The Mother Ship

New Priorities

2009-03-19T09:47:00.000-07:00

I recently received this email from a hospital in Portland:

Thank you for including Kaiser Permanente in your job search and for your interest in (76469, MSW), located in (Portland,OR).The number of resumes submitted for this position has been particularly high, and we regret to inform you that we will not be moving forward with your resume. This in no way reflects on your qualifications, but was due to volume management processes.Though you are not among those continuing to be considered for this particular position, your profile will remain in our database. We encourage you to revisit our Careers Web site at http://jobs.kp.org for additional opportunities.
Kaiser Permanente Recruitment Services

Mike and I had planned to move to Portland this summer. He would start graduate school to get his teaching certification and I would move forward in my career, pursuing either hospice or oncology social work. I would be able to take advantage of Portland's lower housing costs to finally buy a small home. Last fall we were so optimistic about our move that neither of us considered having him apply for schools in Seattle.

Fast forward 5 months. Just like everyone else, I've scoured the job boards looking for openings. In my field (oncology, hospice, geriatrics) there have been 6 openings within 30 miles of Portland. With several of my friends laid off from previously-stable non-profits, I made the decision that I couldn't accept work at a small non-profit. It just isn't stable enough, and with my Crohn's, I can't be without health insurance. After many long conversations and a few good panics (on my part), we made the tough decision that Mike should defer for a year. We're sticking it out in Seattle. I'll finish up my social work licensure and keep trying to find work in Portland--but this time, he's applying to schools in Seattle too in case things don't improve.

We are luckier than most--I have a guaranteed job until January and if we get this new contract (fingers crossed) I'll have work for the next five years if we stay in Seattle. We have health insurance and the money for me to finish my licensure (not an inexpensive endeavor).

Just like everyone else, we're re-evaluating our priorities. We're happy and we'd like to get our own apartment this summer. We're saving in case my job ends in January. The dogs are great. And my job has been very good to me over the years, so if I do have to stay in it, even for several more years, I would be content.

We, like everyone else, are watching and waiting to see what the economy does in the next year. In our relationship, it's Mike's job to be the optimist and my job to be the pragmatist. There are too many articles to cite, but I'm not optimistic at all about a quick recovery. Americans, through inflated home prices, thought we were about 10% richer than we actually were. Wages in the middle class have basically stagnated in the last decade, but we thought we were richer because our homes were worth more and we could get credit easily. Savings patterns and debt accrual reflected that mistaken belief. You can think of it like a fire--Wall Street and the mortgage brokers and the advertisers stoked the flames of the American economy not by providing fuel (actual goods and services) but by providing hot air. The fire burned bright for a while, but in the absence of enough actual fuel, it has started to sputter. Don't get me wrong--the American economy still produces things--just not nearly enough things to justify the "growth" that occurred during the last 10 years.

In addition to the serious credit freeze on Wall Street, the fundamental problem for recovery is that we need to fix our wealth misperception. We need to save more and have less debt. However, the economy is 70% dependant on consumer spending, so the more we save and the more we pay down our debt, the slower the economy is going to burn. Even if the credit crisis was fixed tomorrow, American behavior has changed in such a dramatic way that we can't expect the overeager spending patterns of the last decade to immediately fall back into place.

"The problem is us. The problem is not the banks, greedy though they may be, overpaid though they may be. The problem is us... We've been living very high on the hog. Our living standard has been rising dramatically in the last 25 years. And we have been borrowing much of the money to make that prosperity happen." -- Columbia professor David Beim

Graph Showing US Household Debt as a Percentage of the GDP

The Obama administration (and Geithner, whom I think is in way over his head) is trying desperately to fix the acute problems of the economy. Will the withholdings tax break or the bank bailout or the lowered interest rates keep the flames going? Probably, to some extent. It does matter what they do--they better job they do at bailing us out, the higher our baseline to move forward into recovery. But recovery is probably not going to be a "U" or a "V"--a quick downturn and then a quick upturn. It's probably going to look like an "L." Maybe a cursive "L" with an uptick at the end, but definitely not a quick recovery. There are too many systemic problems in addition to the acute problems.

One thing to keep in mind is that the economy needs to grow at 3% per year just to maintain status quo. A downturn is bad, but stagnation is also bad (see Japan). The baby boomers are getting older and not retiring out of the job market because they can't. That leaves less available jobs. Eventually, though, they will have to retire and we'll have to support them through Medicare and Social Security. Even with stagnant economic growth, with the added cost of caring for our elderly, we will see cuts in social services. (And as a side note, cuts in social services means cuts in social work jobs).

It's a sad realization that a good outcome would be stagnation And a bad outcome? Well, everyone is throwing around the "D" word. One thing to keep in mind is that my entire generation (Gen Y...and probably Gen X as well) came of age in an era of easy money. My generation doesn't know anything other than our artificially inflated standard of living. If this does get bad, my generation will have to learn quickly about thrift and hard work. I wish the folks who were middle aged in 1929 were still alive to ask how they learned to adjust.

Needless to say, I am very grateful for my comfy government contract job.

What is Muammar Qaddafi up to now??

2009-01-22T10:30:00.000-08:00

I rolled my eyes a bit when I saw the recent New York Times Op-ed piece called, "The One-State Solution." It's a classic Palestinian argument, a mutant cross between "Can't we all just get along?" and "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em."

The One-State Solution

I thought I was reading a standard op-ed, but then I noticed the author. It was none other than Muammar Qaddafi, the leader of Libya. Libya is busily presenting itself as a reformed and contrite former terrorist state. I know they have formally apologized for the Lockerbie bombings and paid the families of victims, but I had no idea they had any designs on world diplomacy.

This op-ed truly shocked me. I read it carefully and it is anything but standard.

To give some background, here is the standard Palestinian one-state solution argument: Palestinians are oppressed people. Neither the West Bank nor Gaza is a viable Palestinian state--because the Jews won't allow it and because there are already Jewish settlements honeycombed across the West Bank. Jews are allowed right of return, so exiled Palestinians should be allowed right of return as well. When the Jews and Arabs can live together under one government, there will be peace.

It sounds so simple, right? There are a few reasons why a one-state solution will never ever ever happen. Most important is demographics: at present, Jews are a majority in Israel, but when the Palestinian territories are included, Jews make up about 49% of the population. If Palestinians were allowed the right of return, the country would be flooded (Jordan is about 70% Palestinian, and so is a large swath of Southern Lebanon.) The Jewish majority would end. If you think Israelis are nervous about putting their safety in the hands of a marginally stable independent Palestine, they would be apoplectic about putting their safety in the hands of a Palestianian majority. Could a flag with a Star of David still fly in unified Israel? Could Jewish right of return be revoked? Could Israel's government be dominated by a Palestinian majority? Israelis will protect their demographic majority at all costs.

The strange thing to me is that good 'ol Muammar diverged from the traditional pro-Palestinian line in a number of places. A few nuggets:

"The basis for the modern State of Israel is the persecution of the Jewish people, which is undeniable. The Jews have been held captive, massacred, disadvantaged in every possible fashion by the Egyptians, the Romans, the English, the Russians, the Babylonians, the Canaanites and, most recently, the Germans under Hitler. The Jewish people want and deserve their homeland."

It doesn't take much news savvy to see that this is not the voice of Hamas (or Iran, for that matter). This diverges strongly from the "drive the Zionist enemy into the sea." It goes beyond recognizing Israel (something Hamas and Iran refuse to do) to empathizing with their plight. I don't think I've ever heard an Arab leader do this.

"A two-state solution will create an unacceptable security threat to Israel. An armed Arab state, presumably in the West Bank, would give Israel less than 10 miles of strategic depth at its narrowest point."

This paragraph could have been written by any mainstream Israeli.

"It is a fact that Palestinians inhabited the land and owned farms and homes there until recently, fleeing in fear of violence at the hands of Jews after 1948 — violence that did not occur, but rumors of which led to a mass exodus. It is important to note that the Jews did not forcibly expel Palestinians. They were never “un-welcomed.” Yet only the full territories of Isratine can accommodate all the refugees and bring about the justice that is key to peace."

I can't even begin to say how unusual this paragraph is in the Arab invective against Israel. The Palestinian stance is that Israelis forcibly expelled them from their homes. Israelis maintain that they, with their tiny army, could not have carried out mass displacement. They maintain that the Arabs left of their own accord (and, some argue, forfeiting their right of return.)

Mr. Qaddafi makes several points that are well in line with the tradiational one-state solution argument. What fascinates me is how much he has placed his argument directly in the center. Is he ingratiating himself to the West by presenting a moderate voice in the peace process? He can't possibly hope to have a major diplomatic role with their history of state-sponsored terrorism....or could he? Could a reformed terrorist state hope to show a little street cred to grease the wheels over there? What in the world is Muammar Qaddafi up to??

Propaganda on All Sides

2009-01-14T13:25:00.000-08:00

Since the Israeli incursion into Gaza began, the propaganda machines have been working overtime on all sides. Speaking as an American Jew, I am inundated every day not only by the news but by emails and Facebook postings. Each carries a drastic headline such as “THE REAL SITUATION IN ISRAEL !! PLEASE FORWARD TO AS MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE” or “Don’t Just Stand There! … Stand With Israel.”

Some are emails, but most are power point presentations or YouTube links. I follow them only to find out that Israelis are brutal murderers or that Hamas uses human shields and kills civilians. The pro-Israel forwards are more vitriolic and hateful than I remember them being during the Lebanon war. There are also several links to interviews by Brigitte Gabriel, a woman I had never heard of before and a strange figure in this whole drama—apparently a combination between Barbara Walters and Benedict Arnold, or a poor man’s Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

With all this media bombardment, I’m struck by two things. First, I’m struck by how much propaganda mechanisms have moved away from traditional forms such as editorials and good old fashioned biased reporters (although Israel still boycotts the BBC from time to time). Instead, these emails serve as a way to strengthen and rally the base. When I was in Israel, we had a chance to talk to a garrulous government official who told us that part of Israel’s propaganda war is fought with email forwards (more details on him in a previous post if you’re curious). So those ludicrous anti-Arab forwards my grandmother in Florida sends me? They are just as likely to be written by the Israeli propaganda mechanism as by an impassioned civilian. The official also mentioned that particularly off-color propaganda is “contracted” to sympathetic techies who can create videos or cartoons.

The pro-Israel propaganda machine is definitely lagging behind the Palestinian machine. Nobody doubts that the master of captivating the media is Hamas. If you need a candlelight vigil, or men pretending to be dead bodies, or hysterical women playing the mother of the nearby dead man every time a camera is thrust in their face (I’m making none of this up…there’s great footage showing the fakes that ended up on the mainstream evening news), the Palestinians would be happy to provide such accommodation. I’m not saying Israel hasn’t done its part to provide good footage of catastrophe, but in these wars the pen is much mightier than the sword—and when it comes to the pen, Israel has been bested time after time.

The Israelis definitely feel they are losing the propaganda war. They feel Europe has already been turned against them by their large Muslim immigrant population and American Jews are slowly losing their connection to Israel as the Holocaust generation dies. No other country has been so demonized in the United Nations. And yet, even as most Israelis are scrambling to send all their foreign friends any pro-Israeli scrap they can get their hands on, Israelis maintain that they do not need the world’s good opinion. Israel is a country born out of the ashes of the Holocaust for the salvation of the Jews. If the world is fundamentally anti-Semitic, why bother to court world opinion when survival is on the line?

The second thing that strikes me about the propaganda mechanism is by how utterly predictable it has become, particularly on the pro-Israel side. The pro-Israel machine shockingly accuses Hamas of killing its own civilians and suppressing opposing views, which is a bit like being shocked that a grizzly bear will bite you. These ridiculous videos show Hamas acting terribly, forgetting that nobody ever expected them to be the cultivators of moderate democracy in the first place. It gets back to the age-old problem in Israel’s wars—it is fighting an enemy that is not held to the international standards of nationhood. It is fighting guerilla wars against militias. The world expects it to behave honorably, but an honorable war is not possible. Israel, taking America’s lead, won’t negotiate with terrorist organizations. Any time they try to implement sanctions that are considered appropriate for rogue nations (cutting off supplies, like boycotting Cuba or Iraq or Libya), the world community has a fit because Hamas is not a country but the Gazans are being punished as if they are--Israel has too much control over the Gazan borders. And any time Israel tries to kill Hamas’s “military,” they either surround themselves by civilians (something a standing army would never do) or pretend to be civilians (easy to do if the uniform is jeans and a ski mask).

It might help to think of it in another way. Jane Fonda is the subject of an erroneous urban legend. When Vassar was a women's college, the story goes, Jane Fonda refused to wear the elegant white gloves and pearls that were the attire for the daily Tea in the Rose Parlor. When confronted, Fonda returned to the parlor wearing the gloves and the pearls, and nothing else.

Think of Vassar as the Court of International World Opinion. Let’s just say that Yasser Arafat, the father or Palestinian Resistance, crashed the party wearing only gloves and pearls. Perhaps the other ladies of Vassar would be outraged, but because he is not a student there (militant organizations are not countries), there isn’t much they can do (they can’t really impose economic sanctions or recall their diplomat). Until they grant him the privilege of being a student (recognize Hamas as the democratically-chosen government of Gaza and negotiate with them as such), they can't exercise control over him.

I think I’ll end on that image…

Obama should focus his energy elsewhere

2009-01-06T11:37:00.000-08:00

In thirteen days, we will have a new President. So many people have pinned their hopes on Obama, but unfortunately he cannot walk on water for everybody. The environmentalists are thrilled that alternative energy is a main focus of his new economic plan, but the gay rights activists are already beginning to have their hopes diminished. As with everyone else, anyone who has an interest in Israel is watching to see how he will fix this most recent crisis. Some think Obama will succeed where others have failed by producing a lasting peace plan. I think, for a myriad of reasons, that the Isralei problem is too intractable right now and to expend major diplomatic resources there is foolish. Our resources would better serve our (and the Israeli) cause by focusing on areas of Muslim extremism where we can actually make a difference.

My friend Brigit sent me an op-ed piece by James Carroll of the Boston Globe called "Englightenment in Gaza." He says:

"That the Israeli-Palestinian cauldron has just boiled over gives the new president the tragic but nonetheless real advantage of destruction as a starting point. It's like what confronts him on the economy, with financial trust in ruins. Not that things could not get worse, and not that improvements will be in any way automatic. But that moments like this, with old structures fallen and facile hopes dashed, are ripe for fresh thinking, untried measures, and a breakthrough of intention."

