Jessica in Jerusalem

And So it Goes

2007-05-14T22:54:00.000+03:00

I'm sitting up in my apartment, wondering why our internet hasn't been turned off yet, and in a little shock. This day finally came. For a while, I wasn't sure that it would. There were days when I was fairly certain it wouldn't. But here it is. I'm going to sleep, eventually, and waking up long before the crack of dawn. I'm shlepping some heavy suitcases down the stairs (ok, the elevator), and heading to the airport!

It has been an amazing year. I now know 55 of my future colleagues, most of whom I had never met when I arrived, and some of whom are now among my closest friends. I know Israel, and especially Jerusalem, better than I thought I could. There are times when I'm insulted when people speak to me in English. (There are also times when I'm frustrated when they don't.) I feel even more certain that I'm in the right place (well, school) than I did when I arrived. I'm looking forward to a summer with my family, boyfriend, and friends, but I'm also looking toward seeing my HUC friends in Cincinnati in August.

Cassi and I went to Cup o' Joe for a last dinner tonight, and it was really weird walking out of there, as usual, knowing it would be a while before I'll return. It's been a week of lasts. I went to the Old City yesterday, and it was hard to believe I wouldn't be able to just stop by the remains of the Temple whenever I felt like it after tonight. I went to the shuk today, and it was weird not buying any produce, and really sad to know that it won't be a routine shopping trip anymore. Only the shuk could have gotten me to try so many new fruits and veggies this year! (Please don't ask what they were. My mother would be embarrassed by things I hadn't eaten until this year.) I went to HUC to drop off some final things, and again was struck by how amazing this campus is, especially in the spring.

This city is beautiful. It's not perfect, and it's not home, but it has been a most interesting, educational, enlightening, and mostly comfortable home for the last year, and although I am incredibly excited to return home tomorrow (!), I am also certain that a little piece of me is staying right here in Jerusalem.

Love from Jerusalem, for the last time, at least for now...
Jessica:)

Shopping, Cleaning, Packing.

2007-05-11T10:24:00.000+03:00

I’m done! As we’ve been joking here, I’ve earned my R! (Yes, my R. As in, R-A-B-B-I. It’s a five-year program.) Exam week was it’s usual self: lots of papers to finish, exams to study for, stress to deal with. And I’d like to think I did a good job! In a move that had Debbie trying to excommunicate me from the family, I got all my papers done the week before exams, so that I could study (or not study, as desired). I didn’t have to worry about writing papers, and when my last exam was over Tuesday morning, instead of having to sit down and deal with several papers, I was freeeeeeeee!

Since Tuesday, I’ve been productive of another sort. I’m giving a D’var Torah at a local Reform congregation tonight, which means I agreed to speak in front of native Israelis…in Hebrew. I’m still pondering my agreement to this arrangement, but I’ve been working on it for a while now. Tuesday I met with the rabbi of the congregation, who liked what I had to say and made my Hebrew grammatically correct and understandable. Hooray! And then she told me that I should get it as much almost-memorized as possible. (I’m not sure it’s possible. But I’m not stumbling over words so much any more!) I know I haven’t done it yet, but I’m already proud of myself for doing it. I realized how much more Hebrew I know than I think I know, and how much better I read than I thought. I type in Hebrew without vowels, because that’s how it is here. And my D’var Torah is written that way as well. I wrote them in on the words I stumble over, which averages out to maybe one word per line, and it’s mostly only the first letter or two with a vowel, not the whole word. I think that’s pretty good! I’m proud of me…although I still to practice a dozen more times today.

I’ve also been doing lots of shopping. I decided that the things I’ve been admiring all year should finally be purchased, so I’ve been purchasing, but not going overboard. I’ve bought a beautiful challah cover and necklace, and there are still one or two more things I want to get, so more shopping is in my future. Later today I’m heading to a little crafts fair in Jerusalem that somehow I never make it to. Mainly because it’s on Fridays, when I tend to be fairly crazed.

I’ve also been starting to pack. I’m shipping one big box through HUC, where we paid a flat rate rather than by weight. The weight limit: what the box will hold. My box is almost full now, and not too heavy, I think. I even think my dad would be proud of the packing job. I folded things funny just to fill in cracks and spaces! I suppose maybe I shouldn’t brag about that too much. Dad, let’s just say, you’d be impressed! You taught me well.

Up next: more shopping, cleaning, packing. Add in a few visits to my favorite places in Jerusalem, and that’s basically the plan for the next few days. I can’t believe that this is my last Shabbat here. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely can’t wait to come home! But the goodbyes have started, and every time I do something, I realize it might be my last time doing it here. (Last trip to the supermarket? Not that sad. Last shuk trip? That will make me very sad. Last Shabbat? Not excited about that. Last load of laundry? Can’t wait!)

I can’t believe I’ll be home so incredibly soon. Shabbat shalom, and I’ll see you soon!

Ten Days

2007-05-05T11:12:00.000+03:00

I should confess that since the day in January when I booked my plane ticket home in May, I have had a countdown on my Google homepage. It started at more than 100 days. It seemed like forever. Don’t get me wrong: I’m happy here and this has been a fantastic, educational, eye-opening, growth-filled year. When I first posted it, the countdown was really counting down to when I would be home for the first time in eleven months, when I would see everyone at home again. The countdown was likened to a high fever, a hot day, a beautiful spring day, a cold winter day. Now it’s at ten days. A week and a half. (“Less!” says Michael.) It is still counting down until I see everyone again, but now it’s also counting down my time in Israel in a way it wasn’t before. Lauren and I tried to schedule a fun shopping trip together. There isn’t time. Between my exam schedule and her work and travel schedule, there is no afternoon we can spend together before I leave. I had to go to my favorite Friday night service for the last time last week, because with the other Shabbat activities that were scheduled, there was not time for me to go again after that. It is strange to think that I really did, eventually, adjust to living here, and now I’m doing things for the last time. I cannot wait to come home. But I also know that I will be leaving here with the knowledge that through all its problems and issues, I love Jerusalem and Israel, and I will be back. When I return, it will not be as a tourist looking at things for the first time, but the way I return to Princeton. I will notice everything that has changed, visit all of my favorite places, and try to cram my whole experience of this year into a visit of a few days. I look forward to that challenge. Or, I will, once I’m at home and have given big hugs to everyone I haven’t seen in months, and I realize how much I really do miss life in Israel.

At HUC, we have two dominant topics of conversation right now. One is leaving. We discuss packing progress (none), shopping trips, apartment issues (such as potentially having to cancel internet a few days before leaving), what we’re going to miss, what we’re looking forward to at home. The other is exams. What we’ve finished (all my written work: three papers and an assignment in Hebrew, and my oral Bible exam), what we still have (oral liturgy exam, Hebrew exam, Biblical Grammar exam), when we finish (Tuesday morning!), our studying progress (well, I’m blogging). We had an end of the year ceremony on Thursday, where each teacher and administrator was individually thanked by one student. The presentations were remarkably well done. Most were under a minute, but evoked the relationship we have with our professors and staff here. Most of the presentations shared some memories of time spent together, and all of them were heartfelt thanks to the people who have taught us so much about our religion, our history, our country, ourselves.

Last night we had an HUC community Shabbat, with our own services and dinner. Services were outside on the lawn, and we were literally facing the walls of Jerusalem’s Old City. Every week, anywhere in the world, we pray facing in Jerusalem. In Jerusalem, we face toward the Old City and the Temple Mount. But from inside, anywhere in the city, the old city is not usually visible. But last night, we were literally facing Jerusalem. We watched the sun set over the walls. We sang “Yerushalayim Shel Zahav” (Jerusalem of Gold) and watched the walls turn gold with the setting sun. That view cannot be beat anywhere in the world. After services, we had dinner, also outside. I love that it’s finally (more or less) warm enough and dry enough to plan outdoor events with confidence. We watched a slide show that was put together by a couple of my classmates, showing pictures and video footage of the whole year. Some of the pictures went all the way back to last summer, and we laughed at events that had been forgotten (like Ethan’s attempt at a Kilo Burger) and hairstyles that have changed. We were one community, but in the back of our minds was that we were one community that, by Shabbat next week, is no longer going to be together.

I cannot wait to get back home and have so many reunions with people I have not seen for so long. I am looking forward to all those hugs! But before that, there are the hugs goodbye. There are so many people here who I will have to say goodbye to. Some I will see over the summer or in Cincinnati next fall, but others I will not. Some are staying in Israel, and while I am confident I will see them again, I have no idea when. Some are going to the other HUC campuses, and while we promise to visit and keep in touch, they’re going to be big hugs, because only time will tell when I will next see them again. HUC has been my family this year. We’ve gotten each other through so much. And I’m going to try to have the best last ten days here that I can. Or a productive three-and-a-half until my last exam, and then a great last week.

Shabbat shalom!

High Holidays in April

2007-04-27T09:32:00.000+03:00

I'm going the slightly lazy route this week. The following is what I just submitted to my synagogue newsletter about the recent holidays...

An email went out last week to the entire HUC first year class with a subject line that read “the High Holidays of Israel.” In the email was information about three upcoming holidays, Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day), Yom HaZikaron (Memorial Day), and Yom HaAtzmaut (Independence Day). At the time I thought the subject line was almost inappropriate. It’s a Jewish country! How could anything other than the fall holidays be considered the most important and holy part of the year? And then I noticed that all of a sudden, the Israeli flags on the streets and buildings had multiplied. Hotels had at least a dozen flags across the roof. Cars had flags hanging out the windows. Apartments had flags across the porches. In many of these places, there was a giant (not actually burning) memorial flame as well. And then I realized:

In Israel, these three holidays are the most significant days of the year.

At 10 in the morning on Yom HaShoah, the entire country stops for two minutes. A siren sounds nationwide, and everything stops. Traffic comes to a halt, and drivers turn off their engines, step outside their cars, and stand at attention. Construction workers turn off their incessant jackhammers a minute before, and during the siren, they stand at attention on the tops of unfinished buildings. Tourists marveled at the fact that for two minutes, an entire country mourns, reflects, and thinks. As soon as the siren stops, life resumes. Cars start honking, construction resumes its banging, and the day goes on, but in a different mood. Israel has a lot of survivors and a lot of children of survivors, and some feel that Israel owes its nationhood to the enormous tragedy. Remembering the Holocaust takes center stage for those two minutes, but the feeling continues all day long. Radio stations either play no music or they play sad, slow music. Restaurants and other entertainment venues are closed. There are too many remembrance ceremonies to count. The whole country remembers.

One week later is Yom HaZikaron. The only quality it shares with the American Memorial Day is its name. The day starts, of course, the evening before with a ceremony at the Kotel, the Western Wall. The ceremony starts not with an important speaker trying to quiet the crowd, but with another siren. Two more minutes of silence and memory; from 8:00 until 8:02, the country thinks of the lives lost, the children whose lives were cut short fighting for the right of this state to exist. Once again, businesses are closed and the country remembers, so it certainly is not a big sale day in the stores. This holiday is commemorated with ceremonies at high schools all over the country. At first we were surprised that it was the high schools that hold these ceremonies. And then we realized: citizens enter the army at age 18, within months after high school graduation. Before the army, this was their last community. We attended one of these ceremonies, and visited the memorial hall that was set up to remember this high school’s approximately 138 students who had fought for Israel, from the war for independence to the second Lebanon war this past summer. I have never seen so many high school students so silent.

Yom HaZikaron ends at sundown, and immediately transitions into Yom HaAtzmaut. The entire atmosphere changes. We have respectfully remembered and mourned for those who made this country possible, and then the celebration can commence. And Israelis definitely know how to celebrate their independence. I was at one Jerusalem celebration, an enormous free concert in the middle of downtown. There were teenagers, families with young children, older adults, and everything in between. There were kids with shaving cream walking around spraying. There were enormous inflatable hammers that squeaked when you hit people over the head. There was everyone, dancing, singing, celebrating, watching fireworks. That was just the evening. Everyone has the day off for Yom HaAtzmaut. Some friends of mine organized a barbecue in a big local park. I arrived and had to call to find out where they were; there were so many people barbecuing, picnicking, throwing Frisbees, and just enjoying the holiday that it was hard to find the particular group I was looking for. Yom HaAtzmaut really felt like more of a holiday than the 4^th of July, even though in theory they celebrate similar events. Because of the setup of the calendar, the whole country thinks about the sacrifices that were made for the country, and then seems to appreciate the country that much more.

Happy 59^th Birthday, Israel!

Never Forget

2007-04-20T13:00:00.000+03:00

Has it been another week already?! I am definitely having an internal conflict right now, where I want time to fly until I get home, but I want to drag my feet a little and enjoy the last almost-month here before life intrudes again when I get back home. I like it here, and I miss home a lot. If only I could take my favorite parts (and people!) from both places and combine them…and leave out the stuff (and people?) I don’t get excited about…

Yom Hashoah, Holocaust remembrance day, was on Monday. In Israel, it is taken very seriously. For the 24 hours from Sunday evening until Monday evening, life is different. Radio stations play only sad music, if any at all. Many restaurants and entertainment venues are closed. Television stations mainly cover various Yom HaShoah related events. For a day, the whole country mourns the senseless loss of life. The most amazing part of the day came at 10:00 Monday morning. At school, we were scheduled to have a ceremony starting at 10:05. A couple of minutes before 10, most of us went out the front gate of the school and onto King David Street, a busy street through Jerusalem. At 10:00 precisely, the siren started. A horn-sounding alarm sounded around the country, from 10:00 – 10:02. Everything stops for 2 whole minutes. It seems like an insignificant amount of time, but it does not feel that way. People stop their cars in the middle of the road, and nobody honks at them. Most people that we saw actually stepped out of their cars and stood still for the two minutes, even the taxi drivers. Especially the taxi drivers. One came to a screeching halt in front of HUC when he realized the siren was starting. For once, all construction ceased. I could see construction workers on the top of an unfinished building, just standing there for two minutes. The only people moving, sadly, were the tourists with their cameras. I was not excited about their walking around, taking pictures of the indescribable scene, but I stood there and took in the moment. Two whole minutes of silence, to commemorate 11 million people slaughtered, 6,000,000 Jews. Two whole minutes of what felt like the whole world standing still, standing at attention.

The siren stopped, and I don’t think I could have counted to three before I heard a car honk. Apparently someone took in the moment for a moment too long. Life restarted. Traffic began creeping again. Construction noises overcame the city. But the mood had changed noticeably. We went back inside the gates and sat down in the courtyard for a ceremony with the entire HUC community: American students, Israeli students, faculty, staff, people I had never seen before. The readings were appropriate, there was a surprisingly long reading of names of people related to those in the HUC community, and there were some somber songs. But I do not think that the ceremony would have had the same impact if it had not started with two whole minutes of national silence.

Later that afternoon, we noticed that the day had turned beautiful and sunny, as are an increasing number of days here this spring. My Hebrew class plotted, and when our teacher walked into the room, we asked whether we could have class outside in the sun. Never one to turn down an opportunity to be outside in the fresh air (read: be able to smoke during class), we relocated to my favorite courtyard on campus. Unlike what happens too often with outside-in-the-sun classes, we really worked well, we just also got to enjoy the beautiful day. We read, analyzed, and discussed. I was also impressed by another move by this teacher right after we got outside. She started passing out the poem we were going to read, and we hesitantly mentioned that we had read it in our regular Hebrew class with a different teacher. She shrugged her shoulders, put it away, and pulled out a different poem. Amazingly, we had read that one as well. She hesitated for only a second, and told us to sit tight and she would be right back. She ran up to her office and came back to the courtyard 2 minutes later with another reading: an entire packet on Hatikvah, the national anthem. Of course, we all know this one, but there was a lot more to it than just the song we all know. We compared the original and modern versions of the poem, and various other aspects of the author’s life. I was really impressed at how well she was able to change the plan at the last minute, both relocating the class literally to make us more comfortable and changing the entire lesson plan to adjust to what we had already covered.

Grandma is here! She arrived with her synagogue trip in the middle of last week, and came to Jerusalem on Tuesday, but not before running into two of my classmates at Shabbat dinner in Haifa. (Monica will take this as further proof that I know 10 percent of Jerusalem, and maybe even Israel. I will continue to disagree, except perhaps in a 5 minute walking radius.) I went to do homework in the lobby of the hotel where Grandma’s group was due to arrive, so that I would be there with a hug when they walked in. Since Tuesday, we have gotten to spend some time together and share some of my favorite restaurants. As I’ve said a few times before, it’s always so nice to have someone from home come visit! I feel so much less far away with visitors.

Our Israel seminar this week was Presenting Israel. The idea was that we have been studying here and living here for almost a year, and when we arrive back in the US, we will have to find ways to share what we have learned. We visited the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and saw their Situation Room. There were 5 televisions on the wall, all tuned into different channels. Two of them were showing sports. In the conference room part of the Situation Room (Suite), I had a Dad-moment looking at the clocks. They had a wall with digital clocks and a city name below each one: Los Angeles, Washington, GMT (no cities there?!), Jerusalem, New Delhi, Tokyo, etc. I’m sure I’m missing a few (although I’m also sure there was nothing between LA and DC). I looked up at the 8 or 10 clocks and noticed that in addition to showing lots of time zones, the minutes were not all the same. I stared at them for a whole minute, and found that the ones furthest apart were about 57 seconds apart, and the others were spread out in between. I thought it was funny that in this very serious room in the Ministry, the clocks are apparently set manually. I’m sure it’s a pleasure to adjust for daylight savings, since each country seems to move time on a different day! We also had a speaker from the Shalem Institute talk about conflicts within Israel and how to deal with them. He basically acknowledged that there is an essentially unsolvable paradox in Israeli society.

In between, we were in our classes talking practically about how to teach Israel in the US. One of the most interesting parts of the discussion centered around what to teach. Do we act as ambassadors, discussing only the good parts of Israel and skipping over the problems? Do we talk about how the problems are being solved? Should we compare the problems to things going on at home? We all had different answers. I think that many of Israel’s problems are issues of any modern society: an income gap, minority issues, religion and state. The difference is that because this is Israel, the Jewish state, they also become Jewish issues. If Israel cannot figure out how to make sure that Holocaust survivors are not living in poverty, is that similar to America not taking care of its veterans, or is it a problem of greater Judaism? In giving a speech to a congregation, should we talk about the conflict between Secular and Reform and Orthodox, or pretend that a Jewish state is as ideal as it may sound? It was an interesting discussion, which has clearly generated more questions than answers.

Last night was fun. We had an HUC student-faculty soccer game. The students appeared to have the advantage at first, in both ability and numbers. Then one of the maintenance guys seemed to have called some of his friends, and 5 or 6 young Israelis in soccer jerseys showed up and joined the faculty team. There was no recovery, but there was a lot of fun. It was great to just stand on the sideline and watch and cheer. It was great to see the staff out of their regular roles. The Dean was the faculty goalie. It was fun to hang out with people who I don't often see outside of school. It was a good break. Towards the end, a few students decided to go distract the (reminder: Dean) goalie. They went to stand directly behind his goal and started singing at the top of their lungs. First up: "Echad, mi yodea? Echad, ani yodea...!" It is a very long Passover song, which apparently a lot of people learned all the words to after doing several years' worth of seders in the Former Soviet Union this year! Partway through the song, the students came down the field and scored our first goal. Success!! The cheering was loud, as if we had tied up the score in an important game, rather than making a small dent in the score at a fun activity. It didn't matter. A few minutes later (and after the faculty team scored again), the singers went back behind the goal. They started with "this is the song that never ends..." and moved onto "99 bottles of beer on the wall..." They hadn't made it very far into the song before the student team scored again. I was impressed! After the game a few of us went out for hot chocolate to warm back up. It's spring here, but only during the day! Nights are still pretty chilly.

I looked at my to-do list recently. I think that at this point at least half of it, if I include both the Homework side and the Other Things side, involves things that are oriented toward home. Making appointments for the summer, dealing with my summer job, and settling in Cincinnati (after the summer) have become real priorities, up there with writing three papers and doing my biblical grammar homework. I guess this really is the beginning of the end of the year.

Shabbat shalom!

Marking Time

2007-04-13T10:42:00.000+03:00

Almost two months ago now, we got an email from the HUC administration talking about the upcoming spring and informing us of “the three P's: Purim, Pesach, Packing.” At the time, it seemed silly to simplify the rest of the year to that extent. But then Purim came and went, and we all looked longingly and expectantly toward our Passover break, even though it was almost a month away. And here I am, back from an unbelievable Passover trip, and realizing that my time in Israel is almost done. I won’t say I’m packing yet. Even I don’t start that early, although a lot of my classmates have sent bags home with family members who visited during Pesach. In my opinion, the administration did forget one other P: Papers. Everyone seems to want to get a jump start on final papers this semester, and rumor is that there are a few students who have already finished them. (I’m considering the fact that I have at least vague topic ideas for each of them to be a huge step in the right direction.) But there’s no avoiding the fact that most of us already have one foot on the plane home. Our email balance has shifted from upcoming Israel events to job opportunities near our campuses and information about our new cities. Food purchases are being scaled back in realization of how little time we have left. Shabbat service choices are being made on the basis of how few Friday nights remain before we head home. I noticed at the shuk this morning that the produce season is turning another corner. The citrus, the highlight of my winter, is looking a little pathetic. But I saw a lot of vendors with mini watermelons and honey dew, a few early (expensive!) peaches, and my favorite bakery is selling iced coffee for the first time in months. Summer is just around the corner!

None of this is to say that we’re not fully in Israel for another few weeks. One administrator told some of us that she hopes everyone is really here after Pesach, not just physically (although that would be a nice change) but also mentally. She knows we’re looking forward to returning to the US, but she also wanted to point out that we need to really enjoy the rest of our time here. And as much as I’m now immersed in forms for moving to Cincinnati, interviewing staff for my unit at JCC camp, and counting down the days until I see my family and friends and Target, I’m also trying to take in all the parts of Israel that I’m really going to miss. I realized that due to various events, tonight will be either my last or next-to-last time at my favorite Shabbat evening service in Jerusalem. As I over-filled my shuk cart this morning, I realized that it may have been my last big shopping trip. Clearly I’ll still be buying plenty of food in the next few weeks, but I shouldn’t need to refill on certain things again before I leave. I love my Friday morning shuk trips, even though I’m often barely awake enough to enjoy them, and there is nothing even close in the US.

We came within one page of finishing our big Hebrew verb book yesterday. It seemed really daunting at the beginning of the year. We had a one-day school week, which many of us thought was a little silly, and many people didn’t even bother to show up, but in some ways it gave me a much-needed shove back into reality. Some of the teachers apparently took it easy on their classes yesterday. My teachers didn’t seem to notice that we’ve been off for two weeks. It occurs to me that I do really enjoy most of my classes this year. Some of my teachers are absolutely amazing, and I have been so lucky to have the opportunity to learn from them this year. I’m going to try to soak up as much as I can in the next few weeks, even while I get life in order back home.

Kate and I went to Tel Aviv on Tuesday, partly because I really wanted to get back to their twice-a-week arts fair, and partly because I had to go meet the JCC assistant director, in Israel for Pesach, to sign my summer contract and get a pile of counselor application forms. Michael and I went to the fair in December, but it was rainy and cold, and there were very few tables out. It was packed this week! It was beautiful, warm and sunny outside, and we sometimes had trouble even seeing what they were selling through all the people. But it was great fun, and I got myself a cute necklace, in celebration of spring. Or just because I liked it and Kate convinced me. Oshrat and I met outside a coffee shop. I haven’t sat outside with a cold drink and been comfortable and happy with the weather in way too long. I’ll be doing more of that in the next few weeks. Later in the afternoon, Kate and I found ourselves not too far away from Max Brenner’s chocolate restaurant. We decided it was fate, so we went and got their chocolate fondue. Still delicious! The biggest problem I’ve had with their fondue is that there’s always so much chocolate left over after dipping everything, even the way I dip. (If you can see the color or texture of the original item through the chocolate, you’re not dipping enough.) We decided to ask the waiter whether we could have more fruit. He said it would be 5 shekels. Excited, we paid the $1.25 for a new, big bowl of fruit, and the privilege of eating even more chocolate. Happy and full, we took one of the bumpiest van rides back to Jerusalem I have ever been on.

Wednesday was a lazy work day for me. I did some work, posted lots of pictures, and got some things done. I also realized, around 9:00 at night, that I was still in my pajamas. Oops. I guess everyone needs a day like that sometimes!

Now that my Fridays are longer before Shabbat starts, I’m going to attempt to get something done. (Read: I’m going to the gym.) Shabbat shalom!

Pictures!

2007-04-11T23:12:00.000+03:00

I narrowed down the pictures from the trip as best I could. They are here. Enjoy!

Back in the USSR...

2007-04-11T17:29:00.000+03:00

As promised, a description of my trip follows. It was such an amazing and busy week that it's hard to condense it into a post. Want more details? Just ask. Pictures coming soon.

A quick intro to the important people on my trip:

Josh and Hayley: my HUC travel partners, and awesome trip buddies. We left Israel in the middle of the night, so none of us started on much sleep. All week we put up with each other, calmed each other down, and cheered each other up. Hayley and I roomed together, and she was amazing at putting up with my passionate hatred of the snooze button.

Ilona: our absolutely amazing translator. Ilona is 19, involved in the Progressive Jewish community in Minsk, and studying to be an English teacher. She has an awesome Russian-British accent. She took care of us all week, not laughing too hard as we tried to learn the Russian alphabet and being more patient than I thought possible when reading an entire menu aloud, only to have all but three dishes eliminated because of presence of bread products, pork products, and other offensive foods. She made this trip what it was. We all made a new friend.

For Dad, Belarus by the numbers: (Mom, see below.)

3: Cities visited. I went to Polotsk, a small city of about 80,00 people, then Vitebsk, a good-sized city and apparently the cultural capital of Belarus, and Minsk, the actual capital.

6: Seders I attended during Passover this year. Josh, Hayley, and I led five of them, with Ilona translating.

3: Seders I attended for Netzer kids, ages 14-20. We went to one in each city. We led the first and third, and the middle one was the dinner-theater-seder.

0: Items on the seder plate at the first (Polotsk) Netzer seder. We got creative. What represents karpas? A potato chip, of course. What represents a bone? A pirouette cookie, Passover acceptableness notwithstanding. This seder turned out to be amazing.

4: Haggadot present at two of our seders. They were mine, Josh’s, Hayley’s, and Ilona’s. Not surprisingly, one of these seders also was the one with the empty seder plate.

17: Adorable children encountered. Most were when visiting a kindergarten in Vitebsk, one was a great grandchild at our first seder in Polotsk, and one was a daughter at our second Polotsk seder.

3: Languages spoken at our lunch table in Vitebsk. Ilona’s friend Stas was guiding us around the city. His English was rusty, but his Hebrew was very good. Stas and Ilona spoke in Russian, Stas and me/Josh/Hayley spoke in Hebrew, Ilona and me/Josh/Hayley spoke in English. There was much confusion, but a lot of fun.

