Beit haMishpat haElyon

A midweek posting so I’m all caught up before I disappear for a few days…we’re going to Haifa!

On Sunday, my Hebrew class and another class went to visit the Israeli Supreme Court, beit hamishpat ha-elyon. It was a much better trip than I expected! It was definitely a huge plus that our tour guide was incredibly patient with us, so if we didn’t understand something the first time, he explained it again using different words. He hardly spoke any English, so we were dependent on Hebrew the whole time, which is actually really helpful for forced-Hebrew-listening skills! The building itself is beautiful. It’s really modern, as you might expect in a country that wasn’t independent until the 40s, and didn’t build this building until the 1980s. It also has tons and tons of symbolism, including the type of stone they used on some of the walls inside (Jerusalem stone, of course), the many skylights and windows, the shape of the doors and hallways, and so many other things. It also makes no secret that while it is a court of justice, it is really a Jewish court of justice. Almost all (if not entirely all) of the symbolism was explained using biblical passages. For example, the doors to the courtrooms are shaped like gates, because in the bible, the judges are described as sitting in the gates. There are lots of skylights, because justice is described in the bible as coming from above. There is a mezuzah on every door. We were there for about two hours, and we spent most of the time touring the building and learning about the justice process. There are no jury trials in Israel, which is the biggest difference from the US court system. (Michael wants to go visit when he’s here too. I’m sure after we go in a few weeks, I could write a whole essay on the differences. But I’ll do my best to spare you that!) We also got to sit in on a part of a trial, which was exciting but somewhat anti-climactic, since the lawyers were of course paying no attention to the American students sitting behind them. The whole trial was in very fast Hebrew, so we understood little of it. But it was a trial of a man who borrowed 250 shekels from a friend, and when the friend didn’t pay him back, he stabbed him. A stabbing for about $60? Probably not worth it. But we had to leave before the verdict was announced. I noticed two things about the trial itself that I thought were really interesting. One was the setup of the room. All of the lawyers sit at one table that is in a U-shape, with the judge(s) at a facing U-shaped table in the front. So the prosecution and the defense share a table! I’m not sure that would go over well at home. Also, the judge interacted a lot with the lawyers. When she didn’t understand something or had a question, she asked. It was more of a conversation than a presentation. I thought that was really interesting. This man’s fate rested in one pair of hands! (Israeli Supreme Court cases have anywhere from one to thirteen judges, in an odd number. This wasn’t such a big case, so it got one. Decisions about the border fence, for example, get between nine and thirteen.) Also, the Israeli Supreme Court currently has half women. They’re way ahead of us! Clearly, since I just wrote a ton, I enjoyed the trip. Which is good, since it appears that I’ll be returning there soon…

Monday was another slightly frustrating day in Hebrew. The news days are up and down for me. Monday was down. I felt like the teacher was teaching to the few students in the class who really understand the news the first time we watched it (it was TV this week), and not to the majority who need to go over vocabulary first, and then watch it, discuss it, watch it, discuss it again, and sometimes watch again before we really understand what’s going on. So I was a bit frustrated after class. After all of my Monday classes, I ran into my Hebrew teacher from the summer, who is just one of the nicest and friendliest people here. She saw that I was upset and asked how class was going, and I told her about the news day from that morning. She knows it’s not my favorite activity, so she was sympathetic, and told me to speak up and tell the teacher to slow down! Of course she’s right, but it’s always hard to admit that I’m having trouble keeping up. I mentioned that our next class after that one was biblical grammar. She grinned and basically said that she guessed I was really good at that class! That made me really happy, that she recognized that I actually have a strength in Hebrew class. It just isn’t listening to the news. That whole conversation was in Hebrew. Even though she’s no longer my teacher, she refuses to talk to me in English. I actually appreciate that on some level.

Tonight was another trip to the absorption center. We made masks this week, just for fun. We also found a puzzle that pairs Hebrew letters with animals that start with the same letter. It was really interesting to watch the different kids try to do it and realize that I could tell from the way they did it exactly where their Hebrew skills were. The parents, who are also struggling to learn Hebrew, enjoyed watching the kids do it and trying to help out a little. I posted a zillion (or so) pictures from the last two weeks. This week’s pictures all have masks involved. Last week, there were a bunch of neighbors over for a while, so the kids look like they’ve multiplied.