(Apologies to Brigit for repeating much of what we emailed about) With all due respect to Mr. Carroll, he is completely wrong. With the financial crisis, all eyes are pointed to the federal government to craft a solution and things are bad enough to act as a catalyst for change. I don't think the same can be said for Israel. Things might look bad in the international news, but they really aren't bad enough to produce a call for change (yet). Everyone knew this invasion was coming and the only thing that wasn't a foregone conclusion was the ground war. It looks like Olmert is trying to make up for his mistake in Lebanon of not sending in ground troops.

The situation now is not like the second intifada when every Israeli's life was in danger--Gaza is sealed off and Israeli casualties have been minimal. Not only can the everyday Israelis feel sort of detached, but the Palestinians in the West Bank also see Gaza as a radical delinquent younger brother. Hamas has called for suicide bombings, but it hasn't happened (see this article: Solidarity with Hamas) The real "catalyst crisis" would come if the Israeli Arabs truly decide en masse to fight the Israelis from inside with suicide bombings or more bulldozer attacks. If a third intifada would come to Israel, we might then truly see a level of war fatigue that could produce change.

Second, the author says, "Majorities of Israelis and Palestinians understand what the solution requires; the wheel of peace is already invented." I can't think of anything further from the truth.

Just speaking about the Jewish side, nobody in Israel agrees on what a final peace should look like, but everyone agrees that a two-state solution would put Israel's commercial centers in the line of Palestinian fire. Nobody thinks Palestinian leadership is strong enough to build a state that could combat radical elements (and this could be because Israel has adopted a plan of strategically assassinating Palestinian leadership). A two-state solution supposes that Israel pulls out of the occupied territories. But from an Israeli standpoint, look at the massive evidence against this: the Israelis are occupying the West Bank but they do not occupy Gaza. Ariel Sharon pulled everyone out of Gaza, destroyed the settlements, suffered the wrath of right-wing Israelis, and let democratic elections bring a radical enemy group (Hamas) to power.

The pullout brought instability in Gaza, a porous border with Egypt that allows for weapons smuggling, and thousands of rockets falling on cities in southern Israel. No, there aren't a lot of Israeli casualites. Don't let that diminish the fact that we are expecting Israel to behave like a first-world country, and no other first-world country is expected to put up with this level of constant assault on its citizens. I was in Sderot and I was scared shitless the entire time I was there. There is never enough time to get to the bomb shelters, which smell like piss and mildew. I would think that Americans who are frightened to death of things like dust mites and vaccines would take a moment to understand the stress of living (and raising children) in those conditions.

The lesson that Israel has learned from the Gaza pullout is clear: if they move toward the two-state solution and grant Palestinian autonomy, they are putting themselves at risk.

There are also other fundamental misunderstandings that stand in the way of peace. Ordinary Palestinians don't understand that checkpoints, the wall, Israeli blockades, etc, come from Israel's strong desire to protect itself. They blame Israel for their degridation without factoring in what their own radical elements have done to contribute to the situation. Israleis don't understand that poverty and disrespect breeds radicalism. The more they ruin the Palestinian economy (with said checkpoints, wall, blockades, etc) and the more they descriminate against Israeli Arabs, the more enemies they will make.

That's just things within the country. It doesn't count powerful forces in the Arab and Western worlds who will stop the peace process at any cost.

I'm beginning to see that there are a few things vitally necessary for peace:
1) fatigue
2) strong moderate leadership on both sides
3) minimal disruption by outside parties
4) avenues for dealing with the violent radical elements in society

The situation in Israel has met absolutely none of those criteria.

1) There might be some fatigue in mainstream Israel, but that is tempered by the growing strength of a right-wing that thinks peace will never come, so just claim all the land. There is also fatigue in the territories, but it is less war fatigue than diverted attention toward the clash between Hamas and Fatah.
2) Israel might have had moderate leadership in the past, but any party who wants a majority in parliament is now shackled by allegiances with ultra-Orthodox groups who will not allow the peace plan to go forward. In the territories, the choice has always been moderate corruption or radical corruption--and there is no evidence that the clan system in Palestine or the rivalries of Hamas and Fatah would allow a non-corrupt moderate leadership to take shape.
3) Israel, as the heart of three major religions, is not free from disruption by outside parties. There is plenty of blame to go around: Syria and Iran, which funds Hamas and Hesbollah; radical evangelical organizations like CUFI; American Jews who find the need to send money in apologetic solidarity with either the Palestinians or the settlers; Egypt's tightrope of trying to pacify both Hamas and America; etc. Everyone has a stake in Israel's future; in the absence of a durable peace, we all see the opportunity to remake it in our own image.
4) It is fairly clear that Palestinian moderates do not have a voice and are scared of being labeled collaborators. Not only do the territories not have a way of dealing with radical terrorists, they are utterly controlled by such groups. In Israel, the strength of radical elements is growing. As the ultra-Orthodox population increases and the mainstream society moves to the right, the window of time when an Israeli coalition could push through a peace plan is quickly closing.

Peace will not come to Israel any time soon. I know everyone thinks Obama is going to personally fix their problems, balance their checkbooks, and potty-train their dogs. But the reality is that Obama can only truly focus on a few things, and pay lip service to several more. Obama shouldn't put his energy into Israel right now. It's a symptom of a much larger problem. His team, including Hillary Clinton, would do better to focus on Pakistan and north Africa while pressuring Europe to take a better look at their disenfranchized Muslim population. All the while courting Evangelicals but telling CUFI to take it in the shorts. And fixing our financial crisis. And empowering Blacks. And building roads and fixing schools. The poor man has the weight of the world on his shoulders. He might be able to work miracles, but not in Israel. The time is not right.

Aspen

2008-12-09T18:31:00.000-08:00

Over Thanksgiving, Mike (the wonderful fella I've been dating since July) took me back to Denver to meet his extended family. I had already met his parents, Doug and Gail, but I got to meet his sister Allie and about a million aunts, uncles, cousins, etc.

We flew in Wednesday night and woke up early Thursday to do a 4K walk to benefit the United Way. After that, we immediately negated any health benefits of the walk by stuffing our faces at Thanksgiving dinner. On Friday, we drove up to Aspen where Mike's second cousin was getting married. Friday night was the cowboy formal (although entertainingly, a motown band played the gig). I got to meet his Great Aunt Betty, the matriarch, who looked marvelous in her hot pink cashmere track suit. She asked me to lift my skirt to show off my legs and proclaimed, "fine, but could be better." I loved her immediately!

The next day we explored Aspen. That evening was the wedding ceremony, which happened to be a black tie affair at the lodge on top of Ajax mountain. We put on our fancy duds, shelacked our hair back, put on mukluks, and rode the un-heated gondola through a blizzard to the top of the mountain. Once there, it was a gorgeous ceremony and a really fun oxygen bar. We took the gondola back down through the same blizzard and we were snowed in the following day. Mike and I (rather tragically) spent the day lounging in a hotsprings nearby.

On Monday, we woke up at 4:30am to beat the traffic. Getting back to Denver about 12:30, we immediately called up some of Mike's friends, Promethius and Lioness, to hit the town. We spent 20 minutes in a fantastic spice shop with endless treasures. We flew back to Seattle and finally got to sleep about 2am. It's been over a week and I'm still recovering!

Here are some pictures from our trip:

Thanksgiving and Aspen

Posting again

2008-11-26T10:33:00.000-08:00

After a hiatus of seven months, I decided to begin blogging again. A lot has happened, both in my life and in the wold sphere. Narcissistically, isn't cyberspace better off with my musings?

I, like most other Americans with investments in the stock market, have been following the demise of our financial institutions with a combination of detached curiosity of Camus and the fervor of a fan of the "Left Behind" series. It's easy to imagine some combination of a good spanking and the Last Days for Wall Street.

It's clear we're in the middle of the storm now, and nobody (particularly not Hank) has any idea when we're going to hit bottom. [On a side note, for those of you who are paranoid, try typing "Hank Paulson" into google. The suggested search is "Hank Paulson jewish" which comes up with all kinds of interesting things.]

When I was studying in China, I started to notice how impressively hard the Chinese are working to consume resources. Coal trucks were everywhere, and dirty men pulled coal carts through the city. Entrepreneurs were on every streetcorner, selling everything from a telephone call to "Long Life" cigarettes to haircuts. Even with all their effort, they couldn't consume nearly the amount an American could. I think about this because, when we talk about financial demise, we are really talking about consumption. Who gets the rights to the world's resources? It's a vicious circle--those who consume more can grow their economies and afford military supremacy. Those with military supremacy have more freedom to broker favorable deals with developing nations, thus giving us ever-greater powers of consumption. Not convinced that Merrill Lynch has anything to do with sweatshops in Indonesia? Neither was I, at first...

I clean houses on the side. I'm working toward social work license, and the little bit of extra money helps pay for my supervision sessions. I clean for one very nice, extremely wealthy family in North Seattle. The wife was the president of a biotech firm, the husband was a stock broker for 20 years. They are both in their early 50's and have been retired for quite some time.

As I was dusting, the husband stopped in to say hello. I asked him for his thoughts on the melt-down. Unsurprisingly, he said it is the worst he has ever seen it. I asked him, perhaps a bit glibly, if he thinks America is at the zenith of her empire. He thought for a bit, and replied, "No, I believe the zenith was in 2000, right before the dot-com bubble burst." He went on to explain that after the dot-com bubble burst, very little looked promising for investors. And investors need to invest to make money. When Greenspan lowered the interest rate to 1%, one of the only promising investments became real estate... (Italics are his commentary).

This is coupled with the fact that in 2004, in what history will regard as impressive liberal pain-in-the-ass do-gooding, Congress decided it is a priority for more minorities and poor folk to own homes even if they didn't have the money or credit to pay for it. Investors decided they would get a larger return if Fannie and Freddie took more risk. Both groups pressured Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to reach beyond their original constraints to offer mortgages to borrowers with poorer credit. As they went, the rest of the banks followed.

Fannie and Freddie Article

He went on to say that for the past eight years, we have artificially inflated our wealth. Our salaries have been mostly stagnant. The growth in our economy has been fueled by Americans feeling that they were wealthier because their homes were worth more. Our consumer spending, which comprises 70% of our economy, has been fueled by a myth. We spent more freely, took out second mortgages, or speculated on second homes. With housing prices climbing, it seemed prudent to catch the wave even if it was unaffordable because the dream would just be that much further out of reach the longer we wait. In the true spirit of a bubble, nobody wanted to admit the possibility that the home values would go down. We over-extended ourselves, and we're now hurting bad to pay for it. This is worse than the dot-com bubble, which mostly hurt the pocketbooks of investors and entrepreneurial young techies who are fundamentally well-educated and employable. In contrast, this is hitting everyone, including people who never had a penny to invest.

To compound matters, Wall Street started insuring these loans against default by the loan holders. Remember during Katrina when flood insurance companies went bankrupt because there were just too many claims? The same thing is happening to Wall Street right now. The companies who insured those risky loans against default are now swamped with claims. Many companies have both bad loans and bad insurance policies on their books. I don't understand most of it, but this guy does (great article):

Portfolio Essay

And if you think we've seen the worst of it, think of this: Main Street feels the affects of Wall Street about 9-10 months later. All the companies that are hurting now and thinking about layoffs are holding their breath through the holidays, but when the holidays don't bring the hoped-for infusion (and it won't), they will start laying people off and/or declaring bankruptcy. In about 9-10 months, unemployment will rise and people will be defaulting on their mortgages, sending yet another shudder through the financial world.

The husband, who is an extremely pleasant full-time amateur golfer now, had a lot to say on the subject. He said that in the '70's, Americans comprised 5% of the world's population but consumed 50% of its wealth. Now the consumption patterns have balanced--China, India, Europe, and the developing world are taking bigger pieces of the pie. We just don't have the consumer dominance that we used to.

I asked him, "So as someone who knows a great deal about this, and as someone who can't expect your children to exceed your standard of living, what do you teach your children? How do you teach them to cope with what's to come?" He didn't miss a beat. He said, "Become citizens of the world."

His comment got me thinking. At first I just pleasantly thought of Europe, which in my lifetime has seemed to go from quaint ex-empire to reorganized EU powerhouse. It made me happy to think that a little financial stagnation might make Americans more worldly and less annoyingly Jacksonian in our outlook. Maybe we would take up socialism and walking and our families more than free market economics and our big cars and our toys? But as I was typing this very heartwarming sentiment, hoping that my children would tear down the malls in favor of a promenade, I started thinking about other forces in history.

(Brigit, feel free to chime in here...I'm a little rusty). History is rife with examples of empires falling: Czarist Russia and the Ottomans and the Song dynasty in China. There are several ways an empire can fall: like Russia it can be ripped apart from an internal revolution, like the Ottomans it could become so bloated and decentralized that it can be eventually carved up by other powers, or like China it could be invaded by a foreign unwelcome force. Those examples are the examples of pre-industrial-revolution history. Our modern examples of empire-crumbling are hardly more subtle. World War II was powerful young countries vying for power over the corpses of bloated empires: Japan brutally occupied China (which had been picked over for the previous two centuries), Hitler tried to sweep over Europe like Genghis Khan, and America the Capitalist consolidated power with Old Europe while Russia picked battered satellite states like wildflowers.

Fast-forward 60 years and the world is tipsy-turvy. Russia is in shambles, China is on the rise, Japan has stagnated, Europe has unified under the EU, and the former colonial acquisitions of India and the Middle East are independent forces to be reckoned with. America is, whether we like it or not, teetering like an obese ballerina.

But what will happen? I would like to think that the development of the post-modern flat world will have some effect. If the Enlightenment ushered in the new concept of the Citizen and the Nation, I think that our Internet age will usher in the new concept of post-Citizen and post-Nation, where companies are vying for the cheapest international goods and services to feed to whomever has the most capacity for consumption. The tug-of-war of Nations will be mitigated by the mobility and agility of its companies. On the other hand, limited resources breed alliances that reinforce the need for the Nation as a protector of its citizens' interests: as oil gets scarce, if we don't find a replacement, we will fight over it even more than at present. Thomas Friedman, bless his cranky soul, is absolutely right: a green revolution is the best way to ensure peace and prosperity for the coming generations. He sees it as a way to keep America on top, but I think it's more than that. Need begets war. We have a catfight on the horizon that we might be able to prevent. Up until now, we have been under the false assumption that when the catfight comes, we will be the natural victors. Hubris, much?

As Americans, we need to re-think our relationship with world resources. Because we are no longer ensured supremacy, we need to foster good diplomacy (which saved Britain and France during World War II...who would save us if we were being bombed?). We also need to foster ingenuity to try to find technological solutions to get us out of this mess.

I'm back!

