of the sands and the cliffs

re-entry: top hat stories

2009-06-20T21:57:00.002+03:00

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

2009-06-15T09:10:00.003+03:00

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

2009-06-09T02:53:00.004+03:00

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

2009-06-05T19:30:00.001+03:00

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

2009-06-02T18:53:00.001+03:00

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

2009-05-31T17:57:00.003+03:00

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!

2009-05-28T16:06:00.002+03:00

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!

2009-05-26T18:52:00.000+03:00

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?

2009-05-25T16:49:00.004+03:00

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?

2009-05-11T23:27:00.002+03:00

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

2009-05-06T21:32:00.002+03:00

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

2009-04-26T10:47:00.003+03:00

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

2009-04-19T17:47:00.000+03:00

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

2009-04-18T16:06:00.001+03:00

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

2009-04-17T17:58:00.002+03:00

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

2009-03-29T17:23:00.005+03:00

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

2009-03-19T11:36:00.000+02:00

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

2009-03-17T22:32:00.004+02:00

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

2009-03-15T15:51:00.011+02:00

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!

2009-03-12T17:05:00.001+02:00

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

2009-03-09T23:09:00.000+02:00

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!

2009-02-25T07:55:00.000+02:00

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

2009-02-21T10:26:00.003+02:00

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

2009-02-19T16:24:00.000+02:00

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)

2009-02-16T22:21:00.000+02:00

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

2009-02-12T16:16:00.001+02:00

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

2009-02-10T20:35:00.002+02:00

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

2009-02-08T20:38:00.002+02:00

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

2009-01-25T21:38:00.002+02:00

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

2009-01-20T20:31:00.000+02:00

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!

2009-01-16T12:55:00.001+02:00

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.

Finally finally done

2009-01-11T23:00:00.001+02:00

So.

This past week was my first final week of graduate school. One down, five to go.

It was a pretty intense period. The week prior to finals, the last week of December, I had a huge Ed presentation (on the "Challenges and Opportunities" of Jewish summer camping) as well as my Bible final - it was a ten-minute reading exam where we sat alone with the professor and read for him and then translated into modern Hebrew. And then he asked us questions about the text. It was actually kinda fun.

(Of course, between the last week of classes and finals was New Years. Amy, in her infinite amazingness, organized the HUC Prom. She rented out a kareoke bar neat campus, and for a cover it was semi-open bar, dancing, snacks, kareoke, party hats. Lots of fun.)

Finals week was a doozy. I had four exams, a paper, and a Hebrew Literature take home exam, all due within three days. Nuts. But all in all, I spent the weekend prior preparing and writing my paper (which was entitled "Constructing the White City: Tel Aviv as Physical and Sacred Space in Israeli Collective Memory." How's that for academic mumbo-jumbo? In actuality, it came out really well. I was very proud of my work and the ideas in the paper. It was fun, as well, to write a real academic paper again. I haven't done that in a while) and so the week flowed really well. I got to relax, spend time with friends and classmates before break, and enjoy some time in Jerusalem.

Then, Wednesday night, Tom and Emma came! They were just off a Birthright trip, and here to stay with me for the weekend! It was really great to see them and we had an awesome time. Thursday was touring Joel's Greatest Hits of Jerusalem - seeing sights off the beaten path, like Church of the Holy Sepulcher, Israel Museum, Tmol Shilshon, Babette's Waffles. Friday we went to the Carmel for the weekend, and toured a bit around Haifa, went to some artist's colonies, Ceasaria, Tel Aviv. It was a lovely weekend. Emma left last night for home, Tom this afternoon for Paris.

And in a few hours I'm off to Europe as well. I leave early Monday morning (my time) to Madrid, with my friend Jason. We're in Madrid three days, and then head off to Barcelona for another three days. Then I go to Paris where I meet up with Tom and Dana (who's working on his PhD in Paris for the year), and we're there four days. Then we visit Tom's uncle Bruce and his partner Roland in Amsterdam for two days, and then I fly back to Tel Aviv. After a few days, Tom and Dana come visit me. The party never ends.

Wholesome Update from the Holy Land...

2008-12-28T23:31:00.001+02:00

I'm writing to give you a brief update of events in Israel. For those of you who have been following the news this weekend, you've probably seen that, in response to the Qassam rocketing coming out of Gaza the last few weeks, the Israeli military initiated a huge military response on Hamas institutions in Gaza (see how careful I was in my phrasing? I'm trying real hard to be politically neutral...) Today, it was announced that Defense Minister (and Labor party leader) Ehud Barak is calling up 6500 reservists, presumably to start preparations on a ground attack. Or it could just be saber rattling. Basically, Israel is back in a mindset of war, the first time since summer 2006.

Geo-political (and internal political - there are national Israeli elections February 10) considerations notwithstanding, this is a big deal here. But yesterday, and today, on the ground in Jerusalem, you'd never know what was happening a mere 50 miles (or less, depending on where the Qassams are falling) away. I don't mean to be an alarmist; quite the opposite. Things are literally happening here as normal. And the sense that I get from Israelis is that elsewhere, in the army, in the south (the areas in Israel under Qassam attack), in the center, things are fine. Unlike Lebanon, there is, at least two days in, general widespread support. There are a lot of reasons, I think, why this is, and I won't go into them now, but that, coupled with the support and advice HUC has been constantly (too much?) providing us I feel as safe as I did on Friday (tu tu tu; keine hora; etc).

In other news, we're spiraling very quickly towards finals. This is our last week of class; even though New Years isn' a holiday here, we have it off for a "Reading Day." Which is just as well because we'll all probably been recovering from our New Years Eve Prom: yes, we're having a student sponsored prom. HUC really is High School, all over again, except without the excellent drama department. Oh wait, there's actually plenty of drama at HUC to go around.

I'm in Israel through next week when I head to Europe for two weeks for my winter break (because January is really the best time to travel around Western Europe). But before I leave I plan to blog post (for real, not this faux e-mail post) on the last month, and respond to all of your e-mails very patiently sitting in my inbox. Oh, I haven't forgotten. Don't you worry.

דער בונד

2008-11-30T23:13:00.004+02:00

...

That's "The Bund" to you.

As part of our Zionist history class, we all had to participate in an inforomal educational experience called "The Duma Exercise" this evening. Essentially, all 32 Rabbinical and Education students (Cantors don't take Zionist history... because it's not important for their line of work?) were divided into 8 groups representing different (mostly) historically accurate Jewish political and interest groups in early 1900's Russia. Plotsk, to be exact.

Such groups represented were the Russian Social Democratic Workers Party/RSDWP (aka Communists); the Autonomists; the Terretorialists; a groups advocating immigration to America; Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) Jews; Socialist Zionists; and the Bund, a Jewish socialist, anti-Zionist, group. I was, as you may have guessed, in The Bund. I was a Bundist. Part of the Bund. The Bund.

The Bund has ironically been described as "Zionists with seasickness," a group thank acknoledged Jewish national unity, but constantly wavered on whether those national and cultural traits meant statehood or integration into the Russian social and economic struggle. It was a hard group to wrap my head around.

The exercise was called "The Duma" because the groups were meant to assemble in 1906 in Plotsk and elect representatives from the Jewish community to the Duma, the new Russian parliament. Each group had to prepare a statement - a platform - and read the platform, take questions from the other groups, and then sing an anthem. We also had to dress up. It was a ridiculous evening program, but ultimately fun. It was a good, experiential way at getting into the heads of the different groups that existed in Eastern Europe when the Zionist movement was gaining prominence; early Zionists were only one voice in a cacophony of different responses to modernity.

To help my group argue our case, I baked a Bund(t) cake. It was delicious.

Here are some pictures of my group:

The Bundists sit in the forum, holding up signs

Comrades Joel and Nikki argue our case

Los Angeles, we'll be yours... soon

2008-11-29T16:00:00.002+02:00

There are 3 HUC campuses stateside: New York, Cincinnati, and Los Angeles. I am going from Jerusalem, back to LA next year, for two more years of school. The group going with me (9 Rabbinical students and 1 other Ed student) is a great group. I hosted us all for Shabbat brunch today for a time when we could hang out and bond as a group. And it was a lovely, lovely, afternoon. We all got along great as a group; it's a very eclectic, random mix of people, but I'm very excited about us all being together for the next two years. They're going to make returning to Los Angeles a much easier, smoother, funner process, and I'm very much looking forward to that.

Doing Thanksgiving

2008-11-28T01:55:00.000+02:00

Yesterday, as you all might know, was Thanksgiving. And celebrating it in America is one thing; doing it in Israel, a whole other ballgame.

For one thing, there were no external cues that it was Thanksgiving week. Which is bizarre. No music, no decorations everywhere, no one wishing anyone a "Happy Thanksgiving." We didn't have any school off (which IO actually think should change, because 95% of the class is American, and it is a big deal for us). Most of our faculty is Israeli, British, or Canadians, and the American born ones are now "Israeli" so there was really nothing done at school. And the weather was all off, warm (even for LA standards) for Thanksgiving week. it just made it really disorienting to have Thanksgiving, and it really wasn't until the afternoon of that I was really excited.

It was decided by a non-voting discussion, by the Kef Committee, to host (organize?) an all-class Thanksgiving Dinner, for classmates, SOs, friends, etc. The organization fell the Leslie, who, admittedly, did a fantastic job getting everyone on their shit. Everyone was assigned a different dish - sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, dessert, stuffing, etc - for about 8-10 people, and about 3-4 people on every type of dish. Four people volunteered to make Turkeys - Amy, David, Gavin, and Meredith, and they are my heroes of the evening - which came out delicious, especially considering they were cooked in Israeli ovens (no Weber turkeys this year!).

I signed myself up for sweet potatoes - roasted in the oven with a little olive oil, thyme, and orange juice - and cranberry sauce. Now, I have a serious problem with canned cranberry sauce. I mean, really. Who eats that? But Israel doesn't grow cranberries, so making cranberry sauce from fresh cranberries was out. So... I used dried cranberries and stewed them for a long time in a secret concoction of things (among them fresh orange juice/zest, fresh lemon juice/zest, cranberry juice, cinnamon, pears). It turned out delicious. Almost as good as my mom's. But not quite.

So, heading into the evening, I was concerned that it would either be a fantastically fun evening, or a total bust - not because the food would suck (although there was the worry that there wouldn't be enough or the turkeys would all fail), but because it just wasn't Thanksgivingly enough. So Leslie and I conspired to put together a program that I do with my family. Before eating, people anonymously write on a leaf-shaped piece of paper something they're thankful for. After dinner, we go around the table, and each person picks a paper and reads what's on it and then we try to guess who wrote it. It's lot's of fun and also sweet, without being too sappy. It ended up being a great moment in the evening and made the night feel much more like Thanksgiving, and less like an all-class dinner with Thanksgiving themed food.

It really was a great night. I had a great time, and it was really nice celebrating this holiday that's really important to me with my makeshift Israel/HUC family. Thursday was, however, the first time in the last 4+ months that I really wished I was home, instead of here. T-Day is a really important holiday to my mom and her side of the family; we do a big, big thing, and everyone gets together. It really rivals Passover for "familial importance." And so not being home - this was my first Thanksgiving not home - was tough. I've done Rosh Hashanah not at home, I've done Pesach, I've done Hanukkah. But never Thanksgiving before. David, as well, wasn't home - he's in Kyoto for the year - and this year was my mom's turn to host. I would imagine in some ways hosting made it easier for us both not to be there; but it probably made it harder as well. I guess we're really growing up.

After dinner, there was football being played from a computer, and a poker tournament to raise money for Ride4Reform. I played poker and was at school til the wee hours winning, and then ultimately losing to Jon. Grrr. But it was fun. I miss playing poker. When I got home, I skyped with my family and got to talk to a lot of peeps - Mom, Stephen, Elana, Bobbie, Adam, and a wave to Joe - which made me feel better. It wasn't eating with the family, but it was close.

Learning to feel the distance

2008-11-21T13:44:00.001+02:00

Yesterday, my class went on a day-long tiyul to Haifa, Tsfat, and Tiberias. We were all over the Galilee. The day was a truncated version of a typical 3-day tiyul to the north, which included a visit to Ceasaria and Tzippori; both of which we’ll be doing as part of our Rabbinic literature class in the spring, and so in the interest of making budget cuts – spurred by HUC’s 3-5 million budget shortfall this year (thank you sinking stock market), the trip was condensed into a very, very long day.

But all in all it was a good day. A very interesting and exciting day. We started the morning off in Haifa, at the Leo Baeck School, a complex named for Leo Baeck, a charismatic German Reform Rabbi who lived and worked in the first part of the 20th century. The school is a bizarre place, but a really wonderful place. It’s a "public" Junior High and High School, an Israeli Reform community center, an educational initiative center affiliated with the Israeli Reform movement, and a fairly new "Private" Reform Day School. I still don't really understand how the whole, mammoth, beautiful complex and institutions therein fit in with both the Israeli secular school system as well as the Israeli Reform movement, but it was really a special place.

A lot of money and energy went into building this institution and it seems like it’s on the cutting edge of both Israeli public schooling (which is infamously, notoriously sucky) and the role of “private” Reform-affiliated schooling (which is very akin to private Jewish day schools in the US). We took a tour, sat in on Thursday services with the elementary school (they were totally adorable), had a panel session with four high school students, talked with the Rabbi who started the elementary school, and then had a tasty falafel lunch.

Off to Tsfat!

Our next stop in the mid afternoon was in Tsfat, one of the 4 holy cities in Israel (the other three are Hebron, Jerusalem, and Tiberias). We divided into two groups, and each group met with a different local American-born artisit who moved to Tsfat in order to 1) practice Kabbalah, and 2) make art about it. Our guy, Avram, was really cruts (=crazy nuts). He grew up in Detroit and after reading two of Aryeh Kaplan’s books on Jewish mysticism in college, found his mind blown, and started to understand the “true bliss” of Judaism, and moved to Tsfat where he and his wife make Kabbalistic art. He was very kabbalisitc-hippieish, chill but totally operating on a different level than we were. He spouted a lot of aphorisms about using Kabbalah as wway to relate to life, like "learning to feel the distance," and "becoming brings of complete goodness" and "making all of our energy into output instead of input." His art was kinda cool, kinda bizarre. I didn’t buy anything, although a fair amount of my classmates did.

The day before the tiyul, Wednesday, we had an intro to Kabbalah session with an Israeli Rabbinic student, Or, who just completed a MA on the Zohar, a central text of Kabbalah. The session with Or, combined with the session with Avram, was enough discussion on Kabbalah from practicing mystics. However, we did ANOTHER study session with our “trip scholar” who took our group to three central synagogues in Tsfat, each associated with a different 16th century halakhic or kabbalistic scholar. It was interesting, but way too long, and by the end my energy and attention was shot.

When we finally got our “free time,” I raced off to Tsfat Cheesemakers, who, as I remembered from my visit to Tsfat with David Cushman and Jon Grinspan back in the early spring of 2005, makes great cheese and Halva. And my memory was correct. As we returned to the bus, and everyone compared with purchases, I had a funny realization. Some people viswit Tsfat and buy kabbalistic art. Other visit Tsfat and buy Tallitot or Jewish jewelry. I visit Tsfat and buy gourmet, locally made food.

