Drag queens and swing dancing

This week was a very busy one for me at the Jerusalem Open House. Not only did I spend most of Sunday at the community center, working on the newsletter and the database with Dalit and the other interns/volunteers; I also attended two big events, the opening of the Hakafot café on Tuesday and my own event, the English Speaker’s Group swing dance night (“Swinging Queerly”), on Saturday.

While the café’s grand opening was advertised as an English-friendly event, I was disappointed to see the only English-speakers there were Ahuva and myself. This made the first hour or so rather boring, since we were isolated among a bunch of Hebrew-speakers who already knew each other. I did, however, get to consume some Ben & Jerry’s ice cream (Cookies & Cream, 7NIS) and pie (apple, 10NIS). I would have just gone for the pie, but it wasn’t out at first so I didn’t know about it.

And then the drag monarchs came out—two drag kings and two drag queens, regular performers at HaKatze. I am happy to say that my videos from Open House came out much better than the ones I took at HaKatze, and now you can actually see the drag:

The event was also advertised as an open mic night, but there was no open mic about it. Once the drag monarchs (yes, I know I’m making up this phrase), the night was basically over. I don’t know how much café-related items JOH actually sold, but the drag drew a nice crowd.

Between Tuesday night and Saturday night I had my longest stretch of time away from the Open House in a long time—or maybe it just seems that way because I was there almost every other day for a week and a half prior. Saturday night, however, was our first English Speakers Group event of November, “Swinging Queerly,” in which we invited Shirley of the Tel Aviv Swing Club to teach a lesson in East Coast. It was really interesting to watch her teach because she didn’t teach it as East Coast, she taught it as six-count Lindy Hop, which actually makes a difference. I didn’t even realize before now that East Coast starts on a step-step, whereas Lindy (six-count or eight-count, whatever) starts on a rock-step. The moves also had different names; the inside-turn was a “window,” for some odd reason. I have no idea.

I spent a lot of the event running around—figuring out how to turn on the fan, finding tape so someone could tape her flip-flops to her shoes, helping Shirley, etc. I guess that’s why I lost track of time and the lesson went an hour and a half before Shirley realized people were getting tired and it was time to stop. We were supposed to have open dancing after the lesson, but that failed. People were just too tired. I think they had fun, though. They look like they were having fun:

Note that the people in the second video, Ahuva and Alexis, learned Swing at AHA, which is why, as Chelsie put it, "they look so good." Yes, I also spent a decent amount of time taking video--and stealing follows when Shirley was working with their leads (or vice versa). That's how I got to dance once we had an odd number. (Before the last person came, I was just in the line.)

And that was that. When things ended I went to get malawach for the first time with Ahuva and Alexis, and then I went home. Game over.

Classes

You know how when things get busy, all you want to do when you have a spare moment is lie down and do nothing? That's been me lately. Classes started three weeks ago already, and I haven't written a thing. I've been so busy with schoolwork and dealing with idiot banks and phone companies... well, that's another story. Right now I just want to write about The Big Thing, my classes.

The first class I'm taking, of course, is Hebrew. I'm in Ramat Gimel intensive, which means we have an extra half an hour of class each day so that we can get through the entire level and enter Daled next semester. That is, of course, in theory; my teacher is adding in additional classes so we actually finish everything. Read: Instead of having class 8:15-10:15 Monday/Tuesday and 8:30-10:15 and 10:30-12:15 Wednesday, I will soon have an extra 10:30-12:15 class on (some) Mondays. Sound like Ulpan, anyone?

I'm learning how wise the Ulpan program was. We had class from 8:30 until 1:15 (I think--I can't even remember anymore!), which was a lot, but we always had a break after an hour and a half. Now we have two hours straight, and it's really hard to concentrate that long without a break. I also think that my Ulpan teachers are better than my current teachers, even though one of my current teachers is a PhD and the other one wrote our textbook. During Ulpan, our teachers couldn't rely on translating words into English to convey their meaning to us because not everyone spoke English; now it seems like it's all they do. I miss the pictures and the wild gestures and understanding the words for what they are rather than what they mean in English.

