

The nature reserve was interesting, but a little bit scary – we found out that it’s the only reserve in Israel that’s actually increasing annually, since the Dead Sea is receding. There’s one spot from 1984 with a sign “Stairs to Dead Sea,” that’s now almost 2 km from the Sea of today.

Qumran was fascinating. It’s so close to the Dead Sea, I hadn’t realized. And the caves are huge, and HIGH up. I’d seen pictures before, but had never realized the scale. We wandered around the ruins for a bit – what was identifiable was eating halls, storage, water cisterns, and ritual baths. Then we walked to the caves, where the scrolls were discovered by Bedouins in the 1940s. Scholars assume that they belonged to the Essenes, a sect of Judaism that was unhappy with the rule of the Hasmoneans (think Hanukkah Maccabees).

This is the view looking down on the ruins of Qumran, with the Dead Sea and Jordan behind it:

Walking up to one of the caves:

Click here for more pictures.

A new semester

2007-01-18T12:17:00.000-08:00

Instead of Bible this semester, I'm now taking Rabbinics. And can I just say, I am SUCH a geek! I've already done the homework for the next two weeks. It's fascinating! We're reading Mishnah, part of the Talmud, in the original Hebrew. I feel like this is the first "rabbinic" class I've had so far, on a subject that I always wanted to learn but never had the opportunity to study. Our professor is wonderful, and today, he even spent 10 minutes with us going over the Talmud Dictionary, telling us how to figure out the context of different words, their roots, and how to read the dictionary's abbreviations to figure out where the word was used in the Talmud. (And it was funny to realize that I'm concurrently learning modern, Biblical, and Mishnaic Hebrew - and the grammar is remarkably the same from Biblical times to 200 CE to now!)

If you're interested in such things, the Wikipedia entry on Talmud (here) is absolutely wonderful. Anytime I came across a word I didn't know in one of the readings, Wikipedia had it. I am so of the internet generation, and I love it!

I'm also taking "Society, Culture, and Belief of Islam" which addresses 22 countries in the Middle East. It's taught by two professors, one who knows Islam and the effect of religion, and the other who's a sociologist and is having us read U.N reports on the Arab world. It's a much more interesting topic to me than last semester's history class on Zionism.

Anyways, so it looks like more work, but also more fun!

(And as an update, my brother stayed over for a few days. But he hates being mentioned here, so I will leave it at that except to say that we watched lots of Star Trek and had a great time. :))

February article

2007-01-14T15:46:00.000-08:00

Skip this if you read the blog regularly - I only have so much material in me at once!

When I meet a Jew in the United States, I feel like we have a bond. No matter where the other person is from, how long I have known them, or what their interests are, I feel connected to them by virtue of a shared religion.

In Israel, this bond is cemented a hundred fold. Orthodox, secular, or Reform, I feel a kinship with other Jews and an underlying sense of community. Eighty percent of Israelis are Jewish, and that’s a huge pool with whom to feel connected. In California, Temple Israel was my Jewish haven in the midst of a secular maelstrom. Here, I need no such safe place, for the entire world outside understands what it means to daven with a tallit, eat brisket for dinner, and say l’vreiut when someone sneezes.

Case in point: over the past two weeks I have had two very random, very memorable encounters with Israeli strangers. In each case, our Jewish bond quickly overcame small talk, and we connected on a deep, metaphysical level due solely to our shared foundations.

The first such instance was my conversation with a taxi driver. Buses don’t run on Shabbat, so two weeks ago, on a Friday night, we called a cab to take us home. We got into the cab, told the driver where to go, and settled into the back seat. He asked us our names, we told him; he said it was cold, we agreed. Then he asked the million-dollar question: what were we doing in Israel? I admit, I paused - the majority of the time I tell an Israeli in this conservative city that I, a woman, am a rabbinic student, I get a negative reaction. But I decided to risk possible backlash, and I hesitantly said, in Hebrew, “I’m studying to be a Reform rabbi.”

“Reformi???” he repeated, incredulous. “Ken,” I said, yes, “it’s different in America than it is here.” And our conversation began in earnest. Talk ranged from how much rabbis get paid, to what my parents think of my profession, to how common it is to have women rabbis, when all of a sudden the driver got more personal. He asked if I knew the story of my name, Michal, and her relationship to King David. He began to expound, complete with fervent hand motions, how David had loved Michal, and had arranged for her to be divorced to her then-husband so that she could marry him. Yes, I said, I knew of it. It’s like the story of David and Bathsheba, I said, and I proceeded to launch into the tale of the king looking over his balcony, seeing Bathsheba in the bath, wanting to marry her and sending her husband off to the battle front. From there we went onto Solomon; and the rest of the ride consisted of swapping Biblical stories at a rapid-fire pace and constantly interrupting each other.

