Wisdom from an Israeli writer

In Hebrew class today we read part of a poem by an Israeli writer, Yehuda Amichai, entited "Tourists":

פעם ישבתי על מדרגות ליד שער במצודת דוד, את שני הסלים הכבדים שמתי לידי. עמדה שם קבוצת תיירים סביב המדריך ושימשתי להם נקודת ציון. "אתם רואים את האיש הזה עם הסלים? קצת ימינה מראשו נמצאת קשת מן התקופ הרומית. קצת ימינה מראשו". "אבל הוא זז, הוא זז!" אמרתי בלבי: הגאולה תבוא רק אם יגידו להם: אתם רואים שם את הקשת מן התקופה הרומית? לא חשוב: אבל לידה, קצת שמאלה ולמטה ממנה, יושב אדם שקנה פֵּרות וירקות לביתו.

Once I was sitting on the steps near the gate at David's Citadel and I put down my two heavy baskets beside me. A group of tourists stood there around their guide, and I became their point of reference. "You see that man over there with the baskets? A little to the right of his head there's an arch from the Roman period. A little to the right of his head." "But he's moving, he's moving!" I said to myself: Redemption will come only when they are told, "Do you see that arch over there from the Roman period? It doesn't matter, but near it, a little to the left and then down a bit, there's a man who has just bought fruit and vegetables for his family."

We as American--and Canadians, and whatever else we are--could learn a lot from this piece of writing. We come to Jerusalem because it's a holy city, but is that really what Jerusalem is? What should we be focusing on when we come here, Jerusalem as it was or Jerusalem as it is? Jerusalem isn't frozen in time; it's a modern city with modern citizens, modern life, and modern problems. When I go to Women of the Wall, it's the people I'm focusing on, not the history. The wall itself isn't what's important; the treatment of women there in modern-day Jerusalem is what matters. The same goes for any human rights issues you might look at--the problems of the Palestinians, the problems of the GLBT population, etc. These are real people living today; can we really come to this country and ignore them? If we do that, Israel is nothing. "Next year in Jerusalem" will always be just a saying, whether or not there really is a place called Jerusalem and whether or not Jews can come there. We have to look at today, not just yesterday. Tomorrow all of this will be history--is this really what we want to see?

Israeli basketball

Basketball is definitely not soccer. I mean, I know it's not, but in terms of Israeli sports--there's a big difference between a Beitar Jerusalem game and a HaPoel Migdal Jerusalem game, which is what one of our madrichim from Rothberg took us to tonight. Thank goodness there was no racism, but there were also no organized cheers whatsoever. There were also plenty of seats left, and very few people standing--though I was told that part of that was the fact that it was a Saturday night game and a lot of Jerusalem's fans are religious. Anyway, the game in videos:

Hatikvah, lots of insane basketballs flying everwhere, and a view of the crowd:

Ramat Gan's team doing well at the beginning of the game:

And a video of Jerusalem doing well, because that is my city for the year, after all:

Ramat Gan only did well in the beginning; by the second quarter Jerusalem was creaming them and I lost all of my attention span. Really, sports games need to be close to be interesting. It's no fun when Jerusalem wins 107 to 68, with the margin only growing over the course of the game.

Oh well. At least we won?

The call

Hebrew University is geographically located in East Jerusalem, though it’s considered West Jerusalem. The French Hill is ambiguous; not considered a Jewish settlement, but not considered West Jerusalem, either. All of this geography is a prelude to a very simple point: from campus and my apartment, I can hear the Muslim call to prayer five times a day (or rather, whenever I’m awake and in a place with an open window). And oddly, it’s a very comforting sound. I have no idea what the words mean, but the very sound is a comfort. Even knowing the politics, even knowing that many of the religious people who heed this call wish I wasn’t sitting where I’m sitting, in this land—their land—the sound is a comfort. It’s a reminder that this country is home to devout people of many religions, and that Jews don’t have a monopoly on religion here. It’s like a wish, like it’s saying respect us, too! A constant coming out, perhaps. A five-times-daily Pride, a reminder to everyone that we’re here, respect us, too! It’s an odd comparison, but maybe it explains things a bit.

Aliyah

I think the weirdest part about Israel, and the thing that sets it apart from other study abroad locations, is the big emphasis on aliyah. Most people who speak fluent English in Israel, which is the vast majority of the people we meet on campus-sponsored outing or events, made aliyah at some point in their lives. Even in the Forum, amidst a very, very Hebrew-heavy "Welcome back to campus sign up for our bank/buy our books/come to our events!!!"--I turned to the older lady next to me to ask what the word for popcorn was in Hebrew (one of the stands is for the cinemateque, and they've been giving out free popcorn for the past two weeks) on Thursday, and she's American! She's from DC and her husband is from Boston. Maybe it's just because I'm in Jerusalem--I've been told that if I wanted real Israeli culture, I should have gone to Haifa--but there are a lot of olim here.

It's not just bumping into them, though, either! From my first weeks here I met people who had either just made aliyah or were about to, and the reaction they got from the other people around us--usually olim themselves--was one big "MAZEL TOV!" Last Monday I "attended" (read: went for an hour and then left due to a headache) an Idan Raichel concert sponsored by MASA, one of the organizations I'm getting money from for study abroad, and in the speeches before some Important Man told us all how he hoped we'd go back to our homes, be advocates for Israel, and then came back in a few years as olim. So then, the whole point of the MASA grant is to make Jewish kids want to move to Israel?