Tomorrow morning bright and early, my class is heading to Haifa for a few days! I’ll be back right around the beginning of Shabbat on Friday, and I will try to take lots of pictures while I’m there and fill you in on the trip soon! And it will probably happen, since the alternative is starting to work on my various final papers.

Thanksgiving in Jerusalem, Pesach in Russia

That title sounds pretty weird to me, too, but that’s my reality these days! Starting with the present, Thanksgiving in Jerusalem. A friend of mine decided that she wanted to host a bunch of people for thanksgiving, but realized several problems in that plan early on. It’s hard to find big, whole turkeys in Israel. (The eating kind; the political kind is as easy to find here as they are in the US.) She only has a toaster oven, not a full sized oven, as would be necessary to cook a hard-to-come-by turkey, even in the event that she found one. A lot of people have this problem. We have a real oven, but it’s smaller than a normal one at home. Some of her favorite side dishes were dairy, and a lot of the class keeps kosher, not mixing meat and dairy. She actually prefers the side dishes, and realized that most people held the same opinion as her; the turkey itself is not the draw of Thanksgiving for most people. Her roommate is Canadian. He has never celebrated Thanksgiving. Thus, sides-only, dairy Thanksgiving was born. Thanksgiving night, between 35 and 40 people crammed into an apartment where most of the living room furniture had been moved to the bedrooms, to better squeeze people in. We sat on the floor, the plastic porch chairs, the couch, or we stood. It was potluck. The food was delicious! And I bet you’ve never seen so many different kinds of potatoes on one table before. Just like any other Thanksgiving, we were all stuffed, and there were tons of leftovers. It was a lot of fun.

I had a little trouble with Thanksgiving this year. I have never been away from home and my family for Thanksgiving, and this was both of those with a vengeance. I got lots of voicemails, emails, and IMs though from family and friends, making it feel like I am a little less far away. Thank you!!

There is one other holiday for which I have never been away from my family. I have done seders with family every single year, which will make this Passover difficult as well. However, I may be so busy that I won’t even notice! Every year, a group of HUC students travels to the Former Soviet Union, specifically communities in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus, to help run Passover seders for underserved communities. These are communities in these places which have Jewish populations, generally toward the less religious end of the spectrum, which for one reason or another do not have a rabbi or other real Jewish leadership. So we descend in groups of two or three, equipped with a Russian-Hebrew haggadah and a translator, and we apparently run 4-6-more seders and other Passover activities over about 5 days. Then we get transported back to the closest major city to wherever we are, and we get another couple of days to tour and enjoy the completely new surroundings. The whole trip is student-planned and student-run. I am chairing the committee in charge of, basically, the seder. We make sure we know the Russian-Hebrew haggadah that we all use backwards and forwards, we teach our classmates how to run a seder (which means we all have to know), and we come up with lots of ideas for adapting a seder to all different sizes and types of groups. I’m really excited about the project, and thrilled that I’m working with a great committee on something I really enjoy. The project’s website is now up and running, at http://www.pesachproject.com/. Check it out! It's beautifully designed by my friend Kate, who is here this year with her fiancé. In her real life, she's a graphics designer. Don't bother looking for me in the various pictures. They're from last year's trip. You also might be receiving a slightly-less-personal letter from me and HUC about the project soon. I can promise a note on the bottom. Look forward to it!

It’s now about a half hour before Shabbat starts this week, and I haven’t talked to anyone from the US yet today. I think you’re all still in food comas and sleeping. I find it a little sad (and far away) that I’m preparing for sunset, and you’re still asleep. It’s also a little funny that I can go to the shuk and have a conversation with a grocer all in Hebrew, go to the supermarket and help some confused Americans decipher the Hebrew on their purchase (“magic tea box”), do four loads of laundry (it’s a small washer), go out for hot chocolate and homework with a friend, meet up with a friend from home for a little while, start outlining a midterm, and get ready for Shabbat…all before you wake up. It does make my day feel slightly more productive.

There should be more pictures of my Ethiopian family and of Thanksgiving night soon, but so as to not drive everyone crazy with millions of cameras, I didn't bring mine. I'll get pictures from friends once they post them.