When we got close to our destination, the driver paused in his speech and slowed down the cab. “From today on I’m Reform!” he proclaimed. “You drive on Shabbat, your husband doesn’t have a [black] hat or payes – you’re so nice, and Jewish. If all Reform is like you, then I am Reform!” And he meant it; it was all he talked about for the next few minutes, until we got out of the cab.

Flash forward to one week later, when I found myself standing in the grocery store checkout line. I was third in line and was extremely frustrated; it had looked so good, but in accordance with Murphy’s Law, the man at the head of line was arguing strenuously with the checker about coupons and the line had come to a complete standstill. I sighed, and the man immediately in front of me turned and smiled. He commented on the brand of wine I was buying; I commented on the amount of onions he had. He asked me where I was from; I asked him how old his children were.

Fifteen minutes later, the customer up front had finally settled his coupon debate with a huff, and the checker had to verbally prod my checkout partner forward – he hadn’t noticed that the line had moved, nor had I, for we were deep in the middle of discussing the divisive nature of religious denominations, and the authenticity of the “God-idea” throughout history. My new friend paid for his groceries, waited for me to pay for mine, and then walked me partway home. We exchanged emails, and Jonathan and I are now going to his house this Shabbat to join him, his wife, and his children for services and dinner.

Israel is a country where deep connections are easily made. The land invites closeness, for the roots of all Jews are, at heart, the same. Shared bonds bring together the American student, the native Israeli-born, and the Yemenite, Greek, or Russian immigrant who has made aliyah. Openness is not a rare commodity, and friendship with strangers can be found in the most unexpected places. I didn’t want to walk home late at night, and ended up introducing someone to Reform Judaism; I grumbled in the supermarket line and became an adopted member of an Israeli family. I cherish this quality in Israel, and mourn its absence in the country of my birth. But I am hopeful that I will not completely abandon it when I return - although the majority of America isn’t Jewish, everyone has something in common. After all, bonds are not formed by religion alone, and friendship is truly unlimited.

Pictures for parents

2007-01-13T14:03:00.000-08:00

Jonathan and Simcha: "Dad, put me doooown!"

Me looking tired:

Fabulous neighbors Nicole and Joe:

"Why'd you wake us?!"

Weekend update

2007-01-13T13:02:00.000-08:00

1. Shabbat dinner at the Dean’s house = nice end to Colloquium, surprisingly relaxed, homemade challah.

2. Star Wars on the projector with Anna and Jamie, Josh and Donna = popcorn, M&Ms, fun.

3. Finished Amos Oz’ A Tale of Love and Darkness = well-written autobiography, nice use of non-chronological narrative, annoying because don’t know half the historical references.

4. Tea with Sandra and Arnie (who own a house in Cincinnati already) = helpful + stress! To buy or rent? To pick one neighborhood over the other? To ship the cats, or drive the cats in the moving van? Oyness.

5. Sandra and David sending us Hanukkah goodies from home = yum. Cats playing with box = even cuter.

Only in Israel!

2007-01-12T05:16:00.000-08:00

I just had the most marvelous experience of the week - in the grocery store checkout line! I was third in line, and the person who was first was arguing strenuously with the woman at the checkout counter. The man immediately in front of me was American-born, and we got into a conversation. This is normal (for me at least). What *isn't* normal is what we talked about - after the first few minutes of small talk, we got onto the divisive nature of religious denominations, the idea of God throughout history, my and Jonathan's plans for kids, his daughter's relationship with a much older man, and more. After 15 minutes both of us had paid for our groceries, so naturally, we exchanged emails, and we're going over to their house next week for Shabbat dinner. I love Israel! Small talk is kept to a minimum, Judaism bonds everyone, and friendship can be found anywhere.

The last of Colloquium

2007-01-12T05:09:00.000-08:00

Today was eh - it was on leadership, and stuff that I've done before, just with a Jewish text-study slant.

Thanks to Jessica, here are the questions we explored in yesterday's reflection group. I think they're wonderful to ask of persons of all ages, in all places, of any religion (with the exception of the last question perhaps, which is location-pertinent). Ask them yourself about your own religious background - these questions inspired deep talks of over an hour!

- What has been the experience/person (or both) which has been particularly significant in shaping how you think about the meaning of being Jewish?

- What ideas/beliefs/values/practices have shaped your personal Jewish identity?

- What role has gender, or any other particular factor in your background, played in shaping your self-understanding as a Jew?

- How has your experience in Israel thus far impacted your sense of your own Jewish identity?