2008-04-05T13:02:00.000-07:00

I arrived back in the States about 2 weeks ago. I've been readjusting to American customs and people. Imagine! People actually stand in line here! Plus, Mom's been force-feeding me comfort food so I no longer fit any of my clothes!
It is definitely good to be back. The picture above is of me, Ilya my Russian painter friend, and the portraits he did of me and Adam. He's an amazingly talented artist.
I had an incredible opportunity since being back--I had a chance to lecture at a university about Israel! My friend Brigit is a professor of Russian history at Washington State University. She is teaching a class on world history and she asked me to come do a presentation on Israel. The class was 50 minutes long, but at the end of 50 minutes I had only gone through about 1/3 of the power point presentation. People were asking excellent questions and it really turned into a dialogue instead of a lecture. Over half the class stayed another hour to finish the discussion. We talked about the Arab-Israeli conflict, Zionism, the Holocaust, demographic problems, orthodox vs. secular Jews, conflicts in Egypt, Lebanon, and Syria...I had a great time! At the end of two hours, I had almost lost my voice. Then Brigit and her wonderful mother Bobbie took me out to a seafood place, where I had some of the best cod with sour cream ever! Oh how I've missed American food!!!
I have one more set of pictures to share. These are pictures of Purim, the Jewish version of Halloween. I went up to Tel Aviv with my friends Sarah and Andrew. There were more cute kids than I knew what to do with!

Purim in Tel Aviv

I'm glad to be back. To everyone who has read my blog, thank you!!

Am I a Jewish American or an American Jew?

2008-03-20T14:33:00.001-07:00

The firestorm surrounding comments made by Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Senator Barack Obama's pastor, have made me deeply consider my own loyalties and vision of America. Many people have been wondering what Obama's true feelings about Israel are. Some fears are ridiculous--such as he certainly must be a Muslim if he attended school in Indonesia. Some are well-founded--that his record, while pro-Israel, is certainly short and untested. I know that time and again, Israelis have approached me and asked me who I am voting for. They express a deep fear about Obama as president. For them, they are exclusively concerned with his relationship with Israel and the Arab world--they, unlike Americans, are not as concerned with America's race problem, health care, the crisis in education, the disasterous war in Iraq, the increasingly conservative and anti-abortion Supreme Court, etc. For us Americans, it is a complicated choice indeed.
Some may say it is unfair, but I believe it is valid to look at Obama's pastor for some insight into his views. Reverend Wright helped bring Obama into Christianity, presided over his wedding, and baptized his children. I would imagine there are few people more influential in his life. This is a man who said Israel is a "dirty word." This is a man who characterized white, powerful Americans as being willfully deceitful and keeping Blacks down. This is also a man who blamed the attacks of 9/11 on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And, as I understand it, his views are not unique within the Black community.
I think it is fair to say that Reverend Wright has had an influence on Obama's life. I think it is also fair to say that Reverend Wright is profoundly anti-Israel. I don't think it's fair to say he is anti-Semitic--there is not enough evidence yet--but it would not surprise me given the bad blood between Blacks and Jews in America.
However Obama might have been influenced by Reverend Wright, it is also fair to say Obama is a hell of a lot smarter and more nuanced. Obama graduated top of his class at Harvard Law School and was the first Black editor of the Harvard Law Review, neither insignificant feats. He is easily the most skillful orator in America. One of the reasons people flock to him is because he is able to clearly speak about extremely complex issues and make people feel that there is a way forward.

I also want to point out that in an election, we are voting for the person who best exemplifies the goals and aspirations of our country. We are not voting for Reverend Wright, although he certainly exemplifies the attitudes of many in the African American community. Obama presents himself as exemplifying the goals of all of America, and as such, he cannot limit himself to thinking only of his ethnicity. Indeed from his story we can glean that he cannot be pidgeon-holed into the stereotypical African-American experience. He is part of the African American community but he has had experiences (being raised by a white mother, living in Indonesia, having an African father instead of an African-American father) that make him very distinct. He has the brains and unique experience to make him a shining star, but that in no way delegitimizes the fact that he is part of the African American community. As such, he has ethnic ties and loyalties. I can no more divorce myself from the knee-jerk pro-Israeli rabbis in my midst than he can divorce himself from Reverend Wright. In both cases, what we see in their radical opinions is a community's natural reaction to profound injustice. In both cases, we must overcome the divisiveness for the common good.

Yes, voting for Obama would be the Audacity of Hope. So I, as a young American and a Jew, have some questions to ask. Among them:

Do I believe that Obama shares Reverend Wright's views on Israel in any significant way?
Do I believe that Obama will be pro-Israel when he is in office?
What exactly do I think is truly a pro-Israel stance versus a right-wing pro-Israel stance?
Are there positives to having a man in office who has concrete experience with Muslims, both with respect to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and with respect to Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia...and the inevitable conflicts there?

I think that particularly given Obama's skill as an orator, we have no way of knowing his exact thoughts on Israel. We do know he is pragmatic, and one cannot be elected president on a pro-Palestinian platform. But beyond that, I believe him when he says he condemns Reverend Wrights divisive anti-white and anti-Israel statements because I also believe him when he says he wants to strengthen America for all Americans. His writings and speeches, all the way back to his first book, Dreams of My Father, have clearly demonstrated that his opinions are very different from Reverend Wright's. He has done nothing to make me believe that he is a wolf in sheep's clothing. I'm sure if the Clinton campaign had caught even a whiff of ethnocentrism or anti-Semitism in his life, it would be plastered all over the newspapers. As it is, they must make do with spreading vague rumors and leaking pictures of him in traditional Kenyan dress (gasp!) Admittedly, imagining any candidate in traditional dress is comical (liederhosen and kilts, anyone?) but to suggest a turban somehow makes him dangerous is frankly appalling.
Internationally as well, I do believe that America's place in the world will be decidedly strengthened by having a Black man with experience in a Muslim country as our leader. But beyond his pedigree, I believe America will be strengthened by having Barack Obama as its leader. To many of us, he speaks to solutions. He speaks to restoring the honor and self-respect we lost by having President Bush as our spokesperson and leader. I think this country might characterize the Black community differently if our President is among their ranks, thereby in some small way helping to ameliorate the continued, toxic racial divide. I genuinely believe that Barack Obama is good for America.

But is he good for Israel?

The answer is, we don't know. We don't know what position he will take on Israel when he is in office (although I can rest assured that even if he were rabidly anti-Israel, which I don't believe he is, the current situation in the Middle East would make sure that he could be at most be lukewarm towards Israel).
I also don't think that the brand of right-wing pro-Israeli stance of the Bush administration is particularly good for the Jews, either in Israel or America. To put it another way, I don't think Bush has been particularly good for the Jews. I think that it is fair and decent to give our leaders a chance to re-examine the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and see it with new eyes.
Knee-jerk support has not worked towards peace with the Arab world and it will not work in the future. In the short term it might make sense to unequivocally support the only non-Arab ally in the region, but in the long term I think it hurts Israelis and Jewish Americans alike. I am not distancing myself from anti-Zionism as an apologetic to other Americans. Yes, American Jews might feel the pinch of trying to defend Israel, and anti-Israel rhetoric at times certainly crosses the line into anti-Semitism. But my point is different. I believe that America should be firmly on the side of moderate Israelis who want a two-state solution, just as much as I believe America should be on the side of moderate Palestinians who would like to turn away from terrorism and start rebuilding. My opinion means that sometimes I would side with a moderate Palestinian over an extreme Israeli, which in the world of evening news sound bytes, looks very bad. But that is how I would want my president to behave. And I think that is just.
In the face of overwhelming complexity and frustration about dealing with the Arab world, I believe that by being unequivocally pro-Israel and anti-Arab we are lowering another Iron Curtain across the earth--this time the battle lines are being drawn along pro- and anti-Muslim lines. We have India, but we don't have Pakistan. We have Japan, but we might not have China and we certainly don't have Malaysia or Indonesia. And we might have Europe for now, but for how long? If we draw lines in this way, I think we are headed for a difficult couple of generations. Granted many Muslims want to frame the argument in this way, but as the most powerful nation in the world, we have the mandate to at least try to frame the issue differently--along pro-moderate versus pro-extremist lines. George Bush, with his "manifest destiny" of democracy, has been abominable at this.

Both McCain and Clinton have sterling records on Israel. But I won't vote for Clinton because I don't think she will be effective or good for America. I don't think her being a woman in any way mitigates the fact that she has been one of the most divisive political figures in recent memory. And she can't win against McCain in a general election. I am loathe to vote for McCain because although he is an honorable man, a good leader, and capable of working across the aisle, he is a Republican and as such can be influenced by more conservative members of his party with respect to social issues and the Supreme Court.

Tough choices, indeed. Given what we know now, I say that in spite of Obama's short record on Israel, he is the best choice for America. When I vote, I will vote first as an American and second as a Jew. I will go even further--and perhaps unintentionally support the Zionist argument that I am exactly like those jubilant German Enlightenment Jews right before Hitler came to power. I am proud to be an American first. This country has done everything to show me it can overcome hatred. Yes, we still have problems, but my experience in social work and my reading of our history has shown me that America is capable of moving forward in our race issues. We don't know the future, but we do know the shtetl was not good to us. To both Jewish Americans who are insular and for Israelis who mistreat Bedoin- and Druse-Israelis because they are Arab, I say our only weapons against hatred and bigotry are our own actions, and we cannot hope to be anything more than a despised or grudgingly tolerated minority if, when violence toward us is not imminent, we care only for ourselves.

I am, in the clearest sense of the word, voting for hope instead of voting for fear. I am voting for the hope that Obama will improve the position of all Americans, regardless of their skin tone or religion or ethnicity. I am voting for the hope that he holds no more resentment towards Jews (who have at times been exploitive of Blacks) than he holds resentment towards whites who were exploitive of Blacks. I am voting for the hope that because he comes from the African American community, if he does support Israel as expected, it will be very good for our relations with African Americans. I am voting for the hope that if anti-Semitism starts to rise in the future, there will be powerful forces in our culture that will work to counter it. If I don't vote for Obama, I am not only voting against the chance of our Black community to realize its dreams. I am voting against the chance of our Jewish community to realize its dreams as well.

In the End, by Rabbi Jack Riemer

2008-03-19T07:09:00.000-07:00

In the end, man destroyed the heaven and the earth. The earth had been tossing and turning, and the destructive spirit of man had been hovering over the face of the waters. And man said: Let me have power over the earth. And it was so. And man saw that the power tasted good, and so he called those that possessed power wise, and those that tried to curb power he called weak. And there was evening, and there was morning, the seventh day.

And man said: Let there be a division among all the peoples of the earth. Let there be a dividing line, or a wall, between those that are for me and those that are against me, and it was so. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

And man said: Let us gather all of our resources into one place, and let us create instruments of power to defend ourselves: Let us make a radio to mold men's minds, and a draft to control their bodies, and flags and symbols of power to capture their souls. And it was so. And there was evening, and there was morning, the fifth day.

And man said: Let there be censorship to divide the light from the darkness. And it was so. And man made two great censorship bureaus, to control the thoughts of men, one to tell only the truth that he wanted to be heard abroad, and one to tell only the truth he wanted to be heard at home. And it was so. And there was evening, and there was morning, the fourth day.

And man said: Let us create weapons that can kill millions and hundreds of millions from a distance, and let us make clean bombs, and let us learn sanitary germ warfare, and let us make guided missiles. And it was so. And there was evening, and there was morning, the third day.

And man said: Let us make God in our image. Let us say that God thinks what we think, that God wants what we want, that God commands what we want Him to command. And man found ways to kill, with atomic power and with radiation fallout, those that were living, and those that were not yet born, and he said: This is God's will. And it was so. And there was evening, and there was morning, the second day.

And then, on the last day, a great cloud went up over all the face of the earth, and there was a great thunder over all of the face of the earth, and there was a great cry that reached up from over all of the earth, and then man, and all of his doings, was no more. And the earth rested on the last day from all of man's labors, and the universe was quiet on the last day from all of man's doings, which man in his folly had wrought. And there was nothing. There was no more evening, and there was no more morning--there was no more day.

A great exhausting week

2008-03-19T03:42:00.000-07:00

There is, of course, news to report, but I'll save that for later. I had a great last week at WUJS. Tomorrow I'm going to Jerusalem to stay with my friend Sarah until I leave. I'm flying home next Monday...and 20 hours of flying later, arriving the same day in Pendleton.

I uploaded a few more pictures, but they are kind of a mish mosh. First, our Hebrew teacher Hannah took us on a walk into the desert, Bible in hand. We sat overlooking the Dead Sea and read Breshit, the first few chapters of the Bible. We were amazed at how much we could understand the Hebrew. As we were reading, a Bedoin woman and her sheep wandered past. It was an amazing way to feel we are really living in the land of the Bible.

I spent the weekend in Afula, home of my friend Yaron and his parents. We had a great time. His mom is Moroccan and an excellent cook...his dad is Iraqi and an excellent tease! We went to a house party with his friends until late and the next morning we participated in the annual "Afula Walkathon." It was about 8 miles of beautiful scenery overlooking the Yisrael Valley. The next day we went with his parents to Nazareth to see the Christian sites there. Nazareth is only about 30 minutes away from his house, but not being Christian, he had never seen the churches there. Then we wandered around the shuk (market) and I bought the coolest kitchen utensil ever--a falafel baller.

When I got back to WUJS, I went to a going away party/resident birthday party at the old age home where I volunteer. There was singing in Hebrew, Yiddish, and Russian...and an accordian! They gave me a Chamsa (protection symbol shaped like a hand) they made out of Sculpey.

On Monday night we all schlepped up to Tel Aviv for the final art show of our arts track. The space was terrible but the art was fantastic. My friend Ilya did a portrait of me that is truly incredible--several strangers tried to buy it. My friend Beti presented two amazing sculptures, Melissa had photography of her trip to the West Bank, Dani did a performance that can only be described as a "percussion explosion"...and lots more.

The next day the whole group had a tour of "arts in Tel Aviv." Most people were hung over from passing out on the beach the night before, but it was interesting nonetheless. We saw a performance of a dance group that specializes in dances of different Israeli ethnicities. I was entranced and took a ton of pictures...but I only uploaded the best ones.

Here's a link to the photos:

Afula and dance troupe

That's it! I'll update more on the news later. Be well!

More excitement in Israel

2008-03-13T09:50:00.000-07:00

Here's a short update on what has happened since last week.