Shabbat shalom, and I hope I get to talk to all of you soon!

Working Shabbat

First on my mind right now (although not in my usual chronological order) is the idea of doing homework and other work on Shabbat. In the materials they sent us before coming to Israel, I laughed at the juxtaposition of ideas in the HUC Year-In-Israel book. In one paragraph, it tells us how much time we will be spending in class (a lot), on homework (a good chunk) and on other required activities (a significant amount). Soon after, they mention that especially in Israel, we should try keeping Shabbat to some degree, at least by not doing homework. I tried that for much of the summer. Over the summer, I was in ulpan, and while I had Hebrew for five hours a day, I only had Hebrew. There just wasn’t all that much homework. I did have to think about it and plan ahead, because Shabbat ended late over the summer. And I really enjoyed my Shabbats! I had all day to read things for fun, catch up on sleep, hang out with friends, and talk to people from home. I really did enjoy the day of rest. But then the school year hit for real. During the year, I’m in class all day, getting out sometimes around 4 and sometimes later. Add in other required programs and activities and my self-imposed requirements (i.e., going to the gym and enough time to talk to people from home), and there just aren’t enough hours in the day. Friday hits, the first day of the weekend, and post-daylight savings time, Shabbat starts really early. It’s my “free day” to run errands, since stores aren’t open on Saturdays, and usually cook something for Shabbat dinner. Even on my most productive of days recently, I can get some homework done, but not enough. Shabbat has become a heavy work day, and I hate it, but I don’t know how to get around it. It is the only day of the week without any obligations, which means I should be able to get a lot done. But it’s hard to reconcile doing homework all day when so much of the city is enjoying the holiday. I would love to go back to the days from the summer of enjoying the holiday, and maybe I just need to find a way to compromise, like enjoying part of the day and working hard for part of the day, but it’s a hard balance to find. I guess that’s what the rest of the year (and the next four, and probably beyond) is for.

Our Israel seminar this week was on secular Judaism in Israel, which led to a lot of really interesting discussion and information. As Americans, when we think of secular Jews, we think about people who are Jewish in name, but really do almost nothing Jewish. Secular Jews in Israel are generally contrasted with the Orthodox. As in, Jews who do not follow the commandments and live an almost entirely Jewish lifestyle are considered secular. However, the majority of these secular Jews attend a seder on Passover, hang a mezuzah at home, keep some level of kashrut, light Chanukah candles, and so on. And of course, they all speak Hebrew, so they could (in theory) study Torah and follow a prayer service at will. These secular Jews aren’t really sure what to do with the Reform Jews in Israel. Some of them lump us with them, as not-Orthodox and therefore secular. Some of them see us as a separate movement. Some of them just see us as some level of religious, and therefore while we agree about many, many things, and in Jewish lifestyle we are not far apart, they are not willing to classify themselves with us. It’s an interesting phenomenon. We also talked about different secular groups who are trying to get these secular Jews more active and more educated in Jewish life, through secular but Jewish schools, adult education, social action, and some other projects that sounded very similar to Reform Judaism at home. We also had a very brief discussion, cut short by time restraints, about a list of Israeli dilemmas presented to us. For example, a café next door to a yeshiva (religious school) wants to be open seven days a week, but the neighborhood feels that it will violate their feeling of Shabbat. Does it stay open? Pork is hard to find in Israel, so a kibbutz begins raising pigs and making a great profit. Some people see this as a horrible development, and propose banning the production of pork in Israel. Should the ban go through? And on and on and on. We discussed the difference between separation of church and state in Israel and in the US. A major difference is in the language. Their translation of the phrase translates back to English as a separation of religion and state. The US doesn’t separate religion and state! Religion is definitely tied to the state; the separation is in religious administration and requirement. Israel could never separate religion from the state, but separating the religious administration from the government could do wonders. It’s fascinating and sometimes frustrating to live in a religious democracy.