Long story short, I'm not enjoying Hebrew, nor do I really feel like I'm learning much. I don't know how we're going to get through the level, nor do I know how I'm going to learn enough to take a class in Hebrew next semester. In theory I'm working my way through Daled on my own; not in theory, I don't have time and will have to see how much cramming I can do during break / whether I can convince the teacher I can work really hard and puppy-dog my advisor into letting me take it even though technically Daled is required. Israel is supposed to be full of loopholes.

My other class on Mondays and Wednesdays is Talmud, which I don't really understand. I was supposed to be in the lower level Talmud class because I've only ever studied Talmud in high school (and that was my first trimester!), but the lower level class was full of Nativ kids who joked throughout the whole first class without the teacher saying anything. I left half-way through; I can't learn anything in an environment like that, let alone Talmud.

Now I'm in the more advanced Talmud class, Critical Readings in the Talmud: The Talmud as a Path to Tikkun. Technically I have the prerequisites--Hebrew level Gimel and a class in classical Jewish literature (Kimelman's Liturgy class), but I feel like everyone else in the class has studied some Talmud before, and I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be getting out of it. What's the point of Talmud study? What are we supposed to be learning? My tri-chevruta (the product of an odd number of students in the class) is working off of the original Talmud page, which means we're reading and translating the Aramaic and... not much else. We're not really questioning it. Should we be? And even if we do, of what value will our answers be, when there are no real answers to be found?

My internship class, In the Community I: Israel Case Studies - Academic Internship, is also a mixed bag. The main thing that I'm learning from the class itself is that I really don't like psychology; sociology is much more interesting to me. It's mostly a waste of time, a lot of people sharing what's going on with their internships mixed with a bit of organizational psychology from the teacher. The good thing about knowing that I have to write a paper connecting the readings to my internship is that I'm connecting things as I go along; I guess I'm learning something there, but it doesn't merit an hour and a half every week.

My internship itself, however, is wonderful. I'm doing a whole bunch of things for JOH: running the English Speakers Group, helping to write and edit articles for the newsletter, helping to put the donor database in some sort of order, and helping to catalog and order the library. All in eight hours a week. I really like it, though, because it means hanging out at JOH a lot, whether I'm there for my internship or not. It means spending time out of my American study-abroad bubble and with Israelis in an Israeli setting, not just Israelis that were brought in like, "Oh, look, kids--it's Israelis!" I really like being able to meet people and work with people by myself and not just spend time with people the university presents to us. It's not helping my Hebrew much because everyone speaks at least some English, but I get to overhear some stuff in Hebrew, and there's more to a culture than just the language. I'm also beginning to get used to things here, and I'm starting to see how I'm going to get some degree of culture shock when I go back to the States in January.

By far, my favorite class this semester is one that got added on a whim: Nafez Nazzal's The Palestinians: Modern History and Society. Professor Nazzal's a wonderful lecturer. Everything he says is imbued with passion because he's speaking about his people and things that he can see but can't fix. Class is filled with tangents, stories of his life, but every tangent is relevent because his story is the story of the Palestinians. He knows leaders on both sides, has been threatened by leaders on both sides, teaches Palestinian students and Jewish students, gains perspectives from those he teaches... and tries his best to open everyone's eyes. Another student and I are recording his lectures because his wisdom is too important not to be recorded. It's amazing, and I can't believe I almost didn't take it. I know that I'll listen to the recordings again later, and share them with friends if I can, legally. Can I? I feel like everything Professor Nazzal is teaching us is too important not to spread.

Outside of this, I have a bunch of Jewish learning classes. I'm still doing Jeff Seidel, though I'm not really enjoying it and would definitely drop it if it wasn't my only way to earn money in Israel. My old chevruta partner gave birth over Sukkot break, and I don't know yet what to think about my new partner. My roommate Estie has also convinced me to go to the Hillel-Hecht Beit Midrash on Monday nights, which is where my tri-chevruta is going to do our Talmud homework. Wednesdays are the Masorti learning community (read: beit midrash, just not called that for who knows what reason) where Woty and I are learning bits of queer Talmud--see my original questions about Talmud study above.

