Kibbutz Hannaton

I spent this weekend at Kibbutz Hannaton, the only Masorti kibbutz in Israel, on a Shabbaton sponsored by the Fuchsberg Center for Conservative Judaism. Overall, I enjoyed the Shabbat. I met a few new people--a girl named Beverley and Eitan Marks, the brother of an acquaintance from Brandeis--and had a pretty relaxing Shabbat. Services were a lot better than last week. I led weekday Mincha for the first time since high school, and the guy who led Kabbalat Shabbat used the Carlibach melodies, which I love. The food was pretty good, too, if a bit spicy. I discovered rice with raisins in it (not one of the spicy things) and had my first ever Shabbat where seuda shlishit had the best food.

I don't quite understand what is kibbutz-like about Kibbutz Hannaton. The kibbutz recently privitized, so everyone has their own income and owns their own home and people don't eat together in the Chedar Ochel anymore. A dairy farm provides the kibbutz's income, but only one member of the kibbutz works at the farm. As far as I could see, the only communal thing is the land, and the kibbutz just happens to own this dairy farm.

Speaking of the dairy farm, we were given a tour of it on Saturday afternoon. Overall, I was impressed. When I think of farm animals I imagine those stories of chickens who can't even move their wings, but these cows had lots of room to move around. Our guide said that the cows are kept happy, if only because those commercials are true--good dairy products come from happy cows. (And happy cows come from Kibbutz Hannaton?) The only thing that really bothers me is what they do with the calves. A calf was born about twenty minutes before we got to the farm, and the workers took him away from his mother before he could even stand. Since he's male, the kibbutz won't keep him--he'll be shipped off to become somebody's hamburger or veal dinner. The poor little cow! He didn't even stand a chance. Of course, after the tour of the dairy farm, we all throughly smelled like cows. I think the bugs also thought we were cows; I have five bites on one arm alone.

I also learned a bit about teaching styles this Shabbat. Rabbi Romm, the rabbi of the Fuchsberg center and a founder of the Masorti movement, invited a rabbinical student named Adam to join us for the Shabbat. Since it was a shabbaton, there were multiple learning sessions. Before Adam started his, he said something really interesting. I've been having trouble with Rabbi Romm's lectures, and Adam pointed out why: while Adam teaches about things he finds problematic, Rabbi Romm teaches about things he finds interesting. That's why Rabbi Romm's lectures are so light, and he can go off on so many tangents--it's not that he's really wandering off topic as he's providing more "interesting" tidbits about an "interesting" subject. This is the first time I've encountered this kind of teaching; I'm used to--and I think I much prefer--shiurim about the things that are problematic.

If this trip happens every semester, I think I'd like to go again next time. I thoroughly enjoyed myself.

Next Shabbat--Rosh Hashana in the Old City!

Naftali

I'm really worried about Naftali. He wasn't right when I saw him this afternoon. He'd sniff the water bowl and the food I put in front of him, but he wouldn't eat anything. These cats never refuse food. I had to shield Naftali's food from the other cats because they all wanted it.

He doesn't sound right, either. That's the first thing I noticed (though this video was the last I saw of him--of course as soon as I take out the camera and put in new batteries all he does is climb into my lap and shut up.):

shut up.): That is not Naftali's voice. I know his voice; I've known this cat since my first week here. I knew he wasn't healthy to begin with, but this is different. This is new.

What do I do? I wish I could take him to the vet, but I have neither the money nor the knowledge of the Israeli society to do so. Should I try to locate the law library and search for the librarian who told me Naftali's name? She was only substituting for her friend when I saw her.

I wish I could take Naftali home with me, but even if we were allowed to have cats in the apartment, my roommates aren't cat people. No way they'd let me sneak a cat into the apartment, even if maintenance wasn't doing monthly inspections.

What should I do? What can I do?

Kitty update

Last week was rocky when it came to my cats. On Saturday night I discovered that Mister Zol, the grocery store, doesn't open up after Shabbat, so I had no food for the kitties on Sunday. Sunday night, I discovered that they close at 21:00, and I went at 21:15. On Tuesday I finally had cat food, but my roommate and I got to campus too late for me to do my feeding. On Wednesday someone fed them before I got there, from the looks of it real white meat. I think I finally got to feed them on Thursday.

This week has been better; I haven't posted only because I was waiting to have video. I still haven't figured out how to feed and tape at the same time--the video's sorta awful. The cats were also really spread out this morning, but I think if you count you'll find all twelve.

The cats know me by now. Twice in a row now they've come running, and this morning I didn't even have to sit down first. The kitten's also becoming more trusting; it took a while for him to come out of his bush, and then he would run back into it whenever anyone walked down the path. Now he'll stay there and eat, as long as there's a bigger cat between him and the people. ("Mommy, hide me!")

I haven't named any of them yet, and I doubt that I will. There are some consistent kitties, but otherwise the cats in the humanitiies block change day by day. They also don't trust me enough to let them touch them--with the exception of Naftali, who has been affectionate since way before the feedings. I wonder if they'll ever trust me that much?