25ish: Choruses of Dayenu sung. We sang at five of the six seders, plus in the kindergarten, approximately 4 times in each singing of the song. We didn’t sing during the dinner-theater-seder, although one 16-year-old with an amazing voice did perform several songs, one of them even Passover related.

4: Museums visited. Two were on the history of Polotsk. I didn’t think a big town/small city could have that much history, but apparently, it does. One was the history of Vitebsk. Much bigger city, much less interesting history, but that could be because it was a tiny museum, all in Russian, and after a long morning of playing with kindergartners and visiting a cemetery. The fourth was the Marc Chagall house museum. I think the most exciting part here was that Josh’s grandma grew up on the same street. The museum was interesting and I liked looking at the old photos and drawings, but Josh was disappointed that the rest of the houses on the street no longer existed.

60: Drops of wine spilled out representing the ten plagues. At the dinner-theater-seder, they were followed by the youth group performing an interpretive dance of the plagues to the tune of “Echad Mi Yodea.” Creative? Yes. Impressive? Definitely. Expected? Nope.

1: Differences between American Jewish teenagers and Belarusian Jewish teenagers. That would be the language. In all other ways, we discovered that they’re pretty much the same. That’s always nice to see!

About 30: Sips or cups of wine (actually, usually grape juice). Four per seder, plus the last night in Minsk, when there were lots of toasts to various parts of the trip by the different community leaders.

10.5: Russian words I now know. Yes, no, please, floor (as in, which floor is my room on?), blanket (as in, my room is freezing, can I have an extra blanket?), potato (as in, I think I might turn into a potato after eating so many of them this week), egg (see description of potato), ice cream (actually, I forgot this word. But it seems important, so I’ll get Ilona to reteach me. It has a spider-letter in it.), goodbye, byebye, restaurant (hint: it looks like PECTOPAH), and that’s all I can remember right now.

3-4: Times we were asked how women can be rabbis. The old people were especially pushy on this issue. We were also asked all kinds of questions about the situation in Israel, Reform Judaism, our family histories, and more.

700: Pictures currently on my computer from this trip. Josh and Hayley are both camera-happy, so I generally kept my camera in my bag while they snapped away. Over 300 are Hayley’s, over 300 are Josh’s, and 60 are mine. I’m working on cutting that down to a more reasonable number to post.

For my mom, a super-concise description of the trip, with as few numbers as possible.

Sunday

Ridiculously early morning flight, requiring leaving home in the middle of the night, without sleeping. Sleep on flight. Long layover in Vienna. Arrive in Minsk, have dinner, go to sleep. Scary, militaristic airport.

Monday

Met our translator Ilona. Realized about 5 minutes later that she is awesome. Really early morning bus ride to Polotsk. Bus is 10-passenger van. Bathroom stop: holes in the ground with walls, but modern plumbing the rest of the trip. Arrived in Polotsk, had lunch, led seder for seniors plus one adorable 5-year-old, Diana. We had her “help” with the seder, holding up items as we talked about them, acting out plagues, and generally being adorable. After seder, we went out for dinner, met a few of the Netzer kids who would be at one of tomorrow’s seders, and crashed.

Tuesday

Tour around Polotsk. We saw a couple of small museums, some big churches, and generally a beautiful small city. The river through the city used to be bigger, and this city is where Josh’s relatives got on a boat to head to America many years ago. Another senior seder, but this time with the more secular community. There was another cute kid, but she was 12 and therefore slightly less cute. It was hard to get this group involved. Short matzah-and-chocolate-spread break after seder, then to another one, with the Netzer kids. I was the oldest person in the room. The room wasn’t quite ready for seder; there was a box of matzah, candy, cookies, and soda, an empty seder plate, and no haggadot. We decided this one ended up as possibly our best seder, and definitely the best for thinking on our feet.

Wednesday

Early morning bus to Vitebsk, where Hayley and Josh both have family from. We led another seder for seniors, which also had no haggadot for the 40 or so people there, although everything else was set up beautifully. During the meal several Orthodox students around our age came in, and apparently had been watching our seder. They were on a similar program, and wanted to talk to us and say hello. It was an interesting moment where we couldn’t decide whether to feel the sharing of community or very checked up on. We also visited the Chagall House museum, on the street where Josh’s grandma used to live, although only that one house has been preserved; the rest of the ghetto was destroyed.

Thursday

We visited the kindergarten of the Progressive Jewish community, about 15 adorable kids from ages 3-7. We sang songs, danced, and made paper towel tye-dye afikomen covers with crayons and food coloring. From one extreme to the other: after kindergarten, we visited the Jewish cemetery. There was no record of anyone from Josh’s or Hayley’s families, probably because the cemetery was in awful condition. Many of the older gravestones couldn’t be read, and those that could were in Yiddish. The newer ones were in Russian. Hayley found one headstone/monument that turns out to probably be a family member. We said kaddish together. That night was the dinner-theater-seder. The Netzer kids put on a dramatic seder where we were mostly spectators, with a couple of parts that they had given us to explain things. There were about 75 people there. The kids did an interpretive dance of the ten plagues. There was a teenage singer who was fantastic. There was a dance party afterwards. The idea was to get the parents involved as well as the kids, but its unclear how well that worked. It was definitely entertaining though!

Friday

Pre-dawn train to Minsk, in a sleeper cabin, where we slept the whole way. Snow in Vitebsk before we left, sunny in Minsk. We met up with the other Belarus groups, and we were all on such emotional highs from the week. In the afternoon, we toured around Minsk with Ilona and saw lots of gorgeous buildings and an amazing park. In the evening, instead of Shabbat services we had yet another seder, with the Minsk Netzer group which is also Ilona’s community. They were incredibly well-prepared for us, and I thought it was the best seder meal of the trip. We played seder-bingo and had an afikomen hunt reminiscent of those at Herb’s house. There were at least three of them by the end, and I think more that were never found. Later that night we went on a night tour to the monument for all the fallen soldiers of WWII.

Saturday

We started at the holocaust memorial, a small area of a mass grave which now also has a small memorial. We were there with the rabbi and some members of the community. Then we went to services, which were familiar at times, and different at times. The afternoon was free, and we did lots of just walking around and seeing the sites. In the evening we had a cantorial concert with area cantors and HUC student Melanie performing beautifully! We then had a closing dinner, in a religious school classroom, where different community members thanked us for everything we had done, and we all went around and told assorted stories and meaningful experiences. Later that night me, Josh, Hayley, Ilona, and a friend of Ilona’s had an ice cream party in one of our hotel rooms.

Sunday

We relaxed all morning, and then ten minutes before heading to the airport, Ilona surprised us by showing up to say goodbye! It was so nice that she made the effort to come back for one more hug, because we really had such a great time with her, and it would not have been the same trip without her. Then we spent way too long at the Minsk airport, flew to Vienna and met back up with groups from Ukraine and St. Petersburg, and flew back to Tel Aviv, arriving in the middle of the night. We were all somewhat relieved to be back in Israel, and shocked to realize how little time we have left here.

Throughout the trip, there were zillions of conversations with Ilona and some of her friends about differences between life in Belarus and in America (and Israel). We talked about schooling, relationships, communism, government, television, and so much more. Between these conversations and all the questions from the community members, we covered a lot of pretty deep ground!

Whew! That’s as short a summary as I can do. I’m working on narrowing down the pictures too, and hopefully tonight they’ll be up as well!

Grandma: safe travels and I’ll see you in a few days!! Everyone else...I'll be home in less than 5 weeks! Wow.

I'm BACK!

2007-04-10T00:19:00.000+03:00

I'm back from an absolutely amazing trip to Belarus. I promise that once I can cut down the 40 pages of journal and 700 pictures to a slightly more reasonable length and number, I will post lots of stories and pictures! For now, know that I'm back in Jerusalem safe and sound with an amazing week behind me that I will never forget. I know that's a lame tease of a post, but...you're just going to have to wait.

Freedom!

2007-03-30T12:08:00.000+03:00

Another whirlwind week, but now I’m on vacation…for two weeks! There are most definitely perks to a Jewish school!

A fun fact I learned this week, in my ongoing amusement with the Hebrew language: the word for “tie.” (As in, Israel and England played their soccer game to an exciting 0-0 tie.) The word for that outcome is “teekav.” I know that doesn’t seem that amusing. But you might remember that I have previously laughed at this country for pronouncing their abbreviations. It turns out that teekav is an abbreviation, for the phrase “Tishbi y’taref koshiot v’she’eilot.” Meaning, “Elijah (the Tishbite, as you might recognize from the Havdalah song) will decide difficulties and questions.” That’s right. It doesn’t get much less religious than international soccer, unless you consider it a religion unto itself, but nonetheless the word for an equal outcome has incredibly religious overtones. I’d be curious to know how many Israelis know that the word is an abbreviation, and what it really means.

This past Tuesday turned out to be our last week visiting our Ethiopian family. We realized that our Tuesdays for the rest of the year are quite limited, with two off for Passover, and another off for Yom Ha’atzmaut, Israeli Independence Day, another HUC program the next Tuesday, and then exams! We decided that the rest of our Tuesdays would be so interrupted that it would be better to finish before Passover. I do not think any of us realized how hard it would be to say goodbye! It was really sad to say goodbye to this family who we have gotten to know and spent so much time with this year. It was also hard, because we aren’t sure that all of them understood that we are not coming back. Karen took a bunch of pictures the last night, and once they are posted, I’ll pass them along.

I felt my Hebrew improving somewhat, but this week was still stressful. I had three papers to get turned in before Passover break. All three of them had to be written in Hebrew. None of them were long papers; I think they ranged from 250 to 500 words. Nonetheless, they took me a long time! Among other things, I learned that my spelling is fairly atrocious. Happily, I got a Hebrew word processing program, so that I no longer have to handwrite, edit by hand, and rewrite. Even better is that the program is for English speakers, so all of the menus are in English, and there is a Hebrew-English dictionary built in. Needless to say, my Hebrew typing is rather slow. That’s pretty frustrating, but after typing so much in the last week, I’m getting a little better. I got confused when I was typing in Hebrew, and then someone would IM me, and I would be typing in English, and then going back to the Hebrew, where the letters are in completely different places. I prefer the speed of typing in English.

Wednesday we had our weekly Israel Seminar. We started with a somewhat depressing speaker who discussed the value of the contact theory. She basically told us that the idea that Arab and Israeli or Jewish groups spending time together will eventually bring peace has not proven even a little bit true, and that for even a little bit of progress, the groups need to spend huge, ongoing amounts of time together, for at least a year. After the speaker, we had a group of Arab women who came to the school to meet with us, of course. About a month and a half ago, we visited the Arab village of Baka al Garbyiah and met with students there. This week, they returned the favor and came to our campus. Apparently HUC goes to visit them every year, but this year was the first time that a return visit was arranged. A couple of groups met with the same people as last time, but most of us were in different groups with different people. Last time, we were explicitly told to ask hard questions and really ask about one another’s political opinions and takes on issues. This week, we were given no such instructions, so most groups did not really get there. We had a great time! My group was four HUC students and two Baka students, Fatima and Iman. Both of them were religious, wearing head scarves and full length dresses, so many of our questions were about religious differences. We took a walk through a pretty neighborhood, sat in a park, and when we got cold, went to a coffee shop. Among other things, they told us that they only dress in this fashion when they are out in public. At home, “we dress like you, without the scarves, and in jeans.” That was so interesting to hear! They also passed around pictures on their cell phones of themselves without the headscarves, when the one guy in our group went to the bathroom. It’s apparently not a problem for any woman to see them that way, only men, so they wanted to share the pictures with us. They also said that any discrimination against women does not come from religion, but rather from tradition. The women have their place in their culture, and it is not mandated by religion, but it is very deeply entrenched in their culture. They are Israeli, with Israeli citizenship and passports. I asked one of them while we were walking about identity. Did she consider herself Israeli, Arab, Palestinian, or a combination? She sees herself as an Arab who lives in Israel. She loves this country. It is her home. We also talked about relationships, kissing boys (only in private, and only after engagement), family (one of them is one of eleven siblings!), and lots of other things. It really felt like an afternoon of getting to know new friends, and was definitely a highlight of the Israel Seminar program! We all exchanged email addresses and hugs before they got back on their bus.

Everyone in Jerusalem is now deep into Pesach cleaning. A lot of kosher restaurants will close for Shabbat tonight, and reopen on Passover, with newly cleaned kosher for Passover kitchens and menus. Even the bakery where I bought my challah this morning is cleaning out for Passover. Apparently they do kosher for Passover baked goods! The challah and other bread products were all being sold from a table outside the door to the bakery. Inside there was a lot of cleaning going on.

I’m on vacation! We had daylight savings last night, and finally sprung our hour forward, so I'm back to being 7 hours ahead of the east coast. The weird part about daylight savings here is that you lose an hour of sleep, but really do gain an hour of day, and with the clocks changing on a Thursday night, I already feel it. The day is an hour longer, which means that Shabbat starts an hour later. Because all the synagogues here really start Shabbat services around sundown, service times change every week. I start an hour later today, so all of a sudden my short Friday afternoons have stretched out, and I'll be back to having a long afternoon, snack before services, and dinner at 8:30 or 9. I'm excited! I promise lots of stories and pictures when I return from my Passover adventure!

Hebrew Table

2007-03-24T11:20:00.000+02:00

Back to back posts! I guess that by this point in the year you should know that that means one of two things. Either I have something really interesting that happened, and I don’t want to wait almost a week to write about it, or I have a lot of work to do and I don’t feel like doing it. In this case, it’s both.

For Shabbat dinner last night, I was invited to my friend Kim’s house. She warned me that it might be a Hebrew-heavy dinner. I’m not sure I fully grasped that idea. I arrived, and was greeted (in English) by Kim, her boyfriend, who is also in Jerusalem on an American program studying to be a rabbi, and a friend of hers from a college year abroad in Israel program. The friend made aliyah several years ago and now lives in Israel. We spoke in English, and I doubted Kim’s warning a little bit. Then the next guests showed up, two friends of Kim’s boyfriend from his summer ulpan. They came in and we introduced ourselves in Hebrew. That was the end of speaking English. They are studying to be ministers, and I was impressed with the breadth of their Jewish knowledge. Another friend from Kim’s boyfriend’s classes came a few minutes later. It turns out that these three friends were from Switzerland and Germany, and also studying here for the year. I never found out whether they spoke English well or not, but I’m guessing not. Hebrew was the common language, so that was the language used throughout the evening. Conversation flowed pretty freely, with some fumbling for words on all parts, some laughing corrections of grammar on all parts, and lots of patience, especially by the friend who has lived here for years and is really fluent in Hebrew. There was no sense of awkwardness that we were holding an entire evening in what was a foreign language for every single one of us. Even when Kim and I spoke to each other in our own conversation, we spoke in Hebrew, probably partly out of respect for the company, and partly because it is hard to switch back and forth! Either way, we never mentioned that we were speaking to each other in Hebrew; it just happened that way! We covered all topics. We tried to solve the peace process. We talked about families. We discussed our programs and classes in Israel. We talked about food. It was a typical Shabbat dinner, aside from the Hebrew thing. I was almost home when I realized that I was still thinking, more or less, in Hebrew.

Shabbat shalom!

Exhaustion

2007-03-23T10:37:00.001+02:00

This week pretty much tired me out. I even skipped my early morning shuk trip this week for some extra sleep! (Well that, and I’m going away soon, so I decided I would finish what’s already in my kitchen instead of buying more this week.)

Sunday morning started the week with a celebratory sendoff. The annual Ride for Reform began that morning, and we sent off about 55 people who were going to bike the country spreading knowledge and raising money for the reform movement in Israel. 6 HUC students from my class participated, some Israelis, some older HUC students who came back for the week, and some rabbis and other people who flew in from the states. We sang some songs, blessed them, had a cute ceremony with the kindergartners, and went outside the gate to cheer them as they got on their bikes and started down the hill, en route to the first day’s destination, the Dead Sea. Unfortunately for them, the Dead Sea is the lowest place on Earth. Which means that much of the rest of their trip (which ended Thursday in Haifa) was uphill. It sounds like it was an amazing experience, and I look forward to hearing stories and seeing pictures from my friends who rode!

Tuesday afternoon, I had a meeting with one of my professors. We talked for about a half an hour, and the entire meeting was in Hebrew! Somehow now that I’m less than eight weeks from coming home (!), the Hebrew is really starting to come together. I’m getting more comfortable speaking it, marginally better at understand it, and I’m a big fan of that. One day this week in Hebrew class, we had very few people there. (Ok, that’s not quite accurate. For most of the week, there was fairly pathetic attendance.) On this one particular day, it just happened that the mix of people who showed up was the quieter people in the class. I loved it. It meant that we all really spoke a lot more than usual, and it was a nice change. I do like my whole class, but sometimes just having a small intimate class (I think there were six of 12 that day) can be a great change of pace.

Tuesday night I got to have dinner with Melissa, a friend from college, who was here on about a 4-day trip for work. It’s always nice to catch up with people from home, and I haven’t had any visitors for a month, so that was fun too. I’m looking forward to one more visitor in about a month!

Wednesday’s Israel Seminar this week was about the Israeli Knesset, their parliament. The Israeli government, in addition to all of the issues going on right now, is just structured very weirdly. There are 120 seats, and they is proportional representation, so a party who gains five percent of the vote across the country will get something like 5ish seats. The big parties these days have somewhere around 15-30 seats, which means parties have to work together to get anything done. It’s a very different and weird system. At the beginning of a term, the party with the most seats has to make a coalition, gathering other parties with not-too-different ideas to agree to mostly vote as a block. The coalition has to be formed, with at least 61 seats, before the government can do anything, and then that coalition tries to basically push through as much legislation as possible. Except that it’s still made up of all different parties, so often one party gets upset about something and leaves the coalition, and they have to scramble to make a new one all over again, or there have to be new national elections. Like I said, it’s a crazy system. To learn the system, we had mock-coalition building. We were assigned to parties, did research, and when we started the simulation, we were told the election results and set about making coalitions. It was pretty intense in the room, with everyone getting into their roles pretty quickly. There was eye rolling at presentation of agenda, complaints of back stabbing, and marginalization of fringe parties. Ultimately, we formed the scariest coalition possible, an extreme right-wing collection of parties which included all of the religious parties. I was part of one of those. It was fun, but we were all a little terrified of what would happen to Israel if that coalition really happened.

Last night, to end the week, I got together with a couple of friends. We made mom’s recipe macaroni and cheese, which came out good, if a little weird, given that there’s no such thing as good cheddar in this country. We sat and talked for a while, and then went out for a good, rich, chocolatey dessert. A good night!

Up this weekend: a Hebrew-speaking Shabbat dinner that I was invited to and am a little terrified of, but excited about, and lots of homework. Somehow I have three essays due this week. All three are supposed to be in Hebrew. Sigh. But…Four more days of school, and then I’m on a two-week Passover vacation! Belarus is just over a week away! Wow.

Another important thing: Happy birthday, Grandma! A big birthday hug in less than a month!

Surprise Understanding

2007-03-15T20:42:00.000+02:00

Isn’t it nice when things just come together? My Hebrew teacher decided that it would be fun this week to bring in one of the students from the Israeli rabbinic program and let us “interview” him. It turned out to be someone who had run a program for us over the summer and who we had all met at least once or twice, which was nice. The even better part was that he was a native Israeli (and therefore inherently harder to understand) and not a teacher (and therefore not accustomed to speaking at a lower level or more slowly) and I understood a good eighty percent of what he said! I realize that he was trying to slow down somewhat for us, but by the end, he was excited about what he was saying, and he sped up a lot. And I still caught it! The next day the news on the radio kicked my butt yet again, but I’m sure that comprehending a real live Israeli must mean something. It did for me, at least!

Tuesday I gave a Hebrew presentation. Our teacher basically wants us to prepare a short speech, and then lead into a class discussion. They usually relate to something Jewish, because we’ve all realized at this point in the year that those are the topics that are going to get the class talking. The exciting part was that when I get my every-other-weekly essays back, they’re generally covered in red (or green or blue) ink. But when I finished the speechy part of my presentation, she told me I had done a great job! And Hannah doesn’t really dish out the praise so easily. So that was two points for Hebrew class this week.

Wednesday’s Israel seminar was a good one, talking about women’s issues in Israel. At this point in the year we’re all a little burnt out on the seminar, so it’s great that they found another good topic and a set of good speakers/visits. We first had a guest speaker from the Israeli Religious Action Center. (The center has the unfortunate acronym IRAC. Israelis pronounce acronyms as if they are words. It sounds a lot like a less-than-neighborly country in the area.) She was a great speaker. She talked about the place of women in the country, how they are treated, and about what would be expected, but she was incredibly engaging. One of the things she discussed was the group “women of the wall,” which is a group of women that has been struggling for years to be allowed to pray aloud, wear tallit and kippot, and read Torah at the Western Wall. Because it is an area controlled by the Orthodox, this is incredibly not-allowed, and it has been a fight. She described the current state of affairs as not so bad though. The group meets once a month, to pray really early in the morning at each new month. She said the police officer who watches them said that they can wear a kippah if it is one that resembles more of a hat, so they wear their giant kippot. They can wear their tallitot if they wrap them around more like scarves, so they do. And the group gets together to pray as proud women once a month. Unfortunately, a friend of mine has been going with this group, and she said afterwards that it is not quite how it was described. She said that anyone wearing a tallit wears a jacket on top, and that prayers are spoken incredibly quietly, as if whispering, with women huddled together and constantly looking around them to make sure they are safe. I agree with the group’s message, but it sounds that they are not having the most positive experience, and because they do everything they can to avoid conflict, one wonders whether anyone outside the group knows that they are there, and whether that spreads their message at all.

After the speaker, we split up to go to different sites to talk about more specific women’s groups. I headed to an organization that deals with issues of Jewish divorce in Israel. The problem, of course, is that issues of personal status (marriage and death being the big ones) are controlled by the ultra-orthodox rabbinate. Therefore, they decide who is Jewish. They also decide who can get a Jewish divorce. If there is no religious divorce, the couple is considered still married. Under Jewish law, neither part of the couple can get married again, but the man can father other children and carry on with his life anyway, whereas if the woman is with another man, she is committing adultery. The related problem is that men control who can get a divorce. A man can basically refuse to divorce his wife so that he does not have to give her any financial support. If the issue goes to court, it goes to rabbinical court, which is, of course, all men. All very conservative men who don’t like divorce, who don’t like to push other men to get divorced, and who don’t seem to have much respect for these women. We watched video footage of a rabbinical court telling a woman that the physical abuse she was receiving must not be that bad, or that while her husband had threatened her with a knife, he never did anything with it. It wasn’t a pretty movie. It’s not a pretty situation.

Earlier in the week, we had beautiful weather. It was in the 60s and 70s and beautiful. I was warm outside! I had my windows open! I was psyched that it was spring. Apparently I was wrong. This morning, before I had even gotten toothpaste onto my toothbrush, my roommate Karen was knocking on the bathroom door. “Jessica! It’s snowing!!” She did forget one vital step in the get-excited-about-snow procedure though: she hadn’t checked email to find out whether we still had school. Sigh, we did. The snow was beautiful, though, as I was looking out my window getting ready for school. It was less beautiful as it turned to a sleety mess just in time to walk through it. It continued changing from snow to sleet to rain to snow to random bursts of sunshine and back to rainy grossness all day long. It’s still going. It’s supposed to keep going, on and off, until about Sunday. I’m hoping this is Israel getting the last bit of rain out of its system until the fall. I understand the same weather pattern (beautifully and amazingly warm and sunny, followed by cold-rainy-wintry-gross) is about to turn on the east coast. Stay inside. Also, in the spirit of spring that I was feeling a few days ago, I posted some pictures of Israel looking springlike. The flowers don't look as pretty surrounded by slush.

Talk to you soon!

Vegetableier?

2007-03-10T23:03:00.000+02:00

It’s Saturday night, and I go back to school tomorrow morning. Thinking back, I had a really good weekend! With Purim, I only had a three-day week, which is always nice.

Wednesday’s Israel seminar had an unexpected highlight. We were talking about poverty and food insecurity (a fancy word for hunger) in Israel and how it is approached in current times. There are so many more NGOs in this country than one might expect of a teeny country. I don’t remember the exact statistic, but it is something like a ratio of one per 200 people or so. There are a lot. It is partly because there are so many religious institutions, but it is also a reaction from the country’s socialist founding. In any case, we were looking at different approaches to poverty and more specifically food insecurity. We saw several different solutions: forming NGOs to address the problem, trying to solve the problem from the top, making it go away completely, and treating the symptoms, giving people food so that they are not hungry today. One place we visited was a private high school that runs a soup kitchen. The two high school seniors who spoke to us were quite possibly the most well-spoken teenagers I have ever seen, and their English was fairly amazing. It’s a safe bet that my Hebrew will never be that good. I think many of us were more interested in their school than in the soup kitchen. It is a religious school, but somewhat open: there are both religious and secular students who attend the school. The students (both wearing jeans) told us that they must attend services every day, but that they do not have to pray. They study Jewish topics, in mixed-gender classes, but being religious is not forced on them. They focus strongly on community service. We were intrigued. It sounds like a school we could visit as a study in its own right, rather than just as a sidebar on the study of a bigger topic.

Friday morning I broke one of my own rules. I tend to stay out of the Old City on Fridays. It is more crowded, because it is Islam’s day of gathering, similar to our Shabbat. But one of my classmates organized a tour of Christian sites, given by the director of the NFTY in Israel program, who recently earned his tour guide license. I decided that these are sites I would love to visit, and should visit with a tour guide because I don’t know them at all. So I went. About a dozen of us met in front of HUC, groggy, and started the day. (Well, technically my day had begun two hours earlier when I left for the shuk and supermarket. But I was still tired.) First fun fact of the day: in Israel, tour guides must be licensed. I knew that. But apparently, especially in the Old City, some Powers that Be walk around looking for guides who are guiding but not licensed. They can get in trouble. Guiding is serious business around here. We went first to a Russian church that apparently was the original entrance to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. With various natural disasters, wars, and history in Jerusalem over a couple of thousand years, the church has been destroyed and rebuilt a few times, and one of them turned the church’s entrance around completely. After that, we visited a Protestant church, but we really just went to the courtyard. The point was to differentiate between the incredibly ornate, graphic depictions in one church and the beautiful, quiet spaces in another. Then we walked to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. (All three were within 5 minutes of one another.) This is the site believed by most branches of Christianity (Protestants excluded) to be the spot where Jesus was crucified, buried, and risen. There has been a church of one kind or another on the site since around the mid-300s, although much of the current structure is “only” about a thousand years old, from around the time of the Crusaders. The church is fascinating. I had visited with Monica, but we really didn’t know what we were looking at, and it was nice to go with a guide. It was also a Friday though, apparently the day that Jesus died, and a popular day for pilgrimages. It was packed. The church itself is owned jointly (and in pieces) by all different sects of Christianity, many of which don’t largely exist in America: Catholic, Orthodox, Coptic (Egyptian), Ethiopian, and I don’t remember what else. The groups don’t always get along. In order to change anything, all the groups have to agree. There are numerous stories or legends about ladders that haven’t moved, light bulbs that haven’t been changed, and repairs that haven’t been made, simply because the groups cannot agree on who should do it. The building is amazing. Having visited so many synagogues, there are some aspects that are similar, like the hanging lamps. Those make sense from a time before electricity. But the figures and paintings and human images in a space of worship are incredibly foreign to me, and especially noticeable in a place like this one.