Off to Tiberias!

Our visit to Tiberias, one of the jankiest cities in Israel (ironic because it’s the birthplace of the Jerusalem Talmud and one of the holy cities in Israel), consisted of dinner: a delicious, scrumptious Chinese food feast at Pagoda, a kosher Chinese restaurant on the bank of Lake Kinnert. Jason, Sarah K, RVT, and I shared a smattering of “classic” Chinese dishes: eggrolls, crispy duck, beef with cashews, and sweet and sour chicken. It was amazing. In reality, not the best Chinese food I’ve ever had, certainly not, but after 4+ months of no Chinese food at all (it’s funny; it’s easier to find decent and tasty sushi in Jerusalem than tasty and decent Chinese food), it was really, really wonderful. A little taste of home.

Reactions

2008-11-07T00:23:00.002+02:00

There are a lot of reactions I've been having in the past 36 hours, most of them elated and ecstatic (except where California is concerned. I'm just... disappointed. More than anything else. I'm just disappointed), some confused - Ted Stevens? Really? Him? - but really it's a sense of relief. I mean, finally. After so many years, my entire adult life - except for 2006, which was a huge victory, but tempered by two more years of W - has been filled with political disappointment after political disappointment. You have to go back to 1996 for some good news.

I feel so relieved that this victory, one I've been gunning for for months (in truth, I can't really admit to hopping onto the Obama bandwagon until the night of the Iowa caucus, mainly due to his speech; until his victory speech Tuesday, one of the best political speeches I've ever heard). I'm relieved that this is something momentous, and incredible significant, not just because of the racial element, not just because of the annihilation of decades of conservative rule over Washington, but because I feel like this is the moment when my generation - those who came of age with Iraq - have come into our own. We have said, "No! We don't want our world to be like this!" and then we've fucking done something about it.

I, myself, haven't actually done much - it's hard to campaign from 10,000 miles away. But I donated and phone banked in the primaries, and endlessly sported my fabulous Obama shirt this last week. But I still feel ownership over this moment, over this transition, over the next 4 (8!) years. I feel real ownership, for the first time in 8 years, over my country, over my Americanship. And I'm really excited about that and what great change the future holds.

Live Blogging the Election

2008-11-05T02:18:00.016+02:00

7:35 A.M. That was a pretty good speech. Pretty, pretty good. Fantastic, really. It was a perfect ending to a long and tumultuous campaign, and singled the start of a great, fantastic next 4 (8) years. Who's excited?

6:45 A.M. So while I'm waiting for Obama to speak at "midnight eastern time," which is 7 AM here, I'm thinking about McCain's speech. It was really good. Humorous, sweet, straight-talking, personal, and sensical. If he had run his campaign in the same vein as his concession speech, it might have been a lot closer of an election.

And if he hadn't choosen Sarah Palin as his running mate.

6:14 A.M. He fucking did it. He fucking did it. Fuck yeah. America, fuck yeah. I'm ecstatic. I'm jubilant. It's fucking amazing.

Ari, Meredith and I woke up Meredith's roomies, who groggily went back to sleep. I talked to David and Alea in San Francisco, and some other classmates in J'lem. We had a champagne toast. We danced a bit, took some pictures. It's amazing. I'm amazed. I'm in total awe.

5:40 A.M. Will Joe Lieberman stay in the Democratic caucus? Will the caucus kick him out? Will he voluntarily leave? Who knows! But John King is having a ball flipping that yellow-bordered tile.

We're awaiting the closing of polls in the west, including my beloved California. Waiting. Waiting.

5:01 A.M. Fucking Iowa! Came through in January, came through again in November. I love Iowa.

4:50 A.M. So John King and his map of counties has moved to his his map states, and has basically laid out an incredibly difficult and uphill path for McCain to win the nomination. It includes a win in New Mexico, and perhaps Iowa, neither of which McCain will win. So, it's pretty amazing.

Meredith is from Ohio (Cincinnati) and has been beaming since Ohio was called. Her absentee ballot arrived today, but Ohio laws will accept it as long as it's signed and postmarked by Election Day. That's a pretty big relief.

4:35 A.M. Obama won Ohio. All three cable networks called it. That might be the ballgame.

4:08 A.M. So there's a lot going on. I'm brewing coffee in my new French Press to keep us up (Ari is out like a light). I'm facebook chatting with my brother who is in the middle of a Japanese class in Kyoto - but he's allowed to use a computer. go figure. Obama is racking up New England and the north-midwest states (Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota) by large margins. Lots of Senate races being called left and right, and it's all pretty much as expected, all good news (escept Saxby Chambliss' seat in Georgia) for the Dems.

Now McCain just won Georgia. That was not a surprise, but in my head it would have been nice if Bob Barr had spoiled the race for McCain there. Oh well. Hopefully many more goodies to come.

3:35 A.M. I just unpacked my bag of goodies, including a bag of freshly roasted and ground coffee, and the smell totally woke Ari from his nap and perked Meredith up.

Fox just called Pennsylvania for Obama. CNN hasn't said anything. I'm beginning to think that CNN is very conservative in making calls.

3:13 A.M. New Hampshire has been called for Obama by Fox. Fantastic.

And yet CNN hasn't said anything. This makes me nervous...

3:10 A.M. Fox News just called the North Carolina Senate race for Kay Hagen, ousting Elizabeth Dole. This is fantastic. Elizabeth Dole had no business being in the Senate to begin with, and now she's gone. And the Dems pick up one more seat.

What's weird, is MSNBC website called Pennsylvania for Obama; no one else has. I wonder what they know that nobody else knows (or isn't saying yet).

3:07 A.M. The was just a deluge of states with 8PM EST closings of polls. Everything pretty predictable. What wasn't predictable, was I started coloring in my Senate map, instead of my Presidential map. It was slightly embarrassing.

2:36 A.M. Well, It's officially election night: I jst caught my first John King and his county-by-county map of Indiana. While it's really nerdy and funky, it's kinda cool to watch. Especially when I can name the counties in Indiana Obama needs to do well in in order to win.

And now there's James Carville. The rajun Cajun. What a guy. He's really bald.

2:18 A.M. I'm sitting in Meredith's living room, and Ari, who is still half-asleep, just asked, "Who wants chocolate? Joel, you do." For the first time in my life, I refused chocolate. Either I'm too nervous or my stomach is too tight from the lack of sleep. We'll see.

Kentucky has been called; Vermont has been called. No surprises there. Indiana and Virgina are too close to call, except for the Virginia Senate race, which has gone to Mark Warner. No surprise either, but a great victory for Virginia. And all of the different Warner families in Virginia.

Game On!

2008-11-04T19:07:00.003+02:00

There's been a lot going on this week. I could blog about the trip to Qumran and Masada I took yesterday, or put up more Istanbul pictures (you can see Meredith's retelling of the trip on her blog at http://buckeyeinisrael.blogspot.com/ ), or write a little bit about being really into the swing of the academic calendar, or my weekly movie-Saturdays, or the Emek Refaim Street Fair, or the crazy rain we've been having, or a host of other things.

But I'm not. Today is November 4, 2008, and it's election day in The States, and for all of you reading in the US, you're right in the thick of it. It's been very strange to be abroad, and in a country that overwhelmingly supports McCain, and not be in California to help campaign for Obama (in NV) or against Prop 8. The voting absentee was really fun - this was a vote I was proud and excited to cast. All day today I've been on edge, wearing my Obama t-shirt, conferring with classmates (we're overwhelmingly supporting the Democratic ticket, and a lot of classmates vote in Ohio, Florida, Indiana, Virginia, and Missouri, so voting has been really important). I've been furiously reading articles, watching news, checking polls - I've really become a news addict these past few weeks - and I can't believe it's over. Today is election day. Today is the day. Today is game day.

Now, I'm off to see the HUC flag football team, the HUC Wise Guys, kick the Pardes flag football team's butt in, well, flag football. Then I'm going to try and get a few hours of shut-eye before waking up and watching live returns starting at 2AM when Virginia and Indiana's polls close. I think I'm going to live blog the election, not really for anyone to read, but really just because I can.

So, let's hope for hope, change, progress, an Obama-Biden administration, and 60 Democrats in the Senate!

Game on!

This is Halloween, Halloween, Halloween

2008-10-31T15:32:00.003+02:00

Well, Halloween in Jerusalem is pretty much like any other night, except when you're at HUC! Wheee!

The Kef Committee (of which I am a member of) decided to throw a kick-ass Halloween party to bring a little bit more Americana into our lives (as if living in the HUC bubble isn't Anglo enough). Ari and I were appointed (or coerced) into co-charing the effort (read: doing all of the work) at the apartment of the amazingly cool and flexible Jillian, another Rabbinical student.

The planning process was fairly easy; we sent out some e-mails, came up with a theme (Halloween! is pretty much theme enough in a country that has no idea what Halloween is), came up with a plan for a "Witch's Brew," made a budget, and then Wednesday night, after a huge mid-afternoon thunder storm, went shopping. It was a tedious (We need twelve boxes of fruit nectar) and agonizing (Which bottle of vodka is really the most bang for our buck? Let's compare again) process, but strangely fulfilling. We also made handmade decorations - ghosts, pumpkins, a Happy Halloween sign, and Ari carved a Jack O'Lantern out of a melon.

The set-up last night (we had the party on October 30 because the 31 - today - is Friday, and thus Shabbat, and a Shabbat when we have an official HUC pray-and-eat at Har-El, the oldest progressive congregation in Israel) went smoothly, and Jillian and Amanda her roommate were total dolls about having our entire class on their spacious balcony. I had made a Halloween music mix the night before, and so we were all raring to go.

And the party itself was a smashing success. Everyone who came (about 4/5 of the class, plus SOs and some +1s) really came decked out. We had a Luigi, a pair of S&M Goths, Hermione Granger, a Facebook profile, Brangelina, a Hasid, a cat, a zombie, a sexy vampire, a bear, a Yankee (the ballplayer, not the northerner), James Bond, a scarecrow, Three Blind Mice, the wall of a public bathroom, and so on. I was a Bum; the costume itself went through multiple incarnations. I had some inadvertently torn clothes (two shirts, jeans) and wore those. I didn't shave for the last week, so I had some scruff. I wore my fisherman's cap, and unmatched socks, and carried around a tin can (partly a prop, partly in order to collect the 20 shekel cover) and a garbage bag filled with some extra clothes. jillian gave me bags under my eyes, and track marks on my veins. After the party had gotten into swing, I dragged my bag to a corner of the balcony, pulled out a blanket, and huddled up to sleep, like any bum would do. It was a very fun character to play.

The costume contest winner was my friend Jaclyn, who won dressed as Sarah Palin. She had the accent down, the clothing, the look, the pose, the condescension, the conservatism. It's ironic because Jaclyn is, well, as liberal as I am. In truth, her character was some perverse hybrid of Sarah Palin and Tina Fey doing Sarah Palin, but it was a lot of fun, and a well deserved costume contest winner.

All in all, it was a great party. Ari and I are really pleased with how everything went, how well the Witch's Brew tasted, how drunk and satiated everyone got, how much leftover candy and unpopped popcorn there was, and how much fun and laughter there was. Pictures!

Meredith "Facebook" Kahan

Jordan Helfman, Zombie Hunter

Minnie Mouse and a Yankee!

Joel the Bum napping

Me, doing what I do best: panhandle

Swarming around Facebook; Sarah Palin in the back

The crowds

Iron Maiden

Scarecrow and Indian

Me at the end of the night

Top Five Istanbul Moments

2008-10-21T23:14:00.002+02:00

And now, the eagerly awaited, final five of the Top Ten Istanbul Moments

Joel, Meredith, and Ari overlooking the Bospherous at Topkapi Palace

5) Getting accosted by the police (The Polis) in Kuzguncuk. Our second day – Saturday – we took the ferry to Üsküdar, on the Asian side, and walked around for a while, seeing the residential area and “how the other half lives.” In Meredith’s guidebook we noticed that there was an old synagogue in Kuzguncuk, so we walked a few km towards the hamlet. It was a very cold and windy day, and we were on the water, and there was wind, and we were much colder than we expected to be. Finally, after getting a little lost and miming for directions, we found the synagogue. We started to take pictures, but a pair of policemen stepped out from a booth and wouldn’t let us. There was a serious communication barrier; they didn’t speak more than 2-3 words of English, and we knew, as said, zero Turkish. We motioned to enter; they motioned, “No.” They mumbled something that I made out to be, “Muslim?” And then, “Christian?” Then one motioned to see Ari's passport and started thumbing through it. When he came across his Israeli student visa, the other policeman pointed at the visa, and then at Ari, and said, “Jew.” They’d figured us out. We were slightly nervous; we had no idea what they wanted. Were they protecting the synagogue? Protecting us? What was going on?

We’ll never know. They gave Ari back his passport and we hurried away, to have another adventure taking the bus back to Üsküdar so we could ferry back to the old city. But, when we went to Ortaköy (see #3 below), we did see another synagogue and got our pictures. We showed those Turkish police!

The new city

Me walking in the new city (photo courtesy of A. Lorge)

4) Dinner and “a show” on our first evening. After arriving at our janky hotel, Hotel Klas, we ventured into the heart of the old city (where the Blue Mosque, Topkapi Palace, and Hagia Sofia are) for a late dinner and to see the old city at night. We were hustled into having a pretty good 3-course meal at Safran, a restaurant that had a Turkish band playing live music and a lady making the Turkish version of laffa in the front of the restaurant. The waiter was the spitting image, albeit a little taller and non-English speaking, of my stepbrother Adam. That was a little bizarre.

After dinner, on our walk through the old city, we turned a corner onto the main drag, and were overwhelmed with activity. About two storefronts ahead, a jumble of men started whizzing and yelling, and suddenly there was a man running right towards me, followed closely by two other men in white jackets. They almost ran into me, and the first man, the one being pursued, ran off. The men in white jackets turned their attention to another guy, in a long black trench coat, and started running after him with a white plastic chair. They threw it at him, and as he stumbled, they caught up with him and started punching him and beating him with the chair – in the middle of the street. The chair broke, and the guy getting beaten ran off, with shards of plastic chair thrown after him.

We’re not sure what the fight was about. Either the guys stole some baklava or hit on somebody’s sister (or mother?). Welcome to Turkey!

Me enjoying our meal at Safran (photo courtesy of A. Lorge)

3) Evening in Ortaköy. Both Ari’s sister’s friend and my friend Alea (who was in turkey for two months last summer) highly recommended we spend an evening in Ortaköy, a section of Istanbul in the new city, on the edge of the Bospherous, off the tourist path, and filled with a pulsating nightlife of restaurants, cafes, bars, stores, art gallerys, street vendors, a gorgeous view of Asian Istanbul and the Bospherous Bridge, and Turks doing Turkish stuff.