Speaking of Naftali, yesterday I found a girl pouring water into a rock for him. She said he was dehydrated; he'd drunk half her bottle already. I'm really glad I saw that; somehow, I've never stopped to think about how these cats get there water. It doesn't rain during the summer in Israel, ever. How do they find water to drink? Anyway, I've started giving them water, too. A container that had held creme cheese is now a kitty water bowl, assuming the people who clean the university don't find it in the bush and throw it away. I think I'll make the same thing out of my butter container when it expires, and the rocks have little grooves which can hold water. It's so simple; why hadn't I thought of it before?

When I got back to Kfar HaStudentim after class, I found Lynley with a couple of kittens, whose names seem to be either Yossi and Charlie or Hariette and Gila depending on who you ask. Yossi's scared of people, but Charlie's the friendliest kitty I've ever seen. As soon as I sat down on the bench she was in my lap, climbing around on top of me and on top of my backpack. I don't have any footage of that--it was so unexpected--but I can show you Charlie/Gila with Lynley, and being otherwise generally friendly!

After Lynley left, a couple of people who work in the office came out with a container of what I think was tuna. It makes me feel cheap to be feeding them dry cat food, but... the cats seem to like it just the same, and it's probably better for them.

Though, I could give Charlie one kind of fish to play with!

Queers, Beers, and Games

Tonight we had the first Jerusalem Open House English Speakers Group event planned by Jessica and me. (I don't understand why we put "beers" in an event title and then tell people that they need to bring their own. How is that part of the event? Oh well; apparently it attracts people.) It was a lot of fun, thank goodness--the only rough spot was that both of us bought snacks, so there was way too much food and I ended up coming home with all four bags of generic Bamba.

I had been worried about the event for the past couple of days. I flyered at Hebrew University, but I don't know the official procedure so my signs kept being torn down. Would people know about it? Would people want to come to a game night? But it all worked out. A bunch of us were there at 7:30, and we didn't end up leaving until around eleven. I had some very good conversation, too. It's so much easier to talk to people when we're not squeezed into a room and just told to mingle!

The night has left me with such a pleasant feeling that I felt a need to write about it, but now that I sit down to do so I'm finding that I really have nothing to say. Maybe I'm just tired. It is midnight over here, after all.

Beit Shemesh

I've been debating how much I want this to be a touristy blog. After my post about Chevron that's what it feels like, but I don't think I can really write about my year in Israel without the touristy bits. Thus, I will attempt to catch up after a busy weekend of tiyulim and midterms without sounding too much like an American tourist. (Yeah, right.)

This weekend I went on a mini-Shabbaton to Beit Shemesh, a city about forty minutes outside of Jerusalem. It was mini in the fact that there were only ten of us, including two students from Tel Aviv and a Hebrew University alumna who's friends with the rabbi. It was nice that way, though; the remaining seven included my roommate Estie and Naomi, a aquantence from our first Shabbat at school. Because there were so few of us, it wasn't cliquey, which was nice. I tend to wander on my own when I'm with a big group.

Our first stop on Friday was the caves outside Beit Shemesh where the Jews lived during the Bar Kochba Revolt in the 130s CE. I'd thought I'd explored the caves already, when I was in Israel on Muss, but what people refer to as the Bar Kochba Caves aren't actually the anything--there are a bunch of systems of caves. The cave systems are really amazing; there are false tunnels and holes in the ground (read: ancient bathrooms / Roman soldier traps) and massive rooms where people lived. and Rabbi Seigel, the organizer of the Shabbaton, thought he knew these caves inside out, but we discovered a room he didn't know about before. Whereas I think we could walk through much of the tunnels we visited with AHA, most of the time we had to crawl through these and I was quite literally covered in dirt by the end.

As fun as it was squeezing through tiny passage ways, I think the best part of the caves came at the very end, when we turned off all our flashlights and sat in one of the large rooms in silence. I could just imagine the Jews sitting there, scared, listening for the sounds of Roman soldiers. It was a very powerful moment, and I love how it's possible to connect with history like that in Israel.

Shabbat was spent in Beit Shemesh proper, in the south part of the city--which, for a city, was very spread out and had an amazing amount of grassy areas. We were split into twos and sent to families which agreed to let us sleep in their apartments and host us for Shabbat lunch. The food part was really good--you can't beat home-made challah and potato kugel, and they made tofu that I actually liked. (Dev, being a bad vegetarian, has never actually liked tofu before.) Other than that... I wasn't particularly impressed with my host family. I'm banking on them not finding this; lashon hara lamed hey, blah blah blah.

