re-entry: top hat stories

I’m finding that being back home, and confronting many people I haven’t seen in a year, and delving into conversations (both deep and shallow) about my year in Jerusalem, it’s really hard to explain and express my experience. Not because it was some amazing experience that words can’t even describe, but because it was a complex, profound, reality-based, year, filled with good, bad, and the ugliness of life. There just simply aren’t enough words to describe a year of living.

It’s really anecdotes, stories, funny moments, that really embody the experience. But telling them is often difficult.

At some point during the middle of the year, Ari and Aviva coined a term called “top hate stories.” I’m not really sure of how the term was exactly created, but the basic story is someone was telling a funny story about something that happened back home, with people no one else knew, and it wasn’t funny to anyone listening. It was a “you had to be there story.” We all have told them and had them told to us. And then Ari/Aviva tipped an imaginary top hat at the end of the story, because the air was so awkward.  (I’m well aware of the irony that by explaining what a top hat story is, I have to tell a top hat story.)

Top hat stories are stories that refer to another time, place, group of people, that the listening audience has no basis for relating to. A proper response to a top-hat story is saying, “And I bid you, adieu,” tipping an imaginary top hat, and slowly backing up. Or laughing.

So I need to tell top hat stories. I have to indulge that part of my linguistic self, as much as I resist that, because they're so boring to anyone who's listening. I can’t not tell top hat stories, because all of my experiences are experiences that no one in home life, except for Rebecca, Tom, and my mom (who all visited me and met my friends there), can relate to. Which is strange and awkward and odd. It’s like a live a secret life, a backwards life, like I have a secret identity.

re-entry: rip van winkling

being back in america is wonderful. glorious. it's great to see my family and friends again, be in the wonderful place I call northern california, and bask in the glow of understanding the local language. 

but it's also very strange. For one thing, I don't feel as if any time has passed. It's a reverse Rip Van Winkle syndrome. Lots of time has passed for me, but nothing has changed, really, about the world around me. Ari said it's like being in Narnia: you can disappear into the closet and have many adventures, years and years of your time, but once you come back through the wardrobe, it's just moments after you've left. But that's also being slightly unfair - there have been many changes here, from newly paved roads to having two new baby cousins. But at the same time, while everyday things have changed, really, they've stayed the same. 

But I'm not the same. I feel very different and I feel different approaching the world around me. I know new things, about myself, about education, about Judaism, about my own Judaism. I have had many new experiences and grown in many ways, slightly in some, and tremendously in others. That much is clear. I feel I appreciate the things this place has to offer me in a different, improved way. I'm really excited to visit LA and see how things down there are and how I will react to them. 

I'm still really glad to be back, as weird and awkward and bizarre as it has been. I'll give you one reason why. A few days ago, I was driving from Marin to Petaluma, which is about a 30 minute drive, and it was late afternoon, and it was one of the clear, glorious northern California afternoons: the sun was hovering above the horizon and it hit the landscape in the most perfect way. The hills were golden (California gets its nickname, "The Golden State," not from the gold rush but from the color of the hills in summer/fall) and dotted with the oak trees. The clouds were speckled against the sky, which really was an almost perfect blue. The window was rolled down on the car, I had some nice U2 covers on the ipod, and it was really, really homey. I thought the same thing I think to myself every time I come back from LA to visit: "Why did you ever leave?" 

and in the end, there's a beginning

as I was furiously, madly packing tonight (this morning?) Adam turned to me and said, "Our year in Israel is over. It's over." And while I've really known and felt it for a while, as my year really ended two weeks ago, there's something really final about this moment. I'm sitting in the airport, using the wireless in the rotunda at Ben-Gurion, having checked my bags (one slightly overweight and one slightly under, so no charge), listening to a "Yeridah" (the opposite of "aliyah," a descent from Israel to abroad) mix I made myself, having gone through passport control (I may have gently giggled when she stamped the exit stamp), having closed out all the learning and experiences and times I've had and encountered and underwent these past 11 months, almost exactly to the day. 

Today, June 9th, marks 11 months and 1 day. I suppose there's something poetic in that period; it's one day longer than the initial 11-month mourning period, but it was the opposite, a backwards mourning, an 11-month celebration time. Or something like that. If I was more awake and alert (the flight from Bangkok to Tel Aviv was horrendous and today was a whirlwind) I could work in a metaphor or two, but I'm not going to. 

I will leave you with this thought, perhaps remarkable to some of you, to whom this is may seem like a "duh moment," but for me, it will be a moment of transcendent amazement: When I arrive at US passport control, on US soil for the first time in over 11 months, I will not look at the monkey mug of President George W. Bush, but I will be in fact staring at the face of President Barack Obama, a face of hope, of change, a face of coming home and finding the world a little better than when you left, of being able to look forward to something grander than now, and a face beckoning a giant leap forward into the great, blinding future. 

back in bagnkok

Well, we're back. Back to Bangkok, the city where it all started. As I write this, on Shabbat 13 Iyar, David and I have one full day left in SEA, and he takes off early Sunday morning, local time. I head back to Israel mid-afternoon Sunday. It's been a whirlwind trip, and tonight, as David and I sat eating iced cream on the steps of the snazzy Siam Paragon mall in downtown Bangkok, we remarked how earlier this week we were in Cambodia. A week ago were we finishing our first day at Angkor. And in a week, I will have been home for 4 days, (hopefully) gotten a cell phone/number and a car, and given the speech as the alumni speaker at my K-8 day school's graduation. Whew.

Our time in Chiang Mai was lovely. It was a very cute, quaint, flat city. David and I rented bicycles and rode them around town, visiting a bunch of temples, eating, and arranging our next few days. It was very hot but nice day. Wednesday night we went to a northern Thai restaurant, which was more leafy and spicier and delicious. Thursday was a real highlight. David and I took an all-day cooking class at a Thai cooking school (they're rampant in Chiang Mai, the "cultural capital" of Thailand). We got picked up early Thursday morning and driven, with 3 other people, to an organic farm about 20 km outside of the city. Our instructor was a Thai woman called Nice (pronounced like the adjective, not the city); our classmates were a really sweet French couple and a woman who was Korean born, but has lived in Alameda for most of her life. It was crazy to meet someone else from the Bay Area; one of the first Americans we've met too!

We cooked all day. We made our own curry paste, totally from scratch. We made curry and stir-fry chicken and basil, different types of soups, stir fry noodles, spring rolls, desserts (mango and sticky rice; bananas in coconut milk). It was all tasty and fun and easy (if you have the right ingredients) and they gave us recipes so we can recreate them back in the states.

Thursday night, we took a night train to Bangkok. It was kind of my "Murder on the Orient Express"/"Some Like it Hot" experience, the the sleeper berths and an all girls band running around. David kept calling it our "Darjeeling Limited" experience; I thought that was kind of in poor taste and renamed it the "Pad See Yew Limited." It was definitely an experience. We had upper berths (much cheaper) but the whole train was air-con, so that was nice. But they kept the light on the whole time and the train was incredibly slow (it's about 700 km from Chiang Mai to Bangkok, about 500 miles, and it took about 13 hours...) and kept lurching and stopping randomly. Needless to say, I slept poorly. David slept better, I think, mostly because he was so tired because he slept poorly in our Chiang Mai hotel (where I slept really well). So we got to Bangkok around 730, went to our hotel, but we couldn't check in, so we put our bags down and then traipsed around the city, killing time, for like 3.5 hours. we saw an amazing temple called the Golden Mount, which is literally a mountain in the middle of the city. Terrific view. Then we wandered around Chinatown and Little India. When we could finally get into our room, we both passed out for most of the afternoon.

Tonight we took the river taxi, and then the skytrain to the center of town, and enjoyed having Indian food in Little Arabia (yeah? it was strange) and then walked to the main mall center. And now I'm off to bed. Tomorrow we're going to check out the huge weekend market in the northern part of town, and maybe get massages in the evening. It's also my last chance to ingratiate myself with the royal family and become their tutor, and perhaps whistle a happy tune or two, or sing about getting to know each other. But we'll see.

I've reached a strange point with my reading. I'm realizing that I will [probably finish Poisonwood Bible before I get back to Israel. Which means I went through all of my books (David is about halfway through The Brothers Karamzov and wont finish it for a while) and need to get another one, here. All of the books at the hostel are not in English, so I need to buy a cheap one. Egads. I forgot how fast I can read when I have nothing else to distract me.