We had a dizzying, traffic filled taxi ride over there, and stumbled out of the taxi in a motion sickness induced haze, but alive and eager to see this area. It turned out to be a fantastic evening. We walked around a bit, and ran into a synagogue (see # 5), which made us feel vindicated after our adventure that morning. Then we found a delicious waterfront restaurant (the quality of the food was a pleasant surprise) with an incredible view of the water and a nearby mosque. Then we strolled and found a quaint café to sit at, drink tea, smoke melon hookah, and play cards for a few hours. The weather was cool but not cold. The staff was friendly. The tea and cake was delicious. The hookah was smooth and flavorful. The company was wonderful. The evening was relaxing, authentically Turkish, and really, really a lot of fun.

Shots of Ortaköy (the street and the Bospherous bridge, the synagogue, the mosque)

2) Walking into Hagia Sophia. I’m really not sure how to write about this moment, because it’s pretty indescribable. The exterior of Hagia Sophia was beautiful at night, and stirring during the day, but nothing could have prepared me for the interior. I’ve read about the church/mosque have wanted to see for years, and Ari had taken a class on Byzantine art and was really excited about the mosaics, but I was still totally swept away by the beauty. We were very lucky with our timing – we hit it right in the late morning, and the location of the sun hit the back windows and created this intense glow of light which accented the immense ceilings and coloring. The scaffolding – apparently it’s been in a restoration process for decades – oddly enhanced the experience. My guidebook said that Hagia Sofia was designed to mirror heaven in an earthly fashion. I think it comes pretty close.

Interior shots of Hagia Sofia

1) Getting stuck in an elevator. On Saturday, our second full day, we had our Asian Istanbul and Grand Bazaar adventures (see #5 and #9), and returned back to Hotel Klas around 5PM really cold, tired, needing showers and having to use the bathroom. We walked into the elevator, pressed our floor (which was two flights of stairs from the lobby), and went up. But not all the way up.

The elvator doors opened suddenly, and then quickly closed. We could see a quick glimpse of wall and sheet rock and metal. Meredith gasped. The elevator was between floors, and the doors opened and closed on their own, leading to nowhere. We stopped, and the moved up a bit, and the doors did the same thing. We looked at each other, silent, and I think our hearts imploded a bit. Then the elvator moved again, and did the same quick, partial open-close between floors. We all took a deep breath – it was a very small elevator, and I could feel my already small bladder getting tighter and tighter – and I hit the alaram button.

Nothing. No sound, no noise, no alarm. It didn’t work. We had no phones. We didn’t speak Turkish. Nobody knew we were in here. The hotel looked empty. People wouldn’t be returning from their day’s adventures for a while. No one was coming to rescue us. Time to panic.

We take off sweaters, unload backpacks, pull out snacks and take a seat. We might be here for a while.

We hit “Lobby,” and the elevator descended, and did the same thing. Then we hit “5,” thinking this elevator, the rear elevator, opens onto the restaurant and perhaps there will be someone there getting ready for the dinner hour and notice something it wrong. Well, we were right – sort of. As we stop halfway between floors “4” and “5,” we hear voices. They’re talking in Turkish, saying things we don’t understand, but we realize that they know we’re there! The elevator door opens again, this time it stays open, and Ari jumps up, and grabs the outside door – the bottom of the door on the fifth floor. He pushes and pushes and pushes, and sort of breaks the door, but we see faces peering out at us, talking loudly in Turkish. We respond, “We’re stuck, we’re stuck, we don’t understand you.” Finally, we get that they want us to step back. We do, the elevator rises to the fifth floor, and we stumble out, breathing in the stale Turkish air of freedom.

All in all, we were only in there about 10 minutes, but it felt like 10 hours. It really capped off an awful hotel experience, and summed up a lot of our feelings on Istanbul. We struggled back to our room, collapsed in hilarity, and played a really intense game of Oh Hell.

The three of us in front of the "Elevator of death"

Istanbul is not Constantinople

2008-10-20T14:11:00.007+02:00

and it’s certainly not Byzantium either. It’s sort of a whole new, unique, strange, wonderful, horrifying, beautiful, foreign, Western, Asian, difficult, obtuse, smooth, dark, windy, clean, askance, familiar, hilarious, ridiculous place. After returning last night, I’m still not sure what to make of it. There’s something to be said about a city that physically straddles the border between Europe and Asia, because emotionally, mentally, architecturally, spiritually, personality-wise, behaviorally, etc, it straddles the spirits of both continents too.

In A Passage to India, E.M. Forster continually makes the point that India is an indescribable place; there are 100 Indias, each with their own feeling and indefinable except through experience. I think there might be 100 Istanbuls, or even 1000, each slightly more strange and wonderful and indefinable than the rest; I think Ari and Meredith – my wonderful travel companions – would agree as well. So I’m going to start my blogging on the Istanbul adventure (and I think adventure is a pretty apt noun) with, in homage to David Letterman and The Flying Squirrel, an attempt to name simply ten Istanbuls.

Top Ten Istanbul Moments

10) Getting scammed at the 360° Bar. Our second night, we went to Istiklal Caddesi, in Beyoglu – the new city; across the Golden Horn from the old city, but still on the European side of the Bospherous – which is the main strip of restaurants, stores, movie theaters, pubs, bars, and clubs. It was a happening place. Our dinner consisted of Ari people watching while Meredith and I gorged ourselves on faux (yet still strangely delicious) Chinese food at FastWok. Then we went to 360° Bar, a recommendation of Ari’s sister’s friend. It’s at the top of a building and had a fantastic night, almost panoramic, view of the city (hence its name). It was very sleek, very Western, lots of shiny surfaces and smartly dressed waiters. We asked for a menu; they didn’t have one. So we ordered, received pretty weak drinks but enjoyed them and the view. When we left, the bill was outrageous. I kept thinking bars in Israel are expensive, but this really took the cake. So, never again order with out a menu.

Istiklal Caddesi at night

The bar itself

Views of the city from the bar.

9) Meredith getting hit on in the Grand Bazaar. The Grand Bazaar is pretty bizarre. It’s like a huge, cavernous shuk-style mall, with every vendor selling pretty similar ware. We went on Saturday to get lots of pashminas, which was a bargaining story in and of itself. Meredith wanted to get Turkish hookah tobacco for her brothers, and was bargaining with a guy, and it was took expensive, even after the bargaining, so we left. Then the guy comes running after us, yelling, “Pretty lady! Wait!” He comes up to Meredith and says she can have the tobacco for free if she’ll have dinner with him. Meredith grabs Ari and says, “Well, he’s my boyfriend so I don’t think I can do that.” Ari looks a little befuddled, and says, “Yes, of course.” And so we quietly, and quickly, back away.

The (book) bazaar

8) Using hand gestures to communicate. Never before have I felt so totally unable to converse. Very few people spoke English, and when they did, it was the storekeepers in the Grand Bazaar or the people who worked the touristy locations. Never the cab drivers, the hotel workers, or the police (see below). So we got very good at mimicking words – especially numbers for cab fares – with our fingers. We even had a whole silent conversation on the bus, trying to figure out and pay the bus fare. The whole lack of verbal communication experience made all three of us appreciative our level of Hebrew, and I think gave us all a renewed zest of using, despite whatever embarrassments encountered, our Hebrew.

7) Ari’s “free” shoeshine. On our last afternoon, we’re walking from the Orient Express train station to the Suleiman Mosque, and we pass a shoe-shiner walking in the opposite direction. The shoe-shiner drops a brush, and Ari picks it up, calls back to the guy, and gives it to him. The shoe-shiner is very grateful, and, through very, very broken English, offers a thank-you shoe shine. He starts shining Ari’s shoes. A friend of his walks by, and with some prompting starts giving Meredith a shine. (I have on sandals, so a shoe shine wasn’t really in the cars for me). During the shine, the guys are giving us some cock-and-bull story about cataract surgery and their family and gifts to friends. I don’t know. After the shine, they start hassling us for money. They made it pretty clear that the shine was a thank you for picking up the brush, but of course they wanted to be paid for it.

Ari and his shoeshiner

6) The old city at night. Our first evening started out very eventfully (see below) but ended on a wonderfully serene and beautiful note. We were staying at a hotel about 2 km away from the center of the old city (Topkapi Palace, Hagia Sophia, Blue Mosque, Hippodrome, etc) and so we walked down there to see it, before going inside these places the next day. It was beautiful. The Turks really know how to take care of their historical monuments (and how to modernize their city while keeping the ancient parts intact) and these monuments are the biggest, more important, and arguably the most beautiful. It was astounding. We were blown away by the human accomplishments that went into the construction – and this was just the exteriors.

The Blue Mosque

Hagia Sophia

Tune in tomorrow for 1-5!

flying to Byzantium

2008-10-16T10:12:00.002+02:00

This afternoon, I am off to Istanbul (not Constantinople, although I really think we should all go back to referring to it as Byzantium - Romans and Turks be damned!) for a four day vacation with Ari and Meredith. I'm terribly excited, as you might be able to imagine, to be somewhere totally unfamiliar, and foreign, and almost exotic. It's a city that straddles two continents, contained within it thousands of years of history, mystery, magic, and enchantment.

My brother has spent a lot of the last year, as his role of an Asian Studies major, lecturing my family and me on the pitfalls and nuances of Orientalism and Occidentalism, warning and rebuking us for falling into ethnocentric or anachronistic sterotypes. But I just can't help it. I mean, come on! Agatha Christie wrote Murder on the Orient Express in Istanbul - and that's certainly a prime piece of anachronistic occidentalist literature if I've ever read one. There is something incredibly exciting in the foreign, in the exotic. I'm just concerned that we'll get there and realize Turkey is just Israel-lite.

Adam has been telling me not to smuggle opium back into Israel. My first response was, "We've already sewn the pockets into Ari's jacket, so it's a little late for that." Then I moved onto some line about having the Afula mafia put a price on my head if I don't deliver. Now he's joking that if we do that, we'll end up in a Turkish jail, which isn't a Turkish delight. To which I added, "On a moonlit night." I'm not sure if he got the They Might Be Giants reference. (On a sad, side note, I lost a rather steep bet to Meredith when she proved to me that TMBG did not in fact write Istanbul [Not Constantinople]. It's a cover. Who knew? Had you ever heard any other band perform it?)

Before I go, I leave you with a line from something that has been on the forefront of my mind these past few days, and which I encourage you to read in its entirety, Yeats' poem Sailing to Byzantium:

Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.

'tis the season!

2008-10-15T17:23:00.000+02:00

In America, "The Holidays" means Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, and that lovely period between those days when the freeways, movie theaters, and shopping malls are entirely stuffed.

In Israel, "The Holidays" means Rosh Hashonah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, and the few non-chag days between them when life doesn't function, except to decompress from and get ready for the next holiday.

This month, the month of Tishrei (which in 2008 almost perfectly overlaps with October), is the Israeli/Jewish equivalent of the American holiday season. People have many days off, schools are closed for a good two weeks, it's primarily time spent with family and close friends, there are lots of attendance at services, and an ungodly amount of food (see my RH post for my own foray into "more time eating than praying").

There's also this electricity in the air that one really feels in the states as people get more and more excited and into the Holiday season that I really felt strongly here (albeit here there's less emphasis on consumerism). It wasn't so much in the days leading up to Rosh Hashonah, but in the days following, and leading up to the rest of the holidays. In the time period of “the chagim,” everyone is really, really excited. Everyone greets one another with “Shanah tovah” (Happy new year) all month long; it’s also, like Santa in the states, written on all of the Coke bottles.

During the past weekend, the preparation time for Sukkot (what we’re smack dab right in the middle of right now), I would see people driving around with loads of palm fronds on the top of their cars that they are bringing home to use as the roof for their sukkah. The first time I saw that, I thought, “Oh, someone has a Christmas tree. In Jerusalem? In October? Oh, it’s palm fronds.”

What also struck me is how intense this period is. Especially this year, when none of the chagim fell on Shabbat but in the middle of the week, every holiday butted up against Shabbat. Rosh Hasonah or Yom Kippur or the first day of Sukkot (a chag in it’s own right) would end, and then suddenly it’s Shabbat! There’s hardly anytime to recoup and rest up before jumping into the next holiday. It was very intense.

The final piece of the holiday-chagim parallel fell into place for me this afternoon, when I saw the most amazing Sukkot Parade. Much like the Thanksgiving/Christmas/New Years Day Parade, this Sukkot Parade involved elaborate floats, marching, fabulous costumes, minutely choreographed dances, and thousands of Israel-loving evangelical Christians. During Chol HaMoed Sukkot (literally, the secular days of the festival sandwiched between the chag days on the ends), thousands of Evangelical Christians, from all around the world, take some biblical phrase literally and come to Jerusalem during the “Feast of Tabernacles,” take over the main streets, and march around Jerusalem in a parade yelling, “We love Israel! Shalom! Jesus loves you Israel! We love all of you!” It was a total, kitsch loaded trip.

Here are some parade pictures:

hosting and boasting

2008-10-11T11:12:00.003+02:00

After the Kippur ended, I realized that (literally) the next day was Shabbat. And I had no Shabbat plans. It just crept up on me, especially after the intense Day of Atonement. Hastily conferencing with Meredith, I decided to have a little Shabbat dinner at my apartment. I suddenly got very excited, because this was my first opportunity to host Shabbat dinner.

We can only fit six, seated, at the kitchen table, and only have meat and milk dish sets for six (yes, my kitchen is kosher; more on that in a later post), so I had four classmates over: Meredith, Deana, LuAnne, and Jordan. Including Adam and me, that made six. I got a little overambitious, and cooked a (hopefully) scrumptious meal throughout Friday afternoon.

The menu:

Roasted chicken, marinated in and roasted with white wine, apple juice, thyme, apple slices, red onions
Roasted sweet potatoes with thyme and apple cider vinegar
Couscous with toasted pine nuts, apricots, and raisins
Sautéed eggplant with thyme and apple cider vinegar
Dessert: baked apples filled with chocolate

It was an ambitious menu, and while there are about three dozen things I would have done differently, I’d made nothing before and it all came out eatible at worst and delicious at best. The crowd was loquacious and jovial, lots of flowing wine and an extended, tremendous, postprandial song session of Shabbes zemiros.

Since the meal was apple-themed (due to both being in the month of Tishrei and celebrating the Jewish new year still, as well as it being fall and apples are in season), for a late night oneg (fun) we played Apples-To-Apples. Thanks to David and Alea (thanks, really), this game is now one of my favorites. It’s addicting. Adam brought it with him (thanks Adam) and so we played.

I dominated the first part of the game, and technically won, but we kept playing but by the end of game Meredith had the most adjective cards. It’s a buttload of fun and I and very excited about hosting many more Shabbat dinners and then playing Apples-To-Apples, and flaunting my mad ironic/irreverent/cleaver/funny word skills.

The Kippur in J'lem

2008-10-09T22:24:00.001+02:00

Yom Kippur in Jerusalem was like no other Yom Kippur I’ve had. It was totally unlike the YK I was expecting I would have – based on what the Israelis told us to expect. It was indescribable, profound, and astounding.