I have to wonder, at this point, how many native Israelis I'd meet and really speak to if I weren't interning at the Jerusalem Open House. I have yet to go to any events outside of the English Speaking Group, but once a week I'm there with Dalit and Or and Yotem, and whoever else happens to be there that day. Since my fellow intern and I have meetings with Dalit at 11:00 and I don't have class until 16:30, I can hang out there for a few hours after the meeting, soak in the atmosphere. If I wasn't there, would I really see anything but olim?

Me'or Modi'im

I spent this Shabbat at Moshav Me'or Modi'im with Devorah and Abigail from JOH. (Well, Devorah's also a Hebrew University student, but whatever--the common link between the three of us is JOH.) We were hosted by Rabbi and Rebbitzen Trugman, who have open home hospitality Shabbats twice a month. Estie, my roommate, was given a flyer about it a while ago, and I thought it would be cool.

Me'or Modi'im is also known as the Carlebach moshav, since it was founded by Rav Shlomo Carlebach and his followers. I think this is another situation like Kibbutz Hannaton, though - they call it a moshav, but it's really (according to Wikipedia and what I saw of it) a community settlement. And that's what it is: a community of people who believe in and live by the teachings of Rav Shlomo Carlebach--or "Rav Shlomo," as they call him, because he is The All-Important Rabbi and doesn't need a last name (or they just knew him--one or the other).

It was a very pleasant, quiet Shabbat. We started out with singing niggunim before Shabbat even started. Services were not as wonderful as I'd expected, but egalitarian me isn't a fan of synagogues where the women's section is in the back to begin with, and all the ruach was up front with the guys. That's okay, though. It just means I didn't rush to get up for Shacharit this morning, nor did I go to mincha or ma'ariv.

Friday night Devorah, Abigail, and I took our sleeping bags outside to the porch, and it was really wonderful. Okay, so maybe it was a little bit hot in the sleeping bag, but it would have been worse inside and the air was so good out there. Everyone else was inside, so it felt like we were little girls having a sleepover. It was nice. We spent this afternoon on the porch, too, reading and playing bananagrams and rummy cube.

Once again, the best part was seuda shlishit. The food was wonderful, and we spent a lot of time singing--songs and nigguns with really upbeat melodies. Everyone was really into it, too, which is a nice change from what I'm used to from AHA. I'm learning the traditional Shabbat zimrot, so maybe I'll actually be able to join in when I get back to Brandeis.

The whole Shabbat was just so relaxing and pleasant. The rebbitzen told me to come again sometime, and I think I will. I liked it.

Shopping in Israel

Shopping in Israel is a cultural experience in itself. I never thought I'd say this, but the salespeople here make Jim--our most enthusiastic salesperson at FDB--look like a kitten. (Meow.) They're pushy! I keep saying that I'm not going to buy anything that I don't really love, but twice now I've felt pressured enough that I couldn't really say no. Both involved sellers bringing down their prices--a skirt from 60 to 45, and a pair of shoes from 100-something to 80. I'm left questioning both purchases.

I'm basing this post on two experiences, a trip to a Druze village on the way to Kibbutz Hannaton and my first visit to the Machane Yehuda shuk today. "Good quality, good quality." "Take two, I give you deal." "Here, here, take, take." "Come, come." "Follow me." They like to repeat things, and if you start pulling away, they just insist more. It's so hard! Devorah Kramer, another RIS student, said that it's what makes them good salespeople, but I've never seen anything like it in the US. I thought Jim was pushy!

The shuk needs an entry of its own, but I'll have to make due with someone else's youtube video. One street, thousands of people, more fruit than I've ever imagined in one place:

(I didn't spend that much time near the fish. I was having trouble with the smell alone!)

I couldn't have been there more than an hour, but I left exhausted anyway. For $47 I managed to buy: ten pitot (5 NIS), a pomegranate (2 NIS), a large container of grapes (13 NIS), two dragonfuit (one red, one Costa Rica) to bring to my Rosh Hashanah hosts so I can be selfish and save my challah for myself (10 NIS), a pair of off-white pants (20 NIS), a pair of Wal-mart quality white, non-leather shoes for Yom Kippur (40 NIS), and a pair of black sneakers (80 NIS). The sneakers are my second questionable purchase because they only had them in velcro. I'm not sure how I feel about having velcro shoes--sort of like I'm back in elementary school--but it is true that my shoelaces won't come untied this way, and it's got to be better than shoes with holes in them (read: my current pair). And if worst comes to worst, 80 NIS is only about $21 and there are about a million shoe stores on Yaffo street (which the salespeople made me forget in the moment, of course).

There's also a store across from the shuk that looks to have some pretty good skirts for 30 NIS, but by the time I got back there I was exhausted and my hands were full of packages. Next time.

Overall, I would call today's trip successful. I am very glad to have found a place where the rotten exchange rate doesn't make everything too expensive for Walmart-price-cheapy me. I do wonder, though, whether time will make me resistant to Israeli salespeople or whether I'll always be this much of a push-over.

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!