I look forward to seeing you in Israel or back in the states!

chilling in chiang mai

Well, through five sometimes dirty and adventurous nights, lot of angry tuk-tuk drivers, some interesting cockroaches, and some really awesome temples and delicious Khmer food, David and I survived. We made it to Cambodia and back. And let me tell you, it's a relief.

Thailand is gorgeous. It's got paved roads, sidewalks!, street lights, nice people, also good food and neat temples. Pretty, pretty good. As I write this, in Chiang Mai in northern Thailand, we both agreed that we liked our time in Cambodia, but are in absolutely no rush to get back.

Phnom Penh was an interesting city. Not huge, not much to do either. Not much of a nightlife and not many areas to really hang out and explore in. It's a pretty utilitarian city. On our only full day, David and I started off by taking a tuk-tuk 14 km out of the city to the Killing Fields, where about 18,000 Cambodia intellectuals, dissidents, etc were mass murdered there. It was pretty scarring. And interesting. The Khmer Rogue genocide of 1975-1979 claimed over 2 million Cambodian lives. 2 Million! It's insane, and yet hardly ever talked about, discussed, referred to, nothing. It's like all other genocides get swallowed by the shoah. Now, I have some very hard cut issues with comparative genocide - there's really enough suffering to go around and we don't have to insist that ours is greater - but more and more it seems really horrid that in the Jewish community at least, and the American community at large, "never again" should really mean "never again." And when it's already happened, we really need to take a stand and talk about it.

That's my soapbox for today.

The rest of the very hot and humid day was spent walking around the center of town. We went to the National Museum, which filled in a lot of gaps on the history of Cambodia, mostly the Angkor period. It was a neat, if not terribly large, collection of statues (Hindu, Buddhist) from the 5th-15th centuries, and then some modern Cambodian war instruments, decorative arts, etc. Wood carvings. Some really interesting panels depicting the Cambodian version of The Ramayana, a central Hindu myth (which I'm now super interested in learning about). Then we had lunch, and then went to the Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda, then rested, and then had a fabulous dinner at a place called Friends, which trains and hires street children to work, serve, cook, clean, in the restaurant. And the food was really, really tasty too.

Again, I'm continually struck by how much the Cambodian culture is based (at least here and Siem Reap) on the tourist industry. And it's not like there's that many of us. Everyone either caters to us, or don't care that we're here. My favorite moments have been the tuk-tuk drivers, who, after being repeatedly ignored when they say, "You need driver, good price, okay!" try a new tactic: "You want happy meal?" "Amsterdam" "You want a smokey smoke?" It's really sleazy.

And Thailand really isn't. The tuk-tuk drivers understand "No thanks," or a nod of the head, or just a bland ignoring. They're cool with it. Everybody gets a long in Chiang Mai! I don't really know that much about Chiang Mai, as a city. I can tell you it's big and flat, about 200,000 people, the culture capital of Northern Thailand (which means cooler climate - or less humid - and different, more Burmese influenced cuisine). It's got a moat and some remnants of an old city wall. A LOT of temples (which we're exploring tomorrow on bicycle). We saw an elephant walking in the street while we were eating dinner (no joke! but it wasn't stray or wild, it was being walked by its owner. But it was still really surreal). There's a really awesome arty and crafty night bazaar. We're staying in a super reasonably priced guest house, in a good location, nice bathroom, and a pool. Yes, a pool.

All right, it's 11 so I'm going to sign off now. I'm going to go back to the room and continue reading Poisonwood Bible - yes, I finished Dune: Messiah, which was pretty good, and yes I restarted Poisonwood Bible, and I'm pleasantly surprised that I'm liking it more and more. Maybe it's because it's a jungle book, and I've been "living" in a jungle for the last week. I have some frame of reference. I've also been listening it Miss Saigon a lot. I'm now in the middle of the 4th listen through - it's the only music I have with a southeast Asian reference frame. It's weird. I'm so used to putting a soundtrack to life, but here, nothing really fits. Tapestry is the only album, along with, strangely enough, Broken Social Scene, that seems to fit a little bit. Everything else - and I've tried U2 to Joni Mitchell to Kronos Quartet (which actually works more than one might think) to Sufjan Stevens - feels uncomfrotable and strange.

Here's to finding a soundtrack to Chiang Mai!

pampering ourselves in phnom penh

Cambodia is a really crazy country, a "shit storm"as David cleverly and accurately termed it our first night in Siem Reap. It's a mess, totally underwhelming. For one thing, everybody wants a piece of the Westerner's money. And they do not take "No" "No way" "Not a chance" Absolutely not" "Not on your life" or "No way in hell" for an answer. I told David they needed rape prevention classes here, because the Cambodians need to realize "no means no." He didn't laugh.

Also, the driving. Tom will nod his head and agree, because it's a total fucking mess. When we arrived in Siem Reap, there was this mob of bikes, motos (like passenger motorcycles), tuk-tuks (motorcycle pulling a bench for 2-3 people) and few cars, all swarming in teh street. I couldn't figure out was was so off-putting about it, other than the road was dirt and they were all going so fast. then it dawned on me: there were no stoplights. No street signs, no stop signs, no stop lights. Nothing regulating the flow of traffic. The people just...drove. And prayed they didn't hit anything.

The flip side of this, of course, is that we're really in the third world. The country is filled with abject poverty and child malnutirtion and victims of land mines and people desperately trying to stay alive on a daily basis. It's incredibly harsh. It's very upsetting. And so, like most Americans, I pretend it doesn't exist and focus on the food and the temples and counting the days until I'm back in the west (from today: 7 to Israel; 9 to California).

Siem Reap, the springboard town into the Temples of Angkor, is fun. It's a little crazy, as the people here have made tourism into a true industry. There is a whole stretch of Vegas-style hotels of brobdignagian proportions, and then streets and streets of more "modest" guesthouses and hostels (like the place David and I stayed). The town itself is very cute and touristy; by our third night I was bored with the options. It was fine, for a night or two, but I couldn't imagine staying here for more than a few days. If you love bars and clubs, then, yes, of course, but otherwise, eh. They had very, very good iced cream though.

Angkor Wat is truly spectacular. I'd learned about it in my archeology of cities course my 4th year at UCLA, but not really in great depth. But it's amazing! Angkor Wat is really a misnomer, it's really the temples and cities, spread out over many kilometers, of Angkor - Angkor Wat is the biggest and most central Temple; it's the biggest religious building in the world. How about that, huh? They are these huge, immense, grand, monumental limestone buildings, with huge staircases and stepped towers and moats and carvings and corridors, all in the middle, the random middle, of the Cambodian jungle. It was wild. It was so wild, and so much in the middle of nowhere, that before we started David and I decided we needed an extra day here, so we ended up spending three nights here, with two full days on the temples.

I have hundreds of pictures (If possible, I think my photo collection of Angkor stone rivals Ari's pictures of Turkish tile...) up the wazoo and will show them when I get home (to the brave and the very patient). The highlights, for me, were many: the Elephant terrace of Angkor Thom, which was a huge, long terrace with hundreds of elephants carved into the wall; Angkor Wat itself was magnificent, so much so that we went twice, once in the afternoon and the following morning; a temple called Bankong, one of the first temples, the Rolus Group. about 12 km out of the way, which was very stirring and peaceful and beautiful in its (comparative) simplicity.

Phnom Penh is kind of like Siem Reap, if it was a city of 1.5 million instead of 100,000. The roads are paved, there is a plethora of restaurants and really big day and night markets, with a lot less tourism (but it's the off-season). Whereas walking in Bangkok smelled of a Thai restaurant, Phnom Penh smells of rainwater, rancid fruit, and trash. It's not particularly pleasant. Our hotel is fine, probably the nicest places we've been in (it has a TV and I watched an episodes of The Wire this afternoon while David napped). We walked around and sweated (I decided I really need a Dune stillsuit in this weather; it would save a lot of hassle dealing with the buckets of sweat and sontinually buying bottled water) and we saw the sights, from afar. Tonight we had dinner on the river. Tomorrow we're going to the killing fields memorial in the morning, and then the national palace, silver pagoda (oo!) and maybe a temple or museum in the afternoon. And the next day we fly to Chiang Mai, in Northern Thailand.

In case you're keeping track, I finished The Audacity of Hope, and really enjoyed it, and then moved onto The Beach, which is about backpacking culture in Thailand in the mid-1990s. It was also made into a Danny Boyle-Leonardo DiCaprio movie in 2000. I'm now onto Dune: Messiah (see refernce above), which is good, not as good as the original. The only book I have left is finishing The Poisonwood Bible, and at the rate I'm reading, I may be forced into doing that. I guess there are worse things in life.

say hello to siem riep!