After our morning of church, the student who had organized the tour was heading to his favorite hummus place in Jerusalem, in the Muslim Quarter, on the Via Delarosa. A few of us went along for the experience…and food! It was delicious. It was a place where you tell the waiter more or less what you want (in a mix of Hebrew, English, and a few words of Arabic that Jon knew): falafel, kibbeh, and hummus. There are five of us. The waiter brought out the food a few minutes later, and a few minutes after that, it was demolished. It was fabulous. We also looked around when we finished. When we arrived at lunch, the restaurant was fairly empty. But if you measure restaurant quality by the number of locals who eat there, this one certainly rated highly; it was completely full when we left. We realized that the noon Muslim service must have ended while we were eating, and then everyone came in for lunch. I was full and ready for an afternoon of cooking…

Amy and Mary, two of my classmates, really like the cook Rachel Ray, and Amy has a stack of her magazines here in our apartment. They decided to have “Rachel Ray Shabbat,” where everyone coming to dinner would be given a different Rachel Ray recipe to cook. It was happening at my apartment; I decided to join the fun. I made “not-zagna,” which was basically lasagna ingredients (including a béchamel sauce!) but with regular noodles in a bowl, not layered in a lasagna. It was more vegetabley than I ever make, but it came out delicious. [For the record, Microsoft Word would prefer “vegetableier” instead of “more vegetabley.”] The rest of the meal was also impressively good. Everything was a fancier dish than most of us would normally make (fennel salad, salmon in a complicated sauce, squash and ricotta pizza, individual cakes with chocolate sauce and crushed candy topping…), but everything was delicious. I spent the afternoon in the kitchen with my roommates, who were also cooking for this dinner, and it was a lot of fun. And now I have leftovers for the week!

Today was a good Shabbat. I did lots of nothing in the morning, a little work in the afternoon, and then went to a wine/cheese/havdalah afternoon hosted by two visiting rabbis. It was a fun break to hang out with friends, catch up, and eat lots of delicious cheese. I made it a point to try each and every one of the cheeses. I still haven’t met a cheese I didn’t like. An afternoon/evening well spent! I then went out for dinner with a few friends, which I have decided I like doing on Saturday evenings before school on Sunday. (Equivalent: Sunday night dinner out at home.) It’s a nice way to stretch the weekend out a little before going back to the craziness of the week. And a great way to put off the last bit of homework just a little longer!

On that note, I need to go to sleep so that I don’t start the week too sleep deprived. Shavuah tov, have a good week!

Another Novel: Frustration and Fun

2007-03-05T13:37:00.000+02:00

I’m on Day Four of my four-day weekend, and I’m going to be a little sad to see it end. But it has definitely given me much-needed time to catch up on sleep, work, blogging, and me-time. I think it might have given me the energy for the next push: make it to Passover. I’m going to Belarus in less than a month! Time is definitely flying. But not to get ahead of myself, the last week.

I had been saying for over a month that if I could make it to March, I would be fine. Regardless of number of days, February was a long month for us at HUC. The trip south was absolutely amazing and a great break, but we got back to one last week of complete craziness before things appear that they are going to calm down a bit. The trip south was incredibly relaxing, but it left us returning to school Sunday morning without a productive weekend. None of us had had any downtime or self-time for over a week, and that was going to become a problem.

Monday afternoon and evening HUC had committed all of the rabbinic students to attend a United Jewish Communities (UJC) program and dinner. As of Monday morning, we still knew nothing about the program except that it would run from 2:30 until 9, leaving us very little time to get anything done. During our class service Monday morning, someone asked for details on the program. The unsatisfactory answer told us about some of the work of the UJC, which was nice, but still told us nothing about what we would be doing for 7 hours later in the day. So we met on the HUC steps that afternoon with no clue what was in store for us. We walked over to the UJC building and took our seats, learning for the first time that we would be joined by students from other American seminaries in Jerusalem, including Conservative, Orthodox, and Reconstructionist students. After they arrived, we were spoken to for a while about the work of the UJC. They consider themselves to be a pluralistic organization that works with the different streams of Judaism and does a lot of philanthropy and outreach. It sounded like they raise a lot of money, much of it from rabbis, which was why they wanted to talk to us and make sure that UJC was on our minds from before we have money to give. They do a lot of good with their money. The talk was not particularly exciting, but we did get the impression that they were a positive organization.

After the talk, we were divided into three groups to go visit sites in Jerusalem that receive UJC money. One group went to see work an organization has done to make Jerusalem more handicapped-accessible, and it sounded like a worthy project. One group went to an absorption center to see what they do to make the process of moving to Israel easier, which also seemed like a good project. The group I was in went to learn about an organization that coordinates conversions for immigrants who are in the army. I had no opinion going in. It seemed like a weird program, but I didn’t know what to expect. We piled into an auditorium, and the facilitator started telling us about the program. Soldiers who have immigrated to Israel and want to convert are permitted to complete this course while they are in the army. It is an intensive process, they take time out of their service to do it, and they are never coerced. The conversion is through army rabbis, so while it is an orthodox conversion, they told us, it is significantly easier than converting in Israel outside the army. No red flags yet. The facilitator then told us about one of the graduates of the program. He told us to think about the movie “Schindler’s List” (which I still haven’t seen) and specifically, the scene near the end where two survivors get married at a concentration camp. This couple’s granddaughter, he told us proudly, is a graduate of this conversion program. SPROING! Red flag. He was telling us, with pride, that the granddaughter of two holocaust survivors converted to Judaism?! I immediately realized that I would hate the rest of the program. I tried not to hold it against the program itself that there were Jews being converted to Judaism, because Israeli law is Orthodox Judaism’s law, that Judaism can pass only through the mother, not the father. (In the Bible, it passes only through the father. Hence, Reform Judaism recognizes the Judaism of both parents. If either parent is Jewish, Jewish child!) They brought in a group of soldiers who were nearing completion of the program as a panel to answer our questions. As they were telling us about themselves, and soldier after soldier was telling about his or her Jewish upbringing, Jewish father, non-Jewish mother, I got upset. I hated this country for telling these kids that they were not Jews. I knew that I should not be upset with the UJC for supporting a program that tries to make the conversion process easier in Israel, and for going along with (ridiculous) Israeli law. Then the soldiers kept talking. We had been told that this conversion included information about all streams of Judaism, not just orthodoxy. Then we heard the soldiers speak. When asked about different streams of Judaism, one of them answered that although he grew up as a conservative Jew, he now sees Reform and Conservative Judaism as less legitimate forms of Judaism. When asked about the pluralistic nature of the program, one soldier answered that it was definitely pluralistic. Going into the process, he thought there was only one way to be an Orthodox Jew. Now that he was almost done with the course, he realized that there were many different types of Orthodox Judaism. Needless to say, the HUC students did not leave this part of the program very happy. But it was only about 6:00 and we had another few hours to go.

We were put on a bus to go to Yeshiva University, the Orthodox school, who was hosting us for dinner. We had already been told quietly that there would be an evening service, and there would only be a service with separate seating for men and women, not one with mixed seating as we pray in the Reform and Conservative movements. Well after the conversion program we had just experienced, that was definitely unacceptable. We arrived at YU before the other two buses, and were told that there was time for an evening service for anyone who wanted to pray, with instructions to head to the sanctuary with its separated seating. A group from HUC and JTS (Conservative) immediately decided we were having a mixed service in some way. To her great credit, a wife of one of the YU students went into the women’s side of their sanctuary and borrowed a big stack of prayer books for our service. We looked for a place to pray together, and we were told that we could not, under any circumstances, have a mixed-seating service in their building. Feeling incredibly welcomed and embraced, we shrugged, took the prayer books, and went outside. It was dark and raining. But we were not welcome to pray in our way inside, so they left us no other choice. We prayed outside in the dark, in the rain. As a reminder, this was a program that was supposed to bring us all together. Oops.

Around the dinner table, things improved somewhat. We were sitting with people from each of the schools, and we had pleasant enough conversation, once we all realized that we should stay away from topics with religious significance. A rabbi from YU got up to welcome us to their school. It was a little late for that, but a nice effort. Except that he wanted to extend a warm welcome to the “future spiritual leaders” of the Jewish community. A not-so-subtle reminder that not only was our prayer not welcome in their building, but he would also not recognize us as future rabbis. Needless to say, it was not a positive day or a positive introduction to the UJC.

The next day, I had made an appointment with the rabbi (and HUC alum) who ran the program the day before. I was so angry with the whole thing that I wanted to talk to him. It was an interesting meeting, but I can’t say I was entirely satisfied. He did say that the program would not be held at YU again, and that next year, there would be a space for different types of prayer. I still do not know why nobody thought of that before this year’s program. He tried his best to defend the conversion program, saying that he had talked to some soldiers in the program as well, and that they were not as extreme as what we had seen. Unfortunately, he also talked to people who were much earlier on in the program than the group we spoke with, which may account for the major differences. He defended the program as supporting an easier conversion in Israel, even if it was not perfect. (Perfect was his word.) I disagree. Why should money from a pluralistic organization go to fund Orthodox conversions, even if they are somewhat easier Orthodox conversions? Why couldn’t that money go to an organization working to change Israeli conversion? There was, and still is, ongoing conversation at HUC about this UJC program, and the fact that it may have sparked in us the opposite of what was intended. The UJC has a long way to go with our class.

Our Wednesday Israel Seminar was not particularly notable, but it was long. They took us to Tel Aviv to see how art shows impressions and definitions of a country and community. It was an interesting premise, but we spent far too long in the first museum, we were given an hour-long coffee break, and then went to another gallery late in the afternoon. Many of us felt that there was not nearly enough content in a day that stretched into the evening, when many of us were already feeling low on time and energy.

But I made it to March! Reward: Purim. As with many of the other holidays, Purim in Jerusalem is something completely different. To begin with, it is a day longer in Jerusalem than anywhere else in the world. (Jerusalem is a walled city. See the book of Esther, chapter 9, for the explanation.) So our Purim stretched out, and today is actually the extra day, Shushan Purim. The megillah reading was Sunday night, not Saturday night as it was in the rest of the world. But that did not stop people from celebrating early. Thursday night, the beginning of our weekend, there were already people out in costume. Saturday night, there was more of the same. And last night we were celebrating as well. We had a megillah reading at HUC, which was great. People really got into it and dressed up, and Phil and Josh did an amazing job of combining the service with the ridiculousness of Purim. A bunch of students learned the Esther trope to chant the megillah, and I was impressed as always. The megillah has a weird tune that doesn’t seem easy to learn. After the reading, HUC had a falafel dinner waiting for us, and then a Purim Shpeil, which was basically a series of skits about HUC not really relating to Purim at all. It was hilarious and so much fun. Highlight: footage of a lot of people taking turns pretending to be Seema, a professor with many notable mannerisms and a great sense of humor. She was there, and laughing hysterically the whole time as people imitated her ever-present unlit cigarette, the strong pronunciation of certain letters, and her ability to write on the white board and erase what’s coming at the same time. It was a lot of fun. Afterwards many of us went out to a bar to continue celebrating. I haven’t been out that much this year, but it was a great change of pace, and so much fun to see my classmates in a completely different setting.

Today: relishing my last day of freedom before going back to school tomorrow. That means doing the homework I have been putting off for a few days. And laundry. And other fun activities. I guess I should get started.

Also, pictures of my parents’ trip are posted here. Everything except “fall pictures,” which were a treat for me, are from their trip here. Enjoy!

South

2007-03-03T13:43:00.000+02:00

I am way behind here. Michal and Mara have been on my case. (We motivate each other. Michal even dedicated one blog to me and Mara after we bugged her about not updating!) But…I am on a 4-day weekend, so get ready to read a lot. I’ll try to keep posts to short-novel length, so there should be at least a couple of them this weekend. First up: the HUC trip to the Negev.

We left for the south early last Wednesday (as in, a week-and-a-half ago Wednesday, the same day my parents headed back home). We drove south, sleeping on the bus as much as possible, stopping briefly at Ben Gurion’s grave, mostly to pick up our guides for the next few days. We went down to visit the grave; Ben Gurion wanted to be buried looking over his beloved Negev Desert, rather than on Har Herzl, which is like Israel’s Arlington Cemetery. Most insightful comment during our 10-minute see graves, bathroom stop, stretch your legs stop, although I don’t remember who said it: I wonder how Ben Gurion’s wife felt about being buried here. She hated the desert. She’s now stuck there for eternity. In truth, the desert is incredibly peaceful. Forget everything you think you know about deserts though. The Negev is not sandy, flat, or uninhabited. It is rocky, mountainous, and filled with desert animals and plants, and scattered kibbutzim and Bedouin villages. We also took a short 2-hour hike on the way south, getting us ready, sort of, for the next day’s hike.

We arrived at Kibbutz Yahel, our home for the next few days, in time for a brief tour, shower and dinner. The kibbutz is beautiful and remarkable. It’s one of the Reform movement’s two kibbutzim in Israel. (The other is Lotan, which we also visited. I’ll explain further down.) Yahel calls itself a desert oasis, and it truly is. There are flowers, trees, grass, and all kinds of plants growing on the kibbutz. I’m sure it would be easy to tell from above exactly where the kibbutz ends, because it goes back to looking like desert. They proudly told us that Yahel is a multi-million-dollar business. They grow pomelos, peppers, melons, onions, dates, and raise lots of dairy cows. We got a tour of the pomelo grove. What’s a pomelo? It’s the biggest of the citrus fruits, a little larger than a grapefruit. They have never been popular in the US, although they are here. They have an incredibly thick (at least an inch) skin. I had never tasted one, but did so out in Yahel’s field! It was really good, like a grapefruit but much sweeter; we were also eating the ones leftover from the harvest, so they were overripe and therefore sweeter. The desert kibbutz also feels like the last refuge of early Zionism. These people settled in the desert and literally made it bloom. They settle right on the border, and the location of several of the kibbutzim did help define Israel’s borders after some of the wars. While we were in the pomelo grove, we were told not to step on the road that is about 6 yards outside the pomelos. On the far side of the one-lane road was a dust track. If there are footprints on the dust track, the Israeli investigates them. On the other side of the dust track is the barbed wire fence marking one side of the border with Jordan. (There is a no-man’s land before Jordan’s fence.) That was the first time this trip that I could see into another country.

On Thursday, we were given a choice of two hikes. On our itinerary, they were billed as “medium” and “hard.” Apparently they decided the hard one wasn’t hard enough, so they made that the medium hike, and added a harder one. I went on the harder one. It was a great hike! We were hiking for 7 hours. We went up a mountain, across a mountain-time barrier, up some more, and then down for several hours. The time barrier was basically that there was one mountain range, but somehow through geological processes that are foreign to me, two parts of the range were offset from each other (possibly through an earthquake), leaving the newer rock exposed on one part, and the older rock on the other part. We were literally hiking on reddish-tannish sandstone, took a step, and we were on black granite/igneous rock. And then we kept going. On the top of the mountain, we could see down into Eilat, across the Red Sea into Jordan, and a little further down the Red Sea, into Saudi Arabia. By turning slightly, we could also see into the Sinai Desert of Egypt. We also proved, yet again, a universal truth: food tastes better on top of a mountain. Lunch wasn’t that remarkable, but it tasted SO GOOD. The hike was a challenge, especially for those of us who aren’t so excited about heights. On the way up, there were places where we were walking along a narrow ledge. There was a railing on one side to help. Except, the railing was on the mountain side, not the cliff side! The idea was to lean toward the railing, but I got pretty freaked out during that part of the hike. I had no idea what was coming. Parts of the walk down were through dry waterfalls. Water tends to fall in the most direct way, though. Straight down. There were places where we had to use handholds or steel rope to help navigate the way down or across the side of the cliff. I had a lot of trouble on one of them, when I realized that I was holding a rope on my right, I could not find where my feet should go next, and turned to see that a wrong step or letting go of the rope meant a really, really long fall with an ugly splat at the bottom. But our guide was amazing, and she took me through it, helping me find the invisible places for my feet. And since I was right near the front, she then helped the next 40 people through it as well. We stayed there for a while, until everyone got across and down this one part, which was certainly the hardest part of the hike, although it was not the only place where we waited for everyone to get through before moving on. We felt good and tired after this one!

And then we arrived at our next destination: the fake Bedouin tent. The idea of the tent was to get an idea of Bedouin culture. Except that this tent is a tourist site, run by Jews. The food is kosher, there was a bar with alcohol and ice cream, there were bathrooms right outside the tent with toilets and showers and a sink, and there was a mezuzah on the door. That means there was a door. And walls. Their food was really good, but the floor for the night was not all that comfortable. There were about 75 of us sleeping in one room. Most of us got up in the morning and decided we were too old for that.

Friday we visited the other Reform Kibbutz, Kibbutz Lotan. Lotan is an environmentalist’s dream. (Monica: you might have just stayed.) They run a lot of Israel’s recycling. They have a whole eco-village where they are trying new ideas. They have buildings and playgrounds made of trash. Seriously, they are trash covered with mud, and sealed with used falafel oil. We got to have the experience of making mud bricks. Dirt + sand + straw + water = gooey mess that actually dries into bricks. They have composting toilets. There is a toilet seat on top of a really deep pit. You do your thing, and then throw in some straw. And that’s it. There’s no flushing. The most amazing part: it doesn’t smell at all. And also, that someone thought this was a good idea. On our tour of Lotan, it sounded like they had a lot of amazing ideas. They are really trying to change the world, and you can smell the idealism in the air. (No, it’s really not the composting toilets.) But the pessimist – or the realist – in me is skeptical of how well it will work. Unlike Yahel, they don’t really make all that much money, and they keep the kibbutz running in part through government subsidies and donations. And yet, what they are doing is so admirable. I’m torn.

We left Lotan and its idealism and headed to Eilat, the city at the southern tip of Israel. We had a couple of hours to enjoy the beach and go snorkeling at their coral reef. I had never been snorkeling! The water was freezing though, and almost prevented me from getting in. The coral was beautiful, if a really small area for so much cold water effort. Aside from that, it was really nice to be on a beach for a little while. Even with the mild Jerusalem winter, I’m ready for spring! (Our whole trip south, it was warm, probably low 80s, during the day, and cool but beautiful at night. Jerusalem is still its confused mix of beautiful sunny days and cold rainy ones.)

Shabbat on the kibbutz felt like what Shabbat is supposed to be. We had a nice service, dinner with kibbutz members, although at separate tables, and an inspiring (if a little cheesy) evening program. Two visiting rabbis who both have prominent URJ positions talked to us about their lives and their journey and advice for the future. The whole thing was also interspersed with songs. Saturday was so relaxing. We spent the afternoon sitting outside, playing cards, reading, and just enjoying a day of rest. A lot of us wish our Shabbats in Jerusalem were so relaxing, but the unfortunate reality is that when sitting in our apartments, with school the next day, it is really hard not to do work, and we tend to have enough due on Sundays to make it feel nearly impossible. Being away was a great break though.

Getting back to Jerusalem late Saturday night was almost disappointing. It was great to be back at my computer and in touch with the world, but we realized how stressed we all were when we left, and how relaxed we were when we returned. And then we got back, and everything we had to do came rushing back. But that’s another blog. Pictures are now posted of this trip! I didn't take all that many; I was concentrating a lot on not falling off of a cliff and things like that. Some of the pictures are from Michal and Mara. I'll add more if I find others. Pictures of the parents' trip will be posted once they get them to me!

Shabbat shalom!

Even More Visitors

2007-02-25T20:21:00.000+02:00

I'm back to writing in Italics! That means someone else has elected to do my dirty work, again. This time: Israel from my parents' point of view. They left on Tuesday night, and I left Wednesday morning for an HUC trip to the Negev. I'll collect my thoughts and write about that in a day or two. Thanks, parents, for buying me a little more time! My interruptions of my mother's words are in italics.

Another guest blog….from Jessica’s most recent visitors. Arrival at Ben Gurion was emotional. The long walk from the plane, through baggage claim and customs to Jessica who was waiting just beyond the restricted area, only increased my anticipation. I was finally in Israel and equally important, I was finally going to be able to hug and kiss my wandering Jew. Of course, I cried. Jessica thoughtfully brought a bottle of water and guided us to the waiting shuttle.

Jerusalem was more than we imagined. Our first impressions were of the Jerusalem stone and seeing the old city, even from a distance, took our breath away. Our first morning in Jerusalem began very early, with a trip to the shuk. We met at 7 a.m. and we knew right from the beginning that we had a great tour guide (that's me!) as we began our day tasting the delights of Israel. (I already miss the rugelah, cinnamon rolls and the cashews and pistachios as well as the fruits and vegetables. Going shopping in the US is just not the same.) It is at normal hours of the day, however.

I can’t describe everything we saw and did, so I’ll try to cover some of the highlights.

Friday night, we walked to Shira Chadasha and enjoyed the quieting of Jerusalem. The service was wonderful. The music, the patchwork on the ark (yes I noticed) and praying in Israel were very special. The dinner and company that followed were terrific too. On Saturday, we walked around the Old City and went to the Western Wall.

On Sunday, we rented a car and drove out of the city. Jessica had warned us that Israeli drivers are offensive rather than defensive, and we were all glad that Jessica sat next to Buzz to give directions and read road signs and I could cower in the back of the car. I tried to ignore the drivers and concentrate on the amazing flowers that were already blooming everywhere. Before we really left Jerusalem, we were serenaded with honking horns and we encountered a woman driving the wrong way down a major street. (She did manage to turn around without being hurt.) We drove first to Old Jaffo. Driving in Israel is tricky because in addition to the drivers who Jessica described as frustrated fighter pilots, the road signs often don’t correspond to what is written on the map and streets appear out of nowhere. I can't take credit for that all-too-accurate description. One of the guide books said that. I simply confirmed. We did find our way to Old Jaffo, eventually. We somehow navigated numerous one way streets and were only stopped once when a truck with a trailer was blocking the road. After the trailer was moved to the side (by hand) and the truck pulled over, we continued on. We had a great time, exploring the old Mediterranean Port, visiting some crafts shops (including Gabrielli), and enjoying the park. I was amazed that 45 minutes west-and-a-little-north, it was warm enough to take off my jacket and be warm in long sleeves! We continued north to Caesaria, which we all loved. Jessica had been there before, with school but Buzz and I loved walking around the Herodian amphitheater and exploring the walls of the Crusader city. We were all impressed with the acoustics of the amphitheater especially when we stood in the right place, not further back as most of the other people were doing including my school trip a couple of months ago. From Caesaria, we headed toward Haifa, and with Jessica’s excellent support (pffffffffffff. "Haifa is a hill. Go up."), we found our hotel. Haifa is a beautiful hilly city overlooking the Mediterranean.

On Monday, we went to the Baha’i Gardens for a tour. The tour was in Hebrew but the gardens were beautiful, if a bit formal for our liking. I wasn't trying very hard, but understood bits and pieces. I take my small victories happily. The views of the Mediterranean were amazing! We walked down steps and more steps, each with beautiful terraced gardens until we reached the shrine. After exploring a while, we were shown the exit, which was of course, way below where we had come in. The tours, with buses, hopped on their buses and left. Buzz, Jessica and I took a good half an hour steep walk back up hill to our car. Leaving Haifa was a bit like finding Old Jaffo….a series of small streets with interesting curves and dead ends but eventually we found our way. The next highlight of the day was Rosh Pina. While sitting in the back of the car, I discovered that Rosh Pina had a very recommended restaurant called Chocolata. We all agreed that sounded promising and we were hungry. Old Rosh Pina, also at the top of a steep hill was charming. The restored village was the home of Galilee’s first Zionist pioneers in 1882. It is filled with crafts galleries in restored buildings and an old synagogue. There were also blooming almond trees and orange and lemon trees filled with fruit and flowers everywhere. The restaurant is the old home of the tutor for the Baron Edmond de Rothschild and its stone interior, filled with comfortable couches and tables and chairs was a great place for lunch. Lunch was delicious and the chocolate cake we shared for dessert was wonderful. Feeling refreshed, we drove east to Tzfat. We drove up a windy road, commenting on the Israeli drivers passing us on the curves. After a few circles, we found the old Jewish Quarter and the Artists' Colony. We explored and enjoyed the town but it was beginning to be late so we decided to head to Tiberias and return to Tzfat the next day for more exploring and shopping. The twenty miles from Tzfat to Tiberias passed quickly for me. Buzz drove, Jessica navigated and I enjoyed the views and the flowers which were blooming everywhere and in every color in the Gallilee. Cows were grazing in pastures filled with rocks (and some grass). There were groves of fruit trees, filled with fruit, and almond trees blooming everywhere. Jessica guided us to a great restaurant for dinner, right on the Kinneret (Gallilee).

The third day of our trip up north was great fun, although it rained all day. We went back to Tzfat and to the Golan and then drove down the other side of the Kinneret. We also, with a slight detour, found Kibbutz Naot Mordechai, and had a good time in their shoe store. We had expected rain on this trip and other than causing us to miss a few overlooks, it was not really a problem. I wonder if she asked the driver about that statement.

On Wednesday, Buzz and I drove through the West Bank down to Ein Gedi and the Dead Sea. We stayed on a kibbutz in Ein Gedi that also had a botanical garden. The contrast between the Dead Sea and the desert and the kibbutz was amazing. I enjoyed looking at all the varieties of blooming plants and we had a wonderful time hiking to the waterfalls at Nahal David (where David hid from Saul) and exploring the area. Of course, we went to the Ein Gedi Spa and played with the mud and Buzz bravely went into the very cold Dead Sea. Pictures coming, once they are sent my way! We took the cable car up Masada on Thursday and spent several hours exploring. (Thank you, Michael, for suggesting the cable car! Buzz does however, want to go back and climb….) Masada was fascinating. We were lucky enough to be (temporarily) part of a Sephardic Bar Mitzvah party on the cable car up and down. On the way up, everyone was singing and swaying. Once they were on Masada, the party formed a parade and marched to the old synagogue, singing, accompanied by shofar and drum.