Last Thursday, 8 yeshiva students were shot by a Palestinian gunman. It's been a week, so the intense Jewish mourning period (sitting shiva) is over. Now thoughts are turning to what's next. If you thought that in light of the target being a place of religious study and contemplation, the response would be full of grace, you would be wrong. The yeshiva physically barred the education minister, who happens to be left-wing, from entering to give condolensces. The crowd of men also verbally attacked her. The same yeshiva where the boys were shot has issued rabbinic permission for violent revenge (similar to a fatwa in Islam). Here is the article:

Yeshiva graduates plan revenge attack against Arab figure

In addition, in ultra-orthodox neighborhoods around Jerusalem, statements have been put up calling for revenge. Here is a fascinating excerpt from an article by Haaretz (as always, my explanations are in brackets):

The statement says that the massacre at the yeshiva was "the direct result of the lack of a proper government, which should have acted according to the 'Shulkhan Arukh' (a 16th century rabbinical codex) which states that one must not forgive goyim [non-Jews] who harm Jews or their property."
"The governing leaders have decided to appease the Arab enemy. Only the real Jewish leadership can send the country to war knowing that it is a righteous battle against the enemies of Israel and God."
"In going to war," the rabbis write, "the Cohen [Jewish priests of the Temple] fills the people with motivation by giving him the knowledge that he is going to fight his enemies and he must not show compassion or mercy."
Rabbi Gadi Ben-Zimra, one of the Rabbis who signed the statement, told Haaretz that the message did not refer to private acts of vengeance since avenging the dead is the job of the proper Jewish leadership that must be established.
Regarding the 'blessed local actions', Ben Zimra said that they were referring to the return to Gush Katif and Homesh [settlements] and not revenge.
"Private vengeance is damaging and I for one am not calling for it," Zamra said. "I don't think that this message implies that one must go out and get revenge."

So there's two ways to interpret their message. On the surface it looks like the right-wing rabbis are calling for violence, and that might truly be the case. The rabbi quoted says that revenge will come in the form of settlements--either restoring ones like Gush Katif that was destroyed in the unilateral pullout of Gaza, or in creating new settlements. Again, settlements = war. And again, the fight within Israel is couched in terms of who has the right to claim leadership of the country.

One of my professors mentioned today that the divisions within Israeli society at present are very similar to what was present right before the assassination of Itzhak Rabin, the left-wing Prime Minister and peace activist. He was murdered by a right-wing radical pro-settlement Jew.

Meanwhile, the government is having its own problems in trying to figure out how to respond. This week Olmert went to Ashkelon and told the residents they would have to get used to rocket fire and an unprotected hospital, which obviously didn't make them happy. Nobody wants to see the levels of trauma (not to mention gutting of the economy and trapping people in homes that are devalued) that happened in Sderot.

The ultra-Orthodox Sephardic party, Shas, said the government has approved its plan to expand a settlement in East Jerusalem (land that is technically Palestine but, like the rest of East Jerusalem, is engaged in a settlement war that will determine the eventual borders of any peace agreement). Shas said it plans to build 800 units, or 100 for every slain student. The government denied the agreement, saying they were not aware of any concrete plans. (aka this means they will turn a blind eye, thereby not giving any approval that would disrupt the peace process.)

Just to complicate things further, Israel is thinking about the repercussions of two recent assassinations. Almost 40 days ago, Hizbullah's second in command, Imad Mughniyah, was killed in a car bomb in Damascus. (Hizbullah is the Shi'ite terrorist organization in southern Lebanon that is funded by Iran and Syria. Israel went to war with them last year, basically levelling southern Lebanon, but they were unable to achieve victory by subduing Hizbullah.) Everyone thinks Israel did it, although they are playing coy. This guy was also on the US's most wanted list. Intelligence agencies are saying that Hizbullah has been thinking of a grand gesture of revenge as soon as the 40 days are up. I'm not sure what the significance of 40 days is in Islam (Peter, a little help here?). The intelligence agencies are also saying that Hizbullah has recovered from last year's war with Israel. Some are speculating that because of that, Israel is reluctant to go full force into Gaza in case a second front opens up north.

In addition, from Haaretz today: "The defense establishment expects that the indirect understanding with Hamas over a cease-fire in Gaza is likely to collapse today, as Islamic Jihad is preparing to fire Qassam rockets at the Negev in response to the killings of four of its members on the West Bank yesterday." None of the people killed were from Hamas--they were from Islamic Jihad and Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, two smaller terrorist groups. Israel may have purposefully avoided killing Hamas members to avoid provoking a large response in Gaza.

Apparently, Israel is trying the tactic of isolating the West Bank and Gaza from each other. A cease fire in Gaza means no such thing in the West Bank. (Again, the West Bank is nominally controlled by the more moderate Fatah party that is negotiating with President Bush and Olmert toward a peace plan. Gaza has always been more radical and is controlled by Hamas.) It's very important to the Israeli military to give the impression that they are calling the shots about when to engage and when to have a cease-fire. As you can see, that illusion is becoming much harder to maintain.

In summary, we have pissed off radical Jews and pissed off radical Arabs. Excellent.

Baby Camel

2008-03-10T14:20:00.001-07:00

The last few posts have been so depressing, I think what is needed is a seriously cute picture of a baby camel. I took this series a few days ago in Arad. A young Bedoin boy and girl on donkeys were grazing the herd by the lookout point...at the same time as a large group of ultra-Orthodox Jews came for a shabbat walk. I couldn't resist the contrast!

Camels

So is there a cease-fire?

2008-03-10T13:01:00.000-07:00

Prime Minister Olmert is saying there is no cease-fire and they will not negotiate with Hamas. That being said, there is talk that Egypt is negotiating an "understanding" of a decrease Hamas rocket fire in exchange for the IDF not assassinating the current leaders of Hamas. (It might sound surreal, but this type of trade-off has happened before.) To give an example of how sensitive the situation is now, the Israeli Army has been given explicit instructions not to take any action in Gaza without clearing it with the political eschelon.

Meanwhile, everyone here is just waiting to see what will happen. The Israeli police won't release the body of the gunman who killed eight yeshiva students last week--they are afraid that his funeral could spiral into riots. They had negotiated to release it if there was a "humble" funeral, but there was already a crowd of mourners gathered at the family's home. From the Jerusalem Post:

"On Sunday morning, in accordance with police orders, the family removed Hamas and Hizbullah flags they had hung on the mourning tent. The prime minister issued instructions to look into the possibility of tearing down the tent, calling it an illegal structure, Israel Radio reported."

There is, as usual, fighting in the Knesset (parliament). The flavor of the week seems to be right-wing representatives saying rediculous things to Arab representatives. A sampling:

Lieberman: "today we have a government made up of wimps. Believe me, this is temporary, just as you are temporary here." Lieberman also said the attack on the Yeshiva students was the result of "incitement" by the Arab representatives.

Eitam: "one day we will expel you from this house, and from the national home of the Jewish people."

A right-wing women's group called for building 8 more settlements in the West Bank to commemorate the 8 students killed. (The Yeshiva that was targeted was the cornerstone of the settler movement. Any additional settlements are in violation of the Oslo Peace Accords. In my opinion, settlements are the single most damaging thing right-wing Israelis can do to disrupt the peace process. A call for new settlements is in effect giving Bush and Olmert the finger.)

Needless to say, things are not going as the Bush administration intended. Last week Condoleezza Rice was here, and now Cheney is en route to the Middle East for a twofer: both pressure Israel and Palestine to play nice, and travel to Oman and Saudi Arabia to complain that high oil prices are hurting the American economy. Cheney couldn't be bothered to at least pretend that he came all the way over here just to help the peace plan.

Meanwhile, the Israeli public is deeply mourning the deaths of the yeshiva students. I came across a fascinating op-ed piece: To the Westerner who "understands" the terrorist. I highly recommend reading it as an example of Israeli reactions to international condemnation--but take it with a right-wing grain of salt.

Also regarding the Israeli public, this email was sent to me by a woman on my program--it was written by one of her coworkers. I thought it was very touching, so I'm passing it on. I hope it won't detract too much, but I put explanations in brackets.

"Every morning I take the 35 bus line to work. It's a quick ride and usually takes no more than 12 minutes. The third stop after I get on by the shuk [market] is directly in front of Yeshivat Merkaz HaRav. This morning I found myself a bit anxious, unsure of what I was going to see as we passed by. As I looked around, I saw death notices pasted all over the street and flowers that had been brought lined the entrance to the Yeshiva. When the bus pulled up to the stop, the driver shut off the engine and stood. With tears in his eyes he told everyone sitting on the bus that one of the boys killed on Thursday night was his nephew. He asked if everyone on the bus would mind if he spoke for a few minutes in memory of his nephew and the other boys that were killed. After seeing head nods all over the bus he began to speak. With a clear and proud voice, he spoke beautifully about his nephew and said that he was a person who was constantly on the lookout for how to help out anyone in need. He was always searching for a way to make things better. He loved learning, and had a passion for working out the intricacies of the Gemara [a Jewish holy book]. He was excited to join the army in a few years, and wanted to eventually work in informal education. As he continued to speak, I noticed that the elderly woman sitting next to me was crying. I looked into my bag, reached for a tissue and passed it to her. She looked at me and told me that she too had lost someone she knew in the attack. Her neighbors child was another one of the boys killed. As she held my hand tightly, she stood up and asked if she too could say a few words in memory of her neighbor. She spoke of a young man filled with a zest for life. Every friday he would visit her with a few flowers for shabbat and a short dvar torah [sermon] that he had learned that week in Yeshiva. This past shabbat, she had no flowers.
When I got to work, one of my colleagues who lives in Efrat told me that her son was friends with 2 of the boys who had been killed. One of those boys was the stepson of a man who used to teach in Brovenders and comes to my shul [synagogue] in Riverdale every Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur to be a chazan [singer] for one of the minyanim [congregations].
We are all affected by what goes on in Israel. Whether you know someone who was killed or know someone who knows someone or even if you don't know anyone at all, you are affected. The 8 boys who were killed will continue to impact us all individually and as a nation. Each one of us has the ability to make a profound impact on our world. This coming wednesday morning, I will be at Ben Gurion airport at 7 am with Nefesh B'Nefesh [an organization that helps Western Jews become Israeli citizens] welcoming 40 new olim [immigrants] to Israel. We will not deter. We can not give up. We will continue to live our lives and hope and work for change, understanding and peace."

A difficult decision

2008-03-09T13:41:00.000-07:00

Today's headline:

Translation: "Israel stands in front of a difficult problem: Agree to a cease-fire or continue to fight Hamas."

Most of the senior cabinet ministers and military leaders are saying now is not the time for a cease-fire with Hamas. I've already talked a lot about the pros and cons of action--they can't let rockets continue to fall on civilian populations, but it is by no means likely that a major incursion will accomplish that goal.
Israel has tried several tactics to avoid all-out war. They tried isolating Hamas--that didn't work. They tried bolstering Fatah--that didn't work. They tried cutting off all non-essential supplies to the Gaza strip--and they were condemned by the international community while Hamas blew up the border with Egypt. Israel knows it will have a large number of Palestinian civilian casualties and IDF soldier casualties if it goes in to Gaza--that much is a given. What they don't know is whether these casualties will spark another uprising--called an intifada--in which suicide bombers and gunmen from the West Bank come to blow themselves up in nightclubs and busses. If Americans could expect our watering holes to be targets of terror when we go to war, we would certainly think differently about going into Iraq.
Many Israelis feel that Iran and Syria are running the show. If they want a new intifada and chaos in Israel, they can make it happen. We are now in a situation where the US is desparately trying to gain control of Iraq and keep Iran from influencing the fighting there (and the US is losing...last week Ahmadinejad was given a red-carpet welcome by Iraq's president. For a fascinating exercise, google "ahmadinejad iraq" to see which country's media is saying what about the visit). The US and the UN are trying to isolate Iran to get it to give up its nuclear program. The US has been seding Condoleezza Rice over to Israel to try and broker a peace agreement--mostly to show the Arab states that it can do more than wreak havoc on the Middle East. Through all of this, I wouldn't be surprised if Iran thought it timely to distract the US and Israel from its nuclear program and meddling in Iraq by letting the shit hit the fan over here.
The security fence that Israel is building roughly (very roughly) along the lines of the 1967 border is meant to stop suicide bombers from getting into Israel, but it is not finished because it faces legal battles over whose backyards get the pleasure of a stunning concrete wall...and it is internationally condemned as some sort of a violation of Palestinian rights. I'm as bleeding-heart liberal as the next granola-eating Birkenstock-wearing Northwesterner, but I fully support this fence. Raising the cry of "collective punishment" is justified when Israel is cutting off supplies to Gaza in an effort to get the population to turn away from Hamas...but impinging on someone's ability to attract Israeli customers in order to prevent civilian deaths is not my idea of hardship.
The Palestinians need to practice creating the infrastructure for an independent state, and they haven't even begun to do so. On the one hand they hate Israel, but on the other hand they are entirely reliant on Israel for jobs and infrastructure. Whatever responsibility was handed over to the Palestinian Authority has been sorely neglected (as an example, in the Gaza Strip last year five people drowned when a neglected sewage pipe burst and left 25 houses completely submerged). This lack of development can't purely be blamed on the occupation, either--there was precious little progress when the Gaza Strip and the West Bank were under Egyptian and Jordanian control, respectively.
The fact is that since the creation of the State of Israel, Palestinians have been the laborers who built the Zionist state. When they started blowing themselves up in the 2nd intifada in an expression of anger at their predicament, Israelis stopped hiring them and started importing workers from Thailand and the Philippines. That's part of the reason why Palestinian unemployment is so high (I'm sure Israeli roadblocks and reluctance on the part of foreign investors has something to do with it as well).
You can accuse me of blaming the victim, but I have to express frustration at the fact that the Palestinian leadership has encouraged nothing but corruption or radicalism in its people. And those are the choices we see today: Fatah is corruption. Hamas is radical Islam. The majority of Palestinians--people who would like to see their economy rise from the death throes and would like to see its sewers fixed and would like to see the billions in international aid used properly--are a silent majority.
It is also true that the majority of Palestinians do not believe in the two-state solution. It might be called "refugee syndrome," but many are still holding on tto the idea that those who were born inside Israel will one day be able to return to their homes. Israel is able to consider some sort of restitution for displaced families, but letting waves of Palestinians return would disrupt the demographics and make Israel no longer a Jewish state. The Arab leadership has done the Palestinians a deep disservice by letting them think that is ever going to happen. It won't. I'm not justifying Israel's action in kicking them out of their homes in the first place. Many Zionists soften this hard fact a bit by saying the Arab leaders told the population to leave their homes--so theoretically the Israelis swept across a country of mostly-empty houses. I really don't care how it happened--the end result is that Israel stands where a bunch of Arab villagers once were. And that's not very pleasant to talk about when one is trying to be an enlightened democratic government justifying 2000 years of hideous treatment in the diaspora. But the fact is that it happened, and Israel isn't giving it back.
The Arab world has held up Palestine as a bargaining chip for years--but aside from funding terrorism, it has devoted precious little resources to giving these people that it claims to care so much about a decent standard of living. Nobody wants them--Egypt wouldn't take back Gaza and Jordan wouldn't take back the West Bank. America sends over its Secretary of State for some doomed peace talks any time we want to show the Arab world we are willing to work a bit for the extra oil. All this is highly convenient for everyone in the international community except for Israel and the Palestinians.