David and I arrived today in Siem Riep, Cambodia, the gateway town to Angkor Wat, a marvel of archaeological and historical and architectural temples and city, that we'll be exploring over the next 2 days, before heading to Phenom Penh, where we'll regroup and probably continue on to Chiang Mai.

Anyway, yesterday we explored Bangkok. It's a crazy city. In the morning we walked a lot, and found ourselves in the old, fortressed part of the city, where the Royal Palace and many central wats (really just a southeast Asian temple) are. We walked through Wat Po, where there was a huge reclining gold Buddha, and then onto the Royal Palace and the Shrine of the Emerald Buddha, which David had read a lot about. David is actually quite the expert on Buddhism - not specifically Thai Buddhism, which is Theravada Buddhism, but Japanese Buddhism, which is Mahayana Buddhism. Apparently Therevada is like Tibetan Buddhism and is very esoteric and monk oriented. Anyways, he was educating me quite a bit on what the towers and figures of the Buddhas and shrines represented. It was all very interesting, although I haven't really retained much. It's the stupid heat.

All of our walking was accompanied but any street vendors and food carts, hawking their wares and thrusting beggars in our faces. Walking the in city is a bit overwhelming, and I hoped that the rest of SEA wasn't as "in your face." We then hopped on a river taxi and rode down to the center of the city, and along the way saw some barges, the ferries, and many, many tall buildings. It's a really big city; according to wikipedia about 8 million people. We disembarked and then hopped right on a skytrain, which, during rush hour, was packed, especially with families and school children, all dressed in the same navy blue shorts/skirts and sky blue shirts, all heading to the mall for an after-school snack and hang out/cause trouble/run amok time. Some things, some cultural elements, are pretty universal.

The skytrain was neat, really just an elevated metro. We got off at Siam Center, a really, really big complex with three connected malls. They have Starbucks, 7-Eleven, Coach bags, Swensens, and movies theaters. This part felt super westernized.The mall was air-conditioned, and so we bummed around for a bit, exploring the basement level "Gourmet Food Market," which is basically what the San Francisco Shopping Centre basement food hall/Gelson's wants to be. It was super neat and, again, a bit overwhelming. We left the mall and explored the shopping and street vendors below. David really wanted Curry, I was just hungry. Eventually we found some non-curry chicken-rice-bowl. Then we walked. And walked and walked and walked, heading back in what we thought was our hostel, but it turned out was south, instead of west. We decided to keep walking, towards the nearest pier in order to catch a river taxi. By the time we got back to the pier, it was around 730 and the taxis stopped running at 6. So we ended up taking a tuk-tuk (like a covered motorcycle with a bench for two) back, and got to see some definitely non-touristy Bangkok along the way.

Early this morning we got up to take a bus to the Thailand-Cambodia border to cross over and then take a taxi to Siem Riep. The whole thing was fairly cheap, but still more than bus-bus, and until we got up, seemed a bit dodgy. But the first bus was like a super shuttle, or a sherut. It was large and ACed and has comfy seats and sat about 10. It filled up with a brazilian couple, a french couple, a few very non-friendly israelis, and some unidentified asian women. We bonded with the french couple, who had been traveling for about 8 months and marveled at our ability/willingness to see places in a few days - for them, at least a week in Siem Riep would do. Anyways, once we got to the border, we waited. And filled out visa paperwork. And waited some more. And waited some more. And then drove to the border. Where we waited. And waited. And waited. And crossed from Thailand into liminal space. And then waited. And then crossed over into Cambodia, and then waited in line. And then waited. And waited. And waited. And finally got in our taxi.

Eventually, we made it to Siem Riep. The whole process, in retrospect, was farcical (David would like me to note here that he thought it was farcical the whole time, whereas I was just annoyed and frustrated). And incredibly frustrating. But, it's now over, and probably when we cross over back into Thailand it will be via plane, so maybe a little smoother? But the Thai, and especially Cambodia countryside are beautiful. Really gorgeous. And Siem Riep is a neat city, with a fun touristy but cute downtown, and a wide, brownish river and big trees (it feels very southern), and large wide streets, tuk tuks and bicycles and motos chaotically filling the roads.

Anyways, we're going to spend 2 days exploring the Temples and city of Angkor and then away we go!

blistering barnacles in bangkok!

Well, I made it. Anxiety and packing and ridiculous sherut drive to the airport, and really long flight over the Indian Ocean (I think because El Al can't fly over the Arab states, it flies down the red sea, and then turns directly east towards Thailand), I made it.

Bangkok is a very weird city. Bizarre and weird. My friend Tom described it as the Los Angeles of Blade Runner goes tropical, which is a pretty apt description - theres street vendors everywhere and multi levels to everything and I havent even seen the skytrain [Im writing on a funny, Korean-English keyboard and cant find the apostrophe key, which is why my grammar is really, really bad. It isnt intentional]. It's a bustling city, filled with life, but, as much as I've seen (which is very little), very touristy.

I had a bizarre taxi ride over here; i picked up the taxi at the airport and told the counter where I was going, they wrote it down on the slip in Thai - so I couldnt read it to check it - and we were off. It was mid afternoon, so lots of traffic in the city and the driver pulled over and from my limited sense of where the airport was and where my hotel was, I knew we were in the wrong place. The street was wrong and the hotel was wrong. I tried explaining it to him, but my Thai is non existent and his English was poor, so I showed him on my Lonely planet map, but after a while I realized he couldnt read the English characters. I made a total novice traveler, totally orientalist, faux pas. Eventually, once I realized that "ph" was pronounced "p," and we sat in another 45 minutes of traffic, we made it. So, next time, take the bus.

The heat is evident. It's currently about 10:30 PM (which is 6:60 PM in Jerusalem and 8:30 AM in California) on Tuesday and probably around 75 degrees. Which is lovely, except that the air is thick with humidity and walking around feels like walking through linen. [I sweated a lot walking around just now, so I can't wait to see how things go during the day]. My afternoon started with a shower, a brief nap (in our A/Ced room), and then a lot of walking around the neighborhood of Banglamphu. I didnt go too far because once I started out it was getting dark, but we're next to the river and in the middle of the backpacker central. The streets are filled with non-Thais: many, many white people (but not just Anglos; I heard French, Spanish, Portuguese, Hebrew, Geman, and Dutch) and other Asian tourists. But the Americans, though, man do they stand out. And in an obnoxious way. Hopefully once David and I start engaging with the culture, we'll do it in a respectful, mildly orientalist way (David will be the mild and I'll be the orientalist).

The food here, so far, has been delicious. I wasn't hungry when I started my walking exploration, so I walked and walked until I was. My street-vendor dinner consisted of two chicken/onion/pineapple skewers and (you ready for this Mer?) corn on the cob, grilled right in front of me, a whole fresh mango, a crunchy fried "pancake" drizzled in chocolate, and a bottle of water. All tasty, all leaving me wanting more, and all totalled less than $3. If only street food in the US were this good and cheap.

Tomorrow David and I explore Bangkok. After that, who knows? I'm thinking now about staying an extra night here, and then heading on to Cambodia and then either Veitnam or Laos or maybe other parts of Thailand. I will say that I will e-mail again, but I can't say they will be tediously detailed as this one. I'm really just killing time now, keeping myself awake before David arrives, hopefully in the next 2 hours. So now I'm off to read some more - I started The Audacity of Hope on the plane ride over. It's very good, very funny and well written and it's, unsurprisingly, reeking of Barack Obama. It's really his presidential campaign, in book form, written 2 years before the campaign. And particularly relevant to today is his section on the judicial system...

the end?

So, my year has ended. Last week was finals and this past weekend was saying goodbye. I'm having a hard time thinking about, reflecting on, and talking about the past week, and in many ways the past year. I hesitate to use superlatives, but the word that keeps popping up in my head is "transformative." And I think, in many ways, it was. I don't know when, I don't know how, but I know something's ending right now. I've been in a funk, then and now, with all the stress of finals (which were a breeze, mostly), the packing, the organizing, the farewells (ranging from casual to truly, truly heartbreaking), and the getting ready for Asia. 

Yes, I am leaving tonight (in a little over 6 hours) for Bangkok, where I will meet my brother and we will travel around southeast Asia for two weeks. Then I'm returning to Israel - for about 30 hours - to collect my stuff and head on home. So, yes, the year is ending. 