Gender roles revisited

2007-01-11T11:41:00.000-08:00

Last night I called Nicole to see what she was up to. Turns out that she and Joe were at the supermarket. Transcript of our conversation below:

Nicole: Hey, do you want to be spontaneous and make dinner together?

Me: Sure, that sounds great!

Nicole: What do you want to make?

Me: Umm, I have no idea. What are you getting?

Nicole: Uh, a lot. What do you have?

Me: I'm not really sure. You know, why am I talking about this? I won't be cooking
anyway. Let me give the phone to Jonathan.

Nicole: You're right, why am I on the phone too? I'll hand it to Joe.

And so we switched the phones over to our spouses, and the boys cooked beautifully. :)

I’m in rabbinical school!

2007-01-11T11:31:00.000-08:00

And for the first time, I really feel it. Yesterday and today have been perfect, exactly what I’ve been hoping for.

We started off the day with a lecture by a Prof. Steven Cohen, a sociologist on “Jews, Judaism, and Jewry in the North American Context.” Again, it sounds boring, but it was really a fascinating lecture and then Q&A session on trends in American Judaism what it means to be Jewishly identified.

Some of the issues we discussed include:

How much of a threat is Orthodoxy? Because of fertility rates and intermarriage, the Reform movement is shrinking while the Orthodox is growing. As rabbis, how do we reverse that trend?

The Judaism of our parents and grandparents is very different from the Jews of my generation. Our grandparents, the children of the immigrants, lived in a secular world until 5pm, but when they came home, they had only Jewish friends (mainly because they still weren’t allowed in the Christian world). It used to be unheard of to have non-Jews at a seder; it was a Jewish event, period. Nowadays it’s almost ethically wrong not to have non-Jews, because we should share our culture. Today’s Jews want to blend the Jewish and non-Jewish world; Jewish events are “cooler” and gets more attendees if they’re held at a coffeeshop, and not at the temple.

Another thing that I hadn’t realized is how localized Jews are becoming: our grandparents were members of many Jewish organizations, but today, the average age of a B’nai B’rith member is “deceased.” (I actually had to look it up on Wikipedia, because I didn’t really know what it was myself!) Jews today are affiliated with synagogues, JCCs, and religious schools, and that’s it. That means that we tend to look at ourselves in terms of individual communities and not as a “Jewish people.”

Obviously, as we continue to live in an open society, we intermingle, and intermarriage completely changes Jewish demographics. Statistics are fascinating: I had no idea that 2/3 of Jews who intermarry raise non-Jewish children. Or, in asking an intermarried couple if the kids are being raised exclusively Jewish – if you ask the Jewish partner, 43% say yes. But if you ask the non-Jewish partner, only 21% say yes.

An interesting point was brought up that maybe Jews are hypocritical. When Latinos and African-Americans intermarry, or Protestants and Catholics, we say hurray, a rainbow is great. But not so for us. Prof. Cohen explained that Jews are unique, because we’re the one religious group that requires ethnic boundaries to survive. He affirmed yesterday’s point that intermarriage is now the most critical struggle. It’s so foreign to my religious experience, but I guess that if people aren’t rooted in a religion, and only go to church on Christmas and Easter, or to temple on the High Holy Days, then what is there really to cling to?

After that session ended we had talks on “Generational Differences in Religious Perspectives,” and then “The Uniqueness of American Synagogues,” and lastly a reflection session on personal identity. The latter lecture surprised me – I hadn’t known how much suburban temples were influenced by churches! As people moved out of cities, Christians started building churches on every corner… so the Jews did too. There is a higher ratio of affiliated Jews (Jews with temple membership) to Jews living in an area, in the South than in anywhere else – because being “churched” is the thing to do.

Also, how much is synagogue life influenced by the business model? We have Boards, committees, budgets, etc. Each synagogue is an independent, self-directed entity; the Union of Reform Judaism gives recommendations, not mandates, so education and even services are different at every synagogue. Synagogues are franchises, not chains!

I’ll end with a story that indicates where Judaism is today: Prof. Cohen told of how he recently did a study on what Conservative Jews think of the movement towards ordaining and marrying gays and lesbians. After reading the results of the study, the head rabbi of the Conservative movement turned to him and said that he had three reactions: a moral reaction, a halachic reaction, and a business one. The problem is, they were all different!

Colloquium

2007-01-10T08:12:00.000-08:00

What a wonderful day! School started up again, and instead of regular class, we’re having a three-day colloquium on “Challenges and Opportunities: Jewish Leaders and the Jewish Community.” To be honest, I wasn't looking forward to it - I was sorely mistaken!