Thursday afternoon I went with some classmates to Museum on the Seam, a museum on the border of East Jerusalem and West Jerusalem, and also more or less on a border between religious and secular neighborhoods, and just barely out of the Old City into the New City. Their famous exhibition is now a traveling exhibit on tolerance and coexistence. (Ever seen the t-shirts that say “Coexistence,” where the C is a crescent, the X is a Jewish star, and the T is a cross? They’re from this museum.) The current exhibit, however, is about fair labor and exploited laborers. They do a great job of making it a multi-media presentation, with photos, paintings, videos, sound, and more. It talked about day laborers, prostitution, modern day slave labor, and more. It was really well done and really interesting, but we were all somewhat struck by how much it wasn’t Israel-centric. A good portion of the exhibit (although not all of it) was about Israeli labor, but the museum could have been appropriate anywhere in the world.

Thursday evening was HUC Casino Night, with all proceeds going to the Former Soviet Union seder project. (Summary: about half of the class is heading to the FSU during Passover to lead seders in all sorts of different communities. We do all the planning, organizing, and fundraising. More information coming soon, I promise.) Our whole moadon (lounge/café) was decorated and looked great. There was an auction for items donated by places in the city we all use, from a cup of coffee to large gift certificates to great restaurants. There were poker tables and blackjack tables. There were beverages and desserts. Our admission fee gave us a bunch of play money to participate in the games. I didn’t do any gambling, but had a great time hanging out with my friends and giggling at a professor and the director of the Year-In-Israel program bartending, and laughing over the money that had different HUC personalities printed on them. (Drinks, for example, cost a Mendelsson.) Pictures of Casino night (and some friends hanging out afterwards) are being posted shortly.

Clearly, I am really not looking forward to finishing my homework. Again.

About the Pictures

I think some explanations are in order if you’ve been looking at my pictures.

A couple of days ago I posted the Duma pictures, and I’m going to add some from my friend Mara’s collection tonight as well. The Duma Simulation was a history project. We were reconstructing elections in 1906 Russia, when they attempted, for the second time, to at least pretend there was a semblance of democracy there. Clearly, it worked well. We were supposed to be simulating the elections in a Jewish town, with all of the major Jewish political parties represented, plus the communists, plus a group trying to convince the Jews to move to America, plus the ultra-Orthodox, the Haredi Jews, who in reality wanted nothing to do with the Duma. Hence the pictures of them protesting outside. I was asked to help run the Duma, meaning that I was not part of one of the parties, but instead, with a friend, organizing the speakers and the rest of the evening and then basically running the program and the elections. People were less-than-excited about having a four-hour program on an evening in the middle of midterms, but it turned out that most groups got into it and really had a good time. There were flyers hung all week long advertising the different groups, which confused a lot of visitors, but amused all of us. The evening of the Duma Simulation is what the pictures show. People came in costume traditional for their group, or just in matching outfits. The communists wore red. The America group wore assorted American flag shirts, red, white, and blue, and baseball hats. There were lots of women with scarves over their heads. The haredi group came in traditional Jewish dress, including all four women from that group arriving looking very pregnant. A few of the groups brought “traditional beverages.” My co-chair and I decided that we could not dress like any of the groups, but that we had to come in some sort of costume. So we thought about the spirit of democracy and decided on the most democratic type of clothing we could come up with: togas! So we showed up to the Russian Duma elections in togas. If you’re curious, the America group won the election, closely followed by the Zionists and the Bund, a Russian-Jewish workers’ group. (In reality, the Zionists at this time period did not get nearly this much support.) I hope that clears up the crazy pictures!

The other new set of pictures is of my Ethiopian family. A group of us from HUC goes to the absorption center every Tuesday evening, and with a partner, each of us is assigned a family. My roommate Karen and I are partners, and I brought a camera tonight. The kids had a great time posing for pictures and then immediately looking at them on my digital camera afterwards. We’re going to try to print out a few of them to bring back next week. Some of the kids have stickers on their faces. They just like to put stickers everywhere, and that’s the best explanation I can give. The fact that Karen and I weren’t covered with stickers this week was a nice change. There are five kids in the family, ranging from about 11 down to 2. The oldest and youngest are girls, and the middle three are boys. They are adorable. I communicate most with the oldest girl, who is the most talkative and has the best Hebrew of all of them (including the parents) by far. The rest of the kids are talking to us a little more each week. The parents hardly speak any Hebrew. They are incredibly welcoming. Every week, the mother makes coffee for me and Karen, and they put out a bowl of apples. I don’t usually drink coffee, but apparently on Tuesday nights, I am now a coffee drinker. The apples we have there are amazing. I keep buying apples at the shuk, but I haven’t gotten any really good ones. But the ones we have there are amazing every single week! Tonight we played with a puzzle, play-doh, some cards, and Karen and I found some dot stickers and played “pin the nose on the smiley face.” It was a good activity for a few minutes, and then they started pinning the dot stickers on themselves. And the TV. And each other. It’s so much fun! [Michael: you might get to meet them! I think we are planning to go the first Tuesday night you’re here, even though it’s our exam week. Will you come?] Sadly, I can’t post names with the pictures. With the language barrier, and the fact that their names are Ethiopian and not Hebrew, we haven’t managed to pick up on them yet. Which is only okay, because I don’t think they know my name or Karen’s name either. Enjoy the pictures!