I'll try and post about my travels and adventures with David in Bangkok, Angkor Watt, and Vietnam. If not, I'll give a rundown upon my return to the US of A! 

is the Pope Catholic?

You betcha. 

And he's definitely in Jerusalem right now.

He's in Jerusalem so much that the entire city center area, an area than encompasses my campus, most of my friends' apartments, and even, really, my apartment, was totally shut down to cars and buses this afternoon. And that's only day 1 of a 5 day visit. 

We've been told that any plans this week involving any sort of mechanical transportation (cars, buses, taxis) - which include our class trip to see Star Trek tomorrow night, or the end of year barbecue Wednesday afternoon after the student-faculty football (read: soccer) game - are all tentative until they actually occur. Because of the Pope. And his entoruage. And the ensuing traffic. 

It's a doozy.

In other news, tonight starts Lag B'Omer, so in order to celebrate I got my haircut (thanks to Meredith and my hair clippers) and then walked by dozens of bonfires in the park (a nice term for the desolate, Mordoresque barren weed-land) by my apartment. The whole city smells like smoke. I've got 14 days left until I leave for southeast Asia, 29 days until I'm back on American soil. Oh boy.

definitely an alarmist

or am i?

We received a letter yesterday from our illustrious president saying, after a board of governor meeting, that HUC is fully committed to both "financial sustainability" and maintaining their presence in Los Angeles, Cincinnati, New York. But they are still looking for radical, structural changes to be made to the college's operation in order to maintain the high quality of education to which we are accustomed to receive. It's a relief, although the final plan will be voted on in late June. 

So, basically this means, reading between the lines, that for me, I'll spend my next two years in LA and then graduate. For my current students, who knows. They'll probably have a few years at their respective campuses, and then maybe relocate, or not. Whatever plan happens may not affect their course of study. What still makes me uneasy is the looming potential for layoffs: staff, custodial and administrative, and faculty (probably the non-tenured ones). That's worrisome and hopefully nothing will be done hastily and without great kavanah (intention)...

A visiting faculty member, who's a congregational clergy in LA, thinks that the LA property is definitely going to be sold to USC and perhaps some of the land in NY and Cincy as well. But we'll see. 

In other words... I'm an alarmist. 

RIP: Bea Arthur

Sadly, another Golden Girl has left us. Bea Arthur, Dorthoy Zbornak, the self-confident, "straight woman," heroine of the late-1980's/early 1990's TV program, died yesterday. It's another blow for comedy worldwide. The NY Times called her a "battle-ax," and that's such a great metaphor. Bea, we'll miss you. 

Last summer, Estelle Getty, who played Sophia on The golden Girls, died, and I sadly blogged about it here. That's two in less than a year! Hang on Betty White and Rue McClanahan! Keep going strong!

Some obits:

New York Times

Entertainment Weekly

Entertainment Weekly II (with clips)

so I'm an alarmist

sue me. 

these are alarmist times and they call for alarmist measures. 

campus was fine today, being back after almost 2 weeks, nice to see everyone. but people were responding to the news in various ways. no one knows what's going on, what's going to happen, it's all speculation and rumors and innuendo. people are panicking a little bit on the inside, but mostly we're focused on our liturgy paper. which is due tomorrow. so i'm going to get back to writing. 

campus closure

Nothing, of course, has been decided, and won't be until late June, but David Ellenson, the President of HUC, sent a letter to all students and staff last week saying that due to the dire financial crisis the college is in, the Board of Governors is going to take drastic restucturing steps, including consolidating of programs, staff reductions, tuition hikes, and/or closing of up to 2 (of 3) North American campuses.

This is huge news. Huge. Drastic. Horrid. Incomprehensible. Most likely, the one campus they'd retain would be New York - and close LA and Cincinnati. So I'd be moving to New York a year earlier. But the agony! The horror! It's got me - and many of my fellow classmates - with shudders. We're shuddering. and cowering.

Oh you silly Board of Governors and your rhetoric and your alarmism! Just don't make me relocate to New York a year ahead of schedule!

Here are some articles on the subject:

LA Times on HUC Campus closure

LA Times on HUC LA Staff Fighting Back (Yeah!)

Jewish Journal of LA on How USC may be the Savior of HUC LA

Mom in Israel

So, my Mom was here for a few weeks, over Passover. Her visit was great, really great, and while I haven't had time to blog about it (or the amazing Passover seder we had with Meredith and her Mom, Jaclyn and her parents, Ari, Lisa, and Jim) YET, I do have pictures! 

For your viewing pleasure:

Mom in Israel!

in god's country

This past week, our class embarked on a four-day tiyul to the Negev desert in southern Israel. This was a part of our educational experience of the year (although other than spouting off on the benefits of recreation and informal education, and then talking about “Reform Jewish connections to the land of Israel,” I can’t really tell you the M.O. of the past week) and it was a boodle of fun.

I love the desert, desert climate, desert flora and fauna (and yes, there is lots of it, you just have to look for it), desert mythology, desert sky, desert music, desert beauty, desert silence. For me it’s mostly been a love affair with Death Valley, but the Negev totally suffices. So being there, for 4 day, camping and hiking and breathing it all in, it was just all totally a pleasure.

The trip was structured around two thematic halves: enjoying the desert and enjoying each other, as well as learning about Israeli connections to the southern Negev. Our trip started with a visit to Sde Boker, a kibbutz in the central Negev that David Ben-Gurion moved to in his later life and was eventually buried there. We used this visit as a jumping off point as the importance of the Negev (about 60% of Israel’s land area; only about 10% of the population) in Israeli culture and history.

We then went on a beautiful, steep hike overlooking the Ramon Crater (the largest geologically formed crater in the world) and headed to a five-star Bedouin tent for the evening. Gavin, Luanne, and I (the three ED students) led Mincha (afternoon) service that day. We wanted it to be a contemplative, reflective service, and I think we reached our goal.

The evening program consisted of learning about Bedouin culture (a totally constructed experience, but non-authentic) and having a nice dinner, and then doing some campus bonding through a friendly Eurovision-type song competition. The LA campus group did okay (we came in 3rd), but putting “Hit Me Baby One More Time” to Opera is much harder than one might expect.

Thursday morning, half the group rose bright and super early to mount the bus for an all day hike on Har Shlomo (Mt. Solomon), a basalt crag in the Eilat Mountains. It was a great hike, a very steep ascent and an even steeper descent, but at the peak there was an incredible view of Eilat, Aqaba (in Jordan), the Saudi Arabian coast, and mountains on the easternmost edge of the Sinai Peninsula (in Egypt). Israel’s really smack dab in the middle of it all.

That evening we regrouped at Kibbutz Yahel, one of two Reform kibbutzim in the southeastern Negev (an area called the Arava), where we spent Thursday and Friday night. Thursday we rested and had dinner and a karaoke evening. I played cards. And may or may not have sung a karaoke song with RVT; we wanted to do “Love Shack,” but that was just done, so we did “Stand By Me.”

Friday morning we visited Kibbutz Lotan, the other Reform kibbutz, which has a very strong eco-friendly bent. We toured their straw-mud igloos (natural insulation), organiz garden, composting toilets, and had a conversation with the past Kibbutz mayor about the role of Zionism in Reform Judaism. We had a quick kibbutz-style bagged lunch on the bus on the way to a beach off the Eilat coral reef, where we spent the afternoon snorkeling and enjoying the sunshine. On our way back to Yahel we stopped at Yotvata, a dairy, for ice cream, the best Israeli ice cream I’ve had.

Shabbat was really lovely. The services were student led, and the massive group of 9 students did a really nice job stringing together different themes and musical elements. Leslie, one of the service coordinators, had asked me Tuesday if I would give a brief D’var Friday night, so I wrote a little D’var on the portion of the week (which was the first in Leviticus) and the desert. It was about finding and hearing your calling, bring called, responding to a calling, especially in the desert where, through the pure silence, we can truly hear ourselves. It went pretty well, especially considering it was written and edited on the fly.

Friday evening was had dinner and then a really nice chill evening of some cards (the game of the weekend was Juker, a big game in the Midwest that’s like a combination of Bridge and Spades), some hookah, some wine, some conversation. As Erev Shabbat should be.

Saturday itself was really relaxing. We had services, some down time, lunch, more downtime, a tour of the Yahel dairy cows, and then a conversation with the Kibbutz’s founders, and then we came home. The relaxing, chill element of the weekend really pervaded my own experience. It was so wonderful to get away and relax in a desert environment, and on the beach, and hike, and hang out with my classmates with out the stress of class or other external pressures.