We came back to Jerusalem and met Jessica for a delicious dinner. (Notice a theme?!) (Thanks for the great food!!) It was great to be able to rely on Jessica for food and outing ideas! We spent the next few days exploring more of Jerusalem and shopping and of course, eating. We spent a second Shabbat in Jerusalem and went to services at Kol Hanshema (Israeli reform) and at HUC. We met up with the group visiting from mom's old synagogue in Great Neck, several of whom know my grandmother. The assistant rabbi and her husband went to college with Becky. We referenced "It's a Small World" not for the first time this trip. We heard the horn sound the beginning of Shabbat and ended Shabbat with some visiting rabbis who invited Jessica’s class over for wine, cheese and havdalah. It was a beautiful havdalah service.

We had a wonderful tour guide who took us around the old city. I was in class all day. They had more fun. Asnat Cohen met us at 8:30 and took us to the Mount of Olives first so that we could see the city from that perspective, above the Temple Mount. We could see the Old City as well as the Dome of the Rock and the City of David. It was the beginning of a wonderful day. On the way to and from the Mount of Olives we saw several other gates to the Old City. We spent the entire rest of the day (until 4:30) walking around the Old City. It was supposed to rain all day but happily there were only two showers during the day and we were inside both times. Highlights included the Wohl Archaeological Museum where we saw a variety of artifacts from families living during the Second Temple period. It was amazing to see the remains of a mansion from that time. Asnat’s explanations were really helpful. Our favorite part of the day was the Ophel Archaeological Garden. Archaeologists have dug a great deal at this site. We walked on original steps from the Second Temple, we saw the remainders of Robinson’s arch, the place where the trumpet player stood to announce Shabbat and other holidays, and stones from the top of the original wall, lying where they were found but showing the Roman destruction. We also saw some interesting videos in the Davidson center. Other highlights of the day included visiting a few stores where Asnat knew the owners. One was in the Arab shuk and the owner had an amazing collection of original Bedouin fiber. The pieces he had were beautiful. He also had other antique Judaica which was beautiful. He gave us a cup of mint tea which was delicious. We also went to see 4 Sephardic synagogues in the Old City. They were beautiful. We stopped at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher too. It was quite an experience. Asnat introduced us to the keeper of the key for the Church. He is Muslim. The church is co-owned by several different Christian groups, none of whom can agree on much of anything, except that they don't want the others to have the key. Thus, the Muslim keymaster. We walked around the Cardo as well as the Arab Shuk. Asnat was friendly and knew so much that it was a great and moving day.

Our visit was wonderful and we’re already thinking about when we can go back and see more of Israel. The only hard part was saying good bye to Jessica and that was really difficult. For me too! Especially because we said goodbye at about 10:00 at night, at which time I still had work to do, emails to send, and a trip to pack for before the next morning. More to come soon!

Back soon!

2007-02-21T06:51:00.000+02:00

A quick, really early in the morning post. As a makeup for being brief, a picture of my parents in Caesaria, with the Mediterranean Sea behind them. My parents are en route back home, and I'm about to head out on a trip myself. HUC is taking us down to the south of the country, where it's supposed to be in the mid-80s and sunny. A refreshing change! We're going to Eilat, snorkeling, studying, kibbutz-ing, Bedouin tent-ing, and enjoying the desert. So this is advance warning that there won't be another new blog for a few days; I'll be back late Saturday night...just in time to go to school Sunday morning!

Have a good (short) week, and I'll be back soon!

Overdue

2007-02-17T22:09:00.000+02:00

It has been about 10 days since I last posted, and I don't think I've been that bad all year! At least I warned you...and I have a good excuse ready.

But I'm behind on pretty much everything, especially sleep, so this will be short and sweet, with hopefully more details coming, and certainly pictures coming when I have time to post them, and when I can borrow the parents' cameras to upload their pictures.

They arrived last Thursday, and I was at Ben Gurion to greet them and laugh at my mom (but only a little) for crying: she finally made it to Israel AND got to see me after a lot of months away! They were troopers and woke up early for my crack-of-dawn Friday morning shuk run. Shuk was loved by all. Friday evening services at Shira Chadasha: they loved them. It is a more religious service, but there is so much music, it is impossible not to like it. It's beautiful. Great dinner at Lauren/Aaron's. My parents like my friends. Hooray!

Sunday morning, picked up the rental car and headed north. Sunday we visited Old Yaffo outside of Tel Aviv, what is now an artists' colony, but was previously a big city before Tel Aviv was founded as an escape from Yaffo. Then we went to Caesaria, ruins of a very Roman-Jewish town, and then drove up to Haifa for the night. Monday morning we visited the Bahai Gardens, an amazing terraced garden, although the tour was in Hebrew. It was beautiful nonetheless, although I think I prefer not-quite-so-perfect plants. Then we drove to Acco, an ancient city but also a thriving Arab town, and looked around for a few minutes, and moved on. The ruins were less impressive after Caesaria and we were ready for the rest of the day's itinerary. We found our way to Rosh Pina, a little town outside of Tsfat. In one of the guidebooks, Mom found the description of a great-sounding restaurant there. We found it eventually, and it was worth it! With a name like "Chocolatte," how bad can it be?! To be posted: before and after pictures of dessert. Then we drove over to Tsfat and walked around looking at some old, beautiful synagogues and some of the artists. It was late in the afternoon already though, so lots of things were closed. It went onto the schedule for the next day. Dinner was at a delicious meat restaurant in Tiberias that HUC had taken us to. Yum. Tuesday we headed back to Tsfat to walk around some more, and I got a beautiful microcalligraphy picture. It is an image of Shabbat, but the whole design is filled in with teeny tiny writing of the Shabbat prayers and songs. It's hard to describe, but it's amazing. You may have to come visit my Cincinnati apartment to see it hanging next year! Then we went back to Rosh Pina, because some of the galleries there had been closed the day before, and we wanted to see them. Lunch at the same restaurant! Then we drove through the Golan some, but it was rainy, so we didn't bother going to a lookout point; we wouldn't have seen much. After adventures in directions and Hebrew-speaking, we found our way to Kibbutz Naot Mordechai, which is where they make (and have a factory store for) Naots. Some pairs of shoes later, we got back into the car and made our way back to Jerusalem, driving all the way around the Kinneret/Sea of Galilee (two names, same lake), and getting back for a late (late!)

Mom and Dad went down to the Dead Sea on Wednesday and Thursday and had an amazing time at Ein Gedi park, Masada, and the Dead Sea. I went to school. I also got some really pretty flowers on Wednesday:)

We made Shabbat dinner last night and had a few friends over. Another one of those nights where we all of a sudden realized it was midnight...and we were going to services in the morning. Services today at HUC, where we met up with the group from Beth El in Great Neck, NY, where my mom grew up. Had lunch with Rabbi Davidson (who married my parents) and their younger rabbi, Darcy Crystal, and her husband and son. She and her husband are Princeton '97, and so of course knew Becky and we had a great time with them. And they have a really cute baby. Had an afternoon wine-and-cheese party at the apartment of a couple of rabbis who are on sabbatical in Jerusalem right now and want to get to know our class. It was really nice, and felt good that they're really trying to spend time with us. Then lots of homework and catch-up work...

Now bed. Pictures...soonish.

Catching Up

2007-02-07T22:54:00.000+02:00

I'm completely exhausted, so hopefully I can successfully string some words together before I collapse into bed for a few hours. I know I don't often post on Wednesday nights, but I wanted to catch up before I potentially fall behind again. (Yes, I use a similar philosophy with my schoolwork!)

Monica left last night. Or this morning. Or somewhere in between. She stayed up reading a book. I went to sleep for a couple of hours, set my alarm for 1:40 in the morning, sat half-awake probably not as very good company while we waited for her shuttle (which, for the first time in my experience, was late), and then at 2:15, I went back to bed. Hence the confusion over when she actually left. And a few minutes ago I got an IM that she made it home safe and sound! I love that everyone knows to check in with me and let me know that. Thanks, mom, for the extra measure of concern. (For the record, I had checked Monica's flight a couple of hours ago, and I already knew the plane had landed in Boston. But I appreciate the check-in IM all the same.)

It was so much fun to have Monica here! I love that with Monica (and also Saroj who was here a couple of weeks ago), I haven't seen her for more than 6 months, but she arrived and it was like no time had passed at all. We had lots of stories to catch up on, but there was no lack of comfort or anything. Friends like that are not easy to find, and I'm glad I have them...and that they were willing and able to fly around the world to visit! She did some touring on her own, and we did some together between my classes. She seemed to enjoy Shabbat services at my favorite synagogue and we had a delicious Shabbat dinner with friends, one of those dinners where we're having a great time, and all of a sudden it's midnight. We went into the Old City twice. The first time we did the part I know: the Kotel (Western Wall) and the Jewish shopping area and Arab shuk (market). The second time we were aiming for the Church of the Holy Sepulchere, where I had never been. We only made a couple of wrong turns, but with some timely help from my StreetWise, we made it there without too much of a problem. Unfortunately, neither of us had managed to read about it before we arrived; we just knew it was supposed to be an important and impressive site. Also unfortunately, neither of us had remembered to put a guide book in our bags, so we didn't really know what we were looking at. We walked around though and talked about our various religious experiences and marveled at the building and its art, which really is amazing. And then after we got home, we read up on where we had been. It's apparently the site of Jesus' crucifixion and burial! The part of the church with his tomb is through the room which was so small and crowded that I couldn't stay in it. Also, we didn't know why everyone was in there, so we didn't stay, so we kind of missed a main attraction. Oops. But now that I know more, I kind of want to go back (with a book) and really know what I'm looking at.

Tuesday evening we went on the weekly visit to my Ethiopian family, but this week all the HUC families were getting together for a Tu B'shevat party, the holiday that celebrates "the birthday of the trees." It turned out to be a great time: we made tissue paper flowers, handprint trees, and lots and lots of pipe cleaner crowns, for us and the kids. I also learned that Monica has amazing language skills. For someone who could not name a Hebrew letter when she arrived, she picked up a good amount of vocabulary, and now can recite most of the alphabet! She wrote "Monica vas here" on our fridge with our Hebrew letter magnets before she left.

In spite of being completely exhausted, today was an amazing day. For this week's Israel Seminar, we were learning about the Palestinian-Arab-Israeli citizens. These are Arabs who live within the main part of Israel (not the territories) and have full citizenship and full rights under the law, although often not in practice. We went to an Arab town north of Jerusalem, to an Arab teachers' college. We did some learning about the issues on our own, and then for the afternoon met in small groups with students from the college. Our best days of seminar have been when we get out and really talk to people, and this one was definitely not an exception. We were all told that no topic should be off limits, and we really had a conversation about tough issues: how they feel about Jews, what we think when we see a Muslim, the likelihood of peace, Palestinian-Arab-Israeli identity, family, dating and marriage, politics...you name it, we talked about it. It was a great activity, although it was far enough away that we probably won't see them again. Our professors were talking about trying to bring the same group of them down to Jerusalem to meet with us here, and I would absolutely love for it to happen, but given the craziness of our schedules, I am unfortunately pessimistic that it will happen. I truly hope they find a way to make it happen though. We all need more encounters like this one as a reality check: they're not so different from us at all! and as a small, but hopefully not completely insignificant, road to peace. We did all agree that if there aren't interactions between Jews and Muslims, peace is just a dream.

And why do I have a feeling I may fall behind on posting again? Tomorrow afternoon I'm going to the airport to pick up my parents!! I can't wait! :)

Busy, busy, busy

2007-02-02T11:27:00.001+02:00

We’ve noticed recently that HUC has been piling on the meetings, getting to the point where we’re feeling over programmed and completely lacking in free time. The problem is that it’s hard to seriously complain about it, because the added events recently have been so interesting! A potentially long post to follow…

I gave my D’var Torah on Monday, as I mentioned and included a few days ago. I think I’ve now received the fallout from it, and it’s really been fairly positive! The main criticism I got from some of the faculty was that the (two-sentence) reference to Shrek was not really necessary and distracted from the overall message. I still think it lightened the tension and seriousness, and I like it there, but I guess it goes to show that there’s no way to please everyone. A day later, an older, very respected professor/rabbi came up to me to tell me how much he had enjoyed my talk. He did not just stop there though, but gave me lots of details back from the speech, and told me exactly what he thought was really good. That made me feel really good!

Before I got up onto the bima to give my speech, there was another amazing part of the service. We read Torah every Monday, and everyone is required to do so at least one Monday during the year. (I did mine in September.) So all three readers did their thing Monday morning, but before they could go sit back down, the cantorial student who was leading the service started talking. She revealed that the third Torah reader, a cantorial student in his 40s, had actually never been called to the Torah before. (He had never been involved Jewishly when he was younger, and therefore never had a Bar Mitzvah, and had never had occasion to do so since.) This meant, she explained, that despite his being a *few* years older than the traditional 13-year-old Bar Mitzvah boy, it was his Bar Mitzvah. She presented him with a Kiddush cup from the rest of the cantorial students, the traditional temple gift to a Bar Mitzvah, blessed him, and we all broke into a chorus of “Siman Tov u’Mazal Tov,” a song traditionally sung at happy moments. A good portion of the class started crying. It was one of those incredibly unexpected, but completely moving moments that just sneak up on you. I loved it.

On Tuesday I had my first history class with the second professor (each one is teaching 6 classes this semester), on the history and religion of Islam. He had complete laryngitis, so we walked in and found a PowerPoint slide on the screen explaining that he had no voice and we would be watching clips of a movie about Muhammad. One interesting thing about the movie was that traditionally, Muhammad and his family cannot be depicted on screen visually or audibly, which understandably presents a rather large obstacle to making a movie about his life. This movie got around that problem by showing his followers and he was generally an off-screen presence. When people were speaking to him, they spoke directly into the camera, and we never heard his replies, just how his followers responded to his replies. It was a little awkward, and made him out to be a more passive leader than I’m sure he was, but it was certainly some creative thinking! It is an interesting story that I’m looking forward to learning more about, and we talked afterwards about questions that we had not thought about much before, like how difficult it must be to present oneself as a prophet, and the difficulties faced by a brand new religion. It reminded me on the class I took in college on “emerging religions” (or, commonly, cults), because every new religion starts out that way. I have lots to learn in this class and I’m excited about it!

Tuesday night, Monica arrived! I also had a ridiculous Israeli moment. The cell phone rental company said they would drop off her phone between 7 and 10 at night at my apartment, and they would call when they arrived, since our buzzer doesn’t work. We weren’t excited about having to stay in, but we made a good dinner and sat and caught up. At 10:10, when the phone had not arrived, I called the company. The woman on the other end said apparently they had tried to deliver but could not get in touch with me. My phone had been in my pocket. I guess it’s hard to get in touch without calling! She then checked again and said, “apparently the driver put it in your mailbox.” I went to check while we were still on the phone. [Background info: these phones usually come in boxes slightly smaller than a shoebox. Things go into my mailbox through a small slot, and we unlock the back of it to get things out. The locked door opens up, exactly the way that a USPS mailbox is not allowed to do, meaning that if it’s full, everything falls out when you open it.] I unlocked the mailbox, and immediately realized it was packed full. I put my hands underneath to catch what was falling out, and found everything that should have been in the phone box. Apparently the driver did not or could not call me, so instead left the box for me. Except that the box didn’t fit in the mailbox, so he took each individual part: the phone, the charger, the case, the instruction sheet, the rate sheet, the contract, and slid them one at a time through my mail slot. Only in Israel.

Wednesday night we had our first presentation on the FSU trip to start giving us some background on things we should expect, bring, not bring, and more. Highlights: It will be cold. There may be bread on the seder table. Don’t refuse the vodka, but you don’t have to drink it. Dress nicely. Bring your own toilet paper and purell.

Yesterday afternoon was one of our extra programs. We’re usually done at lunchtime on Thursdays for the weekend, so you can imagine our excitement when all of a sudden a 4:15 program showed up on the calendar. Rabbi Yoffie, the head honcho of the Reform Movement, was in Israel and would be speaking to us. But, then his speech was really good! He had some interesting things to say, and he is a fairly engaging speaker, which is always a nice surprise. Content: the future of Reform Judaism. Not surprisingly, we have gotten a lot of that this semester, but this one was enough different that I enjoyed it. After the talk we had a short Tu B’Shevat seder and dinner. Tu B’shevat is taught in the United States as “the birthday of the trees,” and it’s basically an agricultural holiday that marks the approximate beginning of the planting season and is how traditionally age of fruit bearing trees is tracked. So for trees that are required to grow a certain number of years before eating their fruit, they all count as a year old on Tu B’shevat. The seder involves drinking wine that starts as white and gradually gets more red added to it (Four cups: white, light pink, dark pink, red), and eating different kinds of seasonal fruits. Things that (amazingly) went into my mouth last night, and were enjoyed in varying amounts: pomegranate seeds, raisins, dates, dried apricot, walnuts. Be impressed!

This morning, Monica and I got up early to go to the shuk as per my usual Fridays. Every so often I have to remind myself to look around as if I haven’t been doing this stuff for six months, and it’s an easier reminder when I have a visitor. The shuk is huge and overwhelming. We bought a fruit today that just looked interesting, and I have no clue what it is. She took lots of pictures of the impressive displays and aisles of food. We were in the Old City yesterday. I was reminded of the impressiveness of the sights and the sheer age of the city, and the craziness of the Arab market there. Visitors are a great way to make sure I remember all that. Monica’s here until Tuesday, and then mom and dad arrive Thursday! That only gives me a few more days to think of more things they could bring for me...

Shabbat shalom!

Words of Torah

2007-01-29T22:08:00.000+02:00

This year, each of us is required to give one D'var Torah, basically a sermon on the weekly Torah portion. Mine was today. I thought it went well, and I got lots of really positive feedback from my classmates. The professors/rabbis who critique us gave me some interesting things to think about; their suggestions mainly related to ideas I could have included if I did not have such a short time restriction, and the place of pop culture on the bima. (I maintain that it has one.) Because I have had a few requests (some of them from classmates!), my words are posted below. It's long, so I'm going to let it speak for itself. But if you have LOTS of time on your hands, my friend and classmate Michal and I just added links to each other's blogs. She updates frequently, always has interesting insights, and is heading to Cincinnati with me next year! Enjoy...!

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בקש שלום ורדפהו. In Psalm 34, we are instructed to seek peace and pursue it (Psalm 34:15). The judge Gideon tells us that one of God’s many names is Adonai Shalom, God of peace. Masechet Derech Eretz Zuta tells us: Great is peace, because all blessings and prayers conclude with peace. We are a people obsessed with peace. We like to make peace, keep peace, and even run after peace. In Divrei HaYamim alef, we learn that God did not permit King David to build the Temple in Jerusalem, because he was constantly at war; peaceful King Solomon built it instead. Even the patriarch Jacob fled from his home rather than face the possibility of war with his brother Esau. And here in this week’s Torah portion, Be’shalach, we arrive at the pinnacle of the Exodus story. The people finally escape from Egypt, cross the Sea of Reeds to safety, and sing a song of Thanksgiving to God: אשירה ליהוה כי גאוה גאה; I will sing to the Lord, for He has triumphed gloriously (Exodus 15:1). And then the Israelites move on, wander in the desert, leaving peace in their wake and eventually settling peacefully in the Promised Land. Except…that’s not exactly how the story goes. In the midst of the Song of the Sea, praising God for rescuing the Israelites from their Egyptian oppressors, we heard today: יהוה איש מלחמה - יהוה שמו. Adonai is a warrior. Adonai is His name! All of a sudden, after receiving one miraculous rescue from the peace-loving God, this peace-loving people lauds Him as a great warrior. A man of war! Our teachers have long struggled with this militaristic aspect of Shirat Ha Yam. How can we seek peace and pursue it while we are praying to God the warrior? Why is being a strong warrior suddenly a good thing? Maybe it is precisely out of this contrast that God’s divinity emerges. Although God is a warrior, God does not fight dirty. According to Rashi, the second half of this verse, Adonai shemo, teaches us that God does not fight with traditional weapons of war. God uses only God’s divine name, and the battle is won. Except that with all due respect to Rashi, God’s name alone seems to be quite destructive on the shores of the Red Sea. After all, as we read today, “Pharaoh’s chariots and his army He has cast into the sea; and the pick of his officers are drowned in the Sea of Reeds.” Whether the Egyptians were defeated by traditional weapons or the terribly awesome divine name, they did not fare so well. The God of peace and compassion has seemingly been replaced by the vengeful God so rejected by the Reform movement. In all daily Jewish prayer, including Mishkan Tefilah, God has another warlike name, Adonai צבאות, literally God of armies. Open Mishkan Tefilah to Tsur Yisrael, Kedushah, or Ma’ariv Aravim. Read the English translation of these prayers. Notice the italics in the middle of the translation where it translates “Adonai Tzvaot” so literally as “Adonai Tzvaot.” Every single day, although we may not realize it, we continue to pray to this God of war. We have prayers for peace interspersed throughout our service, but the heart of the tefilah includes more than one mention of God’s warlike attributes; we simply choose not to acknowledge them. But this verse from Shirat Ha Yam, Adonai ish milchama, Adonai shmo, shows us a way to come to terms with this violent image of God. God is not only a warrior. Masechet Sanhedrin (39b) gives an interpretation of what happened after the Israelites were safely across the Red Sea onto dry land. The Egyptians have just been swept up in a massive tidal wave, and the angels begin singing God’s praises. God stops them. “מעשי ידי טובעים בים ואתם אומרים שירה לפני?!” “The works of my hands are drowning in the sea, and you sing a song before Me?!” God is not impressed. Sure, God just killed an entire Egyptian army to save the chosen people, but that doesn’t mean God is happy about it. Sometimes even God has to do what has to be done. And so the words Adonai ish milchama are followed by Adonai shemo. Adonai is God’s name. And the rabbis teach that the name Adonai, in contrast to Elohim, encompasses the attribute of compassion. S’forno teaches that this battle between God, fighting for the Israelites, and the Egyptians, was ultimately a fight between good and evil. If not for the destruction of the Egyptian army, the whole world would have been destroyed. In this case, the destruction was actually a necessary element showing God’s great compassion. יהוה איש מלחמה - יהוה שמו. In Biblical writing, we are constantly looking to see what is not written. Here, it’s a conjunction. God is a warrior, BUT God is His name. Or alternatively, God is a warrior, AND God is His name. But there is no conjunction in this verse in the Torah, and it is troubling to us. It is disconcerting, because showing several opposing qualities at once is something humans have not figured out yet. But God is always a few steps ahead of us. Unlike a human king, Rashi points out that God can embrace two attributes at once, even when they contradict, as the attributes of רחמים and דין, compassion and justice. God can make war compassionately, or remain merciful in the midst of an ugly battle between good and evil. In a moment of insight from a more recent source, DreamWorks studios, Shrek tells Donkey that ogres have layers, like an onion. Similarly, humans have layers and facets, revealing different parts of ourselves at different times. And if humans and ogres have different attributes that show themselves under different circumstances, then God, in whose image we were fashioned, how much the more so. But unlike our one-at-a-time layers, God’s facets can sometimes shine all at the same time. Ultimately, the Song of the Sea is full of tension, as Aviva Zornberg points out. The people are overwhelmed by the experience, thankful for their freedom, mournful of the loss of everything familiar. The Mekhilta, our most ancient midrash on Shemot, reports that even the slave women, those Jews who were the least enlightened and educated, saw more on the shores of the Red Sea than the prophet Ezekiel saw in his lifetime. But the Israelites saw good as well as evil, death and life, a warring God and the hope for peace. We praise Adonai Tzvaot. We pray for peace. It does not always make sense to us, but we have to get beyond our human perspective and try to look at life from God’s point of view. There is always more than one side to the story. There is often more than one right answer. So God can be simultaneously the warrior and the peacemaker. We should absolutely seek peace and pursue it. We never know when God will decide to jump in and fight for us, as at the walls of Jericho, or when God will let us fight it out for ourselves. We run after peace, even though war sometimes pursues us, and we are hopeful and grateful, in awe of every aspect of God’s presence in our lives. We praise יהוה איש מלחמה, God the warrior, we pray for Adonai shalom, and we remember יהוה שמו, that even in the midst of conflict and destruction, God’s compassion is always lingering just under the surface of our lives.

Looking Forward

2007-01-26T14:54:00.000+02:00

I’m now two weeks into second semester, and I think I’m ready for another vacation. Happily, the upcoming visitors should help me get through the almost-spring stretch more happily. I was outside this morning, enjoying the beautiful weather: today it’s sunny and cloudless, and somewhere around or above 60 degrees. I noticed that at the same time, it’s about 14 degrees at home. Granted, it’s the middle of the day here already and it was still earlier than anyone should be out-and-about at home, but still…that’s farther apart than our weather has been this year that I can remember. (Yes, Dad, I know you were at work already. I don’t really count your waking hours as normal though.)

My Google countdown tells me I go home in 109 days. As I was sort of hoping would happen, I’m having mixed feelings about those 109 days. I really, really am looking forward to going home and seeing everyone and being back in the US. But 109 days doesn’t seem very long, and there’s also still a lot more I want to do here. I guess I should get down to enjoying my next 109 days and getting everything out of this year that I want to.

That said, I’m also already looking forward to heading to Cincinnati at the end of the summer. The HUC deans of each of the campuses just visited us here in Jerusalem. We had more time divided by campus than we have yet this year, and I really enjoyed it. The dean of the Cincinnati program is great; he’s friendly, helpful, and easy to talk to. The group of us heading to Cincy is an amazing group; I like all of them, and I’m really excited that I’ll be spending the next four years with such a great portion of my classmates. There are also frequent discussions about visiting NYC and LA, to see my friends on those campuses, of course. When I met with the Cincinnati dean, he pulled out a goody bag that he had brought for each of us. I am now the proud owner of an HUC Cincinnati t-shirt, at least until I find someone who might fit into it more effectively; a Cincinnati Reds bumper sticker, which I would be really excited about if I liked baseball…or had a car…; a packet of chili mix, which I will definitely be making use of; a Procter and Gamble stress ball; and a piece of Grater’s chocolate. Which reminds me that I’ve been meaning to eat that chocolate. In a visit of a few days, we got excited about where we’re headed in the fall and got more information on the city that will be my home for four years. I’ll be leading Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur services at a congregation somewhere in the middle of the country. I’ll have a student pulpit, where one weekend a month, I’ll visit and be The Rabbi. I’ll be teaching Religious School again. I’ll also be taking lots more classes, which I have heard are much more intense than the Year-in-Israel program, but also in English. Not to wish away the rest of my time in Israel or the summer, but I’m also excited for everything that awaits me in Cincinnati. I guess it’s good to have lots of things to look forward to.