The day started off by reviewing the “Platforms” of Reform Judaism, or the published statements of what Reform Judaism is and what it stands for. We talked about what differed from the Platforms of 1885, 1937, 1976, and 1999 in terms of God, Torah, People, Religious Practice, Palestine/Israel, and the “Mission” of Judaism, taking into account the historical context of the time.

Then there was a fabulous lecture by Rabbi Michael Meyer, who it turns out will be a history professor of mine in Cincinnati. This guy is the world expert on the history of Reform Judaism – he literally wrote the book on it (not to mention the entry on “Reform Judaism” in the Encyclopedia of Religion). He talked about two visions for the future of the movement, the dark and the bright. Basically, we can go two ways: we can cease to exist and assimilate, or we can reclaim the “religious” aspect of Judaism and grow stronger. It sounds simplistic, but his talk was fascinating, delving into the nitty gritty of mainstream religious practices and Jewish identity with such honesty that it was near moving. No one knows what will happen in the future, but he thinks that the movement will inevitably incorporate aspects of both visions.

After lunch came the best part: I went to the optional seminar on “Non-Jews in Congregational Life.” Surprise surprise, it was run by the former rabbi of Temple Beth Sholom in Santa Ana, where Jonathan and I attended our Intro to Judaism class! Reform Judaism recognizes that around 1/3 of all synagogue members are now intermarried – what issues does this bring up for temple governance (e.g. can a non-Jew serve on a temple Board or committee?), temple community (who can join the temple? should we have active outreach?), and ritual (what is the level of a non-Jew's participation in life cycle events? is there a criteria for performing intermarriage?). The session involved lots of personal examples, and lots of discussions on “what defines a Jew” and a “non-Jew.”

Last but not least, we broke up into the campuses we’re going to next year and spoke with faculty about academics. Next year we have no Modern Hebrew and very little Biblical Hebrew, but instead we take much more interesting things like a history survey course, narrative and poetry in the Bible, Mishnah/Tosefta (Oral Law and its supplement), and Hebrew Literature. The prof specifically said that next year was more conceptual, and not focusing on translation. Hooray!

Addendum: After a wonderful dinner tonight with Nicole and Joe, and discussing the above issues, I think I learned more than I did in class! I love when school catalyzes even better conversations with friends, than the ones led by a teacher.

giggle

2007-01-08T04:56:00.000-08:00

It's been pretty cold here, so we've been turning on our spaceheaters. Simcha and Osher have been sleeping in front of them.

How cute, we thought. The cats like the heat.

Apparently they like it more than we realized - their whiskers are singed!

Kitties

2007-01-06T10:17:00.000-08:00

Jonathan and I were doing laundry, and left our red laundry basket in the entry hall. Simcha and Osher decided to play in it, and somehow turned it on its side and used it as a hamster wheel. After they tired of rolling, Osher was more than content to hang out in the basket. Simcha, on the other hand, recognized that the basket could be in fact a stepping stool... and that he could use it to be closer to his beloved Feather! Nicole, in the pink skirt, was waving the feather above him, and the moment after this picture was taken, he pounced.

The rest of the touring pictures

2007-01-05T06:37:00.000-08:00

Here are some teaser pictures to convince you to go to the site.

These are crosses carved into the wall of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (where Jesus' tomb is), made by Crusaders on their pilgrimage.

Definition of Israel: olive tree growing next to Second Temple ruins.

Here is Antonio standing in the ruins of a shop along the street next to the Second Temple. He's hard to see, in the bottom half wearing red and a brown hat, turned toward the Temple. The oddly shaped stones above him are called Robinson's Arch, the only remaining part of a huge arch that connected the Temple entrance to the street level on the hill above. The main street was below, and sold sacrifices, clothing, you name it. It's where all the mikvahs (ritual baths) are too.

Me in a souvenir shop.

For the rest of the pictures (and there are many) go here.

What a week!

2007-01-03T13:29:00.000-08:00

I'm a few days behind on blogging, and unfortunately, I don't have the energy to write all of it up. So in a nutshell:

On Saturday Antonio, Jonathan and I went to the Vatican headquarters in the Old City. It's gorgeous. Then we visited the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. It was extremely confusing, it's a medieval church and there were rooms and rooms added on over the years. There were a bunch of monks singing in the various chapels - one group was at the site of Jesus' crucifixion, another chanting where he'd been enbalmed, and yet another at his tomb. I'll post pictures later tonight or tomorrow.

Sunday was spelunking day. We had made reservations at the Davidson Center and their Virtual Reconstruction Model (3D model of what the Second Temple looked like) and the southern wall excavations, which are an archeologist's dream (link). We hiked and hiked in the rain, then turned down another museum to go to a cafe. We had wanted to go to the Israel Museum to see the Dead Sea Scrolls, but they were closed. Ah well, the onion soup made up for it (at least for me - Antonio may be another story!)