For pictures, check out my Picasa album:

Negev Tiyul

Obamas go organic

I gotta tell you, it's not just that the Obama's are coming into the White House and making all sorts of policy changes, big and little - from the budget to the troop redeployment to not federally prosecuting medicinal marijuana clubs - but it's really the small stuff. I saw this article in the NYTimes today:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/20/dining/20garden.html?hp

about how Michelle Obama is putting in a 55 acre organic vegetable garden. It's going to be the first vegetable garden at the White House since the Roosevelts. And especially today, now, as local/organic/non-processed foods are really starting to pick up steam, a little role modeling from the President's family can make all the difference. 

going to ethiopians

I don’t think I’ve written at all about my community service project, and so I’m going to give a brief spiel now. Every student is required to engage in a regular CS project, Some are bullshitty, like working in the ARZA office (serving which community?) but others actually get people out there, like song leading once a month at a home for retired people, or for mentally challenged people, or teaching English to troubled Israeli youth. My project is great. Once a week, on Mondays, I go to an immigration absorption center in Mevassert Zion (a posh suburb just south of Jerusalem) and spend two hours working in a recently immigrated family. But since all of the recently immigrated families at the center are Ethiopian, and have been Ethiopian for years, we (the 11 of us) work with Ethiopians immigrants.

It’s a fascinating, rewarding, thrilling afternoon. We work in pairs; I work with Lisa and we make a really great team. Our family is wonderful. There are 4 kids: Koltroin, a boy aged 9; Yeshuruk, a girl aged 7; Aytnagev, a girl aged 5; and Avram, a boy aged 2.5. The family has been in Israel around 3 years, so their spoken Hebrew is pretty good; we’ve seen a marked improvement in the Mom’s spoken Hebrew and the older kids’ Hebrew reading in the past year as well.

We’re with the family for about 2 hours a week, and we do various activities with them. We help the older ones with their homework, we color with the younger ones, we do puzzles, we play Hangman and checkers and Tic-Tac-Toe, we sing some Israeli songs, we talk about upcoming holidays, we eat popcorn and drink juice. This past week we had a fantastic, impromptu dance party of Israeli and Ethiopian music. It was an amazingly fun time, universally agreed (but Lisa and I) as the best week we've had yet. Lisa and I have really bonded with these kids, and they’ve bonded with us. I’m really, really going to miss them next year.

When Tom was here, he came with us, and took some pictures. Some really great pictures (my current Facebook profile picture is with Aytnagev). Here are some:

little baby Avram

Yeshuruk looking curious

Lisa and Avram

Aytnagev in a rare moment of smiling

Aytnagev and myself

up and down the coast

This past weekend, Ari, Meredith and I took a two-day trip (Friday/Saturday) to the Galilee Coast, renting a car (an epic, ghetto-fabulous Fiat Punto, complete with stick shift) and heading from the ancient archaeological site of Caesaria – south of Haifa – all the way to Rosh HaNikra, the northwesternmost point in Israel (butting against Lebanon).

Caesaria was beautiful. Ancient Caesaria was a city built by Herod on the cusp of the BCE-CE switch and was used as his deep-sea port. It was a huge administrative and trade city with an amphitheater and lighthouse, etc. As all other sites in Israel, it became Byzantine, Muslim, Crusader, etc and eventually fell into obscurity. This was my 4th time there, so much of it was familiar, but it was a gorgeous day and it’s right on the beach and it was simply lovely. And seeing Ari, who had never been, run around like a kid in a candy store, snapping photos of everything from the sand grains to the sea to the ancient tiled mosaics to Mer and I, was very amusing. We had a lovely lunch on the water, and went on our way. To prove the neat beauty:

Mer and I at the top of the seats in the amphitheater

figuring out where the hell we are on the map

walking on the Caesaria promenade

enjoying lunch on the Mediterranean

Next stop was Rosh Hanikra, where there are these amazing grottoes under the cliff. The water comes into the mountain, over many millennium, and carved water caves. It was beautiful. Here are some pictures of the first day:

Ari excited about the Grottoes

my album cover

Ari and I admiring the sea and the caves

I saw the sign, I just ignored it

the view of the Israeli coastline

We drove back down to Haifa and checked into our hotel. The ordeal of finding the hotel was incredibly frustrating. I was doing all the driving (because 1. You have to be 24 to rent a car in Israel and I’m the only one old enough, and 2) Neither Ari not Mer can drive a manual, at least well), so I was tired and frustrated with the stick shift, and then we couldn’t figure out where the hotel was and how to navigate all the one-way streets and I kept getting flustered with the manual and the map and the cars, and so forth. But finally we found the hotel and decompressed for a bit.

Our evening activity entailed exploring the German Colony in Haifa, at the base of the Ba’hai Gardens (which were beautiful and all lit up), having dinner, and then coffee and playing cards (our game of choice is Oh Hell! which is a lot of fun and really the only 3-person card game). An evening shot:

Ari and Meredith in front of the Ba'hai Gardens and Temple

On Shabbat, we took a self-tour of the Shrine of the Bab and the surrounding gardens in the Ba’hai Temple complex. We then walked to the top of the hill and got a full sense of the view and the gardens from above, in daylight. It’s a beautiful, well-manicured garden, with lots of lawns and trees and flowers and an incredible view of the city. Here are some pictures:

Mer and I in front of the Shrine of the Bab (a true hero shot)

Ari, with the gardens and Haifa behind him

the three of us in a Haifa sculpture garden

Our final main stop of the weekend was in Akko, a Crusader, Mameluke, and Ottoman city on the coast halfway between Haifa and the Lebanese border. It’s beautiful city, a place I’ve also been a few times, but one that never gets old. It’s got a lot of narrow alleys, old, old buildings, a beautiful mosque, a great view of the sea, some nice food, etc. It’s predominately Arab (at leas the old city is; the new city is predominately Jewish, leading to a lot of internal tension) and so has a very different flavor than much of the Galilee coast (although since we did a lot of our touring on Shabbat, a lot of the fellow tourists were Arab families). Here are some pictures:

Me in the Akko shuk bewildered...

...because of that shark!

the Al-Jazzer mosque in Akko

where Akko meets the sea

Our trip back to Jerusalem was uneventful. We made one leisurly stop in Zichron Yaakov to have coffee and play cards. To cap off the great weekend, Meredith won her first game of Oh Hell!

Note: I didn't take any of these pictures. I forgot my camera at home: silly me! These are all Ari and Meredith's pics.

Chag Purim! Chag Purim!

Or, a holiday for really, really big kids too.

So, Purim is a fantastic holiday. The basic rundown of the holiday is it celebrates the Jewish victory over Haman and Persian Jew-haters who tried to kill the Jews of Persia, as told in the book of Esther. The book itself is fascinating (one of my favorite biblical books with dense story lines, hidden meanings, and applicable, relevant lessons for Diaspora life today), but also troubling: there’s a lot of drinking, debauchery, killing, and the total absence of God. It’s the most modern (or post-modern) of any biblical book and holiday.

The holiday celebration itself is pretty fascinating. Basically, there are 4 mitzvot of Purim: hear the scroll of Esther read aloud, give gifts to friends, give gifts to the poor (Tzedakah), and enjoy a Purim feast. There’s also the custom of drinking until “One can’t tell the difference between ‘Cursed be Haman’ and ‘Blessed be Mordechai,’” but that’s NOT a commandment. People sometimes get confused.

To celebrate Purim at HUC in Jerusalem, we had a three-pronged celebration.

Prong 1: Purim service and Megillah Reading. Tuesday night, we assembled at school. A group of students organized an evening (Maariv) service/show they called Maariv: The Musical. They took us through a standard service but used modern tock and pop tunes as music for prayers/songs on prayer themes, while telling the story of a young girl named Estehr who wanted to be a star of Shushan Bandstand but the evil producer Haman wanted to wipe out the Jews because the Record Exec Mordy Chai wouldn’t sign his daughter. It was incredibly clever, very funny, and borderline inappropriate. But very, very funny.

The Megillah was read by the cantorial students, a few other rabbinic students ballsy (and talented) enough to learn Meggilat Esther trope (chanting notes), and three faculty members, including a very preggers head of the cantorial program. It was a riotous reading; it takes about an hour to read the whole books, but never before had I seen it read by people who both love reading text so much and are so good at it. What that deadly combination means is they have a lot of fun with it.