I also have one more thing to get excited about, that’s also in the future but not quite as far away. I’ve mentioned my Passover trip to the Former Soviet Union, at least once or twice. I got my group assignment and location assignment! My immediate group is my friends Josh and Hayley. Josh was in the Barcelona group in August and headed to Cincy with me, and Hayley is another fun friend who will be a great travel buddy. We are psyched to have been grouped together. They’re the people I will be leading seders and programs with, but we also get a couple of touring days at the end of the program with the other people in our country. There are about 12 of us going to the same country, and they’re all great! I know that sounds silly, but I’m looking forward to touring around with people who I don’t often spend tons of time with, but who I really like from the little time we have spent together. Where am I going? I am in the Polotzk-Vitebsk group, traveling in Belarus. Our free days at the end will be in Minsk. Feel free to start passing on suggestions of things to visit, and any information you may have on Minsk family history, PLEASE share!! There will be lots of pictures and probably lots of stories.

Now that I have about an hour before I have to get ready for Shabbat, I’m considering attacking some homework. Or responding to some of the zillion emails I have been neglecting. Or one of the other things on the page long to-do list. Shabbat shalom!

Birthday Special

2007-01-21T07:44:00.000+02:00

A quick early morning post. HAPPY BIRTHDAY MICHAEL! Hope it's a great one, even though I'm on the other side of the world.

And...off to school.

Resettled

2007-01-19T09:26:00.000+02:00

Well I’ve made it through the first week of classes, and now I can officially say…116 days to go! That’s right. After a couple of weeks of being pretty homesick (visitors, while wonderful to have, tend to have that effect on me after they leave), I finally got on top of things and my friend Cassi and I booked tickets home for the same day. I’ll be home mid-May, and chose to land at JFK in the middle of the afternoon instead of before 6 am. Somehow I see that as more pleasant for all parties involved in picking me up. I know I seem excited to come home, and I’m definitely psyched that I have less than four months left until I get to go home. But at the same time, now that I have that ticket in hand, I think I’ll be able to enjoy the last almost-four months even more. I know exactly how much time I have left, there is an end in sight, so now I can (hopefully) buckle down and focus on school and friends here and enjoying the opportunity I have to live over here. Temporarily. (For the record: Google does the countdown for me.)

I really like my classes this semester so far. Not all that much changed, but it feels very different. Instead of having a rabbinic literature history lecture and two rabbinic literature classes every week, we have Bible three times a week. I think my bible professor is one of the best teachers I’ve ever had, and I am so excited to have him so often now. He’s also my biblical grammar teacher, so everything is finally coming together. The grammar made sense to me last semester because I can follow specific rules and logic, but now we’re actually applying everything, so I am, of course, really enjoying that. The class is also what I’ve been waiting for since college. In college, I took “faith busters (that's the nickname),” a course on early Christianity that approached the development of the religion and the New Testament from an entirely historical point of view. I loved it, and was disappointed that there was no parallel class on Judaism. I finally have it! It is definitely a bit jarring to be sitting in rabbinic school and dissecting bible text without mentioning God, but it’s also fascinating to delve into the text and think about how it all came together. Also, the bible we use for class is Hebrew-only. It’s pretty exciting that in most places, I can understand most of what’s going on! The professor’s favorite exercise when we start a new passage is to read it verse by verse and translate from biblical Hebrew to modern Hebrew. (Think: translate from Shakespearian English to normal American English.) It’s an amazing way to reinforce the grammar we have learned and to see the weird way the bible phrases things, but it’s also really nerdily cool that I can understand both biblical and modern Hebrew!

I also have a new history class that I think I’m really going to enjoy, because it’s a subject I really haven’t had before. I’m taking a class on Islam and the Arab world, and it’s being team taught by two professors. One of them I had as an educator on one of our trips, and I know he’s great. The other I had for the first time on Tuesday, and I thoroughly enjoyed the class. Basically it’s going to be two separate classes on sort-of-alternating weeks. One professor is teaching about the religion of Islam and its history, and the other is teaching about the Arab world from a sociological-political point of view. I’m really excited!

My other new class is a once-a-week Hebrew literature class. I am still on the fence about it, although I think I’ll come around. The teacher likes to move at lightning speed, which I think will be a theme of the semester, since my bible/grammar teacher does so as well. But even though I felt almost out of breath at the end of class, I realized I did understand what was going on, and that is always nice. We’re starting with children’s stories, and reading them, discussing them, and talking about what makes a story a children’s story. It’s not just the level of Hebrew, although that helps. But reading a story in rhyme in a foreign language is not easy. It’s hard to stay in rhythm when struggling to read words correctly!

Our Wednesday Israel Seminar this week focused on Reform Judaism in Israel. While it is now the largest Jewish movement in the US, it is a small fraction of Israeli society and struggling for recognition and its place here. After a lecture by our dean, we got to split off to go on different field trips to see different Reform communities first hand. I went to a synagogue in Mevasseret, in a Jerusalem suburb. Coincidentally, it is the same area where I volunteer with the Ethiopian absorption center every week, but the groups are almost entirely separated. The whole area of Mevasseret used to be cheap land, close but not too close to Jerusalem, very close to the pre-1967 border with Jordan and therefore less desirable, and where the government built lots of low-cost housing for immigrants. But after gaining Jerusalem, there was lots of urban sprawl, and it became a much more attractive location. The immigrants were slowly replaced by upper-middle class Israeli natives and Anglo immigrants, and costs went way up, and it’s now a really nice neighborhood. Except that there is still this absorption center right next to the expensive housing, and the two populations more or less ignore each other. So I was excited to see the rest of Mevasseret. The contrast is fairly unreal.

We got off of our bus to be greeted by the community’s rabbi, who happens to be the first native Israeli woman to become a rabbi, and she had quite a story. She took us first to the preschool/kindergarten, and the kids were of course adorable. It is exactly as one would expect a Reform preschool to be, with lots of Jewish content on the walls, a basket of kippot that the kids and their families decorated, and that they all, girls and boys, wear when they’re doing specifically Jewish activities, and lots more. Amazingly, because it’s not an Orthodox school, this school is classified as secular by the Israeli government. Israel is not so good at a middle ground, which is part of why Reform Judaism struggles here. The most fascinating part of the preschool was the bomb shelter. I know that sounds weird. Schools here are required to have them, and they are frequently part of a tour. (We had a tour of the HUC shelter over the summer. I sincerely hope I will never need to be in there again.) Over the summer, during the Lebanon war, the school had to have bomb shelter drills, and the kids freaked out. They were being packed into this little, undecorated room that was generally just used for storage. It was scary for 3, 4, 5 year olds! So the synagogue realized that they needed to make it a less scary place, and they have certainly done an impressive job. The room now has several murals on the wall, with more to come. There is a big Noah’s ark that the kids can play in, a TV with movies, and lots of pillows and blankets. They also have started using the room regularly, so that it’s not a new place if it ever becomes necessary to use it: they have some quiet time in there almost every day, so it has become a haven for these kids even though hopefully it will never need to become a physically safe space for them. It was fascinating to hear about the process of making it into an attractive place and seeing how successful they had been.

I think I’m now all the way back into my routine, although my study skills, as usual, could still use some work. Hopefully this weekend, now that I have a really long to do list again, I will get back on track and remember that I’m a student with lots of work to do. At least until the next waves of visitors show up in a week and a half! Thanks for all the comments on the last post:)

Shabbat shalom!

Feeling Rabbinic

2007-01-13T15:22:00.001+02:00

Most importantly, after spending LONG periods of time on the phone, we have our internet back. It turns out that we’re supposed to have a static IP address, but the cable company decided it would be fun to change it anyway. At least the tech guys spoke English!

On Tuesday night, I stayed up late to greet Saroj! A good friend from college and post-college in DC, Saroj had just finished her Birthright trip and extended her trip for a few days to visit me and have more time on her own in Jerusalem. Even though both of us were completely exhausted, we hadn’t seen each other in the more than six months since I left, so we stayed up far later than we intended, just talking and catching up. Unfortunately for furthering my tour guide skills, she was about to be on her own for a few days.

HUC decided to ease us back into school this semester. We had to be back at school this past Wednesday, but classes don’t start until Sunday. Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday morning were spent in a colloquium discussing issues of Reform Judaism in America. Many people in the class, myself included, did not have high hopes for these few days. Happily, I was far wrong. In the last couple of days, it has finally felt like I am in rabbinic school! We spent our days listening to engaging speakers and discussing big issues in small groups. We talked about issues of Jewish affiliation, non-Jews in Jewish life, the past and future of Reform Judaism, and the formation and development of our own Jewish identities. In small groups, we discussed huge issues and discussion questions. What has been my most significant experience in shaping how I think about the meaning of being Jewish? Who has been the most significant influence on my Jewish development? How has Israel impacted my sense of Jewish identity? What are qualities that stand out in outstanding Jewish leaders we have known personally? How can non-affiliated Jews be encouraged to become part of Jewish life? How can non-Jews in Jewish families be integrated into the synagogue? Where is Reform Judaism in America headed? How can the increasing individuality of religion be combated by the synagogue community? I know that these questions may not sound that exciting to you, but for many of us here, it reminded us of why we came here in the first place, and it was hopefully a taste of at least some of what we will be doing when we get back to the program in the States. It may have been the first time this year that discussions from the classrooms spilled over into lunch time, dinner time, and other free time. It has really made us all think and get excited about our futures, and that has made me very happy!

The colloquium continued on Friday morning, which broke my usual Friday schedule of running errands in the morning and attempting productivity in the short afternoon before Shabbat. Instead I went to the end of colloquium in the morning and relaxed for the afternoon. Friday evening Saroj and I headed to HUC for student-led Shabbat services as a class with lots of visitors. The service was great. HUC does not hold Friday evening services most weeks, so my class scatters over Jerusalem, each of us attending the service we have grown accustomed to this year. For the last few weeks we have been on vacation. Friday evening, though, we gathered together at school for our own service, and it was really comforting. It was nice to be all together praying and celebrating Shabbat as a group, and I was definitely content for the moment to be exactly where I was.

After services, we were all going to different professors’ and administrators’ houses to be hosted for Shabbat dinner. Along with Saroj and a few of my classmates, I was heading to the home of one of the Hebrew teachers, a woman I had never met, although she will be teaching my class once a week this coming semester. I had heard that she was a tough teacher, but a great one, but nice with a great sense of humor outside of class. While I’m going to have to wait until Monday to validate the in-class part of that description, the other half is exactly right. We were warmly welcomed into her home, and had a delicious meal, learning that Jewish mothers are the same across the world. There was more food on the table than twice as many of us could have eaten, and she pressed containers of leftovers on all of us to take home. I have big tupperwares of chicken and potatoes and sweet potato soup in my refrigerator, and I’m kind of excited about it. The food was delicious! In addition to our hostess and fellow HUC students, her oldest son, out of the army for a week now, was there, and her daughter, who is currently in the army but serving in Jerusalem, was also there. The younger son is still in the army and wasn’t there. After dinner we stayed at the table, and then in the living room, talking for several hours. There were family stories about universal subjects: losing track of children (in amusement parks and at gas stations), traveling, and other things. We talked about school and told our teacher about how much we enjoyed the colloquium. We talked about Hebrew. We talked about differences between the United States and Israel, and since this family has spent time living in the US, they had some very interesting opinions! We talked about Reform Judaism in Israel, army life, and so much more. We finally all realized we were tired and should head home around 11, and our teacher even called the cab company for us, and handed us our bags of leftovers, and sent us on our way. It was a really fun evening, and very different from the usual routine!

Today, Saroj is exploring the Israel Museum and making one more visit to the Old City, and I’m having my last real lazy day of vacation, because I’m back to classes tomorrow. Have a good long weekend at home, and sleep a little bit extra for me!

Vacation from Vacation

2007-01-08T22:42:00.000+02:00

My internet seems to be down right now, so I will write in the meantime and hope that it’s back up for me to post. And check my email. And read the news. And sign onto IM and skype. And, well, to have internet. Sadly, the guest blogger had to head back to the states to go back to school. So while he may provide a nice long comment, you just get my side of the story for now.

New Year’s in Jerusalem was fairly uneventful. I had heard that it was really not celebrated here, so I didn’t even make dinner reservations. That might have been a mistake. It turns out that it’s not really celebrated here by Israelis, but it’s still during the time when Israel is filled up with Americans on vacation, so restaurants are booked. We did find one eventually, and had a good dinner. The rest of the night was quiet and very low-key. Among other things, we packed for our trip to the Dead Sea…

Monday morning we woke up far earlier than planned to the sound of my landlord banging on the (bolted shut) door. He wanted to fix something in the apartment, and when he said he would come by on Monday, I assumed it would be in the evening as usual, or at least after 9 am. Apparently I was wrong. I went to the door and explained that I was still sleeping, and asked him to come back later. He agreed, although I don’t think he apologized for waking me. I guess I can take that as proof that New Years really isn’t an Israeli holiday. Around lunchtime we made it to the rental car office to pick up our car that we had reserved online a few days earlier. They informed us that they didn’t have the car we reserved, but they could upgrade us to a minivan (thanks, guys) or downgrade us (and we would pay less) to a Getz. We really didn’t want the minivan, but the Getz was one of the smallest cars I had ever seen. Michael went outside to look at the two cars and decide, and when he came back in, announced that he had seen a sedan close to what we had reserved, sitting in the lot. They told us they couldn’t give us that car, because someone else had reserved it. That seemed a little illogical to us, since we had also reserved a car, and it wasn’t there. Ultimately, they gave us the car we wanted. As we were filling out the paperwork, another group came in. From their conversation, it was unclear whether they were the ones who had reserved the car we had now claimed, or whether they simply had more claim to it than we did, being part of their frequent rental program or something. In any case, we apparently did a good job of arguing. They told the other group that the car was not available. They could have a minivan or a Getz. We finished as quickly as we could and drove away! Among other things we found in the car was a booklet of Israeli driving laws, at least the ones that are different from the US and Europe. The most random may have been that it is illegal to turn left into a parking lot. I guess I was comforted knowing that in contrast to what I see on the roads, there are, in fact, driving laws in Israel.

The drive to the Dead Sea is on a (perfectly safe) road through the West Bank. (Seriously, there are tourist stops on the way there.) The views of the Judean Desert are amazing. It’s not desert like I would normally picture a desert, but instead hilly and mountainy and rocky and gorgeous. I tried to take some pictures as we drove, but they are mainly blurry and/or have my finger over the lens. But a couple of them came out. We also had to stop once to let a herd of camels cross the road. There were 8-10 of them. We have a picture of the last few going by. It definitely made for good entertainment on the way there, and a definite realization that we were in the middle of a desert.

Our hotel was very…Israeli. And it was filled with lots of…Israelis. They tried to make people stand in lines, but that concept still hasn’t caught on so well in this country. It was a hotel where there were only rooms on one side of the hallway, and the middle was open from the top floor to the bottom, so when there were kids racing up and down hallways and shrieking a few floors away, we heard it. Frequently. There were signs not to drink the tap water, because it’s salty. It’s ok to shower in and brush teeth with, but not so good for large quantities of drinking. The signs said there was drinking water available at a designated location on each floor. We expected a water cooler of some kind. That was a silly assumption. No, there was a tap sticking out of the wall, but instead of being labeled “salty water, not for drinking,” like the rest of the taps in the hotel, this one was labeled “drinking water.” Was it really any different? We’ll never know.

We went to Masada, of course, and debated hiking to the top (supposedly about a 45 minute climb) or taking the cable car (a 3 minute ride). We decided to hike it. It was beautiful outside, and how bad could a 45 minute hike really be? After you’ve committed to the hike and gone well past the ticket counter and cable car entrance, you see the sign at the beginning of the hike, saying it’s a steep climb that also includes about 700 stairs. And they’re not even stairs; they’re uneven stone ones, and some of them should definitely count as two, especially for someone my size! A little over an hour later, we did make it to the top. At the top, I found the ticket counter and upgraded our ticket down to the cable car. It suddenly felt like 700 stairs down was a bad idea. We wandered around the top of Masada for an hour or two, looking at all the ruins of Herod’s palace and the Jewish fortress that used the mountain many years later. It’s a beautiful site, and a fascinating story of the Jewish rebellion and mass suicide that occurred a few years after Jerusalem was conquered, in 73 or 74. Everyone believes the story, the Israeli army brings many of their soldiers to Masada to basically swear that Masada will never fall again, and most tourists stop by to pay homage to a group of rebels who decided to kill themselves rather than become Roman slaves. The story is all written down by Josephus, who apparently got it from a couple of women and children who survived. Archeologists have found a lot of evidence, including the storerooms that contained enough food to survive months or years on the mountain and the stone shards with names carved into them, apparently used for lots to decide who would kill the others. But…they never found the one little piece of evidence that you would think people would need to believe a story about a mass suicide of almost one thousand people: there were never any human remains found at Masada. Weird. I guess everyone likes the story anyway.

The next day we went to Ein Gedi, a nature reserve in the same area. It’s gorgeous. In the middle of desert, there is this area with naturally occurring waterfalls and plants and really pretty things you wouldn’t expect in a desert. And also cute animals that don’t seem so afraid of people. We have some pretty close up pictures of some of them. We did a short hike through the reserve that went to a few waterfalls, each bigger and more impressive than the one before. The last one before hiking back, of course, was beautiful. There was a couple around our age who was hiking right in front of us, then they would stop and be behind us, then in front of us again, and we kept sort of acknowledging each other quietly. We all ended up stopping at the same end waterfall though to take pictures and enjoy its prettiness, so we talked some. One of them was American, went to Penn, lives on the west coast now. She was Israeli. We left the waterfall at the same time and basically hiked back together, pointing out good pictures to one another on the way back. Then we wanted to go see the ruins of a synagogue a short walk away, so we all walked over together. It was entirely random, and I’m sure I’ll never see either one of them again, but it was an amusing way to spend an afternoon.

The trip back from vacation was…well looking back, it was pretty funny. We were in a rental car. We walked back to the car on the last day, about to drive back to Jerusalem. I noticed that something was hanging down in the front. Basically, the front part of the undercarriage is made of cheap, thin plastic. So if you pull all the way into a parking space, it doesn’t always hold up. It didn’t on this car. Michael pushed it back up into place, and we went on our way. A couple of kilometers down the road, it definitely sounded like it had come down again. So we pulled over into a spa parking lot (on the right, of course). Clearly as we were about to drive into the West Bank (a safe part, but still…), we didn’t want to have to stop again. So Michael took a shoelace from one of his shoes and tied the piece back up, wrapping the shoelace around the grill of the car. There were several knots and it seemed very secure, although he mentioned after we were back that he wished he had used both shoelaces; he was worried about it the whole way back. (The drive was about an hour and a half.) We arrived back at my apartment, and still had several hours before the car had to be returned. We debated what to do. Michael wanted his shoelace back, so the piece was going to be hanging down. On further inspection, there was more of the plastic piece missing right behind where it had broken, probably damage that was done before we ever had the car. So we really didn’t want to be charged for something that wouldn’t have happened if the car hadn’t been broken in the first place, although we of course didn’t know that the piece was missing until the little piece that was left broke. So we did what any good Israeli would do. We walked up to a hardware store, debating ethics the whole way there. We decided this was, in fact, taking responsibility: we were fixing the car so that the same thing wouldn’t happen again any time soon. We bought a roll of black duct tape, came back to my apartment, and fixed the damage. Michael got his shoelace back. The car rental place got their car back. Everybody was happy. Hopefully including whoever has that car next…!

Friday morning Michael was a trooper and got up to go on my way early morning shuk run. We bought yummy things and spent the day walking around Jerusalem and not doing a whole lot more. We had a quiet Shabbat dinner at home and enjoyed the treats we had bought ourselves at the bakery in the morning. Eventually his airport shuttle came…at 2 in the morning. An amazing vacation. But always too short.

Now I’m gearing up to go back to school and have lots more visitors. I have a D’var Torah (sermon) to give to my class the end of the month that needs to write itself, travel agent work to do for my parents' trip, some reading to do, and various other errands I would like done before classes start again. I also am (as expected) pretty homesick again. I know that once classes start and I’m busy I’ll do better with that, but right now, I really just feel far away again. So as not to end on a sad note, here’s a link to Michael’s pictures from his trip. I haven’t posted mine, mainly because they’re the same pictures, and also because I haven’t had internet all day. I’m at a friend’s apartment mooching internet for an hour! Talk to you soon…

Playing Tourist

2006-12-29T22:45:00.000+02:00

Another guest blog, with my (Jessica's) comments in blue. Michael wrote first, in black. This week the time finally came to play my role as a proper tourist in Israel, which can generally mean only one thing: museum time! Since Jessica had only been to the Israel Museum to see one or two exhibits, I did not feel too guilty about bringing her back there to do some more exploring. I actually wanted to go back. And I still haven't seen the whole thing, so I'm looking forward to having more visitors to "drag" me back there! The Israel Museum is a large campus containing a main exhibit hall as well as a few smaller buildings for temporary or special exhibits. The first building we hit contained an exhibit of an odd sort: bread. Actually, first we hit the cafe, which was very good by museum standards. We had been warned by friends to go to the bread exhibit on full stomachs. But I digress. The entire building (2 small floors) was dedicated to exhibiting the breads used by different cultures for holidays, religious events, and milestone occasions. For example, there were parts devoted to challah, matzah, and Easter bread. It turned out to be a fascinating exhibit, since I had never given much thought to the significance of bread from a religious perspective (contrary to a good kugel, which has always held a special place in my heart—and stomach usually around Rosh Ha’shana). I thought it was interesting that while bread has always been important to Jews and Christians, it is only now in modern times gaining importance in Islamic culture. I also found it amusing that on every display showing a different type of bread, all real-but-preserved, there were signs in Hebrew, English, and possibly also Arabic warning that the bread was preserved and poisoned, so we shouldn't touch it or eat it. Mom and Dad, this one closes before you get here. Sorry.

The next stop at the museum was an enormous model of Jerusalem around the time the Second Temple was still standing. Even having visited the Old City and Western Wall in the last several days, it is hard to appreciate the significance of a walled city and the Temple without seeing the role it played in that era, both religiously and geographically. The Second Temple occupied an enormous part of the city, and the rest of the city was basically designed around the Temple. Without seeing a model, it is easy to visit the Western Wall without understanding why it is such a sacred location. Don't get too accustomed to having links in blogs. Or else demand that Michael shows me how to do it...if it's not complicated.

The third destination at the museum was a special, permanent exhibit on the Dead Sea Scrolls, the oldest known surviving Biblical documents written before 100 CE. The museum hosts this exhibit in a unique structure that looks almost like a giant Hershey-kiss from the outside. Chocolate analogy. Bonus points! As you enter the building through a wide tunnel, you come to the center of the “kiss”, where a round fire-place-like structure sits in the center of the building. Wrapped around this structure, against a white background, is an enormous piece of the Scrolls. Sort of. Upon closer inspection, I found a caption reading “Above is a facsimile of…” At first I was a little disappointed that this grand structure was dedicated to displaying just a copy of the Scrolls, but fortunately, there were several equally interesting and original objects also on display including the Aleppo Codex, believed to be the oldest complete manuscript of the Hebrew Bible (and by complete, we mean ignoring the huge chunks that have been lost including almost the entire Torah! The last couple chapters of Deuteronomy are apparently there. And a small scrap of Exodus is in the wallet of someone in New York.)

The rest of the museum was a more traditional display of Judaica items and an impressive collection of art including original works by Cezanne, Pissaro, and Gauguin and a sprinkling of Monet, Warhol, and more. While much the Judaica exhibit was predictable (candlesticks and Torah covers spanning 100s of years and several continents), there were a few intriguing items. My personal favorite was the candelabra-cube, a metal cube with holes carved on each side to hold candles for six different occasions including Shabbat, Chanukah, a normal dinner, and a wedding. Seemed like a pretty clever invention to me—one “candlestick” for every occasion—now if it had candles secretly stored inside, I would have been extremely impressed. One of my favorites was the "prayer ball" which appeared to be essentially a swiss army knife of prayers. It was the size of a slightly overgrown baseball, with about 5 or 6 silver sheets that came out with different prayers on them. The future rabbi in me thought it was cool!

By far, the most interesting exhibit on display in the museum was . . . wait for it . . . a Hebrew Union College diploma! In an exhibit about the role of women in contemporary Jewish life, alongside a special headcovering for women rabbis that looked like a kippuh with a pony-tail, the diploma from the 1980s was somewhat tucked away in a corner, but easily represented the most recent advancement of women’s roles in Jewish religious life. Go, Jessica! Most of the exhibit, placed upstairs in a small hall overlooking a replica of a synagogue, showed more "traditional" aspects of Jewish women's lives: head coverings, Shabbat candlesticks. The "progressive" corner was just that: a small corner including the kippah and diploma in a small, not well lit part of the display. Maybe it will expand eventually.

In addition to our museum time, I dragged Jessica back to the Israel Supreme Court for a tour, to satisfy the inner-law-student in me. The Supreme Court is just across the way from the Knesset (Parliament) and the future site of the Prime Minister’s office and lives in a modern building flooded with natural light. For the most part the Israel Supreme Court (ISC) functions in a similar manner as the US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) with a few exceptions. First, the ISC does not always sit as a full panel of 15 justices; rather, most cases are heard by a 3-judge panel much like the Appeals Courts of the US but as few as 1 judge or as many as all 15. Second, ISC justices face mandatory retirement at age 70 unlike SCOTUS justices who serve life ~~sentences~~ terms. Third, the ISC hears petitions directly from any Israeli resident who claims his/her human/civil/natural rights have been violated by a government policy (and has $400). In the US, claims of violations of constitutional rights go through the same court system as any civil lawsuit and rarely advance to the SCOTUS. Fourth and most significantly, the ISC hears ~15,000 cases per year versus the SCOTUS’s ~70 cases per year. Stats like that make the SCOTUS look just as productive as Congress, but I digress. . . . Also, there are 5 women currently serving on the ISC, including the current Chief Justice, who is chosen purely on the basis of seniority, politics (for once) aside.