Wow, this turned into quite a rant. I must have absorbed some of the patented Israeli cynicism through osmosis. It is extremely frustrating to be here and see Israel once again in an impossible situation--inevitably condemned by the international community and inevitably sacrificing the lives of scores of its young men and women.

On a lighter note, we were discussing this very subject in Hebrew class today. My 72 year-old teacher told us she was talking with some of her friends from the good old days. She was lamenting this very difficult position they find themselves in. Her friends laughed and said, "Hannah, don't you remember? It used to be much worse! Remember when they used to throw hand grenades through people's windows at night? Remember all the young mothers used to have to pack rifles when they went out with their kids to play? This is nothing! We'll get through this!"

And so they will.

Toasty

2008-03-07T01:31:00.000-08:00

Well, if earlier I said the situation here was heating up, now it's getting downright toasty. There have been several riots in Arab East Jerusalem, including an attack on two meter maids. On Thursday, a gunman from East Jerusalem (I'm not sure if he is Palestinian or an Israeli citizen) killed 8 yeshiva students in Jerusalem. I am in one of the safest places in Israel--I am in a very backwater little town and it's unlikely anything will happen here. And I'm certainly taking precautions about my travel plans. I hope you are doing well!!! Much love from the holy land!!!

Hadassah Hospital + pictures

2008-03-05T09:32:00.001-08:00

On my way back from Haifa, I decided to stop in Jerusalem to visit my friend Melissa who needed to see a doctor at Hadassah hospital about a persistent health issue. As it turned out, she needed to be hospitalized, so we spent the next 11.5 hours experiencing the joys of the Hadassah emergency room. It was much like any other emergency room (heinous), but with far better people-watching. Melissa wasn't in any pain, so we were able to take advantage of the opportunity. Jerusalem is a very religious city; unsurprisingly, Hadassah is primarily patronized and staffed by religious Jews. Most of the doctors wore kippot and many of the nurses had their hair covered. The patients ranged from ultra-Orthodox Hassidim to Ethiopians to, well, me and my future-lesbian-rabbi friend. We were strangers in a strange world.

In addition to the orthodox, as we were sitting in the delightful lavender emergency room recliners (and yes, they reclined!) in the exam room, suddenly eight Israeli soldiers came in escorting a handcuffed man. The man was obviously Arab and obviously in a hell of a lot of trouble. They put him in the same room as us, two lavender recliners away. The woman between us and Mystery Arab was a hip young Russian woman. She turned to the soldiers and asked the equivalent of, "Who is this guy, why is his face bashed in, and why did you have to put him next to me?" They were trying to be discreet, but being about 20 years old, they couldn't resist telling her that he had attacked several soldiers earlier. He obviously came off the worse for it. That was about 5pm. Mystery Arab was still in the ER just like the rest of us when I finally left the hospital at 1:30 in the morning. The picture of the soldier reading Harry Potter was one of his very bored guards.

As it turns out, Melissa has to return home for surgery. It is not an emergency, but it would be unwise to let it become an emergency. Intellectually I know she's making a good decision and will be pampered back to health by her parents...but I. DON'T. WANT. HER. TO. LEAVE. WAAAH. I will be very sad to see one of the only bastions of intelligence and sanity leave WUJS!!

Here are pictures of my journey through Haifa. The last ones are of me and Mel in Hadassah. Enjoy!

Haifa Weekend

So much has happened...

2008-03-04T11:39:00.000-08:00

At a certain point this week, it became an almost ridiculous proposition to update my blog with all that has happened. But before I get into all that, let me answer some questions posted by one of my friends. Her words are in italics.

Kate, where does Hamas fit into this paradigm? Are they anti-Zionist or anti-Semitic, or both? I have a vague idea from having done a little reading that anti-Jewish sentiment in the region was devoid of anti-Semitism until World War II, when Hitlerites introduced those concepts on a wide scale.

Hamas in its mission statement does not recognize the Jewish state and wants to push all the Jews into the sea. They are clearly anti-Zionist.
It is true that historically Jews in Arab countries have fared better than Jews in Christian countries, though they certainly had their share of troubles. I think part of the confusion is that the concept of anti-Semitism is a product of the modern era. Before that time, it was anti-Judaism. The hatred was directed against the religion; if someone converted, they were for the most part accepted into the larger community.
I don't know anyone who thinks Hamas is not anti-Semitic as well. It is part of their propaganda techniques. These are the same folks who brought you the Palestinian version of Sesame Street, which teaches children that Jews are like apes and pigs and it is good to die as a suicide bomber.

Also, are there any anti-Zionists among Israelis?

There certainly are. Some Arab-Israelis are anti-Zionist, as are some ultra-Orthodox who believe the state of Israel can only be created at the hand of the messiah.

And what is your opinion on the Carter book with apartheid in the title? That created a huge controversy here.

I think the Carter book brings up several good points, but the comparison is unfair. Apartheid policies to systematically subjugate blacks is not the same as a situation where the population in power is fundamentally scared of the people they are mistreating. In my experience, most Israelis are a little racist, but in general, only slightly more so than Americans are towards African Americans or Hispanics. In fact, from the point of view of the secularists, there is far more venom directed towards the ultra-Orthodox than the Arabs. Considering Israel's historical context, I can't imagine a people--and certainly not the American people--behaving any more nobly than the Israelis have done.

And now on to what is happening here...

It seems things are starting to heat up in Gaza. As I mentioned many times earlier, it is only a matter of time before Israel mounts a major ground incursion into Gaza. Thousands of rockets have been falling on the town of Sderot and surrounding areas--and as Hamas gets better at making rockets, they are now starting to hit Ashkelon (where I was during the last break). The Israeli government is under heavy pressure from civilians to do something about the insufferable situation in Sderot. What is holding them back? They are reluctant to get into another big war after Lebanon went so badly, they don't want to jeapordize the fragile Bush peace process, and they don't want to face the inevitable international condemnation when they kill scores of civilians.

On Wednesday, a rocket hit and killed a student in a Sderot college. Since Wednesday, 77 Palestinians have been killed On Saturday, 45 rockets hit Israel. Two IDF soldiers, both 20 years old, were killed in clashes with Hamas. 5 more soldiers were wounded. 6 civilians were wounded in Sderot. From the Jerusalem Post:

"The IDF, which sent troops, tanks and aircraft after Gaza rocket squads, said it only attacks rocket-launching operations, but noted that terrorists sometimes operate within civilian areas."

Hamas announced today that school would be cancelled tomorrow. One way to look at this is that mothers want their children home safe. My friend Lotem mentioned that it could also be a tactic to increase civilian deaths.

There is a lot of unrest amongst the Arab population, both in the Palestinian territories and Israeli Arabs. As a precaution, most Western groups that visit the West Bank as part of their mission (Rabbis for Human Rights, Encounter program, etc) are postponing all events in the West Bank. It's still very unclear whether this unrest will have any long-term implications. Here's a link to an interesting article on the subject (FYI, an MK is roughly the equivalent of a senator): Arab Israelis say, "Stop the Zionazi"

I spent the weekend in Haifa, the very north of the country, visiting my friend Lotem. Translation for Mom: I am far away from the action. Very far. We visited her home in Naharia at the very north of the country and had Shabbat dinner with her parents, visited the border with Lebanon, saw a field of previously endangered flowers and took a lot of pictures, ate at a famous local Romanian restaurant (in case you're wondering, Romanian food is gross), toured the stunning Baha'i gardens, and had a fun sushi dinner with another mutual friend, Revital. We had a great time. I'll post pictures later.

Between a rock and a hard place

2008-02-27T10:24:00.000-08:00

I need to write about a subject that I have been neglecting because it is so difficult to conceptualize. Today in class we had an excellent exercise that really helped me to clarify my thoughts. Steve Israel is our resident Jewish-History-and-Academic-Reading-of-the-Bible-and- All-Things-Secular-and-Intellectual teacher here at WUJS. He is an extremely tall balding Brit who looks like he not so much stopped being a hippie as gave himself a slightly shorter haircut. He is a fantastic teacher. He started by writing a word on the board:

"Anti-Semitism."

He asked us to talk about our own experiences with anti-semitism. Some of us had concrete examples, but for the most part we hemmed and hawed and said it is not a major influence in our lives, whether we are from the US, England, or Russia. We experienced more outright ignorance or tokenism than hatred or violence. We know anti-semitism exists, we know it was much worse for our grandparents and certainly before that, but it remains a strangely nebulous concept. Then he wrote another word on the board:

"Anti-Zionism."

En masse, we all said, "Yeah, of course people are anti-Zionist!" Across America, particularly in college campuses, there are people who are actively and sometimes threateningly anti-Zionist. They are not exclusively Arab students...there are large contingents of "Free Palestine" activists that are extremely diverse, most containing some Jews. In the Arab world, being against "the Zionist regime" is almost taken for granted. And in Europe, which has witnessed a huge influx of Arab immigrants, the population is overwhelmingly anti-Israel to the point that the BBC has gained a reputation of being a bit like FOX news on this issue.

So the question becomes: to what extent does antisemitism and anti-zionism overlap?

There are some things that I, as an American Jew, know: Israel has done many things, particularly with regards to the occupation, that most of the international community decries. Israel has no easy way out of the occupation and for the most part would get out if it could. Israel's support amongst American Jews is waning in my generation and many feel embarrassed when trying to explain or defend the actions of Israel to non-Jews. Israel's enemies have tried multiple times to wipe out the Jewish state through wars among nations, terrorism, media manipulation, and international diplomacy. Israel is held to the standard of western democracies while its enemies are not. Israeli Jews are for the most part very different from American Jews. I, as an American Jew who has not lived through the wars, attacks, or Holocaust, have no business feeling morally superior or telling Israel what to do.

This is my internal monologue and it very much influences my beliefs: I in no way want to condone everything Israel has done, but I do feel the need to support the Israelis, whom I have come to know as a deeply introspective and passionate people with wildly differing political beliefs and motivations. I do want to defend the right of a Jewish country to exist in Israel roughly along the boundaries of the 1967 borders. I might disagree with former President Jimmy Carter's characterization of Israel as apartheid South Africa, but I don't think it's inappropriate. I am against antisemitism but I don't worry about it on a worldwide scale nearly as much as most Israelis think I should.

Those are my thoughts about Israel and Zionism, which are inextricably tied up in my thoughts about where and how antisemitism exists in our modern world. I am against antisemitism (obviously) but in most situations I can understand if someone is anti-Zionist. I oppose the anti-Zionism that says Israel as a country should not exist, but I can empathize with the anti-zionism that says Israel has horribly mistreated several generations of Palestinians.

As a Jew, I would like to think that most people who fiercely disagree with Israel's policies would be able to differentiate that from believing that Israel should cease to exist--although coming from a Palestinian I could understand that point of view. I would also like to think that person could differentiate political opposition from anti-semitism. However, that is clearly not the case.

These are two cartoons that were published relatively recently. The first one is from Bahrain from 2002. The second is from a very main-stream centrist British newspaper, the Independent, from 2003. In it, the caption reads, "What's wrong? You never seen a politician kissing babies before?" It depicts Ariel Sharon (former Prime Minister) of the Likud party eating a baby while Israeli tanks destroy Palestine in the background and chant, "Vote Sharon! Vote Sharon!"

These are just two examples of an amazing breadth of anti-Zionist political cartooning. The cartoon from Bahrain strikes me as a normal, acceptable type of political cartooning. It is certainly anti-Zionist and has a clear political opinion. One could claim that depicting Israel as a stereotypical orthodox Jew is antisemitic, but I don't find it threatening. The second cartoon clearly refers to the blood libel. (If you're unfamiliar with blood libel, here's a link to an article by wikipedia: blood libel) It is not only anti-Zionist, but anti-semitic as well. It is completely inappropriate and damaging, even more so because it ran in mainstream media. Some other cartoons that I couldn't find online depict Israelis as Nazis (not a new accusation by any means) or as putting Palestinian children through what looks like a pasta maker and drinking their blood. Contrary to the misconception, these are certainly not exclusively from the Arab world.

So if there are lines being crossed between being against Israel's policies and being anti-semitic, what can be done? Many American Jews certainly find themselves between a rock and a hard place. When the issue is discussed within Jewish communities, there is usually a pro-Israel bias and outrage against anti-Zionism is lumped together with outrage against anti-semitism. American Jewry as a whole are in a state of transition and confusion with respect to Israel. Half of us don't know what we think, much less what we should advocate for. If the issue of how we feel about Israel is so convoluted, how can we expect to express a united opinion against this new kind of anti-semitism?

Is orthodox feminism like military intelligence?

2008-02-26T12:15:00.000-08:00

Today's field trip was intense and fascinating. We were learning more about the intersection of the religious and secular world in Israel. We met with a member of the orthodox feminist movement, visited the only Queer advocacy group in Jerusalem (although there are plenty in Tel Aviv), and watched several short films produced by the country's only orthodox film school.

I found the orthodox feminist speaker the most interesting. Her name is Dr. Aviva Cayam. She showed up with her hair covered with a big hat, wore an oversized bright purple sweater, and sported hysterically cool oversized brown cargo pants. She appears to be in her 50s or 60s and is extremely articulate.

First, some background. Orthodox Judaism has a reputation for being very patriarichal and unequal towards women. I certainly feel like a lesser member of society when banished behind the mechitsa (barrier to separate men and women), not allowed to sing in synogogue (because a woman's voice might tempt the men), and not allowed to become a rabbi.

Not everyone feels that traditional Judaism is misogynistic--those people primarily being the orthodoxy themselves. Women are regarded as being inherintly more spiritual beings than men. Following that reasoning, women don't NEED to read from the Torah in the synogogue, be counted in a minyan (10 men must be present for prayers to be held), or take part in other aspects of public religious life. Unlike much of the rest of the world, in Judaism women were never the property of their husbands. A woman can never be forced to have sex against her will, even within marriage. And women have always had the right to work outside the home (sometimes this is a necessity, as when their husbands are studying Torah all day).

The battle that is being waged has very clear boundaries, although they are extremely complicated for an outsider to decipher. First, you have to understand the nature of Jewish law. There is the written law (the Torah and other holy writings.) Second, there is the oral law which was supposedly also given to Moses on Sinai and then passed down through the years by various rabbis. It was codified into the Talmud. Basically, the written law is the big cheese not to be messed with at all, and the oral law is a fluid set of laws that can be argued about. Legal precident is a big deal (ever wonder why there are so many Jewish lawyers?).