Prong 2: Purim Spiel/Beit Café. After the service, we withdrew to the moadoan (student center) for a festive catered dinner and a Purim Spiel. Traditionally, a Purim Spiel is a parody rendition of the Purim story. Because the service we had was more of a mockery of the Purim story, this Spiel was more a Beit Café, or talent show. There were some pretty funny acts (Meredith making fun of Debbie Freidman, me doing HUC-Purim madlibs, Aviv doing a rousing table reading of Shacharit: The Musical [a joke we’ve been making all year based on the broadway-ness of many liturgical music pieces], and Jordan lip-syncing to Nikki singing “Part of Your World). But everyone was pretty drunk y this point, so it really didn’t matter how funny or clever the acts were. Afterwards, a large goup of us went out on the town to experience Purim, Jerusalem-style.

Prong 3: Purim Sudah. One of the mitzvoth of Purim is to enjoy a Purim sudah (meal or feast) on the day of Purim. And since it’s a mitzvah that typically gets ignored (people either are at work or hung-over), I decided to make it happen. On Wednesday, Purim day, I had a few classmates over for a sumptuous, lavish, multiple coursed Purim feast. Here was the menu:

Canapes (cheese, pesto, olive tapanade, caramelized onions)
Mozzarella/red pepper skewers
Pasta Salad with feta
Asian rice noodle and chicken Salad
Tuna Salad (the classic!)
White Bean Salad with cumin
Lemon-Rosemary chicken skewers
Frittata, with zucchini and mushrooms
Roasted potatoes
Savory challah bread pudding, with tomatoes and onions
Melon, Persimmons, Apples
Whiskey-Chocolate Bundt Cake

It was a lot of cooking the day before and that morning, but it was a lot of fun. Ari and Meredith came over to help the morning of with last-minute chopping and mixing and plating. People came and had a really nice time. I was really glad to have done it; I felt like a real person, cooking and entertaining. I feel like I’m growing into my family heritage, doing shit like this at the drop of a hat, because it’s enjoyable. Am I a real person? Someday soon.

Time to lead, time to pray

Every Monday morning we have a Shacharit (morning) service, complete with regular Monday torah reading. Every student is required to lead one Monday service and, on a separate occasion, read Torah. Rabbinic students give a D’var Torah each week (only rabbinic students. It’s a point of contention, one I’m rectifying for myself by giving a D’var on a Saturday morning service, but that’s a different story).

My service was today. It was a doozy. I co-led with Jon, a rabbinic student, and Lauren, a cantorial student. We organized the service around the themes of Purim, the holiday which begins tomorrow; these themes included freedom, light, joy, living in the Diaspora, and personal responsibility. Purim and Adar, the month we’re currently in, represent joy, gladness, and celebration, but they also represent topsy-turvy-ness, when one thing becomes something else. We tried to infuse the service with lots of joy – from upbeat singing and lots of positive iyunim, but also some introspective teachings (taking advantage of my role as an education student) and reflecting.

There was some good collaboration between the three of us – who have very different working and prayer-leading styles – and it ended up being a positive experience. We each shared different duties, I sang some prayer nusach (standard meolody) and Lauren led some iyunae, Jon and I led part of a round of Ashrei. It was really, really nice. Overall, the service moved, was efficient use of time, created a good prayer space, and got people excited about Purim. I feel really good about the work we did.

Oscar time!

In order to enjoy one of the most important American traditions, Oscar Night – my equivalent of the Super Bowl – a lot of planning needed to occur.

Meredith has a slingbox; basically a box that’s attached to her fiancée’s cable box in Ohio that she can, through this amazing invention called the internet – interweb – tap into the cable box in Ohio and watch, on her computer, anything on American cable. She can use DVR, OnDemand, you name it. It’s pretty miraculous. So, Meredith recorded The Oscars, which aired Sunday night American time; very, very early Monday morning in Israel. And so Monday night, I assembled a small group of classmates (along with Ari’s twin sister who was in town visiting) to watch the Oscars.

There’s an episode of How I Met Your Mother where the gang can’t watch the Super Bowl on super Bowl Sunday because of a very long funeral. They plan to watch it Monday night as if it were Sunday, and in order to make the experience as “real” as possible, they (try to) go the entire day without hearing anything about the game – the stats, who won, MVP, etc. With very humorous results. My Monday was very similar. I sent an e-mail to our class asking them NOT to spill any details. And while there were some very close calls, no one spilled. But it was tumultuous and nerve-wracking to get to Monday night, sushi dinner, and Oscar Time. But it was well worth it.

I thought the ceremony itself was good; Hugh Jackman did a fine job. I was mostly pleased with the winners – I’ve only seen very few of the nominated films; Slumdog was the only Best Picture nominee I’ve seen so far; I enjoyed it but thought it was overhyped. I was a little upset and surprised at the loss of Waltz With Bashir, but the Foreign Language film award is always a bit of an oddball. But again, it was really nice to do something reminding me of home, but with an Israeli twist.

Weather

So, the last few weeks in Jerusalem have been beautiful. It's been in the 60's durin g the day (I think one or two days we broke the 70's mark) and in the 50's at night. Last Friday, during the day, I wore sandals and shorts. Shorts! It was awesome.

This past week, though, things have been altered. Thursday, I walked out of class and there was dust. Everywhere. A huge dust cloud had settled over the city. I kind of freaked out, because iot seemed like one of the harbingers of the apocalypse. It was hard to breathe and the sun shone, but through a cloud of dust. Like post-nuclear holocaust weather.

And now today, Saturday, it's storming. Truly storming. Last night there was monstrous, heavy thunder, and intense lighting, and hail and pounding rain- my street, for a brief moment, resembled a river. I don't know quite what to make of all of these quick weather changes, except to say that it seems an awful lot like Southern California weather...

LOST

There’s something really comforting about being in Israel and relying on the small comforts from home to make it through the week. I don’t want to make life here seem all doom-and-gloom; it isn’t. But after almost 8 months here (yeah, I know. Seriously!), everybody seeks out the small stuff to make everything a little homier.

One of those comforts is Lost. One. Of. The. Greatest. TV. Shows. Of. All. Time. Period.

There’s a group of us, about 10 students and an SO or two, who gather together Thursdays around 5:30 (the show airs in the states Wednesday night, so the earliest we can watch it, without cutting class is Thursday afternoon; believe me, it's an excruciating few hours to not read about it online), have snacks and watch the show. We rotate hosting and snack-providing, kind of like poker night. It’s a great weekly ritual.

The show itself is rich, textured, detailed, all-consuming cinematic experience with a deep mythology and continuing narrative, so it’s very fun to watch with a big group. We can get into discussions and arguments and bring up different points for other episodes to try and make sense of the glorious 42-minute saga we just watched. Lost is in it’s 5th season, the second to the last one, and it’s a particularly wonderful season so far. It's another taste of home in Jerusalem. While I'm excited to resume my intense Lost watching with my regular LA crew (Whattup Kelsie! Whattup Tom!), I'm definitely going to miss the saucy snickers of Amy and Aviva, the questions of Jason, the popcorn of Ari, the insights of Chad, the giggles of Lisa, and so on and so forth.

Tsippori (Sephoras)

As part of our Rabbinic literature class (a course designed for the Rabbinic and Education students as an exercise in contextualizing the whole corpus of Rabbinic literature, including Mishnah, Talmud, Midrash, written in the first millennia CE), we took a day-long tiyul, yesterday, to Tzippori, the site of an ancient, Roman and Byzantine era Jewish city in the south Galilee.

Why Tzippori, you might ask. Well I’ll tell you. Tzippori was, for about 30 years in the 2nd century CE, the seat of Jewish power in the Galilee; Rabi Judah Ha’Nasi, the compiler of the Mishnah, made Tzippori his home as well as the seat of the Sanhedrin, the Jewish court system. Tzippori is also really fascinating, archeologically, because of what was uncovered there. Much of the city has been unearthed, and especially many mosaic floors depicting various types of Greco-Roman imagery, including a series of panels showing a Dionysian Baachanal, many portraits of paces, and a Zodiac.

What! A zodiac? On the floor of a synagogue? Pagan imagery in a Jewish, religious site? How is this possible?

There are many historical explanations for this, and it gets complicated and confusing (and, in my nerdy, budding Jewish professional opinion: really fascinating), but basically it runs down as follows. Tzippori was a mixed city, where Jews and pagans (and later, Christians) co-existed and lived side-by-side and all of the cultures mixed. It was a first-century CE example of Los Angeles. Rabbinic authority, where in Talmud etc it has strong polemics against idolatry etc, didn’t really exist as “authority” until close to the end of the first millennium CE, and by that point Tzippori had digressed to a historical ruin.