That’s all I’ve got for now. I really should be studying. And also posting pictures. More soon!

Procrastination

Given that my discussion of Hebrew roots generated several comments, I feel obligated to clarify what I meant. In English class, we are never explicitly taught roots. We never learn how to change a word from a verb to a noun to an adjective in a standard way. We aren’t taught that when we come across an unfamiliar word, we should be able to figure out what it means by looking at the middle three letters, at least not until we are preparing for the SATs. And even then, it’s not knowledge of English roots that becomes helpful, because I really still don’t think they exist the same way, but knowledge of Latin roots, as was conveniently pointed out by the mystery commenter! In English, “butterfly” has nothing to do with “butter” or “butt.” In Hebrew, the verb with the same root letters as “butterfly” means “someone who flits.” Like a butterfly. Because of the way the language developed, from an ancient language that had to be transformed into a modern one, everything that sounds the same or has the central letters in common, is related somehow. Pop told me he had a boss just after Israel became a state who had worked in Israel helping to establish their Navy. And he got the experience of making up new Navy-related words, because they didn’t exist in the Torah or Rabbinic writings, which were the majority of Hebrew language material until one hundred years ago. But rather than making words up from nothing, the language-producers find words in the bible that somehow connect, and then fit them in to the already-established consonant and vowel patterns. It’s different. And it’s fun to read through a prayer I’ve read a million times and then realize that I know what it means, because I know modern Hebrew words with the same roots! And now I’m done with roots and on to more interesting topics.

My class here is two-thirds female. So every month or so, the guys decide that they need some time, so they have “Man Shabbat.” It started as more of a stereotypical guys’ meal, with pizza ordered before Shabbat and left in the refrigerator, so they had cold pizza for Shabbat dinner, but it has apparently evolved into some decent food. In any case, this leaves the girls to make our own delicious meals. Last Friday night was one such night, and eight of us got together for our own Women’s Shabbat. We went to Shira Chadasha for services, where some of the guys went as well, but because there is a mechitza, it really was irrelevant that both groups were there. We said hello again to the guys after services, and then went in our separate directions for dinner. There was, of course, great food, but it was also fun to hang out with a group of girls on a holiday! Many of us hang out on a regular basis anyway, but somehow because it was Shabbat, it felt different. And then when the boys were done with their meal, some of them came over, and it completely changed the atmosphere and the topics of conversation! It was an amusing contrast.

In my rabbinics class, we are slowly going through Avot d’Rabbi Natan, a slightly less-known piece of rabbinic literature. Our professor had a pulpit in the US for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, so we had two weeks off from class. This past week, he wanted to make up for at least some of the lost time. We got together Sunday evening in the apartment of one of my classmates to continue our translation and discussion of the material. We were almost through Chapter 1. A few minutes after our pizza break, we finished the chapter. It was actually exciting, because we have been working on it since September, and our professor had prepared for the occasion. He passed out copies of the prayers you say when concluding a piece of rabbinic study or literature. We had not finished the book, just the first chapter, but I like that he realized that was a big milestone for us and had us celebrate and pray appropriately.

Israeli pizza is not American pizza. They haven’t learned the value of flavorful crust or good tomato sauce. And it uses kosher cheese. All in all, a disappointing experience every time. Who would have thought I would miss Papa John’s?!