That night we hosted a New Year's Eve party. About 10 people showed up, in waves, so it was very small and casual and lots of fun. I met new people, like Ethan's boyfriend and friend from home, and Joe's sister and her boyfriend, and we drank lots of wine, ate lots of cheese and olives and rugalach, and blew the shofar at midnight. We played a game of Hoopla, watched half of Return of the King, and sent everyone off at 3am.

Antonio left the next morning, and we were supposed to go to Arad to see my grandmother, but there was a short in the main circuit of our apartment, and our electricity went out! By the time it was fixed it was 4pm, so we got to Arad very late. After relaxing, eating a ton of fruit salad and watching multiple Star Trek episodes (not to mention going to an amazing restaurant in Beersheva), Jonathan and I got back at 7pm tonight.

Viera from Germany, who I met on a Holocaust fellowship in 2002, visited with her boyfriend at 8pm, and after they left I made arrangements to meet with a potential HUC student tomorrow morning. Then tomorrow afternoon my brother comes to stay for a few days. And then school starts. I'm going to need a vacation from my vacation!

(P.S. To all who left voicemail messages: Netvision sucks, our Vonage still doesn't work. The goal tomorrow is to get it up and running.)

(P.P.S. Rachelle and anyone else who's interested: Antonio and I met in college in 1998, and Jonathan and I met in 2003 through a mutual friend. Email me for more details. :))

Tel Aviv

2006-12-29T13:18:00.000-08:00

Jerusalem is a wonderful city, but it is in no way indicative of Israel as a whole. There’s a phrase that “while Jerusalem prays, Tel Aviv plays.” Or, as Antonio put it after our day in the Tel Aviv area, “Tel Aviv is a modern metropolis. Jerusalem’s just weird.”

So after a lovely evening of feasting on cheeses, olives, wine and chalva [sweet candy made from sesame seeds] with Jonathan, Antonio, Jaimee, Helayne, and Helayne’s two sisters, we got up early to go to Tel Aviv. My father picked us up from the central bus station, and we all went to an arts fair held twice-weekly next to the Tel Aviv shuk. From there we drove to Chetsi Chinam in Rishon Letzion, a HUGE grocery store where you can get anything you want. Picture a Food for Less ten times the size, or a huge Costco where you can buy things individually, not just in bulk. The variety is incredible – there are separate delis for cheeses, salamis, fish, and the dairy aisle alone is about the size of a football field, no joke. While my dad went shopping, the three of us wandered and reveled in glory.

After that was lunch at Avazi, one of my favorite restaurants in old Jaffo. I may have shown people some pictures from last year when we went there – it’s the place that makes its own Iraqi pita in a clay oven, and they serve 13 little salads as an appetizer before they get to the main meal. After a salad variety of at least four eggplant dishes, two types of cole slaw, cabbage, egg salad, humus, techina, etc, we all feasted on skewered meat: I got kabab (ground beef), Jonathan got chicken and beef shishlik (barbequed meat), and Antonio got – wait for it – turkey testicles!! He said that it tasted odd. I can only imagine – I wasn’t brave enough to try it myself.

Lastly we went up to Herziliyah (sp?) to Cinema City. Reflecting its name, it’s a huge structure housing 20 movie theatres, one of them with a screen as big as an IMAX. There are restaurants and shops there too, all built around the theatres, plus a whole bunch of cool wax figures. We saw Happy Feet, which was cute. Pictures of Chetsi Chinam, Avazi, Cinema City, and the snow from two days ago are HERE.

The best part was the cab ride back to the Tel Aviv Central Bus Station, where we picked up our sheirut (10-person taxi) home. I’m making conversation with the driver, asking him his name, telling him that we’re on our way back to Jerusalem, etc. Then he asks what we do. Jonathan and Antonio are easy – Jonathan works in computers, I say, and Antonio travels around selling things (close enough, I figure). But I’m more difficult – the majority of the time I tell someone in Jerusalem that I’m a rabbinic student, I get a negative reaction. But I decide to risk possible backlash, and I tell him, “I’m studying to be a Reform rabbi.”

“Reformi???” he asks, incredulous. “Ken,” I say (yes), “it’s different in America than it is here.” That started off a 20-minute conversation that was well well worth the 85 shekels for the cab ride. We talked all about Judaism, how much rabbis get paid, what my parents think. He asks if I know the story of my name, Michal, and her relationship to King David. He says how David loved her, and arranged for her husband to divorce her so he could marry her. Yes, I say, it’s like the story of David and Batsheva. He isn’t familiar with it, so I launch into the story of him seeing her in the bath, sending her husband off to the front, and Solomon’s birth. What’s so funny is that this is all in Hebrew, and I can’t remember how to say everything, so I'm improvising (e.g. I don't know how to say “the front,” so I say, “not the back, not the middle, but where people die in a war.” He laughed and got it.) Antonio and Jonathan, in the meantime, are cracking up at our quick Hebrew and the fact that we constantly are interrupting each other – only in Israel would a customer and a cab driver be exchanging and interrupting each others' Biblical stories.