The tiyul itself was a lot of fun. It was a very windy day, and so everyone looks super hot with their sunswept hair, but the sun was out and we did some nice text studies and a chevruta session. For dinner, we stopped at restaurant a little south of Jerusalem (it was a bit out of the way), which was fine and tasty. But the exciting part of the restaurant is the spice store that’s annexed, which had the most amazing array of spices, teas, granolas, grains, dried fruits, rice mixes, spice blends, etc. It was like a rainbow of smells and tastes. I spent waaayyy too much money on tarragon, an onion-almond-raisin rice mix, pecan granola, dried chamomile tea, rose hip green tea, and a spice mix for hummus. Again, we travel, and I end up coming home with delicious food.

Election results

We're now two days after Election day, and the results have come in, about 98% of the votes have been tabulated, and it's pretty clear how things are panning out. Not that anything is actually clear.

The New York Times called the winner of the election "Gridlock."

Basically, the right-wing bloc of the parliament led by Bibi Netanyahu's Likud (remember, we're working with 120 seats; a ruling coalition needs at least 61 seats to govern). has 67 seats; the left bloc, led by Tzipi Livni's Kadima, has 53 seats. However, Kadima is the largest party, with 28 seats to Likud's 27 seats. So Likud and Kadima are virtually tied, but the right bloc is substantially larger.

The next step in the process is the President, Shimon Peres, meets with all the party heads (about 12 parties are in the new Knesset) and they recommend who they think would be the most likely to form a government, and then he makes his decision (based on number of seats to each party, seats to each bloc, and recommendations made). The appointed person (it will either be Livni or Bibi) then has 45 days to form a government. The coalition building process is incredibly complex and difficult, with policy negotiations (what, exactly, does this government stand for by way of child subsidies or the peace process) and doling out of Ministry portfolios to each party.

I've made this process seem far easier than it actually is; we did a mock coalition building exercise yesterday, and we had a very difficult time, and we have no egos or history or bad blood or actual animosity. Many parties detest each other (Shas hates Yisrael Beiteinu; Labor hates Likud; everyone hates the Arab parties) and cannot or will not work together. Until it becomes evident that they'll be left out of the government and then they quickly jump on. Additionally, Israel has never experienced something like this before, when the largest party is from the smaller bloc, making the political guessing game even more exciting.

Coalition negotiations have already started, with Livni and Bibi jockeying for votes and support. They're both courting Lieberman, the head of the ultra-right, secular, fascist Yisrael Beiteinu (Israel is our Home) party, mainly made up of Russians and Arab-haters. They have 15 seats, and Lieberman is basically going to be the kingmaker, which is truly a horrible situation, except he, unlike most of the religious parties, is in favor of many secular things I like and he's also very much in favor of establishing a Palestinian state, except by way of population exchange, which has dubious international legality.

In short, it's a mess. I have no idea who will be tapped to form a coalition; hopefully whatever the next government is, it will be either Bibi or Tzipi (my choice, of the two) leading a centrist-right (because the majority of the seats are right, not my choice) coalition, instead of Bibi leading a right-right-right coalition, which is also possible. My guess is Bibi's internal inclination towards pragmatism (over ideology) will lead him to the former - which, from an international relations POV is much better. But it's really anyone's guess at this point. Peres has no great personal love for Bibi (in 1996, Bibi narrowly, narrowly defeated Peres, then head of the Labor party, in a Prime Ministerial election) but I'm not sure how much a role that will play. Whatever way this thing plays out, the formation of the 18th Knesset is going to make for an interesting next few months.

Election Day

Today is Yom B’chirot, or Election Day for the national Israeli Knesset. Yes, Israel has elections too. It is a democracy. For now.

So, government in Israel does not work the same way in the US. First, Israel is a parliamentary system – it works like Britain or Canada – and the ruling party, which does not have a majority of Knesset seats (total of 120 seats; 61 needed for majority), needs to form a coalition of like-minded parties to form a government. No party has ever had a majority; all governments – under Ben-Gurion, Begin, Rabin – have been coalition governments. So, whereas the US system is a two-party system, there are 33 parties standing for elections tonight.

That means, lots of arguing, lots of negotiating, lots of little voices being heard in a way that isn’t heard in the US system. But the campaign, thus far, has been dominated by four voices – three usual, expected voices, and one very unexpected voice:

Tzipi Livni, the leader of Kadima, a centrist party that is currently leading the governing coalition. She replaced Ehud Olmert, the current PM, as leader of Kadima in September after he resigned due to corruption investigation. Kadima is running neck and neck, in an unexpectedly close race with:
Benjamin Netayahu, the leader of Likud, a right of center party; Netayahu as Prime Minister in the late 1990s. He was expected to win by a large margin, but between the Gaza operation and the success of Liberman (see below) he's doing worse than expected.
Ehud Barak, the leader of Labor, a left of center party; Barak was Prime Minister following Netayahu. Labor has historically been the dominant party in Israeli politics but it looks like they're going to relegated to the 4th largest in the Knesset, behind a relatively new party led by:
Avigdor Liberman, the leader of Yisrael Beiteynu, a far, far right (read: almost fascist) party; Lieberman is projected to win an ungodly amount of seats in a rise that’s surprising a lot of people, including myself. But I guess American elected Bush twice, so who am I to judge?

The campaign up ‘til today has been fascinating. Israeli national campaigns start really a few weeks before the election (which was a refreshing change from the recent 18-month battle for the American presidency), so they really didn’t get going in earnest until Cast Lead (the operation in Gaza) ended mid-January. And it’s been a whirlwind. Lots of ad campaigns, lots of smears, lots of putting the other person down instead of running an issue-based campaign. Actually, there really were no issues discussed; it was all about the personas, and a little about security, and a little less about the economy.

Election day itself is an odd duck. Unlike America, Israel takes her election day very seriously. For starters, everyone has the day off. All schools, national institutions (banks, post offices, government offices) are closed. The buses run (so in that respect, it’s not quite like Shabbat). Most people do not go to work. Some restaurants and things are open, but mostly it’s an off day. People vote. They spend time with their family. It was very weird.

We didn’t have official school, because everyone – from teachers to custodial staff to security staff to the people who run the cafeteria – had the day off, but we did have a special Israel Seminar day where we met, voted in our own “Israeli National Elections” (the left-wing bloc won in overwhelming, astounding numbers, totally NOT mirroring the actually Israeli mood) and then divided into small groups and dispersed into the city to engage in surveying real Israelis about their thoughts. Jerusalem is a right-of-center, predominately religious city, and the results reflected that pretty accurately, but it was still a very fascinating anthropological/sociological exercise.

Now I’m at Meredith’s awaiting election returns. Polls close here at 10PM (which is in about an hour and a half) and then we’ll see who the next leader of Israel will be. Probably not, actually. Israeli exit polls are notoriously inaccurate, and since this is going to be a very close race, we probably won’t know anything until tomorrow afternoon.

The 15th of Shevat

Today (and by today I mean the Jewish day starting tonight and going into tomorrow day) is Tu B’shevat, the 15th day of Shevat, which, according to the Mishnah, is the New Year for the Trees. It’s kind of a bullshit holiday, actually, that existed in the Mishnah in the time when the late winter planting started, the first blooming (almond trees) happened, and tree tax was taken. But then the Kabbalists in the 16th century turned it onto a mystical holiday celebrating our natural essence and the effervescent relationship humans have to the natural and supernatural world.

In the Zionist age, the labor movement turned the holiday into a moment to reinforce the connection to the land. Modern, liberal Judaism has turned the holiday into a holiday of environmental awareness and so forth. There are a lot of tree-related songs written by Israeli and Jewish-American folk singers, and most congregations and communities have Tu B’shevat seders, which is like a Passover seder, but based on different types of frut and the seven speicies of the land of Israel and so forth and so forth.

Tonight, at school, we have a Tu B’shevat seder. It was fine. Again, it’s kind of a bullshit holiday and tonight felt like an excuse to get together, sing some songs, and eat a bunch of dried fruits and nuts.

But my ultimate point is we’re experiencing spring in Israel right now. It’s almost glorious (if part of me wasn’t so disappointed winter was over and done with so fast; Israel really is California) The whole country, in this first week of February, is entering the beginnings of springtime. The sun is out, the days reach 65 degrees, there’s a nice breeze, and the almond trees are blooming. Tu B’shevat is here: the birthday of the trees.