The third tourist attraction for the week was the Old City, a must-do for every visitor. If you're keeping track, we actually did the Old City a couple of days earlier. In many ways, one of the most awe inspiring parts of the Old City is simply walking through one of its gates. Seeing the city’s walls from far away and then walking through them gives you a sense of entering a grand castle or fortress (though the taxis driving in and out of the gates lessen that impact slightly). Inside, the Old City is a mix of tourist traps, private residences, religious institutions, and sacred sites. Oh yeah, and hundreds of tour groups. I think there are more English speakers there right now than Hebrew speakers. Ick. In some ways, the Jewish Quarter reflects the layout of the rest of Jerusalem with stretches of shops and restaurants (e.g., Ben Yehuda Street) and religious neighborhoods and institutions (e.g., Mea Sharim). However, the grounds of the Western Wall are second-to-none in religious significance, as demonstrated both by the number of people praying at, kissing, and simply visiting the wall as well as the security presence controlling access to the grounds. There is also a strong religious presence: the men and women are separated to approach the wall itself, women are required to be dressed "modestly," men must have their heads covered, cameras are not allowed on Shabbat or holidays, and the list goes on. It is governed right now like a very traditional synagogue. It also took me longer to finish my time at the wall, because I had trouble actually approaching it. The women's side is much smaller than the men's side, and therefore always crowded. It can take a while to actually get through the crowd and close enough to touch the wall. My biases aside... The most striking part of the Old City is how each of the city’s quarters (Jewish, Christian, Armenian, and Muslim) are strictly divided, yet visitors flow seamlessly from one to the next. One minute we were walking along a string of Jewish shops selling expensive talit and artwork and the next minute we were surrounded by small vendors selling spices, cheap souvenirs, and employing high-pressure sales tactics. Passing neither a sign nor security, we had leaped from the Jewish Cardo shops to the Arab shuk all in a matter of a few steps. Not a security problem! The Arab shuk in the Old City is also a tourist site and a cool place to wander, but not for too long for the claustrophobic. Mom, you'll love the fabrics. We wandered around three of the four quarters before treating ourselves to the obligatory falafel pita and heading back from Old to New.

Just realized after re-reading that there are several feminist rants from me in this one. Heehee. Oops. Didn't mean for it all to come out at once. :) Saroj: safe travels and see you soon!!

Shabbat Shalom and happy new year!!

Lessons Learned

2006-12-27T22:48:00.000+02:00

So I thought that once I was done with exams and on vacation, I would be done learning for a few weeks. But as you might expect, somehow when I get out of a classroom, the learning starts. Things I’ve learned this week:

Freeze yummy cookies so that Santa won’t eat them. I guess I didn’t really learn that one, but that was my observation when I woke up the morning of the 25^th and realized that I had put my delicious box of cookies from home in the freezer before going to bed the night before. The thinking was really that they had been out for a week and it was time, but I suppose maybe there was some subconscious Santa-prevention going on. Sort of like the board that used to be in Grandma and Grandpa’s fire place in Great Neck. In reality, I am not sure there’s a city that notices Christmas less than Jerusalem. I played tour guide on Christmas day in the Old City, admittedly not all that well, but I did talk to some shopkeepers in Hebrew. While we didn’t make it more than a few steps into the Christian Quarter, there were no signs of Christmas anywhere else, other than the massive numbers of American Jews visiting on their vacations.

Storm drains are an amazing invention. We took a day trip to Tel Aviv on Tuesday, hoping to get to an arts fair that they have twice a week and that I can’t really do when I’m in classes. By the time we arrived there late Tuesday morning, it was raining lightly. The fair was okay, but it seemed that a whole bunch of the vendors didn’t come because of the weather, and most of the ones who were there had their tables covered in semi-transparent plastic, and would lift it if you looked interested. The street the fair was on was a pedestrian street, closed all the time to traffic. It also appeared to be the garment district of Tel Aviv, but none of the garments were made yet. As in, there were at least two dozen fabric stores down this one street. Maybe more. Mom, you were missed. (Well, sort of. We would have been there a lot longer if you had been there! Perhaps Dad and I will drop you off and meet you on the other end.) Eventually, we got hungry and headed to a street with a bunch of restaurants, including one where we were hoping to go again. Walking down the street was a challenge though. It started raining harder, and we noticed that Tel Aviv streets don’t have storm drains. This is a problem. It means that in a downpour, the water all rushes down the sides of the streets, but there’s nowhere to go except downhill. We tried crossing one street, only to realize about two-thirds of the way across that without an ark or bathing suit, we weren’t going to make it the rest of the way. That’s right, we turned around and just couldn’t cross the street at that corner! We had to go across the other way, and essentially cross the other three places at that one intersection instead. When we finally saw Max Brenner’s across the street, the restaurant we had been aiming for the whole time, we were sadly disappointed to realize that the entire block of the restaurant was surrounded by a 4-6 foot wide rushing moat. (It was literally the width of the cars parked on the side of the street!) Unfortunately, sacrifices must be made for a good meal, so we had to splash through the ankle-deep water to earn the deliciousness awaiting us inside. We sat there for a good three hours, not wanting to deal with the storm drain lacking city outside. But we learned another good lesson! Dress for the weather? Not exactly.

If you’re going to get stranded somewhere, do so in a chocolate shop. Max Brenner’s is a chocolate shop first of all. They also have real food, and the soup we started with was delicious (although it didn’t dry my socks or my shoes). But for the next three hours, we sat and talked and watched the other diners around us and inhaled the aroma of chocolate. And then when we were hungry again after lunch, we had some chocolate fondue. They bring out fresh fruit, marshmallows (kosher ones, but covered in chocolate it doesn’t matter as much), and “cake” which was more like pieces of churro, or sugar coated bread. They also bring you two separate fondue bowls, so you can choose two types of chocolate: dark, milk, or white. “Dark and dark, please.” I knew there was a reason Michael and I got along so well.

Bureaucracy is awful, but more bearable in English. We took a trip to the municipality office this morning to deal with a student reduction in renters’ property taxes that we were notified about during exams, and which had to be done before the end of the calendar year. We arrived as recommended, a few minutes before the offices opened at 8 am. We left around 10:30. In between, we dealt with several clerks who all gave different answers and couldn’t or wouldn’t speak English, wrote out an affidavit of monthly expenses, all in Hebrew, and successfully pulled a very Israeli “I was here earlier, so even though I left in the middle to go take care of something that wasn’t ready when I walked in, I’m not waiting in the over-an-hour-long line again so I’m next.” But we also succeeded in getting the reduction we came in for! Yay. It might have taken just as long in English, but I wouldn’t have misspelled every couple of words in my affidavit or had to have things explained to me quite as many times, quite as slowly. Success in a foreign language might be even sweeter though.

If you measure snow in millimeters, it sounds more impressive. We had heard that Jerusalem shuts down in the snow. The student services coordinator for my program warned us that the city shuts down, and when there was a little snow in the forecast, she even sent an email to the whole class, much of which is on vacation in America right now, advising us to stock up on necessities. It started snowing this afternoon! For the first few hours, it was really just pretty, but sticking on nothing but the trees. Later it made the sidewalks slushy and the streets a little slick, but the cars all pretty much disappeared. On the way to meeting friends for dinner, two double-length Egged buses drove by. Early evening, they’re usually packed. There were about five people on each bus. Everyone must have gone home early! Why? THERE WERE 10 MILLIMETERS OF SNOW!!! That’s right. An article on Ha’aretz online said that, in early evening. (There’s more now.) But doesn’t 10 millimeters sound a lot more threatening than one centimeter? Or less than half an inch? Maybe the DC area wouldn’t get so much crap for shutting down for an inch of snow if it was reported as 25 millimeters instead. Especially because Americans don't understand the metric system.

The guest blogger is too tired to add his opinions tonight (probably because he was up and at the municipality with me at 7:50 this morning), so expect some edits or a long comment tomorrow!

Guest blogger!

2006-12-23T14:17:00.000+02:00

This message is brought to you by a special guest blogger (and the letter “C” for Chanukah). (And by Jessica as usual, in blue.) Chanukah in Israel has been a wonderful and delicious treat, except for one slightly ironic feature: exams. As much as we like to claim that Hanukkah is not the Jewish Christmas, it really seems to function that way here. All the decorations in stores and on the street are for Hanukkah; the restaurants and shuks have abundant platters of sufganiyot; and Israelis take their winter vacations during Hanukkah—except for HUC students. This seems to be the one time of the year that the HUC-Jerusalem program reverts to American practices for scheduling and instead of having HUC students go on a Chanukah vacation like the rest of the country, they stress over final exams, so many of them can travel home or abroad on (cough) Christmas vacation. (Or have visitors come to us! About half the class is around this break, with lots of visitors.) I only spent about 2 and a half hours at the airport waiting for my visitor's late plane, but I brought a paper to edit, and ended up talking to an Israeli grandfather for a good half an hour, all in Hebrew! Visitor and bags arrived, fully intact!

Notwithstanding the studying, reviews, and exams, this week has been a great chance to hear everyone’s exciting plans for break (and having just finished my own exams, to laugh at those still seeking the light at the end of the tunnel). And of course, finishing exams was a huge relief for everyone until they realized they are now a whopping 10% finished with school. Oh, to be in law school…but I digress… Exams were...well, they're over. I got both my 10-page papers turned in a day early, a take-home exam (hand written, 5 sides-of-page, in Hebrew), and three exams allllll finished. And help carrying more than a dozen books back to the library. You're welcome. Keyboard thief! A couple of people in the last exam, Thursday afternoon, even brought some wine to open when we finished. And then we realized we have to do this nine more times. Except that most of them will be in English.

On night 6, Wednesday night, HUC had a Chanukkah gathering, with "significant others" (SOs) invited. They got to experience what we're getting used to: every occasion is reason to study some ancient text at least tangentially related to the topic. This time it was camels, flax, and responsibility. With rabbinic mentions (incorrectly) of torts and class action lawsuits. (Oy!) They also gave us sufganiyot and we sang songs. The life of a rabbinic student is never dull. And I'm the editor, so it's hard to disagree:) We did wonder a little about the scheduling on a night when most of us had at least one exam to study (cram) for the next day. On the seventh night of Hanukkah, one of the HUC rabbis led an oversized group of SOs and a few HUCers through Mea Sharim, an ultra-orthodox community, to see all of the Hanukkiyot in the windows and in front of the gates to their homes. The ultra-orthodox community is less a single group of religious Jews and much more a conglomeration of groups of mostly immigrant Jews whose clans collectively form a patchwork of ultra-Orthodox styles somewhat identifiable by variations in dress or custom. While it was interesting to learn about their community, to see their homes, and observe families together for the holiday, it was also a little surprising to see how unwelcome a probably-too-large group of 20 students was while wandering through their streets. Whether they all constantly feel like a tourist attraction or just a few outliers chose to express their annoyance (to understate it), it was not quite the “welcome a stranger to your home” attitude that I expected from the ultra-Orthodox. We were asked by one man to move on or leave, and we walked away, further into the neighborhood. We were asked by another one, less nicely, to please leave. We continued walking. The third person made no effort to be nice. He told us to leave, and then when our professor wished him a happy holiday, he started screaming. He pointed and started yelling "rasha, rasha, rasha!" (Evil one, evil one, evil one.) Many of the people who lived right there came out, but they neither joined him or stopped him. It was a frightening and somewhat depressing experience. We did leave after that, stopping on the way back to the twenty-first century to have a debriefing (in a church courtyard, actually). We debated whether we have more in common with these people or with non-Jews in our communities at home, and with whom our futures are more attached. Somehow, it all makes it back to rabbinic questions.

On a lighter note, yesterday was a much more appropriate way to conclude one holiday and immediately begin another one. It started with an early morning trip to the shuk to stock up for a big dinner. (Yes mom, I was out the door at 7:15am). (Jessica’s mom, I’m always an early riser and out the door early). (Jessica, OK, I’ll stop pretending). I was up first. But not by too much. The shuk was surprisingly empty, and some of the vendors were even closed, possibly due to Hanukkah vacations. Those that were open were stocked with Sufganiyot and Hanukkiyot in addition to the endless mountains of produce and other foods for sale. I was happy and grateful to have the help and company! We got more than a shuk-cart-full, and it was far heavier than usual. Potatoes, chicken, and veggies for 11 are not light. And obviously some treats: challah for french toast, chocolate-filled sufganiyot...

As soon as we returned home it was time to start the mad preparations for dinner in a race against the clock. I had to do some convincing that we really had to start right away. We did. The menu for the night included the traditional latkes, Israeli salad, chicken, veggies, pasta, and challah in addition to other things our guests contributed. And even if you recall Jessica “politely dissenting” (i.e., whining) from her lack of a food processor, don’t think for a minute that she caved and grated our ten potatoes by hand—I had to earn my accommodations! It's true. He did the potatoes and one of the onions, while I cleaned the living room around him. But I did the other onion after watching him cry like a baby through the first one. I cried too. Plus, considering neither of us had ever actually had to make latkes before that night, it was a mini-miracle of Chanukah that they came out just fine and a bigger miracle the apartment didn’t smell like latkes for the rest of the weekend. Grandma, we used your recipe, thanks! We finished making dinner just in time to meet up with our guests to walk to Shabbat services.

Unlike some other holidays, the Friday evening service does not change much for Hanukkah. However, the number of people in attendance certainly does. With an influx of visitors for the holidays, Shirah Chadasha was pretty packed with standing room only available shortly after we arrived. After another wonderful Kabbalat Shabbat and the rest of the service, we ran (not true) back to the apartment to heat up the food for dinner.

Our guests for dinner included both friends and their family, including a rabbi and his wife from Birmingham, Alabama. My friend Aaron's parents, not a random rabbi. We started the night by lighting a few Hanukkiyot (yes, that’s right—we went to Shabbat services, then lit the Hanukkiyot, then lit Shabbat candles. shhhhh.) , but I was mighty disappointed that this cadre of a rabbi and almost-close-to-being-almost-rabbis (10% rabbis?) didn’t break into a round of Chanukah songs, though I didn’t exactly volunteer to lead either. The conversation was a lively discussion of changes in reform Judaism, ways of keeping Jewish youths engaged with their religion, and the perks and hidden challenges of being a rabbi. Trivia for the night included the significantly growing number of women pursuing the rabbinate and becoming engaged in temple leadership and the benefits of tax breaks for clergy. Among the key pieces of advice we received for surviving as a rabbi was this: when entertaining a large group for Shabbat dinner, always hire help. Thanks for telling us that after the meal!

Good company, good weather (it's cloudy and gross looking today), and of course, great food (and tons of leftovers!) —a perfect conclusion to Hanukkah and a perfect start to Shabbat. Chag Samayach, Shabbat Shalom, chodesh tov (a good month) from the clerk at the supermarket, and Happy Holidays! From me too:)

Chanukkah Everywhere!

2006-12-15T23:15:00.000+02:00

A bonus blog! I don’t think I’ve ever done two days in a row before. It sort of figures that it would happen in the middle of final papers and exams.

A few observations from this morning’s shuk trip. Chanukkah is everywhere! Every bakery had piles of sufganiyot, jelly donuts, displayed this morning. A week from now, and for another 50 weeks or so, you would be hard-pressed to find any kind of donut in Israel. This week, they’re hard to avoid. The various stores that sell assorted Judaic items and housewares usually have piles of kippot in the front of their booths, or at least that’s what I usually notice. Today, they were all Chanukkah. They were selling menorahs of all kinds, a whole range of candles, and lots of different dreidels. I’m sure I’ll be back there during the holiday to get myself a few Israeli dreidels, with the Pei, for “A Great Miracle Happened Here (Poh)” instead of the American “A Great Miracle Happened There” (Sham, with a Shin). What fun!

I also noticed some extra-special menorahs. They sell oil menorahs in Israel! I know they sell them in the states also, but only from a few places (as in, a few wholesalers. I guess I would know that. Thanks Mom!). I’m sure most people have never seen an oil menorah. Actually, I’ve never seen one lit. But at the shuk today, mixed in with the tables full of menorahs, were oil menorahs of all designs, and probably, of all prices. Mixed in with the piles and displays of candles were packages of wicks for oil. I was caught off-guard by it all! As someone a little afraid of fire, I won’t be lighting one of those, but the idea of it is so much cooler than the regular menorahs.

Even the supermarkets are full of Chanukkah. I’m sure the ones at home now are all decorated for Christmas, with special Christmas packaging on everything. (I saw a small Christmas display yesterday! The first one! Then I realized it was a Russian store. Of course. Then I moved on.) The supermarket here is selling cheap menorahs, a few kinds of candles, and lots of Chanukkah candy. I bet you didn’t know there was Chanukkah candy! There is gelt, of course. But in addition, there is the equivalent of all the different candy canes of candy, trees of candy, Christmas-dressed stuffed animals holding bags of candy… It’s all here, but for Chanukkah!

Yes, I’m easily entertained.

I saw one other thing today on my way home from the shuk that made me laugh really hard. It was a poster advertising some sort of lecture: adapting to life in the 20^th Century. Um…remember the year 2000? The debate about whether the 21^st century really started in 2000 or 2001? (Well, maybe that one was only in my house.) In any case, Israel being a century behind the rest of the world explains a lot.

I ordered my airport shuttle this afternoon (to pick me up and take me to the airport tomorrow afternoon!). I did it all in Hebrew, and the person on the end was responding in Hebrew! I suppose I shouldn’t get excited about this until it really shows up when I think it will. Shuttles don’t run very often on Shabbat. I’ll be sitting at the airport (homework in lap, probably being ignored in favor of stellar people-watching) for quite a while. But what do you expect out of the 20^th century?!

Shabbat shalom, happy Chanukkah, and goodnight!

Visitors galore!

2006-12-14T23:00:00.000+02:00

I really can’t wait to be done with the end-of-semester work! Also, my current-favorite-people list keeps growing, which is a nice way to get through papers and exams. Up there right now: Michael, arriving in a day and a half, Saroj, coming in January, Monica, coming the end of January, Mom and Dad, coming in February, and Grandma, coming in April. There’s still time to come visit in March! It may be a little nuts to have constantly revolving visitors for almost two months straight, but I am definitely looking forward to lots of love from home. And perhaps some cookies.

Sunday night, a visiting faculty member from the Cincinnati campus sponsored a dinner for the Cincinnati-bound students. There are twelve of us, plus a bunch of husbands/wives/etc. It’s a great group! Also at the dinner was a fourth year student who is studying in Jerusalem this year, but has been at (and will be returning to) Cincinnati, so he was also great to talk to about the city. I’m really looking forward to starting the program in the States, where the focus is really on studying to become a rabbi more than learning Hebrew. As we’ve been told by numerous students ahead of us, once we get back to the states, it will really feel like rabbinic school. I’ve also been told to enjoy the pace of academics in Israel (well, except for this week), as it picks up a lot next year.

Monday was a day I wasn’t really that worried about until late Sunday night, when it occurred to me that HUC more or less does its best to make me stressed out. Everyone in my class has to co-lead, with another rabbinic student and a cantorial student, one service this year. Almost all of them are weekday morning services. (Yes, and then we’re considered prepared to lead Rosh Hashanah services when we return, and hopefully to have a monthly Shabbat pulpit all year long. We’re still a little puzzled too.) They make the one service leading opportunity into a big deal, requiring lots of supervision and preparation, and after the service, there is a formal service review with some of the faculty, where they offer suggestions. I have led plenty of services before though, and from going to Shacharit almost daily for six months now, I also know the service itself more or less inside out. Except that when a dozen different people ask you whether you’re nervous about leading services, eventually something inside kicks in and decides to get nervous. Awesome. Happily, everything in the service I had any reason to be nervous about was right at the beginning. I wrote the service introduction, about trying to find 100 blessings in every day. It seemed to go well, and I will include the text of it, if you’re interested, at the end of this posting. I also led Ashrei, which is a lot of Hebrew and a lot of singing. I got through it without a problem, which is always nice. The service itself went really well, with only one little hiccup in the middle which had nothing to do with us. In the middle of the Torah service, an enormous news camera came into the sanctuary. After some nervous moments, a couple of faculty members went to go kick out the camera crew, who of course refused to leave. A cell phone rang. The video-sidekick answered it. Dave continued chanting Torah, without noticing the chaos to his left. Eventually the crew was more or less dragged out of the sanctuary, and it was discovered that they were supposed to be filming the Israeli rabbinic students’ service. Thanks, guys. Our review was fairly painless. Most of the comments included the disclaimer “it will come more easily with practice.” How I wish we had the opportunity for more practice! But I know I have more than enough coming to me eventually.

Wednesday is our Israel Seminar day. This week we were studying the Haredim, the ultra-orthodox. We had a speaker who is an anthropologist who has studied Haredi women specifically. As she spoke, and things sounded really familiar, I realized that I had read her book for a class in college. (Debbie, you did too. Educated and Ignorant.) She spoke mainly about how Haredi women are educated, but their education also includes some indoctrination, so that they maintain the lifestyle. It is as if they are educated to be as ignorant as their ancestors, at least in some ways. It was actually an interesting lecture, which is always a plus! After the speaker, we divided into two groups to go on field trips. My group went for a walk in Mea Shearim, the main Haredi neighborhood in Jerusalem. I had been there before, but our guide took us on back streets and into neighborhoods where I had never been. The poverty in the neighborhood is incredibly striking. Many of the men study during the day rather than working, so they live off of child-benefits and welfare, in small apartments, in neighborhoods where the houses resemble the inner city, but the residents are all incredibly religious. The neighborhoods are fairly segregated. The different groups of immigrants settled together, so we walked through “Poland,” and our guide pointed out “Russia,” “Hungary,” and some others. For the most part, it seems that although from the outside we group Haredim together, they are in reality separate groups that don’t mix all that much. Most of them don’t own computers, televisions, radios, or receive newspapers. It makes it a more interesting process to find out the news, but it also makes it easier to keep out the modern world and any news you don’t want to hear about – or don’t want your children to hear about. Instead there are huge notice-boards lining the streets, and anyone who prints anything can plaster it up there. They were mainly advertisements for lectures, some major news stories (major, like boycott El Al because they flew on one Shabbat recently to clear their backlog of flights from a Friday strike), and notices of funerals. It is so insular and so amazing to see what a completely different world lives only a 15 minute walk from school.

Today was the last day of classes! I celebrated tonight, by doing my liturgy take-home exam. I actually also had a Hebrew in-class essay today and a Development of the Alef-Bet exam today during class, with a rabbinics class in between. Neither of them was painful, but it made for a long morning. I went shopping with friends for a little while in the afternoon, and I have been home since then, working, doing laundry, and trying to get myself organized for the last week’s push of work. Hopefully I’ll manage to get a lot accomplished in the next 40 hours or so until Michael shows up:) But with my Friday track record, that would be a major accomplishment. It’s a better-than-usual incentive though, so we’ll see what happens.

I have gotten a few email updates from my mom that she has heard from some people who have received Pesach Project letters. At some point the people in charge will give me official notice and you’ll get a real thank-you, but it will probably be a while still. So for now, THANK YOU!!

Off to bed. Eeeek! Except I just looked behind me and realized I have three loads of (clean) laundry to deal with first. Don’t think my life in Israel is too exciting!

My service intro follows...

היה רבי מאיר אומר: חייב אדם לברך מאה ברכות בכל יום.

In Bavli Menachot, we read that Rabbi Meir said that a person is obligated to recite a hundred blessings every day. It seems like a lot of blessings, especially on those days that seem more filled with homework and stress than happiness and praise. The way I see it, there are two ways to go about finding 100 blessings from the time we wake up until the time we go to sleep.

There is the route that Rabbi Meir intended, starting with about 50 blessings in the Shacharit service, and adding all the required brachot throughout the day.

As Reform Jews, however, we may have to look a little harder for our hundred blessings. Instead of praying formally, using words that are hundreds and thousands of years old, we can challenge ourselves to thank God in our own words for ordinary things. A blessing, in essence, makes something ordinary into an extraordinary moment of holy time. Even waking from a night’s sleep and emerging from the bathroom are moments worthy of praising God and offering a blessing. By not always engaging in formal prayer, we have this challenge of finding one hundred such ordinary moments every single day and thanking God for each and every one of them.

As we pray together this morning, try to think about the meaning of each blessing. Pay attention to how each ordinary moment is transformed into something holy. And as you go on your way after services and for the rest of the day, try to find the remaining 50 or so blessings for today. A good conversation with a friend, a funny email, a thoughtful listener, a well-melted bagel toast, a moment of clarity in Hebrew class, a happy memory you had forgotten about. All of these times could be moments of blessing, times to remember God, and an opportunity for holiness as we go about our days.

Yummy break

2006-12-08T15:40:00.000+02:00

It’s Friday afternoon. I was on a roll. I went to the shuk and supermarket, came back home for an hour or so, went for a good workout at the gym, enjoyed their far superior showers, came home for lunch, and made banana chocolate chip muffins. (Those bananas, eek.) I was excited that I had been so productive! And then I looked at the clock. Shabbat starts in an hour. Arrrgh! Less than an hour (since at some point I’ll have to change and get ready for Shabbat) is definitely not enough time for me to get homework out and work on it, so this is the alternative! I should really give up on expecting to get homework done on Fridays, at least until the days get longer again.

Banana muffins. I thought my hand mixer (which is at home in a box somewhere) was a sad state of affairs after my mom’s stand up mixer. But alas, making banana muffins with no mixer at all…that’s sad. I have discovered the ideal combination though: a fork works better for the first few added ingredients, especially the butter/sugar combination. A wooden spoon works better once there is flour involved. Just in case you’re stuck with rotten bananas and no mixer in sight and a pile of work that should be done instead. (Mom: enjoy breaking in the new mixer today! I can’t wait to taste the results next week! Michael: next week!!)

Also, I miss Firestone Library. I really didn’t think that day would come. We’re all writing several final papers these days. The problem is, we all take the same classes, so the paper topics are not all that varied. So there has been a run on books relating at all to liturgy, Reform Judaism, and modern-ish European-Jewish history. There is no other school with a library we can borrow from, let alone a whole group of schools. On top of that, I got spoiled with Princeton’s journal subscriptions. I could expect that if I found a citation of an article that would be useful to me, I could get my hands on that article. Online, if it was written in the last five to ten years, and in the stacks if it was older. I’ve learned this week how much of a blessing that was. Here, I can get an article if it’s in one of a small handful of journals, and not too old. I’ll get over it, but it’s frustrating.

The pictures from the tiyul are still coming, as are ones from Thanksgiving. I’m getting a bunch from Kate tonight, assuming I remember my flash drive, and they will be posted soon after, once I sit down to do homework that can be put off.

Earlier this week, program administrators decided that the American rabbinic program (mine) should have more interaction with the Israeli rabbinic program with which we share a campus and faculty. They got us a pizza lunch on the premise that if you throw them in a room together with food, they’ll talk. Strangely, it worked! I think that at least some of the success was related to our having a lot of work right now, so a lot of the Americans didn’t attend. There are over 50 of us and only about 25-30ish of them, so it’s usually easy for us to clump and ignore each other. But this time, we actually did some talking, which was nice. The woman I was talking to (in English) didn’t understand something I had said, so I repeated it in Hebrew. She commented that my Hebrew was good! Granted, I only said one sentence; it wasn’t really a fair sample. But I think that slowly, I am getting better with the speaking. A lot of my best practice comes from a somewhat unexpected place, and it’s not Hebrew class. Visiting my Ethiopian family every week, I get almost two hours of solid Hebrew-speaking time. We don’t always talk a ton, since their Hebrew isn’t really any better than mine, but any time we want to make ourselves understood, it’s Hebrew only. I know one word of Amharic, which one of them taught me a couple weeks ago, and they know one word of English (“bye”) without necessarily realizing that it’s an English word, since all Israelis use it. Hebrew it is. I think I’m getting at least a little better. Hebrew class practice doesn’t really count, because it’s not at life-speed. I can talk as slowly as I want, ensuring that my verbs and genders come out correctly. (If they don’t, they get immediately corrected.) With the family, I have to talk fast to get the point across. When I’m wrong, sometimes the kids correct me, and sometimes they don’t. I usually notice my mistakes though and silently correct myself. (Jessica, he’s a boy. Masculine not feminine. There’s only one of her. And so on.) A fascinating life I lead, obviously.