I suppose the Kippur preparation started with Rosh Hashanah, when we made the transition from RH into the ten days between the two holidays. Religiously, we’re take this time and ask forgiveness from our friends and family for things we have done to hurt them in the past year. Emotionally, it’s a time to check in with yourself and reflect on the last year and focus on what I’ve done wrong or what you’re happy with. In the days leading up to RH, I didn’t notice anything special about the city. But the days between RH and YK were electric. Everyone was moving and talking in a more energetic way; the world functioned differently. I could taste Yom Kippur.

The day itself was virtually magical. Whereas RH resembles Shabbat – just two days of it – YK everything shuts down. Everything is closed. No one – no cars – are on the streets. The entre city, literally, is on holiday. It’s the one day of the year when every Jewish resident is observing the holiday together. After Kol Nidrei services, a group of students took a walk down to the German Colony, and there was literally not a single car on the road; it was almost like something out of a zombie movie. Throngs of people were walking in the middle of the streets, talking and walking and thinking and little kids riding bikes and families out together and couples strolling and groups of students learning in the middle of huge intersections and teenagers having song sessions and Israelis just enjoying the evening. The mood was bizarre; it was almost joyful, and yet at the same time very unfrivolous. Everyone was taking themselves seriously, but enjoying life, understanding the gravity of it all, while experiencing the world around them.

The HUC services were so much more rewarding that the RH services. I’m not sure why this is; I think part of me knew what to expect from them, as well as the novelty of seeing my friends and classmates perform in the choir had worn off. I had also gotten to a place where I was more familiar with the melodies and could sing along much easier, which made it feel more like praying, instead of a cantorial and choral concert. It was, again, wonderful to be with community and my friends here, because so much of the chagim is being with your community. I really felt that my last few YKs, in LA, had been missing that, and even though YK is a very personal holiday, the sense of community is very important.

Another reason I think this YK was so powerful was the fast itself. I really felt it the entire day, but it wasn’t debilitating or painful. It was a meaningful fast, definitely. The challenging part was the walking – to and from my apartment to school involves a rather large hill, so I minimized my own apartment walking (I took my contribution to the breakfast potluck over on Wednesday before the fast even started). But it all came and went fairly simply, and really enhanced the spiritual level of the day.

The break-fast as well was a lot of fun. Lisa, Meredith, and Deana (roommates) hosted our entire HUC class at their apartment. They had about 50 people, a shitload of food, a fair amount of wine, and whiskey, delicious cookies, and a lot of lap sitting (but thank God no grape throwing). Something about not-eating/spiritual fulfillment makes 20-something Jewish professionals act about 10 years younger. The evening really capped off a very meaningful, memorable, and amazing Yom Kippur.

"We're a team of mavericks!"

2008-10-05T19:32:00.000+02:00

I would much prefer it if Tina Fey were John McCain’s running mate. For one thing, she’s much funnier than Sarah Palin (and that’s actually saying a lot). For another, I agree with her politics (there’s an episode of 30 Rock where she tells Jenna [Jane Krakowski] it say on MSNBC that she supports Barack Obama, and Jenna ends up saying Osama bin Laden – hilarious!). But seriously, wouldn't that be awesome? McCain-Fey form America? Talk about unconventional.

During the debate watching party this weekend (the debates are on at like 3AM here, and while we all get Fox News, no one wants to stay up all night to watch Joe Biden and Sarah Palin bicker, although of course I’ll be up all night to watch election returns come in next month), I had a hilarious time watching Palin express her love, and Joe Biden’s love, for Israel. Yeah. They both love Israel. Makes me feel safer.

Head of the Year - Day 2

2008-10-03T10:35:00.001+03:00

My second day of Rosh Hashonah started with an all-class potluck at my friend Adena’s apartment. By the time I arrived I was still full from lunch (and dinner the night before) but Adena made delicious pumpkin soup, and Nikki made carrot ginger soup, and there was delicious quinoa and couscous and dessert, so really, how could I not eat?

For morning services on second day, Jaclyn, Meredith, and I “shul-hopped.” We started at the synagogue at the Conservative Yeshiva, which was very much like a conservative shul in the states, except we brought the average age down by about 40 years. It was basically a congregation of old immigrants who like conservative services. Next, we attended the Great Synagogue, with their amazing choir and cantor. But they didn’t even have siddurim for their congregants (people bring their own) so I couldn’t really follow along. Our third stop was at the Italian Synagogue, a Sephardic congregation in downtown Jerusalem. I had never really been to a Sephardic service, and I loved it. The serviced moved to a totally different pace and rhythm than a regular Ashkenazic service, and I really want to go back.

We finished the morning at Har-El, the oldest progressive shul in Israel, and where HUC had relocated for the morning. The service there was pretty much the same as the services at HUC the previous day, except totally in Hebrew – sermon too.

For lunch, I went to the home of Sally Klein Katz, my education professor. She and her husband have a second day RH lunch every year, and invite their friends and family, and their students. So there were a bunch of HUC students (the ed students, Sally’s rabbinic reflection group, and some HUC students they knew from when they worked at URJ camps in the states) and lots of other people; faces I’d seen at various shuls, and a girl I knew from UCLA, and people I’d met over the last few months. It was a lovely, lovely afternoon. But I was totally full for food, and nibbled throughout the afternoon.

I went home and napped, and then went to Leslie’s apartment for a final meal: dinner. That evening was awesome; even though I was totally stuffed and bloated, I managed to put down a big plate of chicken (finally a meat meal!) and rice and roasted veggies and potatoes and salad and lots of wine. The evening morphed into this bizarre retrograde of middle school behavior: throwing grapes, and dancing to one-hit wonders from the late 1990’s, and stuffing grapes down people shirts, and wine spills, and bad hip-hop music from the 2000’s.

It was a great holiday, and incredibly fascinating to walk around Jerusalem for two days in a row and see everyone on their way to shul or to meals, but the whole city settled in to the holiday. In the days leading up to RH, every time I would talk to someone (a store clerk, a teacher, a bus driver) we would say, “Shanah Tova!” It was amazing to be in a place where everybody celebrated the holiday. Never before had RH seemed like such a legitimate and real holiday, instead of something we Jews so secretly and on the side. I loved it. And I’m very excited for Yom Kippur.

Head of the Year - Day 1

2008-10-02T08:05:00.000+03:00

Literally, Rosh Hashonah (ראש השנה) means “head of the year.” Or, figuratively, it can be translated to mean new year. Specifically, in colloquial English (and Hebrew too), it means the first two days of the month of Tishrei, during which Jews celebrate the creation of the world (yes, we say it happened on this specific day 5769 years ago – I’m sure Bishop Usher could tell you what time) and start the process of “cheshbon nefesh,” of checking our souls, of looking at ourselves this past year and thinking about what we are proud of and what we could have done better, at least in regard to our fellow human beings. This leads to Yom Kippur which we finally atone for the sins against God, and start the year anew and refreshed. But more on YK later.

RH normally, for many American Jews and me, is a time spent with family. There is a fair amount of time spent in services, but the holiday is really based around family and community being together. It’s much more a communal holiday than YK, but since they occur in tandem, RH gets a bad rap. I’m not actually sure why either of them get a bad rap, but it may have something to do with fasting…

There certainly is no fasting on RH however. In fact, this year, I spent a disproportionate amount of time at meals, than I did at services. Monday night, Erev RH, I attended HUC services. The HUC student choir, made up of the cantorial students and a few other students who made up the bass/tenor sections, sang beautifully. The rabbi was our Dean, Michael Marumur, who is a Rabbinic Rock Star; the hazzan (cantor) was Eli Schliefer, who is, apparently, the patriarch of modern Reform cantoring. He’s very old, and sings in a very old, slow style, but was fantastic.

The service itself, as with the other HUC services I attended, focused disproportionately on the performative aspect – the choir sings, the cantor sings, the rabbi talks – without much by way of communal participation and praying. This is mainly done because HUC services are learning experience for the cantorial students, who all have solos and amazing voices. The downside is the very prayer-able congregation (mostly students) aren’t really able to pray. I went because HUC is my community here and I wanted to support my friends in the choir who had been practicing for months. And who sang beautifully. But if this were the states, I would have hated the service and not gone back. I need a service, especially during the chaggim when I can participate fully and actively. But in this context, it was fine. It was lovely. It was community.

For Erev RH dinner, HUC hosted a RH Seder (yes, there are not just seders on Passover) and five course meal, complete with a seemingly unlimited wine service. Most of the class was there, and it was a great way to start the holiday, together as a community. The seder was led my by friend Jordan (who was half of the bass section in the choir) and he had every table make a skit/pun about a food that’s part of the seder (e.g. pumpkin, beets, wine, fish head, dates). My group was dates – we made a pun with the English name (Can I offer you a date? Sure. How about tomorrow night?) and the Hebrew name – Tamar (A date tamar-ow! Tamar-ow night!). It was a lot of fun. The food was mostly pretty good. And Meredith and Harrison finished the night with a song session.

For morning services I returned to HUC. The service was more of the same, and literally more of it, as I oscillated between states of awake and sleep. Anyhoo, after the service was Tashlich (a service in which we toss bread crumbs into running water in order to symbolically cast away our sins), which I had been asked to lead. I was very nervous, but I felt I put together a good 6 minute service, including some singing, some Psalm reading, some reflection, some bread tossing, and some singing. I was very pleased with my efforts and how the congregation took to the service. The feedback I received was also very positive, which made me feel pretty good.

Lunch was at my friend Amy and Sarah’s apartment. They had “brunch” themed lunch, with all sorts of delicious items: baked french toast, polenta, potatoes, fruit salad, glazed salmon, pecan pie, apple crisp, kugel, mimosas, and wine. It was incredibly scrumptious and tasty, and a really nice group schmoozing and reflecting and just being together. That afternoon, I was exhausted, and then there was a full day of RH left to go!

Shanah Tova!

2008-09-29T14:53:00.002+03:00

Dear loyal "of the sands and the cliffs" readers:

Shanah Tova! From my home, to yours, let me wish you a sweet 5769, filled with lots of love, happiness, health, smiles, learning, and fun. May all of your wishes and requests rain down upon you. May you be written and signed in the book of life. I wish you all the best.

With love,

Yoel

PS I have a very busy and excited Rosh Hashonah planned in the next 48 hours. While I'm sad to not be home and with my family, if there's anywhere else I would be satisfied being for the chagim, it's here. I'll write all about it during the Days of Awe, when my internet is not longer sketchy (b'ezrat hasehm) and I'm not in a rush to get all of my pre-chag cooking and cleaning done. The phrases above are loosely translated from the RH Hebrew class I had yesterday. In all seriousness, for those that celebrate it, Happy New Year, and for those that don't, Happy October!

Rain

2008-09-28T07:49:00.000+03:00

This weekend, it rained. In Jerusalem. In September. It’s been a very early-autumn atmosphere the last week or so, warm during the day, with some scattered clouds, obscuring direct (and sweat-inducing) sunlight; and then cool at night. It’s been a lovely change.

But Friday, in the early afternoon, I was walking to lunch with Lisa, and she kept saying, “Oh it’s going to rain today. We’re getting our first rain today. I just felt a rain drop? Didn’t you just feel that? It’s going to rain today.” I was slightly dubious, although the clouds scattered in the sky did look and feel ominous and dark, like any rain cloud that is very pregnant with rain and cannot wait to expel it’s little baby droplets. But I shrugged it off: it’s September! When does it rain in September?

Well, apparently in 2008. We’re walking through Independence Park on our way to Tmol Shilshon’s scrumptious Friday morning brunch buffet, when I see droplets on my Naot, staining my leather. Uh-oh. I look up, and get two drops right in the eye. Jerks. So, yes, it’s raining. Well, at this point rain is a generous term. It’s sprinkling; but it’s still warm and slightly muggy. It feels very much like LA weather.

The rest of the day it sprinkles a little, but nothing too extreme. Friday night, as I’m heading to bed after a wonderful Shabbat dinner, I hear a crash and an explosion of rain. Not just a sprinkling, but instead a downpour. A real raining. It’s a very pleasant sound to fall asleep to.

Saturday, Meredith and Ari come over for a French Toast/movie/challah-making lazy Shabbat, and when they walk in, they’re pretty wet – because they got rained on. And then periodically throughout the afternoon, the skies open up and throngs of rain come crashing down. It’s marvelous. Apparently it rained all over the country, and in my book this is a great sign. Israel desperately needs one wet winter to help ease its water shortage, and if this is that winter, it’s going to be a doozy.

second temple history tiyul

2008-09-26T11:17:00.003+03:00

As part of our Second Temple history class, we went on a two-parted tiyul this past Thursday. In the morning we went to the Israel museum (which is sadly undergoing major construction this year and so the bulk of the museum is closed) to see a model of Jerusalem in the late second temple period - c. 66 CE - and the Dead Sea Scrolls. In the afternoon we went to the Old City to see a Herodian-era house/museum, as well as walk around the excavations on the southern end of the Western Wall.

Before continuing, a word about the class. The period of the Second Temple lasts from c. 536 BCE, when the Persian emperor Cyrus the Great conquered the Babylonians and allowed the Jews to return to Canaan/Judea/Palestine/Israel and rebuild their temple, until 70/73 CE, when the Roman army under the command of Vespasian and his son Titus destroyed the Temple, Jerusalem, and Jewish communities (including Masada) south of the Galilee. It's an incredibly rich and complicated period in Jewish history; in those 600 years, the Jews in Judea lived under Persian, Greek, Seleucid, Maccabee/Hasmonean (self), and Roman rule. It's a period in Jewish history marked by a broad corpus of diverse literature, religious/spiritual development, and deep political strife and sectarianism. In classical Zionist thought, it's the last period in Jewish history worth discussing. It's a period I've studied in college no less than 6 times, which makes this class a 7th (or 8th, depending on how you count), and therefore a somewhat redundant review in my eyes. But I go, and sit, and do homework for other classes, or write blog entires, or gchat.

That being said, the trip itself was actually a lot of fun. I'm not crazy about the professor - he's a very scattered lecturer and has a hard time making coherent sentances. Second Temple History is a subject I find fascinating (hence the inordinate amount of times I've studied it) and he manages to make it both boring and hard to understand. Which saddens me. But on the tiyul he was much more focused and coherent, clear and concise. It was a very enjoyable educational experience. The time in the old city was also pretty interesting; by the late afternoon, when we were there, the sun was setting and the weather was perfect and the shadows on the excavated ruins of Byzantine, early Arab, and late second temple period was a fantastic setting to listen and learn.

And now some photos!

The model of Second Temple Jerusalem, c. 66 CE

Fellow classmates looking at the model

My professor lecturing under Robinson's Arch

The southern wall of the Temple Mount

The excavations of a Byzantine house

Selichot

2008-09-21T17:26:00.000+03:00

Selichot is a service (or a series of services) that occurs the week before Rosh Hashonah. It's a series of penitentiary or apologetic prayers that get us in the correct mindset as we approach Rosh Hashonah and Yom Kippur and the days of awe (the ten days between the two holidays). It starts the Saturday night before RH (unless RH is very early in the week, then it's two Saturday nights before, in order to give four days of saying Selichot). Because Selichot isn't a normal service, and it's mainly Medieval poetry and hymns and sung biblical texts, it traditionally is said between the evening service and the morning service - meaning very late at night, or very, very early in the morning.