When we get close to the bus station, he starts to slow down, and he says that I’ll make a good rabbi. “From today on I’m Reform!” he proclaimed. “You drive on Shabbat, your husband doesn’t have a [black] hat or payes [hair side curls] – you’re so nice, and Jewish. If all Reform is like you, then I am Reform!” And he kept going on about it, until we left the cab. On the way home Jonathan told me mazel tov - because I'm barely a semester into the rabbinate, and I already have my first convert. :)

Photos from Old City ramparts

2006-12-29T13:06:00.000-08:00

Click below to see pictures of our Old City rampart walk (walking along the edges of the walls). We also have a few pics of the Arab shuk. The pictures of the Dead Sea and Masada are on their way.

Click me.

Petra

2006-12-28T08:37:00.000-08:00

Well, Antonio and I went to Petra. It was in fact supposed to be Michal, Antonio, and I, but Michal got sick and had to stay at Savta’s while Antonio and I ventured off. It was a harrowing story involving me almost not being able to get out of the country (visa status problems) our bus catching fire, and me almost not getting back into Israel (same stupid visa status problem). I really wanted to tell Michal that the trip was horrible so she didn’t feel bad for not being able to come with us, but alas, Petra was truly an awesome experience. It is impossible to capture in pictures just how overwhelmingly magnificent these structures are. I have tried to take pictures of people next to the buildings whenever possible, but even then these images pale compared to the magic and majesty of being in Petra.

I would have written more on this, but I think this is an experience best shared with pictures. Please click on the link below and read the comments to see what it is like to see Petra.

Petra Pictures

IT IS SNOWING.

2006-12-27T06:47:00.000-08:00

Big, fat flakes.

I am cold.

The end.

Oy my feet hurt!

2006-12-27T06:33:00.000-08:00

Sunday started out beautifully – I woke up at 10am to the smell of eggs and butter. Jonathan had fixed us eggs, pita, and sliced persimmons for breakfast, and even fried malawach (a Yemenite crepe-like pastry we're fond of) for dessert.

One thing I must recommend to anyone coming to Jerusalem is to walk the ramparts across the walls of the Old City. You get a birds-eye view of the whole city, including the Arab and Christian quarters. After we ate we walked to the Old City, and lo and behold, who did we meet but a professor from HUC who was giving a tour in Russian. We followed his tour for a bit, and from the walls we saw the Vatican headquarters in Jerusalem, the Arab market, tons of stray cats, and children playing in a playground right next to ruins of Crusader soldier barracks.

Random things: the level of the ground used to be over 10 meters lower than it is now, so now the wall is sometimes barely above the ground. We could see outside the city walls, and I now understand why Jerusalem was always attacked from the north – that's the only side where there's no valley around it, just more city (the Arab section I had never been and probably won't go to.) The Arab buildings have cots on the roofs, because in the summer people sleep outside since it's so hot. Here in winter they sell corn on the cob on the streets, it's this country's version of nuts.

After the ramparts we walked around the Armenian quarter. We went into an Armenian church, they were doing a Nativity play! Duh, I thought, I'd forgotten it was Christmas Eve, and a little boy was standing on stool, he was the angel Gabriel talking to Mary.

We started to go down the Via Dolorosa and saw the Church of Flagellation, and then the prison where Jesus was held. Antonio freaked when we opened a door and it led out to a backyard, and socks were hanging on part of an ancient wall. "They live in the prison of Christ!" he muttered. "I could never grow up in this city, it would be too weird!"

We never made it farther on the Via Dolorosa – we followed an interesting looking monk to see where he was going, and then got sidetracked. We ended up wandering through the Arab shuk, and bought fabulous baklava. Then we went back through the touristy part from yesterday. We also stopped by a place that sold antiquities to ogle the merchandise – you can buy real oil jugs and other artifacts that date from the Canaanite period to King Solomon to Roman. We couldn’t afford anything though, so vowed to come back when we had more money.

After leaving through Jaffa Gate, we schlepped to modern Jerusalem for dinner, and introduced Antonio to shwarma. Picture a hunk of meat roasting on a rotating vertical skewer – you slice some off, stick it in a pita with humus and vegetables… delicious.