With all of this, I feel like I have very little time. I'm beginning to miss Sundays, as Shabbat begins earlier than ever right now and my pre-Shabbat Fridays consist of sleeping in, cleaning the apartment, and going downtown to Ahuva's, where I've spent four out of the past six Shabbatot. I really need to learn to walk the 3.3 miles from the Kfar to Emek Refaim, or the 2.67 to Ahuva's. Those are the main places where Cool Shabbat Stuff happens...

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?

A very queer Sukkot

My facebook status a while ago proclaimed that I was going to have a busy Sukkot, but I really had no idea just how busy it was going to be. I had no idea how queer it was going to be.

Sukkot started off with Shabbat at Ahuva's, which was pleasant but fairly unremarkable. Sunday was also fairly unremarkable; I started my internship at JOH, but all I did was meet with my boss, Dalit, and do some brainstorming. The excitement really started on Monday, and it really hasn't stopped since.

I've been told that there's very little gay stuff in Jerusalem. There's Jerusalem Open House, of course, and a few gay-friendly cafes, but there's pretty much no nightlife--with one exception. On Mondays, Hakatze has a gay night complete with drag queens. Since we are both on Sukkot break right now, Ahuva and I decided to check it out. I forgot to ask the people at JOH what time things start there, so we went by the website: the show starts at 22:30. Yeah, right. Well, we got there at 10:30, or rather a bit before because Ahuva wanted to make sure we got good seats. The place was empty. We waited a while, and the place was still empty. We knew we were in the right place--our entrance receipts said Hatatze--but there was just no one there. Finally I went up to ask the bartender what was going on. Yes, it was drag night. No, she doesn't know what time the show is gonna start. "It's drag queens," she said. "You never know with drag queens." Apparently, all the Israelis knew this already. They started trickling in around 11:15; the show didn't actually start until 12:30.

It was worth the wait, especially since this is the first time I've seen drag outside of Pride events. I took some videos of the performance, but they're currently not working. It's very sad, especially because I can't really describe it in words. It was mostly in Hebrew, but a lot of the songs were in English and the drag queen MC would periodically joke with the audience in English. There was also a drag king there, but I wasn't so impressed with him. Overall, though, it was good. They took a big break in the middle, during which Ahuva and I attempted to swing dance to music that very obviously not created for that purpose. We are also both very out of practice, so it was more funny than anything else. And a nice change from standing on a chair for forty-five minutes, of course.

We left at 2:30 and went back to Ahuva's apartment, where I promptly collapsed. (I'd expected this and arranged to stay with her overnight--the buses don't run that late.) I was up again around 7:00 because of the sun and noise from the construction, read a bit, and then fell back asleep. Next thing I knew it was 14:52 and I'd missed a call from Jessica about our JOH event.

That night was our second JOH event, a showing of The Bubble. We (Ahuva, Alexis, and I) arrived at JOH at 19:30, at which point I spent an hour trying to locate various pieces of technology and convince the movie to play. It mostly failed since Yotem told me to play the movie from my computer, which Dell apparently didn't fix. We finally got it going with a JOH DVD player--which we really should have tried in the first place.

That is one powerful movie. I mean, I knew it was. We watched it at Brandeis, but I still wasn't prepared for the ending. I don't think anyone was. We had some pretty intense discussion afterwards about it, which was nice. Then, as I was cleaning up (around 22:30), Ahuva asked those people who remained to relocate to her apartment and eat birthday cake--because she'd been eating cake nonstop since Friday and still hadn't finished it. So we (Ahuva, Alexis, Devorah, Lynley, and I) bought a carton of ice cream and went back to Ahuva's. And... never left. We were just talking, telling funny stories, and it was fun. We completely lost track of time. Alexis left around 4, but by that point Lynley, Devorah and I figured that we might as well wait another two hours and take the bus back to campus. So... we did. Just stayed there talking from 23:00 to 6:00. And then it was all over. I went back to campus, went to bed, and got right back up again for the Gateways festival.

(To be continued)

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.