On Monday afternoons we have our Professional Forum, where we are taught various rabbi-career-related things. This week’s forum was optional, a discussion with a woman whose husband is a rabbi and professor at HUC in Cincinnati, and she became a second-career rabbi as well. Only about 15 of us went, but I am glad that I did. We talked about life as a rabbi, and boundaries, and standards, and other related things. The discussion was a little bit depressing, but very informative. We talked about things like making lifestyle decisions knowing that your congregation sometimes judges or notices everything, like what happens if a congregant sees you eating an unkosher meal at a restaurant, or dating as a rabbi, or having children as a rabbi. It was a little scary, and some of it looking way to far in the future for my taste, but I know it will eventually all be relevant, so I might as well start thinking about it (a little bit) now. I’ll try not to let it scare me away!

On Tuesday we had a lunch with assorted higher-ups at the URJ camps and NFTY in Israel programs. They wanted to convince us to work for them this summer. I agree that it would probably be really fun to be at camp for another summer, and I know I would learn a lot and get a lot from it. But after being away for 11 months, I also know that there is no way that I am going to come home, do laundry, and turn around and leave again. I am sure returning to camp in some capacity is in my future eventually, because I loved the camp experience and I would love to help recreate it for others, but I also know that it is not going to be in my future this summer.

It is weird to be out of the country for Election Day. Because in my program we are all (except the 2 Canadians) American, we were all fairly focused on the elections. Except that we go to sleep before the polls close in most of the country, so there’s no staying up late on election night waiting for returns. Instead, there’s getting up early the next morning to find out what happened! Many of us did so, and showed up to our Israel Seminar on Wednesday tired, excited, and distracted.

For the first hour of Israel Seminar on Wednesday, we had a speaker who is a well-known Israeli writer. He writes fictional short stories, and they are fascinating, but also pretty odd. He was definitely a good speaker and had interesting things to say, but I felt badly for him; he had a lot of competition for our attention. He started speaking around 8:45 in the morning, in a room with wireless internet. It was 1:45 in the morning on the east coast and 10:45 in the evening on the west coast. After Election Day. Several people had brought computers and were still looking at the returns and waiting for new results to be announced, which meant that everyone sitting in viewing distance of the computers was watching the screen as much as the speaker. An interesting day, but bad timing. After the speaker, we went to the Menachem Begin Heritage Center, a museum about the life of former Prime Minister Menachem Begin, the first Prime Minister who was not from the Labor party; he was elected about 25 years after the creation of the State. It was an interesting museum, another interactive museum where you are required to go through as a group. The museum moves room by room, and there is a recorded speaker talking in each room. So the group goes and sits in the first room and watches a movie clip (with headphones in English), and then sits in the second room to watch and listen to something else, and so on. It was less high-tech than the Palmach museum in Tel Aviv that we did some weeks ago, but on the same principle of mass-education and moving through as a group. I’m sure there’s something in there about the Israeli mentality, but I’ll spare you that and work out that opinion in my (required) Israel Seminar journal.

Thursday afternoon we started a new program. There is a student in HUC’s Israeli Rabbinic Program who is a commander in the Israeli army. (Because of major cultural differences and Hebrew fluency, the Israeli program is part-time, so the students in that program all have careers already.) This student thought it would be interesting to bring together Israeli army officers and American HUC students to get to know each other and each other’s cultures somewhat. So we now have an optional program, Yedidim, “friends,” to try to get to know one another, at least a little bit. We were fairly arbitrarily put into groups with a couple of Israelis and a few Americans. I am with two of my good friends, and we ended up with two female officers, Rina and Inbal. We had a great time! In a mix of English and Hebrew, we talked about army life, HUC classes, Judaism, their college plans, our families, and laughed at our misuse of each other’s languages. They are going to be in Jerusalem again next weekend, so we exchanged information and will hopefully be able to meet up for a little while soon!