Yesterday we went on a field trip with the class most of us refer to as “hieroglyphics.” In reality, we have been studying the development of the Hebrew alphabet, but ancient Hebrew looks a lot like hieroglyphics. And you can trace the letters back to the pictures they came from! One looks like a hand, since it’s the letter that starts the word ‘palm’ (as in, palm of hand). The first letter of water looks like water. And so on. Anyway, the plan for yesterday was to go as a class to the Israel Museum to look at some artifacts we have been studying with ancient Hebrew writing. (We look mainly at grammatical structures and how they changed over time. Shockingly, I really like the class.) The professor, who we also have for biblical grammar, is incredibly organized and brilliant. I think he’s amazing, as I might have mentioned before in connection to the grammar class. We arrived at the museum, and he took us directly to the exhibit we were aiming for, since we didn’t have that much time. We got to the door and learned that the exhibit had been closed for renovations…starting about 3 days before. He was shocked and disappointed, as we all were. He was ready to tell us to just explore the museum on our own for the hour, but we asked him to show us something else instead. (Clearly, a highly respected professor!) So instead, we went to see the Dead Sea Scrolls! They are not written in the ancient alphabet, but they are still really cool, and although he claimed not to be an expert or anything, he is a fountain of information. I would have loved to see the stuff we’ve been studying, but this was a great backup.

I’m ready for vacation. And also to go get ready for Shabbat and sample my muffins. I’d write more, but there really isn’t all that much going on right now. We’re going into the last week of classes, and then exam week. I think I can, I think I can, I think I can…

Caesaria, Tzippori, Tiberias, Tsfat, Haifa

2006-12-02T23:02:00.000+02:00

I’m back from Haifa, and now having had a day to recover, I’m still tired. But school starts again tomorrow, so I’m trying to get this written before I get bogged down in the craziness of the week.

We actually started this tiyul on Monday night with an introductory session with my rabbinics professor. He is so incredibly educated about the rabbinic period, and I actually love listening to him talk. He gave us some background information about the places we would be visiting and showed some slides of archaeological discoveries, some of which we saw on the trip in person.

Wednesday morning we met at the college early in the morning to get on buses and head north. (Dad argued that 7:30 isn’t really that early. To be ready to be social with more than 50 future colleagues, or more than 70 of anyone, that’s early!) A couple of hours later, we arrived at Caesaria in northern Israel. This city is a major testament to the Hellenistic influence over Israel. We divided into our three study groups to tour the ruins, starting in the theater. Our educator told us that the acoustics aren’t as good as they used to be, because where there is now a beautiful view of the sea behind the stage, there used to be a backdrop to reflect noise back to the seats. Another group’s educator apparently disagreed, because in the middle of our text study, we saw five of the HUCers with the most amazing voices run up to the stage, and then we heard them, from way up in our seats, singing beautifully. (What did they sing? In multi-part harmony, first we heard “Gin-gy. Hi Gingy. O-phir. Mo-she.” Those were our three educators. Then we heard, also in beautiful harmony, the Oscar Meyer Weiner song. It’s never sounded so beautiful! They had some non-HUC tour groups doubled over in laughter as well.) From the theater, we moved on, walking through the hippodrome and then to a crusader village. We also saw a beheaded statue of one of the emperors, but of course three days later, I no longer remember which one. Oops.

From Caesaria, we got back on the buses and drove to Tzippori, where the Sanhedrin met for a while under Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi, the editor of the Mishnah. We did some text study there, and heard stories about the lives of the ancient rabbis while we were standing on ruins of what was probably a Jewish village, so the stories could have taken place in that exact spot! Clearly, I enjoyed it. I guess I’m heading in the right direction! We saw the remains of a huge house from that time period, which given the mosaic glorifying drinking, was probably not a Jewish house. We looked at some related texts, including one on how bathroom location was an indication of wealth. Seriously. We then went into the remains of an ancient synagogue where a huge mosaic was found on the floor. The mosaic was surprising when it was first found, because some of the images, such as a giant zodiac, are not generally thought of as very Jewish. Lots of historians have rationalized the discovery, and subsequent discoveries of similar images in other synagogues of the time, as a portrayal of Jewish time and possibly of creation. Or else the way that Hellenization crept in everywhere, including the synagogues. After all of the groups had been through the ancient synagogue and finished studying texts for the day, the whole group gathered in the synagogue remains and prayed the mincha (afternoon) service together. It was actually an odd feeling, because we were facing the back of the synagogue. This one was oriented towards Rome, not Jerusalem, so when we prayed facing Jerusalem, we were turned backwards from the way it had been built. Apparently the Greeks and Romans were more influential than anyone likes to believe.

From Tzippori, we drove to Tiberias, where we had some down time in our hotel before dinner. The hotel itself was an interesting place. It was a hotel-museum to Dona Gracia, who was one of the people to establish the Jewish community in Tiberias in the 16^th century. Among other things, there was a rack of costumes in the lobby. I still haven’t figured that out, but a few of my classmates did play dress-up at some point. The whole class went together to dinner (on HUC) at Decks, apparently the best restaurant in the area. It was fabulous! It was presented to us as an all-you-can-eat meal; as soon as one dish was empty or close to empty, it was refilled AND the next food came out. To make it even better, it was a (kosher) meat restaurant, so we got good meat as some of the never-ending courses, including some sort of beef skewers that were a highlight and goose, which was delicious, although some of my table-mates yelled at me a little for cutting off the massive amount of fat. Apparently it’s part of the experience and deliciousness, but I had plenty of experience and deliciousness without it. So there. We were also served crepes for dessert. It was delicious. We had walked to dinner, so we essentially rolled back afterwards, where I hung out with my tiyul-roommates Hayley and Cassi, and then went to bed.

Thursday morning we were up really early again. (How early is really early this time? We had to be downstairs for morning services at 7:15. And they didn’t feed us until afterwards.) I realize I tend to rave about good food, but such is life. Breakfast was delicious. An excellent balance of the Israeli – salads and cheeses – and the American – pancakes with chocolate sauce, among other things. We went to Tsfat, where mysticism took off. We did more text study and visited three old synagogues which were all beautiful and so completely unlike anything you would find today. As we walked into the first one, I remembered being there on my NFTY trip nine years ago! Although I have probably been to many of the sites we have visited this year, I remember almost nothing from that trip, for no reason I can figure out. So when I see something familiar, I get excited. But I digress. In one of the synagogues, there was a geniza with glass doors. A geniza is a place where any paper that might have God’s name on it is deposited, and when it is full, it is buried, so that the name of God is never thrown away. This one had doors that you could see through, and it has clearly been used for a very, very long time. It was really interesting to peek inside. Among other things, there was a very old Torah scroll, off its rollers, in the geniza. After the synagogues, we went to visit a kabbalistic artist, someone who studies the mystical parts of Judaism and uses them in his art. He had a lot to say. I find the mystical stuff interesting, but I think I am far too rational of a person to get very excited about it. The art was beautiful, but the explanations of some of it made it a little too out there for my taste. After that, we had free time to eat and explore the city on our own. Tsfat has zillions of little shops and artists, and I was excited to go into some of them. I am looking forward to going back, possibly in February with my parents when they come. (YAY for booking tickets!)

After Tsfat, we went to Haifa, arriving in the late afternoon. We were given free time for the rest of the day. Some friends and I asked the hotel manager where we could find a good restaurant for dinner. He gave us directions and told us it would be about a 10 minute walk. We headed in that direction, and after about 20 minutes got to the beginning of the street he was talking about, but nobody got excited about any of the restaurants for a while. After 45 minutes of walking, we were all pretty hungry. We settled into a Thai restaurant and had a fabulous meal. One of these days, someone is going to have to explain to me why Jerusalem doesn’t have any good ethnic food, but the rest of Israel seems to. Somehow, a bunch of my classmates stumbled on the same restaurant. I was there with a group of nine, and while we were eating, there were somewhere around 25 HUC people in the restaurant, and another big group showed up as we were leaving. I think we were the only ones who walked. We decided to walk home as well, in part because we were really full, and in part because we had passed some bars that looked good. We stopped in one of them, about halfway back, to get a drink. Since apparently Haifa is like Jerusalem in that you can’t go anywhere without seeing HUC people, we ran into our professors, who had just finished dinner where we were going to have a drink. Apparently this place also had great sushi. When we got back to the hotel, I had more roommate time and then slept happily, although never for long enough.

Friday morning we went to the Leo Baeck Education Center, a middle school/high school affiliated with Progressive Judaism, although most of the students there would identify themselves as secular Jews rather than reform or progressive Jews. We had services at the school, led by their rabbi/educator. With his playing guitar through the reader’s Kaddish and Aleinu, I have altered my opinion of guitar use during services: there is such a thing as too much. It was a little odd. I don’t think he stopped playing it at all, except during the silent part of the Amidah, until the Mourners’ Kaddish at the end of the service. After services, we had a brief tour of the school. It looks like no high school I have ever seen! It is on the shore of the Mediterranean, and the whole inside is gorgeous, modern, and decorated with tons of art. I am pretty sure the building is nicer than most universities. After our tour, we divided into smaller groups and met with students at the school. I am constantly impressed with Israelis’ command of English. These students, from 7^th to 10^th grade, had much better English than my Hebrew. I know they study it in school starting when they are really young, but it still surprises me and amazes me every time. It was really interesting to hear their opinions on all kinds of topics. The school does an exchange program with the Rashi School in Boston. The kids who had been through the program already said that they felt more Jewish in Israel than Boston, even when they weren’t doing Jewish things, and even though the Boston kids might have been more traditionally observant. They couldn’t imagine living anywhere but Israel. One HUC student asked them what they wanted to do in the future, and they all told us what part of the army they wanted to go into. It was a really interesting look into Israeli minds. It echoed a lot of what we talk about in our Israel Seminar, but to hear the same opinions directly from kids was still fascinating.

After an unexciting lunch, we got back on the bus and slept most of the way to Jerusalem. We arrived at about 3:30. Shabbat started at 3:56. (In two weeks it starts moving later again!) I slept well last night. I worked hard today. I drafted a paper. Michael arrives in less than two weeks. I have a ton of work to do between now and then. It’s bedtime. Pictures soon, I really promise. I have lots of procrastination to do these days, so it will happen. Mazel tov, Abi and family! Safe travels, Debbie! Happy studying, Michael! Becky and Lev, your turn to book a trip? Goodnight.

Beit haMishpat haElyon

2006-11-28T22:43:00.000+02:00

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

2006-11-24T15:46:00.000+02:00

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

2006-11-18T22:04:00.000+02:00

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

2006-11-14T21:16:00.000+02:00

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

2006-11-11T15:27:00.000+02:00

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

2006-11-03T11:31:00.000+02:00

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!

highlights

2006-10-29T23:59:00.000+02:00

I always have such good intentions of updating more often, but then life seems to get in the way. So here goes…

In last week’s trip, I think I skipped over my Hebrew field trip. Last Sunday, we went to the Hebrew Language Academy, which is basically what it sounds like. They make up new Hebrew words. The process is actually interesting if you’re a language geek; they often take words from the Bible and adapt them to a modern use. The word for “electricity” is from a biblical word that appears once or twice and refers to some sort of bizarre fire. They also try to come up with new words to replace the foreign (read: English) words that keep creeping into the language, mainly in technology, but a little bit of everywhere. “Zeh lo beeg deel” is one of our favorite “Hebrew” phrases. (Zeh lo = It’s no. Read it out loud.) I think the most interesting part of the visit was that I understood most of what the speaker was talking about. Yay me!

We went to the Ethiopian immigrant absorption center again (every Tuesday), and had another fun evening with our family. This week, Karen and I brought a bunch of coloring pages that I had printed from the internet (and some blank paper), crayons, and markers. We did have some other backup activities, but we really didn’t need them. The kids were thrilled to color for an hour and a half! The oldest child (the 11-year-old) didn’t arrive home until toward the end of our visit, so we just had the younger four. In talking to them, it became clear that while the oldest’s Hebrew is decent, the rest of them have a long way to go. (Well, the 2-year-old has a really long way. She hardly talks at all.) But we communicated effectively, and since I could name all of the marker colors except two, I promised to learn pink and orange by this week. It was a lot of fun, and I’m thrilled that I’m really looking forward to the project every week!

This past Wednesday, I got to meet up with Rabbi Luxemburg for a few hours! It was great to see such a friendly face from home. We had hot chocolate with another rabbi-friend of his, and then went to meet the rest of their group for dinner and a speaker. The food was delicious, and the night was definitely really interesting. The room was me and 20 rabbis. The speaker was talking about strengthening connections between Israeli Jews and American Jews, except that the path his organization had chosen to take to do this strengthening was through facilitating American Jews getting married in Israel. It’s a great idea, except that…only Orthodox Jews can get married in Israel. So it’s outreach, but to a very specific subgroup. It definitely sparked some interesting discussion among the rabbis from Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, and Reconstructionist Judaism. I sat quietly and took it all in and actually really enjoyed talking to the people who were sitting around me.

On Friday afternoon, I had an incredibly interesting experience. One of my classmates has a Palestinian family friend, and he stayed in the friend’s guest house for the first six weeks he was here. This friend, Ibrahim, is a Moslem who wants nothing more than peace, and he has basically devoted his retired life to making peace just through relationships. He invited the HUC class to his house for lunch on Friday. About 35 of us went. We first arrived on the Mount of Olives at an overlook. The Mount of Olives is definitely part of East Jerusalem which is the part of the city where the Arabs live; Jerusalem is incredibly segregated. It also is above the Old City, with an amazing view of what was the Temple Mount, and is now home to two sacred Islamic mosques, Al Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock. The view is breathtaking, and as soon as my friends post pictures, I will take them and post them as well. (I forgot my camera…) From the overlook we went a short distance to Ibrahim’s house. His family has lived on the Mount of Olives for 1400 years, and he operates a guest house next to his home, where he welcomes people of all religions to stay, and that’s where we had lunch. He talked to us about some of the amazing experiences he has had, the people he has met, and his dream of peace. He told us how he is not a citizen of any country, because Israel does not grant citizenship to those living in East Jerusalem (which was not part of Israel until 1967), but he has a travel permit of some kind and travels extensively. It’s an interesting issue that I don’t think any of us had ever really considered. He is generally not allowed into certain Arab countries, because he is traveling from Israel, even though he is Arab. Because of his type of travel permit and lack of passport and citizenship, if he stays outside of Israel for over a year, he is not allowed to return. He is not so happy about the situation; two of his (eight) children studied abroad and are no longer allowed to come home. I don’t know the answer; it’s pretty clear nobody has figured out a good one yet. In addition to all his talk of peace, though, we were allowed to ask him questions. We did notice that he did not directly answer them all. When questioned about how his neighbors felt about his multicultural visitors, he said his family supported his efforts fully, but he did not tell us how his neighbors felt. It got a little bit frustrating, but it was definitely worth the trip. Most of us realized only on the way home that while we have all learned about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, we have not had much (or any) contact with any Palestinians. Now we have, and it was a little old man who wants nothing more than love and friendship and peace.

Shabbat evening, we were required to attend services at HUC, because a couple of students were leading services. Some people were not super-excited to have to break out of the usual Shabbat routine, but it was really nice. It was actually really nice to see the whole class together outside of school, dressed up nice and everything! And a lot of the professors, rabbis, and staff came as well, many of them with their families. I really enjoyed getting glimpses into their real, outside-of-HUC lives, and seeing that some of them have really adorable children! I was asked to lead Kiddush at the student potluck dinner afterwards. I had to finally learn the first paragraph that I always meant to learn but hadn’t gotten around to learning so well yet. I was sort of glad to have the excuse to finally learn it, but it is always intimidating to sing in front of a big group of people, especially the cantorial students and rabbinical students who sing really well! I got through it, and I am glad I finally had to put in the effort to learn it.

Saturday morning I got up early and went to services at Kol Haneshamah with a friend. I don’t always make it to services on Saturday mornings, because it’s often the only morning when I can sleep in. But I want to make an effort to get to services more often, and the potluck ended really early the night before, so I actually got ten hours of sleep even with getting up early to go to services! That was exciting for me. Obviously, I lead an exciting, although sleep deprived life.

Last night I went out with some friends to celebrate. One of my classmates, Cassi, got engaged over Sukkot, but her now-fiancé is not here for the year, he was just visiting. So a whole group of us who are involved in the long-distance thing took her out to dinner to celebrate! As part of the bargain, I got to try a new restaurant that turns out to be delicious and spend an evening with a fun group of girls!

Ira and Allison, congratulations!! I so much wish I could have been there to celebrate with you, and I can’t wait to hear about it and see pictures!
Becky, see how long you delayed me? This would have been posted before football started today otherwise. It was good to talk to you finally:)
Debbie, I’m still encouraging it. We’ll do fun things and eat good food and play!
Mom and Dad, thanks for sending the forms. All is here and turned in.
Alex, now that I know you’re reading, you get your own note! Which wouldn’t be complete without a woooooooooooosh!
Michael, let me know if there were any surprises. If there were, I’ll do better next time!

It's now cold and on-and-off rainy in Jerusalem. I miss the sun and flip-flops.

Also, it’s way past my bedtime. Goodnight!

This and That

2006-10-23T23:03:00.000+02:00

It’s been a whole week since I last posted, so rather than summarize everything I’ve done, I’ll leave you with another batch of thoughts, in really no order at all…

Visitors are great! My friend Melissa Renny from college was coming to Jerusalem for work, and she spent Shabbat with me. We haven’t been in touch much (at all) in the last couple years, but we had a great time together, going to services, eating, shopping, and hanging out. Old (ish) friends are great fun, especially when in a foreign country.

I understood (some of) the radio today! We talked in class for a while about what stories were in the news today, and went over some of the vocabulary, but I was nonetheless incredibly excited to recognize and understand several of the headlines that wooshed past us on the news. We’ve also moved on to television; after going over radio headlines for a while, we watched a tape of a little piece of the early morning news. Our teacher thinks it’s much harder than radio, but I think there are more pauses, which make processing the words easier, I can see the speakers, which makes it easier, I can see pictures, so I know what story is being discussed, which also of course makes it easier. The stories are more in-depth, so I don’t get every single word, but I have a decent idea of what’s going on after watching TV-news, so I find that encouraging.

The Redskins are doing a great job this year…of making me sad. There isn’t any more to say on that topic. There’s always next season.

I do miss home. Jerusalem is a nice place to be, for a year, but I do sometimes feel very far away. I miss the day to day conversations with friends and being around for important events and fun events. I also miss having separate groups of friends. I kind of liked at home having my college friends, high school friends, work/youth group friends, and extra miscellaneous friends. Here, I have sort of different groups of friends, but they’re still all HUC people. They’re wonderful, and I’m definitely marveling at how I have become so close with some people after only a few months, but I don’t have the same escape as I did at home.

Fall produce is not as good as summer produce. The shuk is a somewhat depressing place to be these days. There are apples, but they’re not that good. There are some late plums and grapes, but they don’t look that great either, and they’re really expensive. The tomatoes aren’t looking so good anymore. Pomegranates were a novelty, but I’m not going to put one in my backpack as a mid-morning snack like I did with peaches. I miss watermelon. I’m ready for the winter fruits, especially various types of citrus, to make their way to the shuk.

Bet you never thought you’d read about me longing for fruits and veggies, did you?!

My Shabbat dinner this past Friday night was part of an HUC program to have us get to know people in the community. They did a home hospitality program with a local Reform congregation, Kol HaNeshamah. Along with several other HUC students and some other people, I went to a local couple’s house for dinner. The discussion and people there were fascinating, the home was beautiful, and the food was amazing. I miss having a real, live Jewish mother to feed me! There was a constantly-refilled platter of brisket (really yummy, but mom’s is better!), salmon, sweet potatoes, and several other types of deliciousness. I was a happy camper! It’s funny that we all cook for ourselves, and we often have big group dinners, but I seldom have a really, really good meal with endless amounts of food. I should do that more often.

This afternoon the rabbinic students met in our “reflection groups.” These are groups of 5-6 students and 2 staff members or professors that meet every month or six weeks, just to talk about whatever is on our minds or issues we are having and things like that. The actual content of the discussions is confidential. Today we talked about levels of practice, inspirational rabbis we’ve met, differences between movements, and comfort with different parts of Judaism. I really enjoy these meetings. I have a great group of people who have widely varying opinions, but really respect one another and get along well. Both times the group has met, we have had great discussions, and the designated time really flies. I think it’s a great forum for discussion and reflection, and I only wish we met more often!

Tomorrow I go back to my Ethiopian family again, and I realize I never wrote about my experience there last week. To summarize: we all have to be involved in a community service project this year. My project is working with Ethiopian immigrants every week. A group of about a dozen of us goes to an absorption center about 20 minutes away after classes on Tuesdays. We work in pairs. My roommate Karen and I are working together. We were assigned a family to work with. Our family is parents and five children, ranging in age from 2 to 11. They immigrated to Israel about 8 months ago, in February. The kids have been going to school since they have been there, so their Hebrew is really good. The parents hardly speak any, so I can’t really talk to them. The oldest daughter is the one I talked to the most last week. We brought a bag of games and activities to break the ice. The biggest hit: balloons. We ended up with somewhere over a dozen kids in our house all wanting balloons and stickers. It didn’t take too long before all the balloons were broken, of course, but it was fun while it lasted! I played endless games of cards with the 11-year-old. Karen played basketball with a beach ball with a group outside. With her hands in front of her in a circle, Karen was the basket. I had a really good time, but I hope we can do more than just play in the future, and talk to them some more. It will be an interesting challenge; I don’t even know the names of the family members. We got a list of names and ages, but everything is in Hebrew and without vowels, and the names are Ethiopian, so I don’t recognize them at all. It will be an uphill battle!

And now it’s the nightly battle between my to-do list and my pillow. My pillow usually wins eventually. Goodnight!

Rain Dance

2006-10-16T23:31:00.000+02:00

The end of vacation came way too fast, as I guess it always does. But with it came one of the most fun holidays of the year, Simchat Torah, when we celebrate the Torah, finish the yearly cycle of reading it, and start again at the beginning. It fell on Shabbat this year. Friday night, I went to Shira Chadasha, the traditional, musical community I have been going to frequently. We went through the usual Shabbat service, but after the Amidah, they gave instructions (in Hebrew, and I understood!) to stack all the chairs (several hundred of them) so that we could begin celebrating. Celebrating involves seven separate rounds of singing and dancing with the Torah scrolls. In this congregation, the dancing had a curtain down the middle to separate the men and the women. It’s okay though…the women’s side tends to have the better dancing! In this congregation, they do let women touch the Torah (which they don’t everywhere), so the men’s side had a couple Torah scrolls (the bigger ones), and we had a few as well. Basically, it’s dancing in circles, passing the Torahs around, people dancing while holding Torahs. Think the hora at a Bar Mitzvah, but instead of dancing around the Bar Mitzvah boy and lifting him (and his siblings and parents) in the chair, the Torah is in the middle being danced with and lifted. I think the seven rounds of dancing (separated by a brief couple of lines of prayers, all sung) went on for almost 45 minutes. It was really crowded, so sometimes it was difficult to stay involved in the dancing and too easy to end up on the side talking to friends (and avoiding getting toes stepped on), but when I got into it, I had a great time. After services, I came back home for dinner. It was my roommate Karen’s birthday, and both her parents and my other roommate Amy’s parents were visiting, so they had a big birthday dinner here. Karen’s mom cooked, and did a great job!

Saturday morning, I had usher duty at HUC. Each student has usher duty once or twice during the year, so that the services, open to the community, run more smoothly. Mine was Saturday. So I got there a half-hour before the service, at 8:30, as requested. I think the first people came at 8:55. Yes, I’m regularly among the first to arrive almost anywhere. HUC was also fun for Simchat Torah, although of course differently fun. One of the cantors organized a student HUC band, with keyboard, guitar, drum, and I don’t remember what else. So in the middle of the service, when we took the Torah scrolls out of the ark, the procession continued out the door of the sanctuary and out into a courtyard! I’m sure the musical instruments projecting onto King David Street made a lot of people not-so-happy. But we had a great time! We did the seven rounds of dancing in the morning as well, mixed men and women of course. Because we were in a huge courtyard (with less people than the night before), it was much easier to get involved in dancing, because there was more space. I had a great time, and I even got to dance carrying the Torah for a round! (Really, everyone who wanted to had ample opportunity. There were four Torah scrolls, seven rounds, and often at least one handoff per Torah per round.) After all the dancing, we went back inside, and did the whole reading, of the last chapter of the Torah and then the first chapter. Usually synagogues will have one scroll ready for the end part and another one rolled all the way to the beginning. Somehow, there was a miscommunication somewhere though, and the beginning scroll had not been rolled. So we got to watch the scroll rolled back to the beginning, which, by the looks of the rabbi and cantors who did it, is not such an easy task. It was a fun reading though, and I love that I could understand a lot of what was being read! With all the dancing, a long Torah reading, a Yizkor memorial service, and all the other holiday additions, it was an almost four hour service, but I actually enjoyed it a lot.