Some things are outright prohibited (eating pork or lighting a fire on Shabbat, for example). Some things are required (men must produce children). Some things are not required but encouraged (women having children). Some things are not forbidden by law but not outright permitted (MTV or lesbian sex). Some things are required for men but optional for women (wearing a prayer shawl). For orthodox feminists, they are interested in the things that are not outright forbidden but, due to cultural reasons, are no longer done by women. They comb the texts for examples of Jewish women giving sermons, being kosher butchers, or wearing prayer shawls.

Now just when I thought I understood all the intricacies, Dr. Cayam threw in a few more levels. In Jewish law, when something is optional but a critical mass of people feel it is necessary, it becomes obligatory. For example, there is no law saying that Jewish men should wear a kipa (yarmakule or skullcap), but you won't find a religious Jewish man without one. In the same sense, women who want to "be better Jews" by following more of the Jewish law run up against opposition by other orthodox women. These women have a lot of children, most are the sole breadwinners in the family, and they frankly don't have the time or energy for additional obligations. The idea of "live and let live," letting the women who want additional responsibility have it and letting others stay the way they are, is an idea that simply does not work for the orthodoxy. If the feminists believe in live and let live, it weakens their position. If a woman truly believes it is a powerful blessing to perform additional duties, then logically she should want all women to do it.

In Israel, orthodox feminism has focused on two spheres: religious education and legal issues. Dr. Cayam pointed out that in America, Jewish feminism has focused on the public sphere, specifically prayer services. Even if one works within the framework of "permitted but not done," such as reading from the Torah in public prayers or giving a sermon, they have met with fierce opposition. Many women are extremely frustrated and find they cannot both be part of the orthodox movement and the feminist movement.

Partially in response to the American approach, Israeli Orthodox feminists have focused on the private sphere. There is the belief that anything fought for in the public sphere has some element of egoism and self-interest, whereas things in the private sphere have a purer intention. These women have argued for studying the Talmud (Jewish law). Orthodox women almost never receive a formal educacation in Jewish law--even though it is their responsiblity in the family to pass on Judaism to the next generation. Many orthodox men object, but others don't see the harm in women learning the rules of their own religion. Many have become Talmud educators, all within the orthodox sphere--and it has been a big success. Fighting to learn Jewish law has had massive advantages when dealing with the legal sphere.

Keep in mind that even though parts of Israel are modern, part of the developed world, and players on the world sphere, much of Israeli family law is governed by the ultra-Orthodox, grounded in documents that were written thousands of years ago. No other society I know of--not British, not Chinese, no one--relies on laws that are that old. Regardless if you are religious or secular, in Israel you obey the orthodoxy when it comes to family law. This includes weddings, divorces, inheritance, and other similar matters. So you can parade around in assless chaps all over Tel Aviv or never set foot in a synagogue in your whole life, but on the day of your wedding it will be presided over by an orthodox rabbi.

First, a success story: under Jewish law, sons and daughters should not inherit equally. However, the government of Israel takes the position that progeny should inherit equally. Because this is a Jewish country, one cannot simply disregard a Jewish law. So in Israel, wills can be written that "gift" equal portions of an estate to their children. It's similar to how some Americans try to get out of paying estate taxes by deeding or gifting things to their kids.

Now, one of the big problems: under Jewish law, a woman cannot get a divorce unless her husband grants it. However, you cannot force a man to get a divorce or it is invalid. This has been a big problem for years--men disappear for whatever reason (accidents, MIA in the army) or outright refuse to grant a divorce, and there's nothing the woman or the state of Israel can do to grant that woman the right to remarry. The husbands who outright refuse present a particularly frustrating problem. Maimonides, one of the most famous Jewish scholars, advocated beating the crap out of a man until he agreed to a divorce. His argument is that a man isn't just holding a woman hostage, not letting her remarry or move on with her life, but he is holding the entire community hostage.

In Israel, they don't beat the crap out of people, but they can take away a man's money and chuck him in prison until he grants a divorce. Even at that point, some men still refuse, so there is a small population of women in Israel who are really at a loss as to what to do. The feminists took a very creative approach to this dilemma--they can't change Jewish law, but they can advocate that women ask for a pre-marital agreement in which the power of granting a divorce is turned over to the Jewish courts. Again, because they studied their Jewish laws, these women have precidents. Apparently, King David ordered all of his soldiers to write declarations that if they didn't return home within a certain period of time, their wives are automatically granted a divorce. And if it's good enough for King David, hell, it's good enough for Joe Shlomo.

Further reading suggested by Dr. Cayam: Tamar Ross, "Expanding the Palace of Torah."

Hodge Podge of pictures

2008-02-24T11:28:00.000-08:00

Here is a collection of pictures from the last couple of weeks. This photo delightfully says "Be a good person, clean up afterward." The literal translation is "Be a son of Adam." This photo cracks me up.

This picture was taken by my extremely talented friend Melissa Packer on one of our many walks through Arad. She's doing a photography exhibit next month.

In the same exhibit my friend Ilya is showing a portrait he's painting of me as one of a series. He won't let me see it until the show...but I'll try to get a picture of it to post!

Here's a link to the rest of the recent photos. The first are from my vacation in Ashkelon with Catie's cousins. Then are photos of my birthday weekend and meeting with Rabbi Will and the Seattle crew. Then my friend Sarah and I discovered a great park close to her house.

Birthday Fest-o-rama

The never-ending weekend

2008-02-23T01:45:00.000-08:00

I had a wonderful, fantastic, exciting couple of days!

Tuesday night: Learned how to work hair straightener. Am now quite glamorous.

Wednesday: Went to Hebrew class. Took a bus up to Tel Aviv to celebrate the birthdays of me and my friend Jane. Delicious Mexican food. Equally delicious walk on the beach with an old friend.

Thursday: Walked down the oh-so-trendy Diesengoff Street and Sheinken Street with my friends Jane and Melissa. Mucho people-watching a la "Do you think she's going to break her ankle in those stilettos?" Took life into own hands by taking the bus to Jerusalem with a crazy driver who thought he was operating a lamborghini. Accompanied my friend to her AA meeting. Went to the "Def Jam Pardes Open Mic" house party. Attended by many fuzzy rabbinical students and hipsters. Hugely talented people and entertainment ranging from original songs to poems to raps about Jewish law. Yeah, they were big nerds. Yeah, I fit right in. Crashed at a friend of a friend's house on a smelly smelly futon. It was smelly. And cold.

Friday: Wandered over to the King Solomon hotel where my rabbi from back home was leading a group of Young Jewish Leaders. Had a great lunch with some friends, then praying at the Western Wall for Kabbalat Shabbat, then back to the hotel for a delicious Shabbat meal. Serenaded by two men who used to be in the IDF (army) choir. Enjoyed the post-funk and watched everybody get drunk. Crashed at my friend Sarah's.

Saturday: Totally chill day with Sarah. I'll take the Haredi (ultra-orthodox) bus home tonight when Shabbat is over (no public transportation on Shabbat).

I have a bunch of pictures, but I'll post them when I get back to Home-Sweet-Absorption Center.

Happy Birthday to Me!!!

2008-02-19T10:35:00.000-08:00

Much like my Christmas in the West Bank, I spent my birthday on an army base! Today the topic of our tiyul (tour) was the army. Last evening we listened to three reserve soldiers, this morning we went to the Israeli equivalent of West Point, and this afternoon we met with a representative of Yesh Gvul, a group that opposes serving in the army on ideological grounds.

Israel is at its heart a military society. Both men and women are drafted as soon as they graduate from high school. By law they are required to serve in active duty (3 years for men, 2 for women) and be in the reserves (2 months a year) until they are 45 years old. For people who cannot or will not serve, there is also something called "Shirut Leumi," literally "Service (to) People," which is a year of volunteering in social service. Shirut Leumi is popular with Israeli Arabs, religious people of all religions, and people who have physical impediments to serving. Originally there was no need to enforce the draft because the social stigma of not serving was more than sufficient; however, increasingly there is a population of Israelis who choose not to do either army service or Shirut Leumi. There are a myriad of reasons for this: Israel is the foremost military power in the region so people don't feel there is as much of an existential threat to its existence; the majority of military effort now goes to dealing with the occupied territories, which is ideologically problematic at best; Israel is more economically prosperous so people feel less inclined to give up several years of their life when they could be educating themselves for well-paying jobs; and, as one reservist claimed, there are huge waves of immigrants who did not grow up in Israeli culture and do not see serving as obligatory (although the numbers don't necessarily support this last claim).

The three reservists were the most interesting to me. We spoke with one man who used to work as a bodyguard and now is in special forces. He's married to our secretary and he's as big as a house. "They give us a picture of him and his family, tell us where he probably is staying, and we try to capture him. If we can't, we kill him." Another panelist was our maintenance guy Arnon, who seemingly helps with border crossings and has a much less hands-on post. And lastly, we talked with a man who had been an air force navigator during his active duty and now works in air force intelligence identifying houses or cars that need to be bombed (part of Israel's policy of targeted killings of terrorist leaders or rocket launchers). He said that when he was a navigator, all he needed to worry about was successfully bombing the target. Now in his new post he has to make very complex decisions about where a terrorist is likely staying and trying to minimize "collateral damage." All three of them have widely varying jobs but each definitely feels that Israel is still in danger and it is their job to personally protect the country.

The next morning, we visited the Israeli West Point. We spoke with several soldiers who are training to be officers. Perhaps because they are so much younger (18-20 years old) and don't have the hindsight to fully process their experience, they weren't as interesting to talk to. They all feel proud to be training to be officers and feel that it is their duty to defend their country. Because they are in active duty, they are prohibited from talking about politics (but the reservists can.) In case you're wondering, the base looked like a concrete monstrosity out of Soviet Russia.

Lastly, we talked to a representative from "Yesh Gvul." "Yesh" means "there is" and "Gvul" can either mean "limit" or "border." So the name simultaneously means that there is a moral limit to what Israel can do and we need to recognize that there is a border between Israel and Palestine. The group is radically leftist. It began as a support group for soldiers who would not serve in the occupied territories because they could not condone the violence perpetrated by the army or the occupation in general. They believe that a two-state solution is mandatory and that Israel should negotiate with whoever will talk to them, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, two organizations that ideologically refuse to recognize Israel and believe all the Israelis should be pushed into the sea.

Some background: When Hamas won elections in the West Bank and Gaza a few years ago, Israel (with the support and urging of the United States) refused to recognize their leadership unless they renounced violence and recognized Israel. They refused, so Israel cut off all foreign aid and wages to Palestinian Authority workers. The occupied territories limped along for quite a while until Hamas very reluctantly agreed to a power-sharing agreement with Fatah, the more moderate (and corrupt and endlessly bolstered by Western powers) party. With Fatah technically in power, the aid came back and people got paid. However, Hamas and Fatah couldn't agree on a more permanent power-sharing agreement and violence broke out. Eventually, Hamas defeated Fatah in Gaza, leaving the territories essentially under two different governments. Especially given that Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005, the Hamas takeover there means that Israel has no diplomatic inroads for getting Gaza under control and getting the rockets to stop falling on Sderot (or blowing up the border crossings). When--and it's definitely when, not if--Israel has to go back into Gaza to try and rein it in and stop the bombings, it will be a massive, ugly, costly incursion with very dubious results.

So these are the guys Yesh Gvul wants Israel to be negotiating with. Even when Hamas had a real shot at control over the occupied territories, it still would not renounce violence or recognize Israel. I have a hard time believing it would do so if Israel came hat in hand. I think it is a testament to Israeli democracy (for Jews) that a group like this is tolerated. Not only do they support "refuseniks," as the conscientious objectors are called, they also publicly call for trying upper level Israeli officers for war crimes. Needless to say, in the political arena they sometimes find themselves with strange bedfellows--other people who call for trying Israelis for war crimes tend to not like Israel or Jews very much. All of my skepticism aside, I do think it is a positive thing that this organization is out there presenting an alternate understanding of the occupation.

For more information about Yesh Gvul, here is a New York Times op-ed piece written by their chairman:

Saying No to Israel's Occupation

It is critical to understand the toll that military life has taken on Israeli society. Whereas America has only had two attacks on our soil since the Civil War (Pearl Harbor and 9/11), Israelis have been living in varying states of danger since before the beginning of the state. Between military service, suicide bombings, missiles from Saddam's Iraq, and rockets in Sderot and all along the Lebanon border, Israelis have one of the highest rates of PTSD in the world. America is condemned for the invasion and occupation of Iraq and that was perpetrated by the world's largest superpower and has lasted thus far for only four years. Israel was not always powerful militarily, it is vehemently opposed by most Arab nations, and it has been occupying Arab territory since 1967. The condemnation of Israel is 100 times that of the United States. An example (from wikipedia): From 1967 to 1989, in the UN General Assembly, 429 resolutions against Israel were passed, and Israel was condemned 321 times. Even many American Jews feel embarrassed in trying to defend "their people."

The majority of Israelis were either affected by the Holocaust or kicked out of Arab countries during the inception of the Jewish state. That fact, combined with a backdrop of continued anti-Semitism in many parts of the world (see France and England, not to mention the Arab world) means that most Israelis continue to feel persecuted. On top of that, most personally know someone who was killed in battle or a terrorist attack. They are internationally condemned for taking part in an interminable, abominable occupation that is not easily solved. They have the very human reality of needing to make ethical choices while serving in the armed forces. It is completely unsurprising to me that some Israelis would shroud themselves in patriotism, others would refuse to serve, others would turn to religion, and others would lose themselves in the pubs of Tel Aviv. Israel is an extremely passionate, factionalized society. Yet at the end of the day, most Israelis do serve in the armed forces and most do so with a deep sense of ethical responsibility both as citizens and humans. It is astonishing to me that this society has done as well as it has, all things considered.

Quick update

2008-02-14T02:28:00.000-08:00

I've been spending the past week in Ashkelon helping my friend Catie babysit her 4 cousins. It's beein incredibly, magically, amazingly relaxing. Basically, I've spent the last five days baking, reading, playing cards with the kids, and showering the cute little dog with attention. I took a few pictures which I will post later.

But...my friend Jane just sent me a great set of pictures she took. In Tel Aviv, much like in London and every large American city, graffiti has become something of a medium for social commentary. Of course there's the old standby of swastikas and spray-painted penises if one is experiencing writer's block...but those aren't included in this set. I really love her pictures...you should take a look:

Jane's Tel Aviv Pictures

Also, Mom told me that the philosopher I misnamed "Buba" is actually Martin Buber (1878-1965), a Jewish-Austrian-Israel philosopher. I did a bit of research and he turns out to be an interesting person. My favorite quote:

"A person cannot approach the divine by reaching beyond the human. To become human, is what this individual person, has been created for."

I also came upon some of his correspondence with Gandhi which is fascinating. If you've ever wanted to hear a pacifist justification of the state of Israel, this is it. He died before the Palestinian occupation began--so I wonder what he would say now.

Letter to Gandhi

Well, that's all for now!