After dinner we headed home to hang out and relax for a few hours. Jonathan was tired at 10pm, so Antonio and I went to the Scottish church to meet other HUC students for Midnight Mass. Mass at Christmas is a huge tourist event here – unlike the States, which is 2% Jewish and mostly Christian, Israel is mostly Jewish and only 2% Christian. All the churches know that it’s tourism day, so they pull out all the stops.

But it turned out that the Scottish Church was Presbyterian and very liberal, not traditional Catholic like we'd been hoping for. So we skipped out and wanted to go to the Church of the Dormition, where Mary supposedly went to sleep and up to Heaven. We were told it had "costumes, smells and bells" which was exactly what we wanted. But the directions we got were "follow the road down into the valley, and follow it back up again to the hill." But what do we do when at the bottom of the hill there's a freeway, a bridge, and a fork in the path? Needless to say, we got a bit lost and ended up by the Jaffa Gate, the entrance near our house. After hailing a cab and going to the New Gate, we finally got the driver to go where we wanted, to the *Zion* Gate and finally the church.

Inside we were greeted by a monk in robes. The church was amazing, a mosaic floor of the calendar with zodiac and Biblical figures. Every alcove was tiled, the ceiling was immense and above the altar was Mary and Jesus. Everywhere was writing in Latin that Antonio translated. The Mass started at midnight and lasted two hours – it was led by a bishop, was all in German and Latin (since it's a German church) except for the Gospel reading that was translated into Hebrew too. The most interesting thing was that it was packed. People (including us) were sitting two rows deep in the aisle. We had to move aside for the beginning procession, Communion, and the end. It was fascinating going there, especially because Antonio kept explaining things. Plus, it's nice to go with someone who actually knows Gregorian chant. It was really funny at the end, because everyone on the altar (Catholic bima?) processed out, and the music from the organ was still playing. Everyone was still sitting there – in Jewish services, you wait until the music ends, and that signifies the end of the service. But Antonio was getting impatient, because apparently at Mass once the bishop left, it was totally over. So he told me “Stay here” and he hopped out and started walking down the aisle. Everyone followed him - he was the Pied Piper leading everyone out of the church! At the end of the aisles he turned around and came back in to where I was, and we both cracked up.

I actually liked this Mass a lot more than the Mass I attended at the Vatican. Also, I'd never really thought of this before last night, but the pomp and circumstance of pre-Vatican II Catholic Mass is very similar how I always picture the High Priest ceremonies during the Second Temple period.

After getting to bed at 3, we were up at 8 to pack and get a rental car and leave for Masada. Basically, it's the place where the Romans besieged the last stronghold of Jews in 70 CE that were holed up in Herod's old palace. Instead of surrendering, they committed mass suicide. Here's a link to the story in more detail:

Massada

It was an amazing experience - we spent more than three hours looking at the ruins. I hadn't been there in about 10 years, and what improvements they've made! Large parts of it have been reconstructed, much more has been excavated, and the Snake Trail is no longer a trail, but an actual path that won't scare anyone. (But it's still 2 km!)

Following Masada we headed down to the Dead Sea, the lowest point of land on earth. It was already 4pm and it was too cold for me or Jonathan to go down, but Antonio swam (paddle-floated?) around for a while, collecting balls of salt lying in the water. He said he felt slimy afterwards, but I'll tell you, when I touched his arm it was so soft it felt like he'd been in a spa!

Then we drove to my grandmother's for a "nothing special" dinner of 4 courses. Now we're stuffed. I'm staying here for the night and Jonathan and Antonio are continuing on for another 4 hours to get to Eilat, the southern tip of Israel. They'll stay overnight and leave for Petra in Jordan in the morning (I'd go but I'm getting sick and another day of all-day touring would kill me). Maybe one of them will blog about it – but even if not, I'll post the pictures when I get them!

Antonio's here!

2006-12-23T11:04:00.000-08:00

After visiting my Yiddish grandmother in the old folk's home this morning, Abba drove myself, Jonathan, and Doron to the airport to pick up Antonio. His flight was delayed two hours, he'd been traveling forever - and he still had a scary amount of energy! We greeted him with a sufganya (singular of sufganyot) at the airport, then we all came to Jerusalem.

Antonio came loaded for bear - gotta love my mother, she sent us Campbell's stews, Butterfingers and Hot Tamales, a ton of books, tea that we can't get here, and lots of other good stuff (like People's Sexiest Man Alive issue, hee). Here's all the loot:

Plus, the very best was a present from Jonathan - a beautiful new camera! It's absolutely teensy, and is simple enough that I can point and click, and complicated enough that Jonathan can still fiddle with it. It doesn't even a cord to connect to the computer to download the pictures, the memory card just slides out and can slide directly into my laptop! I'm jazzed, so expect lots more picture posts.