Amsterdam, was stuck in my head

Well, I've already posted here about Amsterdam, way, way back at the beginning of the blog, even before I got to Israel, but I'll have a few brief words about the end of my European adventure, with Tom and Dana, in Belgium and Amsterdam.

We woke very early Wednesday morning (maybe because it's so north, but Paris was incredibly dark until about 7:30ish; it was very disorienting) and trained it up from Paris to Amsterdam. The train ride took about 4 hours, and brought us through Belgium and southern Holland. The French, Flemish, and Dutch countrysides were beautiful. I decided that if Israel is California, Western Europe is the Northeast of America - same deciduous trees, brick buildings, smoke stacks, cloud patterns. And it was so relaxing and smooth.

We arrived in Amsterdam and made our way to Tom's uncle Bruce's apartment, which is kind of like the Burrow redux: urban and in a cool old Dutch building on the side of a canal. My remaining 40 hours in Holland was spent dodging the freezing rain and bitter wind, enjoying a great exhibit at the Rijksmuseum, wandering around the streets and canals, and getting overfed by Bruce's luxurious cooking. It was a great way to end the trip.

Now I'm back, doing laundry and seeing (new) old friends. I really missed this place while traveling (I also missed California, but that's a whole different story) and was surprised by how much my life in Jerusalem stayed at the forefront of my mind. I'm really excited now to start my new semester and do many things I didn't get to do in the Fall. I've got a whole 4 months ahead (that's either a very short amount of time or a very long amount of time) to make the most of.

And, I've also got a whole season of LOST to keep me busy. I can hardly wait.

Gaudi, Paree, and Barack

Here I am in rainy, gloomy, romantic Paris. I'm staying with my friend Dana, who is in the middle of a PhD in 19th Century French Romanticism at Emory and is here for the year doing research at the French National Archives. Tom (who was visiting me in J'lem) is also here. I arrived late, late Saturday night after yet another tempestuous Ryanair flight from Barcelona.

The last few days in Barcelona were exciting. My estimation of the city as being a tourist trap didn't change much, but I did enjoy the food and architecture. Friday day Jason and I explored the Picasso museum, which was a weird mixture of really early and really late Picassos. But it was really great; lots of blue period and his entire 54-canvas reinterpretation of Velazquez's Las Meninas, which we had seen a few days piror in Madrid. We also went to the Barcelona Chocolate museum (which included chocolate models of many Gaudi buildings) and then tried to go to shabbat services at the progressive synagogue in Barcelona. The synagogue adventure was strange - I'll blog in detail about it when home - but long story short, much to Jason and my frustration, we didn't get to enjoy shabbat the way we wanted to.

Our final day in Spain was spent between a morning in Park Guell - Gaudi's take on public urban space (a new kick of mine) - which features crazy tile sculptures, buildings that look like they're out of "Hansel and Gretel," and the longest park bench in the world. In the afternoon we saw the Olympic Port and accompanying sculptures built for the Olympics in 1992.

Paris, so far, has been great. Walking around the city, I can see why people fall in love with it, fall in love here, etc. Springtime, Summer, Fall, Winter, there's something totally iconic about it. It's like living in history (in a similar way to Jerusalem). It's very cliched - looking from the Eiffel Tower to the Louvre to Notre Dame - it's like being in a movie. Or being on a huge movie set. I keep looking for the cameras.

Dana has been a great host, speaking flawless French (while Tom and I purposefully have been butchering it), and touring us around the Louvre, Notre Dame, the Latin Quarter, Tulieres, the left bank and so on. We've also been eating pretty well. Today, Tom and I reconnected with our bohemian sides as we meandered around Montmartre and the area around the old Moulin Rogue. And now, we returned to Dana's apartment to watch the Inauguration (What a speech! What ambition! Not a campaign speech at all, but something marking the dawn of a new political and social reality. Who's excited?) and CNN's continuing coverage. Currently, Wolf Blitzer and Anderson Cooper are commenting on the lunch being eaten by the dignitaries in the Capitol Hill rotunda.

Tomorrow, we're off to Amsterdam to visit Tom's uncle Bruce and his partner Roland, and then on Friday I return to Israel.

¡Buenos Dias de Barcelona!

I´m writing this from a slightly danky Internet/business office place in Barcelona, down the block from our hotel. It´s a lovely day in this city, cloudy but warm (warm certainly by standards that were set in Madrid, and even compared to Jerusalem).

The trip, now in its 5th day and almost at its halfway point, continues to be exciting and fantastic. Spain is a great country. It´s beautiful, to start. And it feels so European, which, I´m slightly ashamed to say, was a bit surprising. I guess I expected something more Mediterranean. And Spaniards are incredibly nice and attractive. It must be something in the sun and wine. My Spanish really isn´t coming back, drips here and there, but when I hear people speaking Spanish and need to respond, my brains default foreign language is Hebrew, and that´s just been flowing out left and right. I guess that´s good for my Hebrew learning.

Madrid, where Jason and I started out Monday morning, is a fantastic city. It´s old and yet feels fresh and relevant. It´s huge and sprawling, yet feels at times, intimate and very non-alienating. Jason put it best, I think, when he said it was not overwhelming, but still feels full of life. I think that was a very apt description. It´s a real city - one filled with history and culture - but not one consumed with a "touristy" feeling. At the same time, in the three days we were there, I never felt bored; there was always something to do and I could have stayed for another week and explored more and more.

We focused our visit on the two main art museums - the Reina Sofia on the first day and El Prado on the second. I really enjoyed them both; the Reina Sofia focused more on modern and contemporary Spanish artists, really the 20th century. The contemporary stuff was fine and weird - there was this fascinating photo exhibit of an apparently famous photographer who autobiographically showed the rebellious life in a post-Franco era 1980s. The surrealism and cubism was great; Guernica, I think, was the highlight for both Jason and myself. As great a museum the Reina Sofia was, El Prado, which we saw on our second day, was fantastic. It was a huge, huge building filled with art from the Renaissance to the mid 19th century. The Spanish collection - Las Meninas, Zubaron´s still lifes (thank you art history class), El Greco, Goya (I never was a fan of his until this week) - was fantastic. And all the rest. The museum seemed to be greatly curated - but it´s all in Spanish - so we did the audio guide, which really enhanced the experience.

Barcelona, as a city, seems a lot more touristy. It´s only been a day +, so I can´t say for sure, but I´m not as impressed with it as Madrid. It feels much more intense and active, less like a city, and the people don´t seem as friendly. The architecture, however, is amazing. The whole Moderisme kick, with the Gaudi and Co., really makes the city stand out. Yesterday we went to the Sagrada Familia, which may been one of the most amazing buildings I´ve ever seen. It was incredible - all of the stone and the sculpture and the stylized decorations. I would definitely come back to Barcelona when it´s finished, in like 30+ years.

And then, of course, there´s the food. Our firs day in Madrid we ate really well - a delicious fixed lunch menu which is all over the country; for me I had fiedgua (Paella with noodles instead of rice) and rabbit - and then a big paella dinner. Our last morning in Madrid we indulged in churros y chocolate, hot churros that come with a cup of rich, hot dipping chocolate. The wine, as well, is fantastic. Even cheap, house wine, is really tasty. We also had some great tapas here and there, especially dinner last night at a hard core tapas bar in Barcelona´s old city - the bar is covered with 2-3 bite canapes, from fish to meat to cheese to sweets, each one with a skewer. You help yourself and at the end pay by skewres. Talk about finger food. Not eating pork is hard, really hard, but I think I´m doing all right for myself.

The biggest highlight of the trip so far (sorry museums) was seeing my friends Stephanie and Michelle. They were friends in LA, who moved to Madrid in the spring to teach English indefinitely (Steph is also and EU citizen, and Michelle, well, avoids the immigration officials), and Jason and I met up with Stephanie Tuesday night, and she brought us to a hangout with some of her and Michelle´s friends. Wednesday evening, before we went to Barcelona, we met up with Steph for a walk and cider & tapas as well.

Now we´re off to the Picasso museum, and then a stroll around the old city, and then the Barcelona Chocolate museum, and then tonight we´re going to try and find the Progressive community in Barcelona for services (it being Friday and all). tomorrow is our last day, and I´m trying to convince Jason to go to the Barcelona Sex/Erotics museum - a kitschy delight! - but he´s not having any of it. Probably see some more moderisme buildings and the Olympic Park. And then, I´m off to Paris, where I meet up with Tom and Dana. I´m super pumped for that leg, more new cities, new art to see, and new foods to eat.