The other interesting addition to the service was the prayer for rain. It’s difficult to realize from the US how strongly the Jewish calendar is tied to agriculture until you’re here in Israel experiencing it. Sukkot really is at the change of seasons, for example. Also, traditional liturgy includes a prayer for dew from Passover (spring) until the end of Sukkot (fall). The other half of the year, we pray for rain. Because Israel is a desert, there really is a rainy season and a dry season, which I’ve never experienced before. I got here at the end of June. For three and a half months, no rain!! But I get ahead of myself. On Simchat Torah morning, the end of Sukkot, is when we switch from praying for dew to praying for rain. Usually, that prayer is two words (dew) or four words (rain) in the middle of another prayer. But on this first day of the season, there is a really long prayer for rain in addition. The prayer we did (which I can only assume was the traditional prayer, but I don’t know for sure) basically outlined all the reasons that the Jews deserve rain. Because of the righteousness of Abraham, the merit of Isaac, and so on. Except that each ancestor got several lines, and there were about 6 of them listed. It took up about a page, with the Hebrew down the left and the English down the right. I thought it felt a lot like a rain dance of some sort, which I guess it was! But I’ve never seen a prayer so powerful…

After relaxing the rest of the day Saturday, Sunday was back to school. It had cooled off somewhat, so instead of having the air conditioning on, we had the windows open. I was looking out the window in the middle of our first class of the day (Hebrew), and pointing out to a friend the ugly clouds that had been appearing more and more often in the last couple of weeks, although they hadn’t done anything other than block my beloved sun. A couple of minutes later, we were all distracted from Hebrew (which isn’t really that hard to do) by a new noise: RAIN! It poured for a good ten minutes, and it was all that we wanted to talk about. The first rain of the season even has its own name here, because it’s so important. It was sort of amazing to see rain somewhere that I’ve only known as warm and sunny, and after not seeing any rain for so long. And so much rain! Once it stopped pouring, it was much cooler out too. We were talking about the power of prayer and how amazing it was that the rain appeared the day after we started praying for it. It was quite an experience! (Ok, so apparently the rain doesn’t always come the day after the prayers change. But it was pretty cool that it did this year!) And for the record, it was gray and cold for the rest of the day, and rained on and off a little bit, but mostly off. Reportedly, we get on-and-off rain from now until Passover, but it’s more off than on, except during December-January or so, when it’s mainly on, and also cold. I’m not so excited about that. But right now, cool and threatening to rain is a bit of a novelty, so I guess I can’t be sick of it yet!

Also, I’m ready for another vacation. All of a sudden, the workload has picked up, and the next break is not until December. After having a month of classes constantly interrupted by holidays and trips, this is going to be a long couple of months. And on that note…it’s past my bedtime. Happy Fall!

New pictures!

2006-10-13T14:12:00.000+02:00

Happy Friday!

A short post, since I haven’t done much in the last few days. Wednesday I went on a long hike with some HUC people. We were out for a good 8 hours, hiking probably for 5-6. It was really fun to be out there! Israeli hikes seem to be different from American hikes, because as you’re walking, you come across all sorts of things. We saw ancient (Byzantine era) monasteries and associated buildings (well, their remains), mosaic floors that were just covered by sand, a really old olive press, and probably some other things that I’m forgetting right now. We also hiked through a lot of thorns, but it was worth it! I had a great time, although it makes we want to hike in the Shenandoah. It must be gorgeous right now!

Yesterday I tried to get some things done around the house and start attacking my pile of homework. I did some of it, but I still have a history paper to write for the end of October. I know I’m way ahead, but it’s not done yet. (It’s barely started.) And I’ll be getting more work again Sunday when vacation’s over. Last night I was with my frequent Thursday night crew, playing cards and hanging out. We tend to divide by card game and gender somewhat, with the boys playing poker in one room and the girls playing euchre or just hanging out in the other room. So we had lots of good girl talk last night. It was so much fun!

Today I slept in, went grocery shopping, talked to Karen’s visiting parents for a while. And I had a delicious grilled cheese sandwich. Cheese is delicious in Israel, but good, sharp cheddar cheese is difficult to near impossible to find. So right now I’m giddily enjoying the cheese that Michael brought over from my parents. Life is good!

I have new pictures posted! Flickr has a very low upload limit though, and it’s been driving me nuts, so I’m posting somewhere new now. I apologize that you may have to register again (although I don’t know if it makes you), but it will be worth it. This is (I think) where my pictures will be posted for the rest of the year: http://community.webshots.com/user/jkarpay. What’s there now is pictures from Michael’s visit. They’re mainly scenery, around Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, and lots of self pics of the two of us. I’ll keep adding more when I have time. Also, some of you have been curious to read some of my classmates' blogs. I added a link to my friend Mara's on the right side, and I'll try to add a couple more. (I feel like I have to get permission to link though, so it may take a couple days. Mara linked to mine this morning, so it's ok!) She updates a lot as well. Enjoy!

Shabbat Shalom!

Vacation!

2006-10-10T16:15:00.000+02:00

I love vacation:) But I get ahead of myself…

After Yom Kippur, we were back to school for a couple of days. Wednesday we had our Israel Seminar, where we learn about current Israeli life and society. Last week we went to Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust Museum, and Har Herzl, the military and political cemetery. Yad Vashem was incredibly well done and moving and emotional. The museum was redone a couple of years ago, and it has some incredible features. The museum is designed as a triangle, and the exhibit rooms zigzag back and forth from the tip to the wide base. Down the middle, you can see from one end to the other, so you can always see the movie at the beginning, depicting Jewish life in Europe before the Holocaust, and you can always see the huge window at the end, looking out over Israeli beautifulness. But you can also see that you still have a long way to go through the museum. It’s as if they’re trying to constantly give you the feeling of the never-ending situation, or something like that. It was an interesting design of the museum that we all had comments on. I thought the museum also did a fantastic job of emphasizing life. It is a multi-media experience, and in every room there are pictures, words, objects, and audio/video interviews. The words, objects, and pictures on the walls tell the majority story: sadness, humiliation, separation, death. But the videos, the soundtrack to the whole museum, are all of survivors. So while reading about mass deportations, you are hearing the story of someone who escaped, snuck away, succeeded, survived. There are seats in front of most of the television screens, so when you’re tired from walking through a very long museum, the place you sit and rest is in front of stories of survival. It’s fascinating. The museum does not end at the end of the war, however. It continues with stories of displaced persons camps, immigration to Israel, and the independence of the State. It has apparently been toned down from the old version of the museum, but it is an interesting extension of a Holocaust Museum to logically extend to the formation of the State of Israel, as if the story really continued an extra few years from what most history books say.

From Yad Vashem we continued up the hill to the top of Har Herzl, where Theodor Herzl, the “father of modern Zionism” is buried. His grave is at the very top of the hill, surrounded by a large plaza, with no other graves around him. Apparently this plaza is the location of the beginning of the Independence Day celebrations every year. It’s a very different focus from the States, to really start with a tribute to the people who died for independence and worked so hard for it. I wonder if that will change as Israel ages; it’s such a young country that many soldiers who fought for independence are still alive. We also visited graves of past Israeli Prime Ministers and Presidents. They are all uniform, as it is a military cemetery, except for the grave of Yitzhak Rabin. Because he was assassinated, his grave is much more ornate and different from the others. We also visited different parts of the regular military cemetery, including graves of soldiers who fell in the war in Lebanon this past summer. It’s sometimes hard to remember that this country is defended by kids so young. Most of the people buried in that cemetery are younger than I am now.

After the heavy, emotional day, I headed home for a little while to regroup and get happy. Then it was off to the airport to pick up Michael! It took a long time for him to come out, and then I think he got a much less happy reception than expected…because I was trying to figure out why he wasn’t carrying a suitcase! He was supposed to have a huge bag, mostly filled with my stuff that he was bringing for me. El-Al misplaced it somewhere between DC, Frankfurt, and Tel Aviv. Then I realized that while the bag hadn’t made it, he had, and I got much happier! I still had to go to class on Thursday morning, and afterwards we went with a group of my friends to the all-you-can-eat meat restaurant that I had been to once before. It was a fun and delicious start to vacation! After lunch, Michael and I did a little shopping to try and get some clothes for him, since El-Al still had not figured out exactly where the bag was, let alone when it would be delivered. Thursday night was cards night with my friends, as usual, and he got in on the guys’ poker game and did quite well:) Friday we did lots of walking around the city, looking at all the sukkahs going up outside every restaurant. Two phone calls within 3 minutes of each other while we were downtown walking around, and about to go get falafel: my tallit came in! And Michael’s bag was found and would be delivered in about a half an hour! We took a quick detour to pick up the tallit. It’s gorgeous! And then we walked home to wait for the delivery people, who came eventually. And then we went back out for the promised falafel, and returned home to look through the bag and get ready for Shabbat. (Missing items, all meant for me: m&m’s, Trader Joe’s Traveling Chocolate, Oxo can opener for incompetent lefty, receiver for wireless mouse. At least they left mom’s cookies!) For Shabbat, we went to services at Shira Chadasha with a group of my friends, which was slightly disappointing this week, with a very shortened Kabbalat Shabbat, but it was still fun and enough to impress Michael! I’ll drag him back there for a hopefully-better service next visit. For dinner we went to a friend’s place with a group of HUC people, the usual Shabbat dinner experience, and everyone sat and talked and hung out for a while after dinner. Saturday we went to lunch in the HUC sukkah with some of my classmates who were still in town, and we sat there for a couple of hours eating, talking, hanging out. Saturday afternoon involved reading, sudoku, Shabbat napping. We went out for a yummy dinner after Shabbat ended, and then headed to Tel Aviv. Tel Aviv was a great couple of days of relaxing, spending time on the beach, walking around the city, eating, sleeping, sitting by the pool. Exactly what a vacation should be! And we found a Mexican restaurant (none exist in Jerusalem; it made me SO happy) and had chocolate fondue for lunch one day. Clearly, a good vacation. Last night, sadly, I took him back to the airport. It was a fantastic visit, and I can’t wait for the next one! December…hurry up and get here!

I had another adventure on the way home from the airport by myself. Michael’s flight was at 1am, so we arrived at Ben Gurion around 10pm Monday night. There isn’t really anywhere I could go in that airport without a ticket, so I didn’t stay for very long before saying goodbye and going outside to get a shuttle back to Jerusalem. Airport shuttles to Jerusalem leave as soon as they are full (of 10 passengers) and drop off each person at home. The airport is about 45 minutes away, but depending on drop-off order (I’m somehow always near the end) it can take a little while. Last night was very, very long. I got onto the shuttle somewhere between 10:15 and 10:30. I was one of the first ones to get on. There were planes arriving, but few people who wanted a shuttle to Jerusalem. We didn’t fill up until just after 11. The other times I’ve taken the shuttle, it took a couple of minutes to fill and no longer. Once we were full, I fell asleep very quickly. There were several very religious men on the shuttle. (i.e., black suits, long black jackets, peos, black hats…one of them fur.) We went to the neighborhood where we were dropping off one or two of them, and got stuck. It’s the middle of Sukkot, and there was a lot of celebrating in this neighborhood. With all of the parked cars and people walking around (hundreds of them), the road was only wide enough for one. Which was a problem, because we were trying to go up, but a couple of buses were trying to go down. We lost. We pulled over. It took the first bus a good 10 minutes to get by, because the street was so narrow, and there were so many people who were not exactly cooperating about getting out of the way. Before the second bus could go by, someone else from my shuttle got out and stood in front of the bus. With the bus driver yelling and honking at him, he waved at our little shuttle-van. The driver jumped back in and took advantage of the opportunity to back out of our space and turn around and head back down the street ahead of the bus. The whole shuttle told the guy who stood in front of the bus “kol ha-kavod,” all the honor, basically, when he got back on. And we were back on our way. We circled around to try to get close to this man’s house from a different street. When we finally stopped for him (again), it became clear that he did not have enough cash to pay for the shuttle. So we waited for another 10 minutes while he went home, and a wife/sister/some associated woman came back and paid for him. It was a little ridiculous, and just frustrating because of how late at night it was already! While we were waiting, another shuttle passenger got out and demanded to switch to a cab. That was another few minutes. I was the second to last to be dropped off, of course. It was almost 1am by the time I got home.

Now I’m enjoying my vacation, but a bit homesick today. Feel free to cheer me up:) Pictures will be posted once Michael emails them to me and I get my act together and post them. Soon!

Yom Kippur

2006-10-04T00:19:00.000+02:00

So I really should be sleeping right now, but like the Disney World commercial, “I’m too excited to sleep!” Michael just left for the airport to come visit, and I can’t wait! Of course, I still have a day of class to get through first, but that is way beside the point. I also realized I haven’t blogged since Rosh Hashanah, and that’s a problem. Here we go…

Yom Kippur

Unlike Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur is out of this world in Jerusalem. Israel’s government decided some years ago to tie fall daylight savings time to the holiday, so in Israel, daylight savings time is the Saturday night before Yom Kippur. I went to my pre-fast meal (“lunchdinner”) at 3:00 in the afternoon. Kol Nidre services were at 5:00. I enjoyed HUC’s Kol Nidre service, and because of the crazy times, the service was over before 8:00. (I enjoyed the service. It was still pretty long for Kol Nidre.) After services, one of our professors wanted to take interested students on a walk down a main street a little ways away to show us what Yom Kippur looks like in Jerusalem. I decided that since it wasn’t too far from home, and I wasn’t hungry yet, I would go along. It was pretty unbelievable. We walked down to a street that is lined by restaurants and shops. Everything was closed, but almost everything is closed on Shabbat as well. Traffic is light on Shabbat, but on Yom Kippur, the traffic lights were actually turned off. It turns out, it’s a law in Israel (or at least in Jerusalem, I’m not sure) that only emergency vehicles can drive on Yom Kippur. A couple of my classmates decided it would be fun to lay down in the middle of a main intersection, just because they could. People were just walking down the middle of normally very busy streets. And there were bikes everywhere. Apparently this is the holiday when all non-religious children learn to ride their bikes. There were zero cars on the road, so in addition to the zillions of pedestrians just walking around, there were huge numbers of children on bikes, scooters, and running around. It was like a block party! Except, without music, or food, or drink… I was home by 9:00ish, and in bed before 10. I slept for nine and a half hours!!

The next morning, I had made plans to go to the same synagogue I went to for the second day of Rosh Hashanah. There were a handful of HUC students there, and it was a good, all in Hebrew service. I liked the Rosh Hashanah one better there, but Rosh Hashanah services are also much happier and more upbeat, which I prefer to tired and hungry. Also, there were two Torah readings, which meant two different people spoke about the Torah portions. They both spoke in Hebrew. Several of the other HUC people left after the first sermon. When we got to the last section of the service, and a few pages in someone got up to give a third sermon in Hebrew…we gave up. We figured there was only another half hour or so left in the service, and we were already in the section that is cut out of Gates of Repentance, so we were essentially in bonus time, right? Yeah, we gave up and started the long, slow walk home.

I came back to my apartment and engaged in my favorite fasting activity: I took a two-hour nap. Then it was back to HUC for afternoon, memorial, and closing services. They cut out a lot at the beginning, but toward the end of the closing service, we all appreciated the service leader’s mark of being a truly good rabbi: he started cutting passages as it got closer to the 5:58 break fast time. We got out of services promptly at about 6:05. Before the end, there was a massive shofar blowing. Several students who had bought shofarot and been practicing basically had a competition on the bima to see who could hold the blast the longest. I was impressed that they had anything left in them to blow the shofar. By the end of not eating or drinking for 25 hours, I was proud of myself for standing there! I went to break fast at a friend’s apartment, and it was delicious, as break fasts always are.

Today was back to the grind, temporarily. Tomorrow we have our Israel seminar, and tomorrow is yet another field trip day. And then, I take a shuttle to the airport to meet Michael! (Yes, I have class on Thursday too. But only in the morning.) And then I’m on sukkot vacation!! I’m staying in Israel this vacation, with Michael for the first half and figuring out who else is around for the second half. I’m ready for the break! But now…I guess it’s bedtime.

Hopefully there will be lots of sukkah pictures coming soon!

Rosh Hashanah

2006-09-25T23:05:00.000+03:00

I suppose nobody would be surprised if I said that Rosh Hashanah in Israel is a unique experience. I'm not sure it was all that unique though. The first day of the holiday fell on Shabbat this year though, and so the environment in Jerusalem was really not very different from any other Saturday. It continued an extra day though. Most of Israel does celebrate two days of Rosh Hashanah, contrary to popular belief. There are some people who do not, but it is still a holiday here, with schools (including HUC), stores, and businesses closed on the second day.

My experience was interesting, to use a fairly neutral word. HUC encouraged us to attend at least some of the High Holiday services there, in support of the student choir, among other reasons. The choir, made up of the 7 cantorial students in my class and about 7 or 8 rabbinic students with amazing voicesl, sang beautifully. I went to services at HUC on Friday evening and Saturday morning. Rosh Hashanah services at HUC were an experience. Unfortunately, they were more of an observing and listening experience than a participatory experience. The cantor is very classically Reform, enjoying a good solo (or a dozen good solos) more than congregational (audience?) participation. It was frustrating, to say the least. The cantor has a fabulous voice, and the choir was a beautiful addition. I just wish they could have found a better balance between vocal performance and congregational involvement.

Highlight: the shofar service. I have been craving a great shofar service. There were two shofar blowers, my classmate Josh and one of the professors. They each did one section, and they did the last section in unison. Except, it was really in unison. It sounded like they had practiced together, and when one of them finished, the other finished. Rather than elephant-like, it was beautiful and impressive!

On the second day, I wanted to try a different synagogue, hopefully somewhere with more congregational participation. Some friends and I went to Kol Haneshamah, a local Progressive (Israeli Reform) congregation. When the service started, 10 minutes late, there were about 25 people in the room. Over the next hour or two, the other hundreds showed up. It was a nice service. It was out of the Israeli Reform Machzor, of which they have not yet made an edition with English translations, so the whole book was in Hebrew. It was a little intense and intimidating at first, but as the service went on, it was encouraging how easily I could follow and how much I understood! There was no sermon, but two different people spoke about various Torah portions. In Hebrew. When I was trying hard to pay attention (which was hard, since I was really tired and there were so many people to watch!), I could understand, which is always exciting. If only they spoke so slowly and clearly on the radio. The service was almost an hour shorter than HUC’s service the morning before…but we did more. As in, there was an entire extra (fairly long) section that is not even in Gates of Repentance, and we finished all of that in 25 percent less time than it took the cantor and the choir to get through a more abbreviated (but more chorally choreographed) service. Kol Haneshamah does not have a cantor, but instead had this service led in sections by different congregants and the rabbi. I enjoyed it, and I am planning to return there for at least part of Yom Kippur.

Highlight: the shofar service. I have never seen a shofar service with so much joy! After each section, there was joyous singing, and parents dancing with their kids. It was so much fun! I also liked watching the shofar blower, who did the whole thing very quietly and modestly. He had a small shofar, rather than a big long curly one. He did not stay on the bima to receive any glory, but stepped up at the appropriate time and then immediately returned to his seat. I was impressed. Also, there were two shofar services, which I have never seen before. Remember that section of the service that is missing from Gates of Repentance? It includes a second shofar service apparently, which was a fun bonus.

I most definitely was missing the Beth Ami services all weekend. As one friend not-so-kindly pointed out though, chances are that none of us will be at our home congregations for the High Holidays again for a VERY long time. I find that very sad. I was thinking of you, and I will be again on Yom Kippur. (When, of course, I will be fasting!)

Also, the Redskins won this weekend. YAY! I got to see a little piece of the game, including one touchdown. It was beautiful:)

Now it’s back to the grind, at least for a few days: we get a four-day weekend this weekend, because we’re off on the day of Kol Nidre and for Yom Kippur. Then we return to school for three days, and then it’s vacation! It’s all so close. Time flies!

Shanah tovah, a good new year!

L'shanah Tovah!

2006-09-22T22:52:00.000+03:00

A happy and sweet and healthy new year! I miss Temple Beth Ami. If you're there, enjoy it for me:)

Random Thoughts, part 2

2006-09-22T10:54:00.000+03:00

So my last set of random thoughts were well received, even though I thought I was writing it that way mainly because I hadn’t done anything of a lot of substance for a few days. I still haven’t done so much that’s interesting. So, again:

Seasons in Israel don’t really show up in the weather. Apparently we’re in the season called “fall” right now. This means that sometimes it’s hot out, and sometimes it’s a few degrees less hot out. It gets cooler at night. There are a few clouds in the sky. I’m pretty sure that’s fall here. Once it starts raining, that’s considered winter. Apparently Israel gets rain only three months or so of the year, but as much rain falls as in England in the course of a whole year. Awesome.

Seasons in Israel do show up in the shuk. It was actually cool walking through there this morning (really, really early this morning, before it was crowded. As in, left my apartment before 7 am early), and noticing the changing produce. There are fewer peaches and plums, which is sad because I just learned that I like them. There are no more mangoes or pineapples. And now there are pomegranates (I may try one this weekend) and dates and apples and some other fruits and vegetables I have yet to learn the names of. So holidays and traditions make a lot more sense here. Why is it the new year? Because the rain is about to start. Why do we dip apples in honey? Yes, for a sweet new year. But why apples? Probably because at this time of year, they’re just ripening, and there is an abundance of them! It’s fun to see the changing fruits and vegetables, although it means a new round of trying new things. And that’s HARD for me!

I expected to see seasons in the shuk. I did not expect to see them in the supermarket. More specifically, in the canned goods section of the supermarket. I went in looking for some canned beans to make a bean salad. I’ve bought canned beans several times, in the same place every time. I knew exactly where to go, which I was excited about. I went to the right section of the right aisle. And I found…canned peas, canned corn, and canned green beans. No white beans, black beans, or kidney beans. Huh? I thought the point of cans was to not have seasons. Apparently I was wrong.

Sometimes I love this country. Leaving the café I went to for dessert last night on girls night, the waitress, the host, and the security guard all wished us Shanah Tovah. It’s like all the clerks everywhere wishing you a Merry Christmas, except it’s relevant! It’s fun:)

I picked up another project yesterday. A large group from HUC in Israel every year spreads out over parts of the former Soviet Union during Passover. We go to a bunch of different communities and lead seders and bring lots of Jewish and Passover things to Jewish communities in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus. It’s an amazing project, and entirely student-run and planned. I’m now co-chairing the programming committee, which means my committee is planning almost all of the activities that our classmates will be doing with their communities for a week in the FSU. Without a common language. No pressure. But it is supposed to be an absolutely amazing experience to be there and participating in this project over Passover, and I’m excited to be able to take this kind of a role in planning it.

School is going well. I had my first Hebrew test/quiz of the year yesterday, and I don’t think it was too bad, although I haven’t gotten it back yet. The teacher is not so good at context clues in her fill-in-the-blank sentences, so there are usually several words that could fit. She says she’ll give credit as long as it makes sense, so it has yet to be seen how liberal she is on whether it makes sense!

It’s not 11 in the morning yet, and I’ve been awake for almost 5 hours. I’m really tired. I’m going to head to the gym, hoping it wakes me up, but more than likely I’ll be back here afterwards for a pre-holiday nap. For everyone celebrating, L’shanah tovah u’metukah, a sweet and happy and healthy new year!

Random thoughts. Seriously.

2006-09-18T21:05:00.000+03:00

Random thoughts, as I put off reading for history class:

What Torah trope do I know? I fulfilled my Torah-reading obligation for the year this morning. (Yes, you read that correctly. We are required to read-and-translate one time this year.) I did it on the first week of official Reform Liturgy Workshop student-led services. I’m done now. But the required and incredibly structured RLW services are only once a week, and I’ve been going to optional morning services the rest of the school week, so I’ll probably get lots more Torah reading in this year. In any case, I chanted Torah, and then translated my verses (with only the Hebrew in front of me) in front of my class today. Afterwards, I had lots of people coming up to tell me I did a nice job, which is always nice to hear, but I also got some questions. Mainly about where I learned my trope. Apparently the trope I use, which as far as I know is the one I learned from the Beth Ami tutor before my Bat Mitzvah, is not the traditional Reform trope. One of my friends thought it might be some sort of Israeli trope, and a couple of other people thought it might be the Conservative trope. I didn’t know every group had their own, but now I’m throwing this question out there. (Dad: I expect an answer from you. All others are welcome to throw out their guesses.) Why/how is it that I grew up at a Reform synagogue, have only chanted Torah in a Reform synagogue (and once in the living room at an Orthodox women’s minyan, but that’s beside the point), and I apparently do not use Reform trope? Please enlighten me.
I don’t know where Israeli radio finds its headlines. I read an Israeli newspaper online an hour before class, and right around the time the teacher is taping the morning headlines. They differ a huge amount from what’s on the radio.
Rosh Hashanah is really, really soon. How is it that when I’m living in Jerusalem, where every instant of Jewish time is marked, when I went to a ceremony to mark the beginning of the month before Rosh Hashanah, when we have heard the shofar blown not every day, but a lot of days in the last few weeks, reminding us all that the High Holidays are approaching, do they still manage to sneak up on me?! As always, I want more time to think and reflect, and I want more time before the holidays.
I don’t want more time before the holidays. I get a visitor two days after Yom Kippur! That’s coming up soon and I can’t wait:)
This week is the second full week of school. The first week was full, the second week was short because of our tiyul. This is our last full week for another month. I’m pretty sure that this is the last year for a very long time that I will consider the next few weeks to be vacation or time off. I’m looking forward to it. We are off on Sunday next week for Rosh Hashanah, since that’s a weekday for us. We are off Sunday and Monday the week after for Yom Kippur. We have vacation the whole week of Sukkot!
Israel is a funny place. Rather than a fixed daylight savings time on the third Sunday of October, or something like that, it is fixed to the Hebrew calendar. It falls on the Saturday night (I think Saturday night) between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. I’m pretty sure that’s just so that the fast is over earlier in the day, since it will be dark out earlier, but I’m not sure about that. It also means my pre-fast meal will have to be done by 4 or 4:30 in the afternoon. Wheeeeeee. I’ll call home, all done fasting, and you’ll still be in “morning” second session services! Actually, now that I think about it, your services might not have started yet. Heehee.
I take notes in some of my classes in Hebrew. This is incredibly logical when the professor is talking in Hebrew and going over a Hebrew concept, but it makes studying take longer, since my notes are much harder to understand when I return to them days later. A dilemma I’ll have to work on.
My walls are bare. I didn’t bring nearly enough pictures with me. If you have one or two or three pictures of us or various friends or family or something you think I’d like, feel free to get it to my parents or Michael by the end of September, and I can promise it a place of honor on my wall and a smile on my face. An odd request, I know. But I don’t have a printer, so I can’t print anything out, and I want more pictures on my walls!
Saroj is coming to visit in January! I love Birthright.
I have worn flip-flops with my skirts to almost every Shabbat service I have attended since being here. It’s a fairly casual country. I think I have to wear nicer shoes than that on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, and that makes me a little sad. I like flip-flops. (Michael: They ALL get a lot of use. It’s a good thing I have so many pairs.)
I find it a little sad that my last blog was so incredibly long, but there are no comments on it. Boooo.
My Sundays have gotten better in the last two weeks. It’s football season! I think a group of us will be getting together at 8:00 Sunday evenings to watch, regardless of which game is on TV here. It’s better than no football! (That’s the 1:00 game at home. The others are a little late for me on a school night.) They replay night games the next day. I got a piece of last night’s disaster while I was at the gym today. I got the good part! As soon as I turned it on, I saw the 100 yard kickoff return. My friend Mara and I were on side-by-side arc trainers and both started cheering out loud. We got funny looks from the Israeli men. We cheered again after the replay. Mara is a Giants fan. I don’t hold that against her. Especially because she likes the Redskins better than the Cowboys. I’m happy that it’s football season.

I suppose that’s enough random thoughts for now. And also, I still haven’t started my history class reading for tomorrow. Talk to you soon!