There are four kids in the family, the youngest being a six-year-old boy who looks a lot like Simcha in Lost Luggage. Only... not so cute in the behavior aspect. He must have ADHD or something like that, because he spent all of Saturday running around screaming his head off--ear-piercing, headache-inducing screams. And his parents didn't stop it! During Shabbat lunch he sat down to eat a few bites, and then off he went to run wild, shooting us all with a lego gun snd screaming, and his parents just paused when he was too loud and went on with the conversation whenever he stopped, as if nothing was happening. At one point I got up to take excedrin and by the end of the meal I was wincing when he screamed, and his parents didn't take the hint. Only when we went to bentch did his mother lock him in a room so we could do so. I don't understand. The rest of their kids--a fourteen-year-old boy, a seventeen-year-old girl and a nineteen-year-old girl--are all perfectly nice. What's with this kid, and why don't his parents do something? My parents would kill us if we behaved that way, especially if there were guests in the house.

The rest of Shabbat was also mixed. Kabbalat Shabbat was not particularly fulfilling, since the only thing that was sung was Lecha Dodi. Typical of Israeli synagogues, I've been told--the focus of Shabbat here is on the family, and people want to get home to their families and dinner ASAP. Dinner and Seuda Shlishit were at the Seigels', but I couldn't enjoy dinner because I was half asleep after the day in the caves. Both meals at the Seigels were very crowded--there were the ten of us, the Seigel family, and another family. For Seuda Shlishit I ended up on the couch with the Seigels' cat, Cleopatra, on my lap, which made me happy. I never did get a seat at the table--I wasn't about to move and disturb the cat, and things were crowded enough that I was within arm's reach of the table anyway. Poor kitty ended up with crumbs in her fur before I managed to get a plate, though.

The best part of Shabbat, like in the caves, came at the very end. We went around the tables and everyone was given a chance to give a small d'var Torah, or to pass if they wished. I passed, but there were a lot of interesting commentaries that came up. I wish there was more of that in my Shabbats. Good singing, good food, good conversation - that's all I want. I'm still working on finding it here.

$$$ for learning

So far, I'm pretty disappointed with the $$$ for Learning program. I was matched up with my chevrusa partner, Shoshana, three weeks ago, and we still haven't really gotten started. Each time she brings a different book, and each time it's not what I'm looking for. I want to learn about prayer and kavanah; so far, either the books don't talk about that or they don't bring up much for discussion and just reading words off a page isn't very fulfilling. This morning I checked out a copy of Heschel's Man's Quest for G-d from the library; I think we're going to be learning from that from now on. I've read it before, but it's very deep and I think we can get more out of it together than I was able to reading it by myself. Shoshana's never read Heschel before, so introducing her to him will also be fun.

Shoshana's nice, though. We've spent a fair amount of time talking--in fact, that's most of what we did the first meeting. (Opps.) She's pregnent, due in a month or so, and I don't know what's going to happen once she has the baby. The rebbitzen must have a way to work with such things, though. So many of the chevrusa partners have babies or are about to have babies...

Tour of the tombs

Today Jeff Seidel took sixty of us on a tour of biblical gravesites. Before anyone freaks out, I would like to mention that yes, they are in the West Bank. The areas we went to are also patrolled by the IDF, and we were riding in a bullet-proof bus. Well, the whole bus thing is actually not reassuring at all, but I am happy to say that we were not shot at during our trip. Not that I thought we would be; I don't think the rebbitzen of the center would bring her two-year-old and five-year-old daughters anywhere she thought was the slightest bit unsafe, let alone a busfull of students that they're liable for.

The trip included visits to Rachel's Tomb outside of Bethleham and the Cave of Machpelah (the burial site of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca, and Leah) in Chevron. I was surprised by the difference between the two places. Rachel's Tomb is a tiny place, but heavily protected. In the photo below--the view outside the building of the tomb--you can see a large white wall; this wall spirals around and around, so the tomb is entirely protected. The building itself is tiny, intimate. It's like the Kotel in that it's separated into a men's section and a women's section, and people are gathered there praying. It's beautiful, in a classical Judaism sort of way. The video below is one that I took today of the women's side of the tomb.

The Cave of Machpelah is supposed to be holier than Rachel's Tomb - it's second in holiness only to the Kotel - but if anything, it seemed to be more commercialized to me. In Rachel's Tomb I felt compelled to daven, even though I had no siddur with me; I started mincha--what I know of it by heart--and it led to my own prayers, free-form, which I very rarely do. But at Machpelah, even with a siddur, I couldn't concentrate of the prayers. I wasn't compelled to pray; it felt like any other Orthodox synagogue. I felt more connection when I touched the wall near where our ancesters are actually buried (see below) than when I was inside the structure.

There's also an amazing difference in the outsides of the tombs. Rachel's Tomb is heavily protected, but Machpelah is completely out in the open. Note that the sound at the very beginning of the video is the end of the Muslim afternoon prayer; the whole thing played on speakers above our heads.

I think the number of tourists at these sights is particularly telling of the situation in Israel right now. These are extremely holy places, but we didn't see a single other tourist on our trip. There were people there, but they were ordinary Israelis, davening and studying. These places are in the West Bank; tourist groups don't dare go there the way they go to the Kotel or Masadah. Yet, take a look at one last picture:

This is the view of Chevron from the top of the Chevron Yeshiva. If this was just a random picture that I posted, wouldn't you think it was just another shot of Jerusalem?