Last night, the HUC liturgy teachers took us to the Great Synagogue in Jerusalem (the "headquarters" of the Ashkenazi Chief Rabbinate in Israel and a super ultra-orthodox synagogue) for the Selichot service at 10:30PM. Since it's an orthodox congregation, the men and women sat separately - in this synagogue, the men are downstairs and the women are in an upstaris gallery. Many students - male and female - wwe upset about beign required to attend this service: "This isn't how I like to daven, so don't make me do something I don't want to."

To that I say: Poppycock! It's an educational experience. Let's learn something new by experiencing some part pof Judaism we're not comfortable with or used to. We're in Jerysalem for god's sake! Let's take advantage of that!

Ok, no more ranting. The service itself was bizarre. The cantor and choir are world renowned, and were amazing. It was beautiful music, sounding very medieval or renaissance, very Thomas Tallis-esque and a symphonic cacophony. But they sang in a very "high synagogue" style, very operatic, which made it hard to understand the words they were singing, consequently making it difficult, really for everyone in our group, to follow along. It was also a very long, and very slow service - they really dragged out the prayers, albeit in a beautiful way - and I may or may not have dozed off on a few occasions. But it was a very, very interesting learning experience and I'm very glad to have had it. It some ways, I feel much more emotionally and spiritually prepared for RH and YK and the days of awe. I'm excited and looking forward to experiencing the chagim in Jerusalem and with HUC and my friends here. I think it's going to be a very memorable year.

Adam has arrived

2008-09-19T15:05:00.001+03:00

and it's great to have him here.

He came into Israel Tuesday morning; ironically, a few hours after I left on the New Jew Tiyul. So we missed each other, and then he was here alone for 3 days while I was gallivanting up north. When I got back Thursday night, he was here, awaiting my arrival. I hadn't seen him since early June, so we had a lot of catching up to do, and then just some "roommate" bonding.

It's strange to start thinking of Adam as a roommate, as well as a close friend, and I think it will take some getting used to. We just went shopping together and it was a strange experience. We have very different plans of what to buy and cook with and eat (I like cereal, he doesn't; I like to drink juice, he doesn't). Mostly it's me going maximal and Adam going minimal. Little things. I'm sure it'll work out over the year, but it was our first time and slightly awkward and new.

But I'm so excited to have him here for the year. I think having a close friend, especially since it's Adam, will make the year easier, more fun, and just better.

Shabbat Shalom!

In search of the New Jew

2008-09-18T22:46:00.000+03:00

As part of our Israel Seminar, this past week we took a three day tiyul (field trip) to the Golan Heights, to learn about this part of Israel, its role in the formation of the Zionist movement and the state, and its role in Israel’s current political mire. The trip was organized around an intellectual and emotional investigation of the “new Jew” – essentially the image of a strong, youthful, worker, fighter Zionist pioneer, who came to this land at the turn of the century determined to create a type of Jew who would not hide from the Cossacks anymore.

The idea of the New Jew is essential in early (and parts of contemporary) Zionist theology, as the founding fathers of Zionism and Israel all sought, in their own ways, to refashion their own and the world’s image of the Jewish people. They sought to build a new, socialist (in the case of the second Aliyah), secular, strong society, infused with Jewish elements, but also wholly modern and nationalistic. In many ways they’ve succeeded. In many ways, the place of the New Jew in Israeli society has vanished.

The area of the Eastern Galilee and the Golan Heights was important because there, we could engage and discuss a few key elements of the New Jew theology and history. For instance, on our first day we went to the tomb of Edmund Rosthchild, THE benefactor of the first wave of pre-Zionist farmer immigrants in the 1880s and 1890s. In our second day we visited Tel Hai, the location of a minor skirmish between Zionist settlers and their Arab neighbors in 1920, but a skirmish that became a huge, major symbolic rallying cry for the development of the Zionist ethos. We spent a morning at Tel Dan, a nature reserve and archaeological site in the North, mimicking and exploring the early Zionist fascination and appropriation with archeology (our guide at Tel Dan was David Ilan, our biblical history professor, the head of HUC’s archaeological school, and the head of the Tel Dan excavations – not too shabby a tour guide!).

Our trip also examined current geopolitics of Israel’s northern borders. We visited Metulla, Israel’s northernmost city, and stood on a viewpoint mere meters from Lebanon (our view was more Lebanon than Israel). We saw Hezbollah bases from a distance. We spent an afternoon on the Golan Heights, looking down at Israel proper and our at Syria in the distance (we couldn’t see it, but we were a mere 35 km from Damascus. Damascus, Lawrence! Damascus!). We talked with members of the Golan Residents’ Council about the prospect of the Golan being returned to Syria (they’re against it). We debated issues and politics, and expanded our own worldview of Israeli history and geopolitics.

And it was beautiful up there. I haven’t uploaded pictures to the computer yet, but when I do I’ll post them.

It was also tremendously fun to get away for three days. It was a little like teen trip: we were programmed from 7AM to 10PM every day; we had numbers for a “count off;” our meals were prearranged; we had madrichim shuffling us on and off the bus. But at them same time, it was different. It was seeing the country in a new way, but also seeing the group, my cohort in a new way. It was definitely a bonding experience, and also the emergence of a little major drama here and there. And the year has only just begun.

Academics!

2008-09-12T14:30:00.001+03:00

This past week was our first week of classes. I like them a lot. I have class approximately 8 hours a day, five days a week (with breaks in between). It’s the most class I’ve had, perhaps ever. It’s incredibly intense and rigorous, but not particularly intellectually difficult. Everything thus far has (more or less) been fascinating – I know I’m learning and I’m learning very useful and practical information: how Hebrew vowels are patterned, the typology of stories that exist within the Tanakh, a basic framework for discussing Jewish education, and the liturgical origins of Birchot HaShacar, the morning blessings. It’s all building a basic structure for a seasoned and qualified Jewish educator. Or so I’m led to believe.

For you nerds out there (no judgment; I love biblical grammar), here is a listing of my courses:

Hebrew – I have 5 periods a week of modern Hebrew: reading, writing, grammar, talking, understanding. Four periods are with one teacher on a rounded experience, and one period is with a different teacher, exclusively on modern Hebrew literature. That patter is just for our class (I guess they assume we’re “advanced” and can read modern Hebrew lit).

Tankah – A basic introduction to the Tankah. We’re not starting at the beginning and just reading; it’s a class looking at patterns of genre and various examples. The class is entirely in Hebrew, and we read verse by verse, and then translate – except not into English, but into modern Hebrew. It’s a doozy, but really awesome.

Biblical Grammar – Pretty self-explanatory. It sounds boring, but since it’s with Yossi Leshem (also our Tanakh professor), it’s incredibly fascinating. It makes so much Hebrew make so much sense. It’s also in Hebrew.

Liturgy – An introduction to the classical weekday morning service (and how/why Reform liturgy differs), and then we’ll explore other liturgy as the year progresses. It’s an analytical class, not a theological one. The class is half in Hebrew (the readings are in English, so we can’t really discuss those in Hebrew).

Zionist history – For this semester, my modern history class is on the origins of the Zionist movement. The professor, David Mendelssohn, was one of my professors at Rothberg. He was awesome then, and even awesomer now.

Second Temple History – The second part of our ancient History module (we had Biblical history over the summer), a broad overview of the Second Temple period. Since I’ve taken versions of this course, oh, 5 or 6 times at UCLA, this is my Sunday afternoon nap (or blogging) time.

Education Seminar – We three Ed students have a weekly class with Sally Klein-Katz, our amazing Ed instructor here. It’s a yearlong foundation on the position of Jewish education and our role as educators in it.

Israel Seminar – We have our normal classes Sunday-Tuesday, and Thursday. Wednesday is our Israel Seminar Day. We’re broken into 3 groups (roughly based on the amount/length of time we’ve spent in Israel) and look at various social and historical elements of Israel, with a lot of out of the classroom activities.

Tanakh only is in the Fall, and in the Spring I have a Rabbinics class instead. In the Fall, I’m also taking an enrichment class taught by the dean of the Jerusalem campus, Michael Marmur (who’s pretty much a Rabbinic rock star), during which we read Marmur’s Greatest Hits of Rabbinic stories and look at them through a Reform lens. I like this class a lot for 2 reasons: 1) the chance to learn directly from Rabbi Marmur is fabulous; 2) it’s helping me ground my own sense of the Reform movement’s relationship to Halacha and classical Jewish source.

It’s an incredibly full load, but a very rewarding one. I certainly see myself keeping busy this year.

Chofesh! Give me chofesh!

2008-09-08T18:55:00.006+03:00

My week-long chofesh (vacation) between ulpan and the start of classes was great. It basically consisted of a backpacking adventure in the Western Galilee and the Golan, and then a few days of R&R at home in J'lem, culminating in a 12 hour long marathon of watching all three Lord of the Rings films. It was a pretty awesome break.

Highlights of the backpacking adventure:

We spent our first night in a Crusader castle.
We spent our second night in a farmer's fig and olive orchard (at his invitation).
We hiked through the Banias.
We played for a morning in Nimrod's Fort.
We spent an afternoon on the skaniest, gnarliest beach in Nahariya playing "Oh Hell."
We walked many, many kilometers.
We ate a buttloard of ramen noodles, oatmeal, sausages, and nuts. So many nuts.

Here are some pictures of the adventure:

The Crew

Amy and Me

Josh and Jim get us found!

Ari and I, waiting

Nimrod's Fort

The view from Nimrod's Fort

The view from The Banias

The Banias Falls

The Lookout

Sunset

a busy week

2008-08-25T15:10:00.007+03:00

In what might be the last post before my post-Ulpan pre-Semester break (during which I'll be backpacking for 7 days in the Golan and Galilee), I'm not sure really what to post, because there hasn't been anything amazingly noteworthy, just a series of very cool events. So, here goes.

Last week my friend Meredith (who grew up in Cincinnati) made "Skyline Chili" which is apprently a very famous and delicious Chili in Ohio. They sell spice packets, and her family sent her 12 (more than enough for a year's worth of Chili) and she treated some midwesterners, a Floridian, and me, to Chili. It was surprisingly tasty. Really weird though - it's spagwetti, topped with the chili, and then cheese, beans, and onions. Meredith's account (and some very funny pictures) can be viewed here: http://buckeyeinisrael.blogspot.com/

Wedneday we had a song session in Ulpan; each class learned a song and then performed and taught it to the whole group. Kitah Daled learned a song called "Halavai" (which means "I wish/pray") and is by Boaz Sharabi. We also did a dance. Here's a picture of my class dancing and singing:

Thursday afternoon I went to the Museum on the Seam (the Coexistence Museusm to some of you) with Jaclyn and her SO Adam (who I know from Marin; blogged about in early July). The exhibit was called "Heartquake" and was about the "anxiety of the uncanny," something Fruedian to do with cross-cultural anxiety and something or other. It was okay. I wasn't sure what I was supposed to get out of it and a lot of the pieces were very weird. And a little disturbing. Adam's account of the museum, along with some neat pictures, can be seen here: http://adamcarlcohen.blogspot.com/

Thursday was also my friend Ari's erev birthday, and to celebrate a group of us went to a delicious and scrumptious Tapas bar (yes, Jerusalem is becoming even more international and global) for dinner. Then we went to a karaoke bar down the street where a good portion of our class met up with us for an evening of karaoke. Here are some pictures of people at dinner:

Lisa, Jim, Jason

Ari and Jaclyn

Ari and Me

Meredith and Me

Ari, Jaclyn, Lisa, Jim
(I think there was some confusion about where people should have been looking for this picture.)

The next day (Friday) I spent on the beach in Tel Aviv as part of another birthday celebration (during this week in August 8 of my classmates have birthdays. 8 out of 42. Crazy). Tel Aviv is a janky city. It's a lot like LA - a beach city, pretty people, hot and muggy, sprawling, industrial, cosmopolitan, kinda rundown, and it never sleeps. It was weird to be there on a Friday night and not have the city shut down as Shabbat comes in. In some ways, I'm getting very attuned to the onset of Shabbat and how the city settles down. I missed it. Here is the beach at sunset:

Saturday (talking about the city settling down) I left Jerusalem again for a hike, the first "official" big group hike of the year. It was awesome. We went on a tryptch of a hike, to three locations to see different historical ruins in the Judean hills. It was really nice. The best part was we needed to rent cars to get there, and I got to drive one of the cars because I'm 23 and can drive a manual. It was great. I miss driving, but I'm mostly pretty happy to be relying on bus, bike, and feet to get around.

Tomorrow (Tuesday) is the last day of Ulpan. Wednesday we have an all-day tiyul to Tel Meggido as part of our Biblical history class. I'm super excited. Thursday I have off, and then Friday we leave on a backpacking adventure.

Masada Mess - Part II

2008-08-18T13:39:00.008+03:00

Continued from: Masada Mess - Part I!

Long story short, we got to Masada about 4:30, about a half hour after David Broza started playing. After being totally exhausted and dehydrated. After the worst bus ride of my life. After getting really pumped about seeing Broza live at Masada.

So we arrive, unloaded ourselves from the bus, and upon walking into the amphitheater, we had a view much like this:

And this:

And this:

We could see the stage clearly – it was a small crowd, no more than 800 people, and so we were definitely close despite our late arrival. For an outdoor concert, the sound was great. The lights, as well, were fabulous. They used Masada as a back drop, and had a whole light/pyrotechnic show on the mountain.

Broza himself, well, he was awesome. The last (and first) time I saw him was on Yom Haatzmaut in Kikkar Zion, in 2005. How can you top that performance? Sunrise concert at Masada - betach! He was rocking out. He plays a mean acoustic guitar, really rips into his songs. I'm not very familiar with his catalog, but all of his songs have heavy political and social connotations while rocking out. He played with this fabulous percussionist and bassist, and often the three of them were joined by lots of guests: a mondolin player, a violinist, and a group of young-hip-hippie looking musicians and singers who rocked and danced with Broza for the last few songs of the set.

And during the concert, the sun came up, and it got lighter and lighter until, during the set closure of “Under the sky” (his best song, in my opinion) while 15 or so musicians totally jammed and rocked out, the sun appeared over the Jordanian horizon. It was incredible.

It looked something like this:

And this:

And this:

And this:

The bus ride home was uneventful, although it was substantially longer than the ride there (traffic? The bus driver fucking with us?). Mostly we slept. I napped and then did a crossword. We got back to HUC around 9AM, and like the diligent student I am, I went to class. Most of the group went to sleep. But I pulled through, like the youthful all-nighter puller I am (yeah right). There was some interesting side effect, though, about being really tired. I talked a lot in class. My mind stopped thinking and I just talked. I made a lot of mistakes, but I used my Hebrew, and used it a lot more today. And hopefully more tomorrow.

So that’s my David Broza-Masada mess. On the bus ride to the show, Ari and I discussed whether this story would be funny, something to laugh at, something amusing, to us in the near future. We decided it would be memorable, but not amusing. And two days after, it still isn't funny to me. But it can be funny to you.