After unpacking, Doron and my dad went home, and we took Antonio out for a tour of the Old City. We went to the Arab shuk, the Western Wall, and wandered around the residential areas a bit. Then we meadered our way back to newer Jerusalem for dinner. Antonio and I are in the Arab shuk here. I think he's a bit overwhelmed!

Finally, over Hanukkah Jonathan got a beautiful Havdallah set to observe the end of Shabbat, and the separation between the sacred and the mundane. It's really beautiful, and matches our Kiddish cup set from Savta perfectly. We were all ready to observe Havdallah, had it all set up... and I could not, for the life of me, remember the melody! So we called my mom at 8am her time, she got us started, and we went on from there. I think it's the first time I've ever said the Havdallah prayers when I wasn't in a big Jewish group. Below is the spicebox (so that the beautiful spice smell will entice the extra Shabbat soul to return to heaven), the wine, the six-wick Havdallah candle, and the prayerbook that we use that we brought from home. Antonio's knees are included as an added bonus.

Tomorrow we're off to see the Dead Sea Scrolls. It's really fun to go touring - Becca, I can't wait til *you* get here!

Vacation!

2006-12-23T10:47:00.000-08:00

SUCH a busy weekend. Jonathan and I went down to Holon to hang out with my dad, Shula, and Doron, and it turns out my cousins from Germany were there too. One of the best things about going to my father's house is a well-stocked fridge - why is that Jonathan and I never have food in our fridge, and he has cabinets and extra cabinets full of boxed things, and refrigerator shelves *and* drawers all full of perishables?? We were talking about it and we've come up with a theory: kids. Once you have a family and you have to make them good food, you get in the habit of going shopping regularly. Unlike Jonathan and my current almost-bachelor pad. Sigh.

Friday I met Deborah (a med student through Tel Aviv University) for lunch in the heart of Tel Aviv proper. We went to Dizengoff Square, which used to be a main street 20 years ago, and is now an artsy area. They had a full-on Hanukkah fair going, with a woman dressed up as a dreidel, men and women dressed like angels in white (complete with wings) singing, mimes, fire-blowers, and Hanukkah music blasting from loudspeakers. Two people dressed in blue jumpsuits were supervising this fabulous kid activity - they were harnessed, hooked up to a rope that hung over a tall tree, then they were lifted up in the air and swung from one tree to another. On either side of the fair was a secondhand market (think swap meet). Deborah got a few English books and I was tempted to get some funky costume jewelry, but I held off.

After the fair we walked along the street people-watching. Tel Aviv is the opposite of Jerusalem - there were people in skimpy clothes, teens with mohawks, trendy gay men in fishnets, Arabs with traditional wraps, old women carrying their groceries home, and fast scooters cutting people off in the intersections. It's truly variety, not just religious variety like back here. We went to a fabulous deli, and after we ate were overwhelmed by the many frosting colors on the sufganyot! We were going to get some but didn't want to bother waiting in line. I hopped on one of the last buses before Shabbat came in and the busses stopped running, and made it home at 4:30 just as everything was closing up. Yay for a peaceful Shabbat.

I'm (almost) done!

2006-12-19T08:34:00.000-08:00

The end is in sight! I only have one more test, on Thursday morning, and then I'm finished. We'll spend this weekend in Tel Aviv with my dad's family, next week traveling with Antonio, and three days after that in Arad with my grandmother. I love vacations!

Especially Hanukkah... are you guys familiar with sufganiyot? They're the greasy food that's eaten in Israel instead of latkes. They're jelly donuts, like so:

Jonathan likes them better than I do (I like lots of jelly and they don't tend to have much) but either way, we've been eating a ton of them. Between that, the ice cream from Stephanie, and all the goodies I anticipate in the next week, I figure the diet will start *after* New Year's.

I went to a coffeeshop today with Miriam, Ethan, and Erin, Matt's wife. Erin told me that she just found out there's a baby pool going... and that she and I are at the top! I don't think I've *ever* been part of a pool before - how funny that my very first one is about having kids.

Also just finished The Matzo Ball Heiress for fun fluffy reading, borrowed from Nicole. The premise is that the current generation of the matzah-making Greenblotz' (think the Manischewitz family) have a completely dysfunctional family, and the Food Channel wants to highlight their business by airing their annual seder live. Extremely entertaining problems abound. The main character reminded me of a Jewish Bridget Jones.

Jonathan's working in the library tonight, so I'm here with the cats. I should probably go study a bit. But surfing the internet is so much fun instead...

Addition: Mara came over with more sufganiyot in hand! Boston creme this time - I had no choice, they kept calling my name!