Forum with Bereaved Families

2008-02-07T07:44:00.000-08:00

So I've been meaning to post about this for a while. A few weeks ago we went to a forum with members of the "Bereaved Families" group. These are Jews and Palestinians who have lost loved ones to terrorism on both sides. They feel that their status as "bereaved" helps them to cross borders and communicate with others. We met with two people, an elderly Jewish man and a young Palestinian woman. He told about losing his son while he was serving in the IDF. She told about losing her grandmother when she had trouble breathing and the Israeli soldiers wouldn't let her pass through a checkpoint to get to a doctor. She also told about her brother going out to play and being shot and killed by Israeli soldiers. It was an extremely emotional meeting.

The Palestinian woman received most of the "I'm curious..." questions and the Jewish man received the most "how can we let the evil Palestinians do this without retaliating" questions. The woman was very mild and nice and the man was quite fiery. Here are some of their quotes. I wish I had written more of what the woman said, but the man was more memorable as he tried to debunk many of the attitudes of the audience members. (We have quite a few right wing people on our program). The last one is the woman speaking and the rest are his:

"When one just cause meets another just cause, there are two possibilities: there can be tragedy or there can be compromise." --attributed to "Buba," a Jewish philosopher whom I couldn't find on the net.

"When we are talking in Jewish schools, many students would say, 'We already had our Holocaust...we are entitled to do whatever is necessary to secure our safety.' I would tell them that I know something about the Holocaust. I came from there. I am at least as scared as you are. I'm not as scared for myself, but for my children and grandchildren. The thing is what to do with your anger. We have surgically removed the head of every small terrorist organization and rocket builders and still they come. Don't you think we should try another way?
When we visit Palestinian schools, they say, 'What do you expect from us? You've taken our land, our livelihood, you treat us with contempt. How can you be surprised. You refuse to talk to us. When I see my grandfather humiliated at a checkpoint or my sister giving birth behind a rock in an open field, how can you be surprised when some of us turn to terror in despair?' I say to them that i know what it is like to be a young refugee not even able to help my parents. I would ask you...would another rocket or another child blowing himself up bring back your homeland? I would ask you to have patience."

Alex: "We have tried not doing anything as the Quassams keep falling on Sderot. How long can we wait?"
"If I had a solution, I wouldn't be here. I would be in Oslo getting my Nobel Peace Prize. But when we bombed Gaza, the number of rockets increased tenfold."

"During the election, Kerry was a decorated war hero and Bush never left Texas. But Kerry was the one who had to defend his patriotism. The right is automatically assumed to be patriotic."

Shirine the Palestinian woman: "For me, if you do something against a humanity, even it's an organization, even it's a government, it is a terrorism. We don't have to kill each other to make a point."

Also, here are links to some fun photos while I was in Tel Aviv last weekend:

Tel Aviv

The Cherry

2008-02-04T08:10:00.000-08:00

First of all, I'm fine. Israel had its first suicide bombing in over a year in the town of Dimona this morning. Dimona is about 30 minutes from Arad, but luckily Arad is a backwater and unlikely to attract any attention. Here's a link to the article in the New York Times:

Israel hit by first suicide bombing of the year

We've been warned to stay out of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Eilat for a while until they are able to tell if this is a trend or an isolated incident. Luckily, I'd planned a very laid-back vacation for the upcoming week. I'm staying with some friends in Ashkelon and I'll basically spend the break baking (we have access to an oven!!! Woooo!!)

In summary, I'm fine. If there are more bombings, I'll try to post as soon as I can--but I don't know if I'll have access to the internet over the break. In that case, I'll call Mom. So don't panic if you don't hear from me.

Marilyn Manson meets Klezmer

2008-02-01T11:44:00.000-08:00

Use your imagination, if you will:

Picture a ventrilloquist's puppet with a static grinning smile and red cheeks.
...with jerky movements and blinking eyes. Playing the electric base.
...surrounded by an accordian, drums, and a clarinet.
Imagine the accordian and the clarinet engaged in what would otherwise be classic klezmer music...and suddenly the ventrilloquist's puppet starts screaming into the microphone and the drum set goes wild. In the crowd, young men rock up and down to the music. From a distance it looks like they're davening at the Western Wall.
Someone from the audience makes a sound like a donkey. Then a monkey. Then a dog. The ventrilloquest's puppet opens his eyes wide and shushes into the microphone. In some bizarre olive branch, he backwashes into his whiskey sour and gives it to the animal man to finish it off. The clarinet keeps playing in the background.

This was the concert I went to last night. My friend Ana loved it.

Sderot

2008-01-29T10:46:00.000-08:00

Dear Mom,

I'm sorry for not telling you until after the fact that I went to the front lines. But look at it this way--at least I didn't become a war journalist. Now you can rest easy knowing that I will hopefully never be that close to Gaza again! See, isn't that positive?
Love,

Your Daughter

"Front lines" might be a bit of an exaggeration, particularly considering the number of casualties in the occupied territories compared to Sderot. Sderot is a small Israeli town near the Gaza Strip. It has the unique honor of being bombarded by homemade rockets almost every day for the past several years. From Wikipedia:

"Thousands of Qassam rockets have been launched since Israel's disengagement from the Gaza Strip in September 2005. In May 2007, a significant increase in shelling from Gaza prompted the temporary evacuation of thousands of residents. By November 23, 2007, 6,311 rockets had fallen on the city."

There is an early warning system that allows citizens about 15 seconds to get into a bomb shelter before the rocket lands. Bomb shelters are scattered around the city--as bus stops, on soccer fields, in schools, etc. If you walk around your neighborhood and imagine how many bomb shelters would be needed to allow you to get to one within 15 seconds, it is a staggering number. In fact, there are not nearly enough shelters even though they are everywhere. And almost no homes have bomb shelters.

The early warning system has done a lot to help prevent casualties. However, living in constant fear of rocket attacks has left most of the population as trauma victims. And bear in mind that the families of Sderot are not ultra-religious nut-bags who choose to raise their kids under the watchful eyes of snipers in Hebron or Gush Katif. These families are primarily North African, poor, and do not have the financial means to leave. Their mortgages are here and they cannot sell or rent their homes.

Steve Erlanger of the New York Times wrote an interesting piece about Sderot last week. In fact, he was shown around by the same fellow from the Sderot Media Center who showed us around today. Here's a link to his article:

At Gaza's Edge

It was fascinating to see the city. In actuality, it is a beautiful place. It is green and lush, unlike much of the rest of southern Israel. We began by going to a viewpoint overlooking both Sderot and Gaza. Our guide explained that by being closer to Gaza, we were actually safer because the rockets' trajectory makes them more likely to fall on Sderot instead. Later we took a bus tour of the town and went to the police station to view their collection of rockets. There were almost no people in the street. The town is also disproportionately made up of Sephardic Jews and Russians. Much has been made in the local media of the fact that if Sderot were primarily Ashkenazi, the government would not have tolerated the situation for so long.

In actuality, the government is in a horrible position. Since Ariel Sharon's government pulled out of Gaza in 2005, the number of rockets have increased dramatically. Now Israel cannot re-enter Gaza without a full-blown incursion and, likely, reasserting the occupation there. More disturbingly, Israel no longer controls the border with Egypt (the same one that was blown up by Hamas last week). This means that Israel cannot try to stem the tide of weapons flowing from Egypt into Gaza through the border or through the plentiful tunnels that run under the border.

Most people say the question is not whether Israel will re-enter Gaza, but when. No other country in the world has allowed rocket attacks on civilians for years without a major retaliation. I can't even imagine what George Bush would do if Canada suddenly started lobbing rockets on Detroit. The situation is unfair--almost all of the rocket launching sites are among the civilian population. Any attempt by Israel to practice targeted killings is denounced by the international community for its inevitable civilian casualties and because Israel does not arrest them instead and try the suspects in a court of law. (Under international law, on the one hand an occupying power is required to protect the lives of the population being occupied. On the other hand, in a war situation, a country has a right to use deadly force to prevent an imminent threat. So what do you do when that war situation drags on for generations? The western world will certainly have to tackle that question as the "war on terror" shows no sign of abating.)

Because there have not been many deaths due to the rockets (eight people in five years, a stunning number considering their frequency), Israel has a weaker position in trying to defend its citizens. It seems as if the international community takes terrorist tactics as a given but is shocked when Israel resorts to morally questionable tactics (such as their recent food and fuel restrictions in Gaza) in an effort to avoid an all-out incursion resulting inevitably in more civilian and IDF casualties. And needless to say, a major military operation in Gaza would not bode well for the current peace talks.

Here is a link to the photos I took in Sderot, including a picture of a rocket that landed only a few days ago. From the viewpoint, in one of the pictures you can see Gaza. To the far right is Ashkelon, which is considered the next target if they are able to improve their range. You can see the two towers of the Ashkelon power plant, which Islamic Jihad would like to attack if they can reach that far. Ironically, the Ashkelon power plant, in addition to providing power for most of the Negev, also provides 70% of the power to Gaza. On a lighter note, at the end of the slide show are photos from a rock concert I went to with my friend Ori last weekend:

Sderot

I will let the Sderot Media Center have the last word. Here is the fellow who showed us around today answering a question about bomb shelters:

Gaza and God

2008-01-28T08:16:00.000-08:00

To all of my friends who have written to say they are stricken by a winter cold/female problems/joint problems/diet problems/mono/Seasonal Affective Disorder...I hope you are feeling better! And don't worry, I will be by your side for the next dreary, cold, and moldy Seattle winter. We can get pissed and watch porn!!!! Actually I'm quoting, "Love Actually." Since I can't drink and I've never watched porn (unless catching a glimpse of the Paris Hilton video counts), we'll have to settle for a chick flick and soup. "Ten Things I Hate About You" got way better reviews than "Ten Ways To Blow You" anyway.

So...several interesting things happened recently. I'm sure many people saw on the news that Hamas blew up the border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt. Since Hamas wrestled control of Gaza from the Fatah party half a year ago, both Israel and Egypt have closed their borderes to Gaza. Residents of Gaza flooded through the border to buy needed food, fuel, and (apparently) televisions. Israel has a sustained campaign of cutting off supplies to Gaza to make the population put pressure on Hamas so they would in turn put pressure on the terrorist group Islamic Jihad to stop firing rockets at the town of Sderot. Makes sense, right? Well, it didn't work. Israel hass been letting food and fuel enter the area, but it is by no means enough. Israel cut off the fuel last week--and in retaliation, Hamas invited hundreds of women and children to have a candlelight rally to protest the fact that they couldn't turn on their lights. Of course the foreign press ate it up.

Setting aside the issue of Hamas being far more skilled at manipulating the media than the Israelis, Israel's choice of tactics against Hamas was doomed to failure. You can't collectively punish over a million people. However, nobody expected their policy to fail quite so spectacularly. Hamas blew up the border crossing and at first, Egypt did nothing to prevent the residents from escaping. Egypt does not like the Palestinians (during the peace deal between the two countries, Egypt took back the Sinai penninsula but absolutely refused to take back Gaza. The Palestinians tend to incite the Muslim Brotherhood, a group which has been a pain in the Pharoh's tukkus, if you will.) However, Egypt often enjoys being a thorn in Israel's side. Technically there is peace, but Egypt has not been particularly helpful in stemming the tide of weapons and rockets from Egypt into Gaza. When Our Beloved President was visiting Israel, he also went to Cairo to put some pressure on the Egyptians to step up.

Mom called to say she had seen the news and was worried. The Israelis around me laughed to hear my end of the conversation. It is similar to if I were in Seattle and Yakima were on fire. Yes, it sucks to be in Gaza--but I couldn't be in Gaza even if I wanted to.

This past weekend, the members of our program who are in the Land Language and Society track (basically those without enough talent to be in the Arts track an not enough compassion to be in the Peace and Social Justice track) went to Jerusalem to participate in a Shabbaton. A Shabbaton (from the word "shabbat"...aka "sabbath" if you're pronouncing it like an Ashkenazi Jew) is a weekend retreat. In this case, we were meeting with about 100 young Israelis who will be working in Jewish summer camps this coming summer. They brought us in to talk to the Israelis about what Judaism looks like in the United States.

First of all, it is telling that the organizers felt the need to have a weekend summit on the differences in Judaism between the two countries. You would think that Judaism would be fairly similar from country to country, but the differences are striking. In Israel, religious Judaism is completely removed from ethnic Judaism. Most of the secular members of the audience know Jewish holidays and traditions but have only entered a synogogue a handful of times in their lives. Their Jewish identity has nothing to do with religious practice. However, it does have something to do with nationalism. Many people expressed that they feel Jewish because they served their country in the army. That is hardly the case in America--I'm not sure anyone feels more Jewish for having been shipped off to Iraq.

Judaism in the Diaspora is very different--it has to be. America is very different than other Diaspora communities--England and Australia tend to be more conservative and insular, for example--and we are the most "troubling."

There are six million Jews in America. Just last month, for the first time in history, Israel was counted as having more Jews than America. We are a big, politically powerful, rich, assimilated population. To the great dismay of many Jews, we tend to intermarry. Whereas virtually the only expression of religious Judaism in Israel is orthodox, very few American Jews are orthodox. We tend to be conservative or reform. Very roughly, conservative means following tradition and praying in Hebrew but not following all of the Halachic Laws. Reform means praying in English, musical instruments at services, not keeping kosher, meditation, lots of hippie new age stuff, and lesbian rabbis.

In general, Judaism functions differently in the Diaspora. Many people join a synogogue not only because of religious reasons. The synogogue functions as an expression of ethnic identity. My synogogue organizes hikes, speed dating, and classes for engaged interfaith couples. There's a yoga night. Many people, myself included, see the religious aspect of it as something interesting but in some ways secondary. As I explained to the small group of Israelis I was talking to, "You have to envision our synagogues against a backdrop of General Tso's chicken and tacos. We are only one tiny ethnic minority in a big melting pot." To an Israeli, who has grown up surrounded by a Jewish majority, this is certainly not the case.

Most of the weekend was spent explaining American Judaism; however, I did gain some important insight into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. For the most part, the Israelis I have talked to have either been in favor of the two-state solution or very religious and believe that Israel should hold the West Bank for ideological reasons. However, I talked to many Israelis who are not religious but cannot invision a two-state solution working. For them, having two states does not in any way guarantee peace. So what happens if the Country of Palestine fires rockets on Israeli soil or has snipers killing Israeli farmers (both of which have happened here in the last week). Do you invade a soverign country? Nothing in Palestinian history has indicated that talking to the leadership will do any good.