Masada Mess – Part I

2008-08-17T20:23:00.001+03:00

I don’t know how many of you are familiar with David Broza, but he’s an Israeli singer-songwriter with mad guitar skills, known across three continents (Asia, Europe, and North America) for writing and singing songs in three languages (Hebrew, Spanish, and English). I’ve heard him referred to as “the Israeli James Taylor,” “the Israeli Dave Matthews,” and “the Israeli Paul Simon.” Maybe he is. Or maybe he’s simply David Broza.

Last night, I had the incredible opportunity to see him perform a sunrise concert at the base of Masada (at the Roman ramp) – starting at 3:30 AM and going until the sun comes up. I wavered back and forth whether to go; the tickets and transportation costs were expensive (for Israeli standards) but it seemed like a once in a lifetime opportunity. After some convincing by my compadres, I decided to go. I mean, who wouldn't? And I don’t think I could have imagined it would have been as wild a night/morning as it was.

Eleven of us from school went to the show. The plan was to meet in front of HUC at 1AM, get on a rented mini-bus, arrive at Masada when the doors open at 2:30, get good seats, hang out, and then enjoy the amazing show. Then get back on the mini-bus, drive back to school, and either go to class or take a nap.

Easy enough.

At 1 AM, we’d all shown up (on time, which was a bit of a miracle in and of itself) at HUC, coffee, beer, ice cream, snacks, blankets, and cameras in hand, waiting for the mini-bus and driver to show up. Lisa, our fearless coordinator of the evening, called the driver. He said, “Oh, I’m coming, five more minutes.” Five minutes pass. Then ten. We call again.

“Oh, the police have pulled me over and I’ll be there in about 15 minutes.”

So now we’re in a whole other sort of balagan (mess). Sydney’s boyfriend, who is Israeli, asks, “Wouldn’t it be funny if he gets arrested?” About ten minutes later, he calls the driver back, and the driver tells him that he is arrested and going to jail, but no to worry because the bus company is sending a new driver.

Rock on.

There’s a lot of groaning and sighing – but this is Israel, what should we expect? That everything would go to plan?

Meredith and Josh head to the nearby gas station, pick up a bottle of vodka and pomegranate juice, and while we’re waiting, there’s some toasting to David Broza and our arrested driver. Jim and I work on a crossword. Ari takes pictures, then a nap. Nobody frets.

Around 2:30, the new driver arrives, and is told when we get into the car we need to go to the West Entrance. He says fine, and off we go. The first part of the ride is good, smooth and easy. To get to Masada from J’lem you have to drive through the West Bank, which at 3 AM is empty and beautiful. There’s a full moon, so the desert is lit up from above. The driver is going very fast, but the road is mostly straight so it’s fine. We nap, chat softly, await our arrival. We should be there just in time for the concert to start.

We get to Masada at 3:20, except wait! We’re at the East Entrance, the one where the snake trail and the gondola lead to, the one at the base of the Dead Sea. It’s closed. And we have to go all the way around the mountain. Of course, the driver has no idea how to go, the road is very, very windy, everybody is tired and cranky, and we’re late. And getting later.

As we drive and drive and drive, heading through the curvy mountain roads in the west bank of the Dead Sea, driving through Arad (Arad? Really?), Lisa feels very ill. Jim starts to feel ill. Lisa almost vomits a few times. Leslie curses at the driver. Ari and I, in the back of the bus, bounce around. There’s a very loud game of “Twenty questions” which no one can seem to hear the answers to, and so drones on and on. And on.

Will we get there in time? Will anyone throw up? Will I ever get some sleep? Will we ever have a good time?

Tune in tomorrow for: Masada Mess – Part II!

Tisha B'Av

2008-08-12T15:32:00.000+03:00

Tisha B'Av is a weird holiday.

Tisha B'Av is a weird holiday normally, and I think it's even weirder in Jerusalem. Tisha B'Av is the Ninth of Av, and it is the day when the first Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BCE, the second Temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE, the Bar-Kokhba Rebellion was quashed in 135 CE, the edict for expulsion from England in 1290 was ordered, and the day the edict for expulsion from Spain in 1492 was ordered. Lots of bad things. One little day.

It's doubtful that all of these things happened on the same day (there are other tragic events in Jewish history that occurred on Tisha B'Av as well), but what the day represents, to me at least, is a day of collective Jewish mourning for all of the atrocities in our history. It's intense, to say the least. Traditionally, you're supposed to fast for the full day (it's the only other 26 hour fast apart from Yom Kippur), behave as if you're mourning (no entertainment, no washing, no study, etc) and you're supposed to read the Aicha (the book of Lamentations).

What makes it a weird holiday is few-fold. First, the "mourning" type prohibitions go out after middday, so while you "can't" study or work or sit in chairs etc before noon, in the afternoon (while you're still fasting), you can resume business as usual. Additionally, Tisha B'Av is NOT a chag. It's not a day of rest. In Jerusalem, that means the buses run, markets are open, taxis charge weekday rates, etc. Kosher restaurants are still closed though.

And then, since I'm at HUC, there's the Reform aspect. The Reform movement has, historically, had a very weird relationship with Israel/Zionism, and therefore has an even weirder relationship with Tisha B'Av. It is a holiday where we mourn the loss of Jewish sovereignty in Jerusalem, both in a political and religious sense. "Well, Jerusalem is back in Jewish hands. So what is there still to mourn?," the Reform movement asks. It’s a valid question. So while we had Tisha B’Av service Saturday night and some programming Sunday, there was also class on Sunday.

Tisha B'Av is also one of the holidays that gets a short shrift in Jewish education, because it's in late summer when schools are not in session (the exception is for camps, and there were a lot of interesting stories I heard this year of people's experiences observing and leading Tisha B'Av programs), so growing up I had zero relationship with the chag. As an adult, I've begun to create my own customs and observances, reformulating the traditional observances to fit where I am, physically and spiritually.

This year, Tisha B'Av was this past Sunday (so it started Saturday night as Shabbat went out). I fasted. Saturday night we had a service, and then a walk to the Kotel, which was awesome (if I can use that word). There were throngs and throngs of people there, huddled in little groups chanting Aicha by the Kotel. It was mostly Haredim, but there were also soldiers and secular looking Israelis and Dati-Leumi and some Christians. And as we left, there were hoards of people coming in, just waves and floods of people with strollers and children and couples and families and tourist groups. It was totally mind-blowing. The Kotel itself, well, it hasn’t changed much in 2000 years.

I didn't study - or go to class - in the morning. My feeling was class was the equivalent of work, and to do that on Tisha B’Av didn’t jive for me. I did go to the programming, which was fascinating, and the mincha service, and finished my fast. I’m still wrestling with this holiday; it’s a tough one to get a hold on. But hopefully I can find a way to figure out my own relationship to it, and then bring that into the classroom, so my kids don’t get the lack of Tisha B’Av education that I did.

Beit Cafe

2008-08-06T20:39:00.001+03:00

Last night was our first Beit Café, a combination talent show/tzedakah auction/potluck dinner on the lawn overlooking the Old city. I was tapped to be on the planning committee and jumped in with a ferocity in event planning I didn’t know I had in me. Normally, I’m content to let other people plan big group events, it just isn’t my thing. After having done Beit Café, and even though it was a huge success, I’m totally content to not do hard-core event planning for a long, long time.

I was in charge of the auction/Tzedakah/money/alcohol part of the evening (it was a potluck dinner, with a 20 NIS entrance fee, including an open beer/wine bar). Good jobs for me. The money rasied from the entrance and auction was going to the Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism (IMPJ) who is in a huge financial crush and unable to pay the progressive Rabbis in Israel. It wasn’t too much work putting everything together (a silly skit in front of our class, some e-mails, making some lists, calling a few people), until the day before when everything exploded. Getting the booze. Making silent auction sheets. Cataloging the items. Setting stuff up.

The evening itself was a lot of fun. I have a lot of talented classmates. It was nice, for part of the evening, after collecting money and setting up the auction, to not have to do anything, and just be able to eat and enjoy the show. Our MCs were awesome, hilarious; they wrote a parody song to the tune of “Under the Sea” called “At HUC.” There was some beautiful singing, a very creepily-neat retelling of Poe’s “The Raven,” and I told The Clown Joke. It went over okay; I think people either were too sober (it was towards the end of the evening, and people were tired too) or the general sense of humor/patience is not at the same level as The Clown Joke. I’ve also never told it on a stage, and I think it works better in a small group setting. But that was a lot of fun.

There was also a moment when Amy, a friend and our “resident pervert,” secretly raised 200 NIS for me to take my shirt off. And so, like a good sport, I did. Thanks Amy.

Mamma Mia!

2008-08-03T14:49:00.004+03:00

Here I go again.

My Shabbat was atypical, at least as typical means of the last three weeks (this is my fourth Shabbat in Israel! Meshugah!).

I woke up bright an early Saturday morning, not to go to services, but to go on a hike with the HUC hiking group. There were five of us – Amy, Ari, Jim, and myself, and the hiking leader, an awesome man named Jay Shir (ironically, he is also the choir director… get it?) who it seems has forgotten more about hiking and backpacking throughout the Middle East, central and eastern Asia than I’ll ever know. He has these crazy stories about backpacking through Turjkmekistan or Croatia and meeting a goatherd and drinking Sheep-soiled water and getting altitude sickness and losing his tent and eating weird caper berries, etc. He is, as Ari says, HUC’s resident badass.

We went to an area south west of Hadassah Hospital (where the Chagall windows are) and hiked down in a wadi called Wadi Katlav, then along the base of the wadi, past abandoned mandate-era train stations, and then up another mountain to a Sheik’s Tomb, and then up another precipice called Har Torah (with a ט not a ת) which was the view-highlight of the hike. Then we hiked back down a little, and then back up to the road where we finished the hike at a rest stop with very cold drinks. It was another reminder how much Israel's climate resembles California's climate: we ran into wild fennel, blackberries, oak trees (which, DSA, you'll be happy to know I identified purely by smell and seeing leaves on the ground), manzanita trees, and wild sage.

The hike was about 12 km round trip and we did it in about 4 hours. It was semi-strenuous, but an incredibly hot day, and so after the first leg, we were all soaked in sweat. Jim said he drank 5 liters during the day. I drank about half that. But, you get the idea. So why do it? Well, it was great to get out of Jerusalem. It was “praying with our feet.” It felt great, after drying off. And, then there’s this:

The picture doesn't really do it justice, but come on: mamma mia!

Motzi Shabbat, there was another movie night. This time to see Mamma Mia! I really have no words; I put the exclamation point because it's part of the title although my preference would have been a sad emoticon. I was very excited, and after about 3 minutes I knew exactly what I was in for. I think most people felt about the same about the horrid dreckiness and schlock of the movie, with some redeeming quality from the music. But it was, on the whole, dreadful. At the same time, it was nice to keep up the cultural connection with America: how can I forget you?

land of some sort of delicious food

2008-08-01T17:54:00.000+03:00

Israel, as we know from biblical readings, is the land of milk and honey. It is, also, apparently the land of wine, cheese, olive oil, spices, and Viagra tea.

This past Friday was another tiyul (the Hebrew word for “field trip,” “excursion,” or “hike.” It’s pretty multi-purpose word.) organized by the HUC interns and Jason, one of my classmates. This one was a wine tasting trip, which made me very excited. Jason is a wine aficionado and put a lot of man-hours into constructing a great itinerary exploring four wineries in the Judean hills south of Jerusalem (Israel’s version of Santa Barbara to the Galilee’s Napa). Each winery was chosen as representing different styles and approaching to wine productions and marketing.

The first winery we went to was called Ella Winery, and is conveniently located in the Elah Valley, the location of David’s legendary battle with Goliath. At the winery we received a tour of the production area by a slightly snooty Israeli Olah who continually reminded us that Ella Winery makes “kosher, premium wine.” And then she extolled the virtues of what it means to make wine that is both kosher and premium. Ultimately, she poured for us a Sauvignon Blanc, a Cabernet Sauvignon, and a Muscat (very popular in Israeli wine culture). The wines were fine, nothing to write home about, but definitely not terrible. The winery itself – with its décor, location, view, production style, attitude, and taste of wine – could pass for a low end California winery, and so in that respect it was much better than other Israeli wine. And it’s kosher. We had a choice of buying a bottle or paying for the tour, so everyone bought a bottle – I bought a bottle of the Sauvignon Blanc which was light and refreshing, a good bottle for a Jerusalem afternoon.

The next winery was not as exciting. It was called Mony and it was located in an old monastery, which was a cool idea but not so neat to hang out in. The wines were nothing remarkable, but on the tasting bar they had olives, pita, zatar, and amazing olive oil. So I bought a bottle of olive oil, as it was both delicious and cheaper than the olive oil available in the stores here. Outside by the bus there was a terraced picnic table area with clumps of grapes draped on the terrace, and we picked grapes and enjoyed the view. They were very sweet and tasty grapes.

Me picking grapes

Our third stop was down the road apace – two stops on one property. Tavlin is a restaurant that grows and markets their own spices/teas/rices/cheeses in an attached spice store. We arrived, eager and hungry, and while we waitied for our table reservation to clear itself up, we wandered into the spice shop. It was overwhelming at first. Initially, it was just the smell, which hit my nose with a big puff of Spice! that totally caught me unaware. And then my eyes opened and I saw rows and rows of this:

It was like something out of an Arabian night or an Israeli novel . Just rows and rows of incredible rich colors and smells and textures. I could have walked around that store for hours. We realized that our lunch reservation was actually a reservation for a spice lecture, so we went to a separate room and received a cup of delicious fruit tea while an adorable British Olah lectured us on the benefits of spices – they add colors, taste, and aroma to food. Then she delved into individual spice traits: Turmeric is nature’s antibiotic, black cumin is nature’s penicillin, their special Viagra tea (it’s actually called Viagra tea) works for both men and women, and green tea is good for your heart.

The benefits of turmeric root

After a talk such as that, we mulled around the spice store (I bought tea, turmeric, and a tea infuser) before settling down to eat. Lunch was a very delicious dairy meal, and afterwards, as we slowly ran out of time, there was a rush to finish to fit in the last winery. As it turned out, the winery, Flam, wasn’t actually open, so we didn’t go, but it was all right because the spice store more than made up for more Israeli wine.

And it’s something to go back for again, as if I need a reason to return to that sumptuous spice store.

You can take the guy out of America...

2008-07-29T22:21:00.001+03:00

but can you take America out of the guy? I'm not so sure.

I've recently been struck by how much life here is so similar to life in California. Most of the time I think it's me - I have my own set ways of doing things, and things are going to be that way in Los Angeles, Petaluma, Jerusalem, Singapore, Uganda, etc. But sometimes I think it's because the culture of Jerusalem and the culture of America are slowly creeping together, no longer parallel but more and more overlapping.

Like today. I was walking home from school in the later afternoon, and at the corner of King George/Keren HaYesod/Agron/Ramban/Derech Aza (it's a massive 5-way intersection that's a bitch to cross), I saw this sign:

Translation:
Sign on left: "Animals have a right to live"
Sign on right: "Meat is murder"

Some things really are universal.