The World Pride conference was held in Jerusalem over the summer, with lots of seminars and speakers. There was supposed to be a parade as well, but we were in the middle of a war, so it was postponed. Then it got put on this past Friday. The ultra-Orthodox have been threatening violence against parade participants for weeks. There have been lots of sort-of-funny jokes that the only thing the Jews, Muslims, and Christians in Israel can agree on is that they don’t like the gays, and that there shouldn’t be a Gay Pride Parade. Nonetheless, the organizers were ready to go ahead with the parade. Every time there was threatened violence (or riots, or burning of trashcans, tires, and other things) by the ultra-orthodox, they would announce that the parade would still happen, and there would be increased police presence. The parade route had been debated, and remained down some main streets in Jerusalem, starting in one park and ending in another, going right past HUC on the way. Except then there was the Gaza incident the other day, and now Israel, and Jerusalem, are under major security warnings. Soldiers and security people are in high demand in Gaza and elsewhere, and there suddenly weren’t 10,000 of them available to guard the Gay Pride Parade. So instead, the parade became a rally, and it was moved from downtown Jerusalem to the Hebrew University Stadium, on the campus that isn’t really near anything. And HUC students, and presumably many others who would otherwise have attended, were reminded of the security warnings to stay out of crowded places and off of public transportation. There were reportedly a couple of thousand people who attended, including a handful of HUC students, but nothing like the crowds originally anticipated for the parade. Sometimes I hate this city for its intolerance, but I also have to respect it for living on the edge and being willing to embrace its fragility and alter plans at the drop of a hat…or a bomb, I suppose. I skipped my weekly shuk trip this week in the wake of the warnings, and life goes on.

As you might be able to tell by the ridiculous length of this post, I’m rapidly approaching midterms! This means, of course, that my to-do list is almost as long as this post, and that I’m procrastinating. It’s going to be a couple of crazy weeks! In the same spirit, I posted a bunch of new pictures last night and this morning. There's a link on the right side of the blog. Some of them are from things that happened ages ago, and I just never posted pictures. If you don’t remember what I said about the various events, go back and read old posts. It’s all in there. And thanks to Michael for keeping me up on the phone long enough and late enough to get the picture-posting going. Enjoy!

Blinkers, wigs, and tea

Some random thoughts as you head toward the weekend (where I already am!)…

The other day, I saw two cars in the space of a few minutes using turning signals! You’re going to have to trust me that this was significant. The fact that I noticed the signals should be a sign of their rarity, and two in one day…wow.

I learned a great fun-fact in Hebrew recently as well. To understand this one, you have to know that Hebrew is based on root letters. If two words have the middle three or so letters in common, they’re probably related. (This is why we bow on the word “baruch” in many prayers. It has the same root letters as the word “berech,” knee.) So often learning one root can give you understanding of a whole family of words, which is nice, as long as you can remember the roots. So we were learning the news, and talking about how four people had died shortly after receiving flu shots. The word for “flu” in Hebrew is of the same root as “influence.” We all thought this was weird. Our Hebrew teacher told us, in complete seriousness, that it was because “influence” and “influenza” are from the same root in English. She dismissed our insistence that this makes no sense, because English is not based on roots, and the words are unrelated. But I think we all remember the word for flu now.

I got a flu shot a week and a half ago, and I’m still alive! See above for why this is exciting.

I saw a uniquely Jerusalem sight the other day. I was walking up to a friend’s house, and on the way, I passed an orthodox family, parents and a child. The woman was wearing a scarf on her head (since orthodox married women cover their heads at all times; many wear wigs instead of scarves or hats). What was she carrying? A Styrofoam head with a wig on it. It doesn’t sound quite as funny typed out, but you’re going to have to trust me.

I woke up earlier in the week with an awful sore throat. Aside from that, I felt completely fine, but I sounded pretty funny for a couple of days. (I am now fine, with a little bit of a cough left, but I promise I’m okay!) On Monday, when the sore throat was at its worst, all I wanted to swallow was warm liquids. I made myself a cup of tea with honey before I left for school. After services, I had another cup, but there wasn’t any honey available. After Hebrew, my cup was empty but my throat still hurt, so I refilled my mug with hot water, and found honey, and reused the same teabag. It wasn’t as good, but it was warm! At lunchtime, I made myself another cup (also decaf) from a teabag I had brought from home. The school café person was happy to give me honey after hearing me talk. After that, I decided I needed to be done with tea for the day. Except that night, I went to my friend Nicole’s to work on our Rabbinics homework. Her fiancé is British. Before I had my coat off, and before he heard me talk, he offered me a cup of tea. How could I turn that down?! I might have offended his Britishness by putting honey in it, but it felt good! After we finished the homework, I went to another friend’s house to hang out for an hour before coming home to finish up and go to bed. It was cold out (and nobody’s heat is turned on yet), so she decided we were all having tea. Again, how could I say no? It was good. So if you stopped keeping track, I had six cups of tea on Monday. I think they were all decaf, but four of them were for sure. I became a finely tuned peeing machine, but my throat felt better when I woke up on Tuesday!