The Dark Knight

2008-07-28T23:38:00.000+03:00

I just returned from seeing The Dark Knight (or in Hebrew האביר האפל) which has been one of the most intense movie experiences I’ve had in recent memory. If you’ve seen the movie (once, twice, maybe even three times?) then you know what I mean. If you haven’t seen the movie, then I’ll let you experience it for yourself. My advice to you is: Go. It’s a dark, cynical, cryptic, labyrinthine film that left all of us (myself included) a little depressed and feeling a little dirty. But with plenty to chew over. It presents a bleak version of the world – through amazingly brilliant cinema – which, especially in a country currently in the midst of bleak moral and political forecast, is a little hard to swallow. But it owns it. And lives up to it. And delivers, and then some. And so The Dark Knight might just be the best comic book – or even action – movie ever.

Yeah, that’s right, I said it.

Reactions to the movie varied. My internal was one of intense praise, while my external was a bit more ambiguous. I think my during (especially during the break) and post movie reactions are strange. I get into it. But then people interpret them the wrong way. It’s partly an issue of “getting to know you… better.” We’ve all hung out socially for a good few weeks. And while that’s not a lot of time in an absolute sense, time here is camp-time, meaning a day is worth a week. Or more. So there’s been a lot of time to get to know each other. But everyday new things are revealed and exposed about new people. This student likes Dogma films. She’s a lesbian. He hates pickles. Her brother and I share a name. Etc, etc, etc. Tonight, I showed a new part of myself: the quiet, moody, unresponsive self I inhabit after viewing an intense (and also moving) film. It’s the “processing self.” But in a world when everyone is simultaneously treading lightly and forcefully plunging ahead with respect to personal space/boundaries, everything is simultaneously taken very seriously and personally, but also frivolously. I take my movie watching experience very seriously (after 6 years of the Arclight I’m very spoiled on this front), especially of movies I am excited about. I can come off as intense. But not in a badass kind of way. I’m learning, especially with new people, how I’m viewed. What limited conversation means. How interactions, no matter how small, set off a chain reaction in someone’s mind.

But the weird thing about my reactions is that as bleak as The Dark Knight is, I don’t feel depressed or dirty or weirded out. And I don't think I come off like that. On the bus ride back I was arguing with a classmate whether the movie had a positive or negative (or muddled) message about morality and society. He was an English Literature student at Oxford, so he was pretty good at his argument (that the message was negative/muddled) but he didn’t shake me. I think the movie hopes for – and expects – the best in people. Nolan etc. don’t feel society is doomed, but rather we need a push in the right direction.

Maybe that push comes from future Jewish rabbis, cantors, and educators of America?

my first houseguest

2008-07-27T14:36:00.002+03:00

The past few days have been very eventful, in a non-eventful way. Thursday night, my best friend Rebecca, who I’ve known, according to a weird slip of my tongue, “since conception,” finished Birthright and spent the weekend with me. It was a bloody good time. Thursday was our official HUC Jerusalem Day, in which we learned text (Psalms, Mishnah, and modern Israeli poetry/songs) about Jerusalem while walking around the Goldman/Haas Tyelet in the morning and the Hinnon Valley (one of Jerusalem’s 3 valleys... ask me to name them) and Old City in the evening. Our afternoon, the hottest part of the day, was a free session, during which I ran to the shuk, ran home, ate lunch, did a load of wash, hung my wash out to dry, took a quick nap, and then received Becca.

Thursday night she decompressed at my temporary apartment while I concluded my “Yom Yerushaliam Day.” Afterwards, I picked her up from my apartment and we went to a delicious dinner of street falafel and shwarma, on the edge of Ben Yehuda, people watching everyone out on the town on a Thursday night (the Israeli equivalent of a Friday night). Then we met up with some classmates of mine for a drink or two, and then turned in.

Friday was spent shopping, schmoozing, and eating our way through downtown Jerusalem, followed by a very lovely dinner at Rebecca’s cousins home in Ra’anana (a suburb slightly northeast of Tel Aviv). I had an opportunity to practice my Hebrew with some real Israelis who were patient and slow and corrected my mis-conjugations and improper preposition use (according to my ulpan teacher, a surefire way of determining whether someone is a proficient Hebrew speaker or not) and helped expand my vocabulary, much to some confusion on Rebecca’s part. I tried to translate as best I could, but it all happened so fast! I swear!

Our Shabbat was loverly; services, and then a delicious, huge, scrumptious lunch at a (non-kosher, cause they’re open on Shabbat) restaurant, a stroll to and around the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, and then authentic Shabbat rest. Then dinner, and then she left. The visit itself was wonderful. On one level, it was great just to be with Rebecca, with no agenda (plays, moms, brothers, etc), for a few days, and just hang out. I think it’s been years, years since that’s been able to happen. On another level, it was my first houseguest. You can’t have a houseguest if you’re not settled, if you don’t have a place to put them up. Her visit made me feel that I am (despite not having actually moved into my apartment) living here. This is real. This is happening. Her visit made this city feel a little but more like a home.

RIP: Estelle Getty

2008-07-23T15:28:00.002+03:00

Estelle Getty tragically died today. There's a lot of sadness going around right now. Her spunky, hilarious, witty, sardonic character Sophia on The Golden Girls was my favorite. Everybody's favorite.

Follow this link:

http://popwatch.ew.com/popwatch/2008/07/remembering-e-1.html

for a nice obit and some classic clips.

The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll

2008-07-22T23:56:00.001+03:00

I’ve been staring at the computer screen for the last ten minutes, trying to find the words to describe the day today, listening to “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll” on repeat, unable to both stop listening to Mason Jennings’ cover of the Dylan song as well as type anything coherent. The song is so beautiful. It's haunting and soothing, and so melodic. It's sad and depressing song about class and racial divides, but there's something about the song, and Jennings' version especially that is also very comforting. And today is a day where we all need some comforting.

If you saw the news, you probably saw that there was another tractor attack in Jerusalem today (Tuesday). I have no idea how this is being covered in America (when I called my parents a few hours after they’d been awake, they hadn’t heard anything) but I hope it is. The basic gist of what happened is some guy got ahold of a tractor, and copied the attack of a few weeks ago, but with much less destruction – as far as I’m aware, about 15/16 injuries, some serious, and no fatalities. Except the guy, who was shot by a civilian that climbed into the cab of the tractor.

Our cell phones have a system where the head of student affairs can text the entire student and SO body instantly, alerting us to security concerns, or in the case of a piguah (Hebrew for “attack”), ask for immediate notification that we’re either “okay” or need to “be called.” It’s a good system. Today it worked well.

Ulpan got out at 1:30, and I was in the library checking e-mail, when a little before 2 o’clock, I got the piguah text. I had just heart lots of sirens, but I assumed they were for the Barack Obama motorcade – he arrived in J’lem today and is staying at the King David Hotel, literally next door to HUC. But then I got the text, immediately responded, packed up my stuff and walked to the admin office to see what had happened.

In some ways, this was an incident low on the gravity meter. There were no Israeli fatalities, the attacker was stopped very quickly, and everyone was able to go back to normal relatively quick. What’s upsetting about this incident is the proximity. It occurred on King David street, right at the intersection of Jabotinsky and Keren HaYesod, basically at Montefiore’s windmill and Yemin Moshe. For those that aren’t familiar with Jerusalem geography, that’s about a 3 minute walk from campus. It was incredibly close.

A classmate, who was walking home, saw the whole thing unfold before her. An Egged bus was mangled by the tractor in front of a classmate’s apartment building, and he was in his apartment and heard the commotion and the gunshots. Other classmates were walking towards the site and were told, “Don’t go there, there’s gunfire there.” When I heard what happened, and where it was, I got a little more upset. I had a relatively mundane afternoon/evening planned – go home to drop of bag, help classmates write a song parody for our upcoming student talent show, go to a park to play frisbee, go see apartment, eat dinner, go to meeting for HUC hiking club, then go home and do Ulpan homework – and wasn’t upset enough to not complete my tasks.

I also felt like this still wasn’t happening to me. I didn’t get it. I didn’t feel it. So I left campus and walked the 3 minutes to the accident site. If I didn’t know better, I would have guess there was a bad car accident. There was a lot of broken glass, over turned cars, ambulances, gawking pedestrians, a sense of uncertainty. But then there was the police! And soldiers! They were in the process of setting up a perimeter, and I didn’t want to get too close, but I wanted to see. It was the perverse voyeur in me, I suppose. The human in me who needs to look at a car accident or a train wreck. It was simply bizarre. I have no other words.

The mood the rest of the day has been equally weird. Everyone is talking to each other a little differently. No one really knows how to react. Some people went home and let it all marinate. Some people went to a movie. I played frisbee and then signed a lease for an apartment (It was a day truly filled with ups and downs). Life goes on here. This is what happens. But now I think Israel is starting to make a lot more sense to me. We’ve lived through a pigua, we see what it does to Israelis and what it does to us. We have the ability to start to understand the entirety of the culture. In some weird way, this was our christening. We’re now Jerusalemites.

Me talk pretty one day

2008-07-21T13:42:00.003+03:00

is a book that has been on my mind a lot the past few days. When I was at Rothberg, my friend Tamar lent it to me – she’s a big David Sedaris fan and I was on the fence about him and she felt this book would change my mind. It did, but that’s not my point here. I read the book, and really liked. More, I think, for his hilarious and apt descriptions of what it’s like to be in an intensive language learning class. In Sedaris’ case, it’s learning French. In my case (and everybody else at Rothberg, and now at HUC), it’s Hebrew.

His descriptions of his horribly rude teacher, and the way he, after weeks of hearing “Blah blah blah blah blah oui” turned into hearing “You’re a fat idiot who is blah stupid” resonated then. It was completely my experience. In some ways, it totally validated the feelings of infantalization, and frustration, and also accomplishment that pervaded my mind then. I'm anticipating a similar reaciton to ulpan (but we'll see) in the next few weeks, and so, after only two days, I really want to reread it.

Ulpan started yesterday. I was placed in Kitah Daled (Class 4), which is the “highest” class. It was a bit of a surprise to me to be in the highest level, not because I don’t know enough Hebrew to be there, but because I thought I had forgotten too much Hebrew to be there. Apparently not. There are nine of us, and I feel right in the middle of the class. My reading and certainly my grammatical ability is right at the top, while my comprehension is in the center-ish, and my speaking ability is low of center. But it’s all good. My teacher is this tiny, adorable woman named Osnat, and she’s awesome. I’m not sure she likes me (my terrible fear right now is that she’ll find out I don’t know a single word of Hebrew and demote me) but I know I can win her over with my indelible charm and wit. Although my wit in Hebrew is pretty non-existent, so I’ve got to work on that.

In other news, Shabbat was, again, lovely. Friday night was an all-class great Kabbalat Shabbat service, led by two of our summer interns, that was both spiritually and ritually fulfilling, coupled with a great dinner on campus and a fantastic song session led by five students and their guitars. Services in the morning were at HUC: the final element of our orientation. They were led by Rabbi Michael Marmur, who is the Dean of the Jerusalem campus and the head of the YII program, and Cantor Tamar Havilio, who is the resident cantor/liturgy teacher (I think). The service itself was fine - it was packed with students, a wedding party, and visiting Reform congregations from the states - catering the crowd. But Rabbi Marmur's leading and sermon were fabulous. I'm really looking forward to learning a lot from him this year. Shabbat day was nice and relaxing. The highlight was Seudah Selishit, which was hosted by two classmates and one SO – they made chili and had havdallah. Virtually the whole class (and their SOs) came, and it ended up being a great night of bonding before ulpan started.

I also got to briefly see my best friend Rebecca Levy Saturday night. She’s on Birthright this week, and Saturday was her “free night” in Jerusalem, so I met up with her for a little bit before she went to a birthright sponsored dance club. She’s in and around Jerusalem this week, but is extending her trip after they leave on Wednesday, so she’ll be staying with me this weekend. It’s going to be legend… dary!

Toto, I don't think we're in Napa anymore

2008-07-18T13:34:00.000+03:00

Last night was the Jerusalem Wine Festival, held in the gardens of the Israel Museum, which is a gorgeous space – a gravel and marble garden, incredible artwork, a phenomenal view. I would say most of my cohort was there, and everyone seemed to have a great time. How could you now? For 55 NIS (about $16) you got a glass and all you can drink from over 50 Israeli wineries.

Now, let me set part of the record straight. Israeli wine is not the same thing as Manaschewitz. That’s American kosher sweet wine, if you can even call it “wine.” Israel, as part of the five wine-growing regions in the world (California, Chile, South Africa, Australia, and the Mediterranean), has a budding wine industry in the Galilee. It’s a terrain very much like the California coast and hence suitable for growing real wine grapes. Over the past decades the Israeli wine industry has blossomed and is starting to gain real international recognition.

At the same time, it ain’t nothing to write home about. I think part of it is, yes, I’m from California (Sonoma county, no less) and so a little spoiled. But Israeli wineries haven’t really gotten the idea of a “palate” yet. I think that may be due to the taste of the soil – it’s very woody and acidic and minerally, especially after decades the pioneers breathing life into it. All of the wines tasted the same. There was very little that distinguished one winery’s Cabernet from another’s. The popular (or growable) grapes were Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Cabernet, Shiraz, and Gewurztraminer. And they all tasted very similar, which they don’t in California. What can you do?

Despite the tepid nature of the wines themselves, it was a great evening. As I said most of the cohort was there, so there was a lot of schmoozing in a very Israeli environment. There were Americans, but they were Americans like us: either non-tourists or olim. It was a very authentically Israeli evening. There was a lot of Hebrew spoken, and as the evening wore on, and we tasted more and more wine, I used my Hebrew more and more. It was a really great night.

Yesterday also marked my one-week anniversary of being in Israel, although it feels like so much longer. Right now I’m moving out of the studio I’ve been subletting and into an apartment of a classmate, who has an extra room for the next two weeks. After that point, the apartment I’ve been trying to sign (hopefully this afternoon!) will be available. Tonight is Shabbat, my second, and it’s the Shabbat of orientation, so there are services-related programs tonight and tomorrow morning for us. And the Sunday morning, we start ulpan!

they're home

2008-07-16T21:15:00.001+03:00

Today has been a very strange day.

On the whole, it’s been a good day. It was our first full day of orientation, which consisted of a series of talks on things like security, ulpan, expectations of the year, and the political/cultural state of Israel right now. It also is the first day of structure, which has been really nice against the last few days of unstructured activities. Tonight, I met up with my friend Abby, who I met at Rothberg three years ago. She’s since then made Aliyah and is not working at the Jewish Agency in their education department. It was great to see her after so much time (I briefly saw her in DC about two years ago) and I’m looking forward to spending lots of time with her and her roommate Carrie, who is also a friend from Rothberg.

And I think the HUC group is gelling really nicely. There’s definitely an element of “grouping” forming, some based on demography (read: age), some based on program, other based on roommate collectives etc. But as a whole there’s a lot of fluidity, chattiness, hanging outness, etc. I’ve been floating around various different clumps of people, trying to spend time (meals, afternoons, evenings) with as many different combinations of people as possible. And we’ve just started to really, in orientation, talk about our selves and “our journey.” As one rabbinical girl said today, “We all hang out, but we don’t know each other yet.” That’s very true.

On the other hand, there was a very eerie quality to the air outside today. Today can, I think, be considered the end of the Second Lebanon War. Today, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, whose kidnapping and subsequent captivity by Hezbollah was a main catalyst for the war, were returned to their families today. In coffins.

Until this morning, when the remains were exchanged for Lebanese prisoners, nobody knew whether the soldiers were alive or dead. These soldiers, along with Gilad Shalit who is alive and being held by Hamas in Gaza, have, for the past two years, been larger-than-life symbols of the hope and the tragedy of the summer of 2006. Their names and faces have become ubiquitous in Jewish communities across the world. Their return has ceased to be a demand, and has become a necessity, a prerequisite before this country can move forward.

And now they have come home. They will be given a military funeral tomorrow (Thursday) as their own lives are etched into the cultural memory of Israel. It is a huge tragedy. I don’t want to understate that. And I can feel the trepidation, the uncertainty, the sorrow Israelis are feeling today. At the same time, there has been so much staked on the return of these three boys, now that two are back and the third’s return seems to be imminent, I wonder where Israel where go from here? Who will be their next mascot, their next symbol, the next driving force for vengeance or peace?

World: Open your eyes instead of your mouth

2008-07-15T00:28:00.002+03:00

I saw this article just now:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/15/world/africa/15sudan.html?ex=1373774400&en=65974089a90214bf&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

and got really excited. I'm not sure what it means in the long run, but it's somewhat comforting that the people who run the world might have an inkling about what they're doing.

First Shabbat

2008-07-13T13:56:00.003+03:00

My first Shabbat in Jerusalem has been, mostly, really lovely.

Kabbalat Shabbat started with a reception at the President of HUC’s, David Ellenson’s, apartment on campus, just for the first year students, as well as some visiting officials from HUC and the URJ (the Union for Reform Judaism, the congregational branch of the Reform movement. I think. I’m still sorting out all of the Reform nuances and how the different organizations relate to each other). It was a lovely event; it was the first time all first years were together, and we did some introductions, the officials talked a bit about how important our jobs are for the Reform movement and for American Jews in general, we did a quick text study, and then moved outside for Kabbalat Shabbat services.

Sidebar: a quick note about the environment. I was previously told, by a few people, that this year would be a “Rabbino-centric” culture, meaning the program, while for Rabbinical, Cantorial, and Education students, would be centered around the Rabbninic students. They are the largest block and the one with the greatest perceived importance. That was made very clear at the reception, when the HUC and URJ machers mainly talked about the role of Rabbis, sometimes Cantors, but mostly ignored Educators. This could get a little frustrating. Additionally, I’m not a Reform Jew. I wasn’t rasied in the movement and I don’t identify as a Reform Jew. I’m not sure I identify as a Conservative Jew either, and so let’s call me trans-denominational, for the moment. But whether or not my degree will be nondenominational, it’s from a Reform institution, and for the next 3 years, I’m going to be deeply submerged in the Reform culture, a culture I’m really very unfamiliar and somewhat uncomfortable in.

The service was a mixed experience. The setting was gorgeous; we were on the grass overlooking the Old city as the sun set behind us. Is there a better place to pray? But then there was the prayer itself. For one thing, one of the reasons why I’ve resisted identifying with the Reform movement is I’ve never sat through a Reform service I loved. Part of that is I just don’t go to Reform services, but part of that is my discomfort with some liturgical, performative, and ideological choices. Friday night was no different. It was led by a Cantor on staff, with a classical guitarist playing along; one student later described it as a “classical guitar concert.” It was not a fulfilling prayer experience, to say the least. I was slightly comforted to learn that I was not alone in this feeling, which made my previous discomfort of being a non-Reformite diminish. Hopefully, as well, this cohort will work together to make some very meaningful prayer experiences this year and back in LA - otherwise it's going to be a very long three years.

Additionally, there was a very awkward moment during Lecha Dodi. During the last verse, you’re supposed to stand and face the door in order to welcome the Shabbat Bride. But what do you do when you’re outside? My tradition, how I’ve been taught, and what I’ve done at camp and any other outside prayer experience, is to face the setting sun, because that’s what the mystics at Tsfat did: they ran towards the west, welcoming the Shabbat. So during the last verse of Lecha dodi, I turned west, only to look face-to-face with basically everyone else in the crowd who was standing towards the east.

This is an awkward thing. The general rule of thumb in prayer service is to go "when in Rome..." and follow the community. But I was already standing towards the sunset, and saw a few others were as well, and I felt that facing east defeated the entire purpose of the standing, so I stayed. In the row behind me, the people I was facing, one girl (a student) pointed towards the old city and said, “It’s over there.” An older woman (not a student) looked at me, sighed, and snickered. They thought I was stupid or confused or just lost. It was a very sour moment and gave me a bitter taste in my mouth for the rest of the evening. After the service, I talked to two other student who did the same thing, and we agreed that we were also right, and that ended the few hours of self-doubt.

Dinner was nice; the food was fine. After dinner the students dispersed to hang out at a few apartments, some went to bed. I schmoozed with some classmates for a while and then left to go to sleep – still fighting the jet lag!

Shabbat morning was lovely. About a third of the students went to Kol Naneshama, a progressive congregation in the south end of the German colony (read: 50 minute walk from my apartment. A nice shabbas walk.) It was a great service; there was a lot of Hebrew, a very personable and charismatic Rabbi (who was an Oleh and spoke Hebrew slowly and without an accent, making his sermon easier to understand), and a very welcoming community. They called all of the new students (HUC, Pardes, Schecter) up for an aliyah, which was really nice as well.

For Seudat Slishit (the third meal of Shabbat, Saturday evening), the school hosted a picnic in Liberty Bell park, and people brought food and guitars and cards and shesh-besh (backgammon) and frisbees and we hung out until we did Havdallah. It ended up being a really great first Shabbat for the year.

Familiar Faces

2008-07-11T14:30:00.001+03:00

So, it’s really true what people say: you do see everybody you know in Jerusalem. Okay, not everybody, but I’ve only been here slightly more than 24 hours, and already I’ve run into three people I know. In chronological order:

1) This first one was really random, and very far reaching to the memories. Adam Cohen and I, I think, went to pre-school together, but we really knew each other from BBYO (high school Jewish youth group). He was peripherally involved, and I was super involved, so we weren’t the best of friends, but we had mutual friends and liked each other enough. Last night, at a NFTY event on HUC’s campus the YII (Year in Israel) students were assisting at, I saw him.

I was, like, “Whoa! Adam Cohen!”
And he was like, “I know you but I don’t remember your name.”
And it was awesome.

He’s an SO (significant other) of a rabbinical student, and is joining her just for the summer, hanging out, reading, coming to events, chilling. We chatted, caught up, and I'm looking forward to hanging out with him more until he goes back to the states in September.

2) David Mendelsson was a professor of mine at Rothberg (of the Hebrew University fame) for a class called “Formation of Zionist and Israeli Identity.” It was a fantastic class; he’s a British oleh (immigrant to Israel) who has this fantastic accent, skittery personality, and incredible wealth of knowledge about Israeli culture. He taught a session this morning at the HUC-Welcome-Study day. The session was basically the class in 90 minutes, but it was great to see him. He remembered my face, not my name, but we chatted and he teaches at HUC so I’ll be seeing him a lot this year.

3) This is by far the coolest, especially since it was so random and is a person I love and love seeing in Jerusalem. I went to the shuk in the early afternoon to get food so I don’t starve on Shabbat, and I’m walking back to my apartment down Ben Yehuda, and who should I see walk out of a cell phone store? Rabbi Lavey Derby, my Rabbi from Kol Shofar. He didn’t see me (or recognize my new do) and I yelled, “Rabbi!” and he turned around and stopped. Shocked. It was brilliant.

I knew he was in Jerusalem, but I didn’t think I would see him, and there he was, right in front of me, on Ben Yehuda street. It was slightly ridiculous. But great. We swapped numbers and are going to try and sit down for coffee next week before he goes back to the states.

Who knows who I'll run into tomorrow?

Initial thoughts on Jerusalem

2008-07-10T22:27:00.000+03:00

It’s the same, almost. Many of the favorite (and not so favorite) old haunts are still here, from Yankee Bar to Tmol Shilshon to Schnitzee’s to Capricorn (no news on O’Connell’s yet). It’s fantastic. It didn’t really sink in that I was here. In Jerusalem. For a year. Until after I moved into my swanky short-term studio and started walking toward campus. I was here. I am here. It’s marvelous. It’s like coming back to a familiar part of my home again.

And yet it’s totally different. My favorite Kebab restaurant is gone, which saddens me terribly. There’s construction all over down town. I was walking around the city center, turned a corner, and there was a Coffee Bean. I walked another half block, and suddenly I’m face to face with an American Apparel. It sunk in, hard, that while I came to Jerusalem to get away from LA, LA is quietly stalking me.. Jerusalem really isn’t as oriental as we think it is (or as I think it is).

I did, however, have Hummus and Meat at Pinati for lunch, and it was better than I remembered.

My apartment (two week long sublet while I find Adam and my kick-ass all-Hebrew all-the-time apartment) is gorgeous. It’s a little studio on Shamai street – if you knew Jerusalem, it’s on block over from Kikkar Zion. But it looks over a balcony, so it’s quiet and shady and great décor. My “landlord” is an architecture student at Bezalel, Hebrew U’s art school, and he has his own really neat models and paintings on the wall. It’s a great location too, which makes going to campus and going apartment shopping and going to the shuk (tomorrow! I’m so excited!) convenient.

My memory of the city has stood pretty steady. I have a really good grasp of where things should be in relation (east, west, which street to get where) to everything else. Where I’m totally lacking is remembering distance. Jerusalem is a big city. In my mind, the whole central area, from Emek Rafaim to the Russian colony to The Central Bus station is all 20 minutes – or less. It may be so because when I was here before I was living on Mt. Scopus, and that is really really far from everything else. It may also be my mind. And the jet lag. And the heat (which isn’t too bad; it’s dry and nice in the shade).

But the jet lag. I’m exhausted, and it’s about 10:30 PM in J’lem right now. I parted company with my classmate earlier – we were eating ice cream (they were eating; my stomach is still in knots from the sleep deprivation) on Ben Yehuda – about an hour ago to go to bed but while I’m exhausted, I’m still wired. Hopefully I’ll fall asleep soon because it’s a big day tomorrow.

One word about my classmates before I sign off. As of now, about 10 hours since I started to meet them, I really like the ones I’ve met. They’re all pretty Jewy (as one might expect) but down to earth and fun. They’ve had a lot of hanging out the past week and a half, and I missed out on that, so it’s a little weird jumping in when there are connections and groups already formed. The flip side of that, however, is I have an allure about me. I’m still an unknown quantity.

Amsterdam: a hedonist's paradise?

2008-07-09T20:14:00.000+03:00

Right now, for a brief fleeting moment, I am in Amsterdam. This visit, nearing completion, was very short but very sweet. Let me explain.

Amsterdam is a city I have wanted to visit since eighth grade, when my friend Alyssa and I realized that the plane that was taking our eighth grade class to Washington DC was continuing on to Amsterdam and we tried to convince our teacher to let us stay on the place and have our field trip there. Needless to say, she didn’t go for it, but Amsterdam because that kind of El Doradoesque travel destination for me: more of an unattainable myth than a reality.

But here I am. When I got out of the train station, jet-lagged but excited, and saw the beautiful old world buildings and canals, I had two immediate reactions: 1) I love this city and I could live here for years; 2) Okay, I’ve seen Amsterdam, let’s get to Jerusalem! Now, waiting at my gate for my flight to Tel Aviv, both feelings remain.

My visit has been short – I was away from the airport for about 6 hours – but I feel like it could be an “Amsterdam Greatest Hits” trip. I took the train, I walked a lot, I saw a lot of canals, I admired the brick and the cobblestone, I went to the Van Gogh Museum, visited a coffee shop, drank peach juice, rode the tram, walked some more, I was accosted twice by the employees of the red light district, I smelled tulips, I took a little nap on the tram, I admired more brick canals, and I walked some more. It was great.

There’s a lot about this city that I’ve been contemplating; it’s my first continental European city I’ve visited – and actually the first time, I’m pretty sure, I’ve been in a place where I did not speak the language – and there’s a lot of newness to this experience. Dutch is a funny language. I kept confusing people speaking Dutch with German, and tired to use my minute knowledge of Yiddish to access German to access Dutch. It didn’t work. Some English cognates helped, but mostly I giggled to myself about spelling words with two aa’s (I’m also finding it really hard to be a relativist with regards to spelling).

Everyone I talked to was helpful, although not necessarily nice. I think that might have something to do with my own clichéd persona – American tourist comes to Amsterdam in the summer etc. the Dutch must hate summertime. The city is crawling with foreigners, many of them young, early 20’s American/British/German/Korean hippie-type backpackers. They were starting to annoy me by the end of the day and I’m a tourist too.

Which leads me to my main thought of the day: what exactly is the MO of Amsterdam’s culture? It occurred to me after I got the shit scared out of me by a fugly looking prostitute beckoning to me behind a cage of glass that Amsterdam is really a city for hedonists. Gay marriage is legal. Prostitution is legal (I think) here. Marijuana is legal (for the most part). Heroin addicts are given clean needles (try letting that program fly under this US administration). It’s like the European version of Las Vegas, except dignified (and without the gambling). The Amsterdamites have proven that you can have a society that offers many vices many Americans believe are evil and have it flourish.

This isn’t a new argument, but it didn’t really mean anything to me until I was here and saw it in action. And when I could really compare it America – or even California, where Gay marriage is legal, but still tenuously and still heavily disapproved, where medicinal (medicinal!) marijuana use is still questionable, and where heroin addicts are treated like criminals instead of people who desperately need care and support. It’s just bizarre how different many of the cultural and social institutions are, and yet in Amsterdam, they also have McDonalds and Starbucks. Go figure.

Now I’m feeling icky and smelly and gross, and when the cappuccino wears off I’m going to crash harder than Oceanic flight 815, so before that happens I’m going to head off to my gate to board my plane for Tel Aviv!

PS. I’m also wondering what it says about the Dutch that official names for some cities contain a definite article. Is it necessary? Case in point: The Hague. It took me years to realize that The Hague was an actual city, and not just the building for the International Court of Justice (thank you West Wing for that). And the name of the country! THE Netherlands. Is there another Netherlands? Are we going to forget which Netherlands we’re traveling to?

First post... let's say Shehecheyanu

2008-07-07T09:35:00.000+03:00

This is my first offical post on "of the sands and the cliffs," my blog for my HUC Year in Israel. I hope you enjoy it.

I'm getting ready to leave for Jerusalem (via an 11 hour layover in Amsterdam) and while I am nervous, the anxiety if slight and really only revolves around the traveling. Once I find myself in Jerusalem (and find an apartment) it's all good.

So check back in later days for more updates about the traveling and the settling in...

This is Joel Abramovitz, the man and the myth, signing off!

PS. Like before, if you tell me where the blog title comes from (DSA I'm looking at you...) you'll get a prize!