I walked into the supermarket this morning with my shuk cart. I had already been to the shuk, and even though I didn’t need all that much from either place, it seemed like the best way to combine two shopping trips. As I walked in with the cart, a man asked me, in very slow, well-annunciated English, where I had gotten my cart. I started laughing when I answered him in clearly-native-speaker English. Looking back, it might have been more fun to answer in Hebrew.

I have one class that I didn’t expect to be one of the highlights of my week, but it is turning out to be just that: biblical grammar. My Hebrew class has an amazing professor for this class, the man who several of us had heard was the only one who could effectively teach it. We’re the only Hebrew class he teaches for biblical grammar. (I also have him next semester for Bible, which should be fascinating and hard, but I’ll learn a lot!) He teaches in a very organized and very straightforward and logical way. I love that I can follow along with it. I tend to pick up on grammar quickly, possibly because it is so logical, and possibly because it’s in the genes (thanks, Mom!). But some of my class struggles with it a lot, and I just get it. It’s really nice to have one class where I feel like I really know what I am doing, at least for now! It also has nice placement in the week: we have it right after Radio Day in Hebrew, when I’m usually feeling incompetent and not so brilliant. And then Yossi comes in and we learn grammar, and I feel much better about my Hebrew skills!

My Ethopian family is still a lot of fun. We played with sidewalk chalk this week, and based on the dirty kids = happy kids equation, they really loved it! There was chalk everywhere. The mother has decided she wants to feed us. (She is, of course, a Jewish mother!) She started making cups of coffee for me and Karen, which is interesting, because I’m really not a coffee drinker. Except, apparently, for on Tuesday evenings. She also puts out plain bread (which I have been skipping, because it’s not so exciting and the kids like it, and I’ve just had dinner when I get there) and some apples. The apples are by far the best I have had in Israel! I eat those happily, alternately cutting a piece for myself and one for the two-year-old who also seems to love apples. It’s as if the mother can’t really communicate with us, but wants us to feel welcome, so she gives us food. We also feel welcome when we knock on the door, and are greeted with shrieks of glee and knee-hugs from the little kids. I love this project!

Every year, the history professors run a “Duma simulation,” which is basically all of us simulating elections to the Russian parliament in the early 1900s, but all from a Jewish perspective. A friend of mine was asked to chair it and to find a co-chair, and he asked me to run the program with him. I’m good friends with his wife, who is not in the program, but the two of us had never really hung out a lot before. We got together to organize the program, and we had such a great time! We had to send out an email to the class explaining the program and the procedures, and we ended up taking over an hour to draft this email, because we were having so much fun with it. The whole program is next Sunday night, and if people get into it, it should be a lot of fun. I’m looking forward to it!

For our Israel seminar this week, they wanted us to talk to “real Israelis.” We were sent off campus for a few hours, armed with a survey about consumer habits, to talk to some people. I went with a group of friends to the Hebrew University campus. The way we went, it was a 40 minute walk, through East Jerusalem, but on a beautiful day. While a little concerned when I first realized where we were walking, I got over it and enjoyed the completely new scenery. We split up and talked to some people. One of the people my partner and I talked to was an older man (in the 50+ category on the survey, but several decades older than that). He liked having an audience! It turned out that he had lived in Germany until about 1940, then moved to Israel, to the United States, and finally back to Israel. He was a really interesting man, and then it turned out that he lived nowhere near the Hebrew University campus where we were, but more or less across the street from HUC! He gave us his name and told us to stop by and visit. Random encounters like that are always so great.

That’s about all the random thoughts I can muster right now. It’s 11am, but I’ve already been to the shuk, the grocery store, a friend’s to borrow the right size pan, made brownies, tasted batter, and tasted the finished product. They’re delicious and I’m exhausted! But everything has to happen early these days; I’m leaving for Shabbat services this “evening” at 4:00!