Another point to consider is that Israel is a very very tiny teeny country. If a peace agreement was signed according and the borders were drawn according to the Green Line, Israel would only be something like twenty kilometers wide at the narrowest point. Strategically, that is a very weak point for an army to cut off supply lines. In Jerusalem, the population is built up on both sides of the Green Line--and there is little doubt that many religious Jews would never let Jerusalem be divided. In the light of the current talks, the Shas party (Sephardic religious party) is threatening to pull out of the coalition and take the majority away from Olmert if he doesn't remove Jerusalem from the bargaining table.

Later in the weekend I talked about this with my friend Ori, and he also doubts the success of a two-state solution. These are very pragmatic secular Jews who do want peace--and they do not see a two-state solution as viable. In addition to Muslim fundamentalists and Jewish fundamentalists, Israel also has to clearly address the fears of this part of the population before a peace deal could succeed. I'm feeling a bit disenchanted about the possibilities for peace here.

Ani mitga'aga'at otchem!!

2008-01-24T11:00:00.000-08:00

I miss you all!! I will write a longer post later, but I am sitting at my friend Melissa's computer. We've decided to spend part of the break at "Ashram BaMidbar"--the Ashram in the desert! This may sound like a strange mixing of cultures, but in reality it is so Israeli to be interested in meditation, yoga, Buddhism, etc.
But at any rate, I just wanted to post a few pictures from a recent trip to a shook (market):

http://www.flickr.com/photos/8079388@N08/sets/72157603790107265/

Also, here are some photos from the elderly drop-in center where I volunteer (I teach English):

http://www.flickr.com/photos/8079388@N08/sets/72157603786685272/

By the way, I have no idea why it's not letting me do a direct link...I'm working on an Apple so maybe that has something to do with it...

Visit from the parents!

2008-01-17T07:45:00.000-08:00

Well, I have been taken to task for not updating my blog in the last two weeks...but I swear I have a good excuse! I was touring three countries with my parents!!

Caveat: Under pain of disinheritance, I have been ordered not to poke fun at my parents on my blog :)

Mom and Bill decided to do a marathon trip--they started out in London then flew to Tel Aviv, where they met up with me. We went up to Caesaria, one of the most spectacular archaeological ruins in Israel. It's right on the sea and it was beautiful (if freezing cold). We stayed in a cute little bed and breakfast.

The next day we were going to spend the day at an archaeological dig, but Mom had a cold and was not looking forward to multiple hours digging in the dirt. So we canceled and went to Jerusalem for a few days. We walked along the Via Dolorosa (aka the Stations of the Cross), wandered through the busy markets (where they were selling glow-in-the-dark gigantic rosaries...you know you want one!), toured the Tower of David, and walked to the Kotel for Shabbat evening. After seeing the Kotel, we walked to the home of some relatives for Shabbat dinner. Rachel Deichter, our hostess, is my second cousin's boyfriend's second cousin--which counts as close family if you're a lonely Jew in Israel! Her son is Yonatan, the fellow who gave me a tour of the old city when I first got here. We all had a wonderful time at dinner.

On Shabbat we wandered around the old city some more and then took the Haredi bus to Arad! I sat in the back with Mom and Bill sat up front. The trip was uneventful, but we sure did get a good look at the ultra-orthodox and their gaggle of children, black clothes, black hats, and gigantic black rolling suitcases. As one of my friends once grumbled, "Riding the Haredi bus is enough to make anyone an Anti-Semite."

We stayed in the glorious Arad Absorption Center!! Unfortunately, our maintenance guy forgot to clean the guest room...so in addition to their room being freezing with threadbare blankets, it was artistically decorated with candy wrappers and old food in the fridge. Mom and Bill didn't say much, but they did remark that my experience is obviously "building character!" The next morning, my host father Shlomo picked us up at 4:30 in the morning and drove us to Masada, the site of an ancient city and one of Herod's palaces. We hiked up Masada to see the sun rise over the Dead Sea. Shlomo, who officially gets the Host Father of the Year Award, had prepared a delicious breakfast of cinnamon tea and treats to enjoy as we watched the sun rise. We had the place to ourselves until about 5:30, when it seemed like every tour in Israel decided to climb the mountain to join us. After playing dodge-the-tour for an hour while exploring the ruins, we hiked down the hill and caught a bus to a spa on the Dead Sea. Mom and I enjoyed massages and we all had a good soak in the sea. The ground was covered in salt--and it was sharp enough to cut my feet!

After the spa, we took a bus back to Arad and had an early dinner with Shlomo and his wife Rachel. We had a fascinating discussion about the early days of the state of Israel. Rachel is the daughter of Holocaust survivors. She was raised on a kibbutz that was fairly typical of kibbutzim at the time. After a woman gives birth, she immediately turns her baby over to the "Children House" and returns to work. The staff of the Children House raise the children. Rachel recalls that it was extremely difficult for her mother to hand over her children to the communal Children House--and then she only saw them a few times a week. Rachel would go to her parents' "room" (with communal dining facilities and no kids to raise, there was no need for a house) to visit them. Some children called their parents by their first names. She said that the result of this communist experiment is that she has a very difficult time showing affection. The children adore Shlomo, but they are not as close to her. In many ways, she does not know how to parent because she was never parented herself. I am obviously not her child, but by my observation she is a very kind-hearted, if reserved, woman. I have truly been lucky in my host family here.

After dinner, we took a long bus ride to Eilat, the southernmost city in Israel. The next morning we crossed the border into Jordan and took a taxi to Petra, the site of one of the most amazing human creations in history. Petra was created by the Nabateans. They built huge burial chambers into the sides of mountains. The main processional route into town is the bottom of a deep wadi--with carvings on either side and a water system that helps to store rainwater. You'll just have to look at the pictures--it was stunning.

I was a bit nervous about planning a trip with my parents into an Arab country, so I only scheduled us there for one night. However, the Jordanians were the most friendly, welcoming people. If I had to do it over again, I certainly would have given us more time there. Random people on the street would say, "Welcome to Jordan!" with a big smile. Children were curious about us. Everyone assumed we came from Israel because that's where most of their tourists come from. Particularly considering that Jordan is almost 70% Palestinian, I think it is striking that these people should be so comfortable in their skin and welcoming to people who are obviously foreign and have connections to Judaism. This is also in contrast to Israelis, who at best are cautious and prickly to outsiders (although if they get to know and trust you, they are as welcoming and generous as humanly possible).

In the evening after touring Petra, we went to "Jordan's Kitchen" and learned how to make a traditional Jordanian dinner! We had such a good time--the chef was a real character and very entertaining. We made a lamb and rice dish with fried cauliflower and eggplant. It was delicious--and I will definitely make it when I'm back in Seattle! I realize that we stayed primarily in a touristy part of the country, but I had such a warm feeling from the people there. I would love to go back.

The next morning we saw a bit more of Petra and then crossed the border back into Israel and caught a plane to Tel Aviv. Mom and I had a nice dinner on Sheinken Street--we got to the restaurant just in time for a torrential downpour, which stopped just as we were getting the bill!

The next morning we flew to Cyprus, a little island in the middle of the Mediterranean. The island is divided into two parts--the southern part is Greek and the northern part is Turkish. The island has had its share of security problems, but at present the border is fairly open and peaceful. Nonetheless, Bill didn't feel comfortable being responsible for two women in the Turkish part of the country, so we stayed in the south.

I'm sure Cyprus is a charming tourist trap in the summer, but when we went it was a freezing, expensive, deserted tourist trap. The Cypriotic pound was overvalued when it converted to the Euro, so by the time we got there, everything was about three times what it ought to be in American dollars. A cup of instant coffee was almost five dollars! So we decided to stay in a little suite with a kitchen and we cooked most of our meals. The restaurants were horrible and terrible and awful on my stomach, so I was excited to make some decent food. It was actually very difficult for me to travel in Cyprus. I wanted to be conscious of money for Mom and Bill's sake and I stupidly didn't convert any of my own money into Euros, so that meant I couldn't do what I needed to take care of myself--like buying bottled water or juice to not get dehydrated, buying dried fruit or nuts to supplement dodgy restarant food, or choosing a restaurant that is a little more mid-range because I can't do either fried food or deli sandwiches. I'm realizing that I will have to learn how to travel better--because I ended my stay in Cyprus cranky with an aching gut.

But we did have one very plentiful form of entertainment in Cyprus: trying not to die while driving down the road. Cypriots drive on the left-hand side of the road like Brits. Bill did an admirable job even though he was given a stick shift (seriously, what rental car company rents manuals??)

I left my parents in Tel Aviv and headed back to Arad. They flew to Spain and are touring there for a week. Then they will spend another few days in London and fly home. Mom took some wonderful pictures, but I think the chances of her successfully uploading them are slim to none so you'll just have to be satisfied with mine :) Luckily, there are over 100 in this batch...

Photos of Grand Excursion with Parents

"I hate Bedoins but I like this guy."

2007-12-30T05:44:00.000-08:00

Well, my momma does dance and my daddy does rock and roll...but neither one of them likes to go clubbing until 4am. So in anticipation of my parents getting here, I went up to Jerusalem and had a great weekend.
First I met up with my friend Yaron in Yafo (outside of Tel Aviv) and we walked around. Then I went to Jerusalem to stay with my friend Sarah (also from Seattle). We went out dancing with my friend Ori and his friend Fayid. Fayid turned out to be a really nice guy with an interesting story. As Ori so delicately put it, "I hate Bedoins but I like this guy. He's a really good person." They work together as border guards for the West Bank.
Fayid is from a town near Be'er Sheva. In an earlier blog I talked about the Bedoins not adjusting well to urban living--and about one town where several clans were put together and now are fighting a lot. Fayid is from that town. He was genuinely shocked that I knew the town's history because they've really been trying to keep their problems quiet.
Fayid, like many Bedoins, served in the army. But unlike many Bedoins, he became an officer. He worked very hard. Three years ago in Gaza he was leading his men in a skirmish--five of them were killed and he was severely injured in the leg. He had a very long recovery and even now he has a lot of pain. He was dancing, but after a while he had to sit down (at which point he started making fun of my dancing!). He now is studying economics in a college in the West Bank. Even though he barely speaks English and lord knows I barely speak Hebrew, we were able to communicate pretty well.
We had a lot of fun in the club...it was absolutely packed like sardines. And the next day, Sarah and I ate breakfast at 2pm! Then we met up with her family and walked around Har Herzl, the military cemetary. There's not much else to do on Shabbat...and it was really pretty.
Here is a link to pictures of my weekend:

Fun weekend

Merry Chrismas!

2007-12-25T12:28:00.000-08:00

On Christmas Eve, I was so excited that I couldn't sleep. There were no presents, no Christmas tree, and no mistletoe. I was excited because on Christmas day we went on a tour of the settlements in Israel!

Some background: The settlements are, to say the least, controversial. They are Jewish settlers who have built homes and farms in the West Bank and Gaza. There are many reasons they expose themselves and their children to the dangers of living surrounded by hostile Palestinians--for some, it is a religious desire to settle the traditional land of Judaea and Samaria (West Bank). For others, it is a Zionist urge to have a Jewish presence on as much land as possible. For others, it is because the land in the West Bank is much cheaper. For many, it's a combination of these desires. Many people in Israel view the settlers as fanatics who are actively trying to derail the peace process.
There are still settlements in the West Bank, but two years ago Ariel Sharon decided to unilaterally withdraw from Gaza and remove the settlements there. Unilateral withdrawal means that he removed the Israeli presence without having a political partner in Gaza. There were no peace talks; they just left. And the army came to demolish the settlements, most notably a place called Gush Kativ in northern Gaza. Unilateral withdrawal was seen by many optimists as a way to finally move toward a peace plan. They reasoned that if Israel actively removed barriers to a peace plan before they sat down to negotiations, they would be more likely to be successful. However, since they withdrew, the radical Hamas party has kicked out the moderate Fatah party and absolute chaos has ensued. Gaza is completely sealed off except for some foreign aid. There is not enough food, water, electricity, or medicine. Islamic Jihad, a terrorist organization, fires Quassam rockets at nearby cities daily. The biggest city, Sderot, gets many missiles landing every day. Not many people have been hurt because there is a missile alarm system and everyone runs to the bomb shelters, but it is a big problem and a horrible way to live.

This morning I woke up, put on my Christmas socks (thanks, Roommate!), and got on a bus to the West Bank. We started by going to a settlement called "Susia," which roughly means, "horse-ville." Whilst being nudged by extremely cute baby goats, we listened to a South African man explain why he has chosen to raise his family there. This man and his wife were both graduates of my program, WUJS Arad.
He was an interesting fellow--very passionate and very hard to talk to because he didn't really answer questions directly. He explained that he and his wife both come from Zionist families and they believe that the entire West Bank is Jewish land. On the other hand, he complained that the Palestinians begrudge the settlers their tiny settlements. He said, "It's just a drop in the bucket with all the land they have." He also complained a LOT about left-wing people coming in to, as he said, "Make lots of shtiot [shit] for us here." He said there is an especially troublesome group of rabbis who come in and encourage the Palestinians to fight back in the courts and with violence.
We also spoke with his wife, a very mild-mannered woman who said she feels very secure raising their five children in Susia. She says that it is a quiet community and they don't lock their doors. On the other hand, her children are taught not to interact with Arabs while they are on the settlement or trying to hitchhike into Jerusalem (hitchhiking is very common). She says of course the neighboring Arabs don't like them so even if an Arab appears nice, she is never sure if he or she might harm them.
She also acted as our tour guide in the ancient city of Susia. The city dates from the 3rd to the 9th century CE. There are many archaeologists who would like to do more to prove that the West Bank is the traditional Jewish homeland. In 1978 the remains of a synogogue were discovered, thus firmly establishing the city's Jewish roots. An incredible mosaic floor was unearthed--complete with a Hebrew inscription. The inscription says:
"Remembered for the good and bless(ing)
Who endeavored and made ( )
The se(co)nd of the week (year)
Four thousan(d)
When the world was create(d)
( ) in it may there be peace."
It is believed to be the first written inscription in which the years are counted from the time of Creation. The ruins were amazing--pictures are included below. However, it is worth mentioning that there was evidence of "touching up" around the site--it is to say the least a conflict of interest that the settlers are the ones in charge of caring for this site.
We then took a bus to an area by Ashkelon, which is just north of the Gaza Strip. (Don't worry, it's well out of range of the Quassam rockets). Near Ashkelon we met some of the 8,800 people who had been forcibly evacuated from the Gaza settlement of Gush Kativ. We talked to a French woman who had lived there for eighteen years. She explained that she is a Zionist and that they had been encouraged by many prime ministers to settle in Gaza. Gush Kativ for many years acted as a buffer--they had rockets fired on them and they were exposed to many attacks. Many stayed because of their Zionist beliefs--but it was also much easier to make a living there because they had housing assistance and access to the cheap Gaza work force to work in their fields.
She said nobody believed they would actually be evacuated. She talked about the connection they had with the land as farmers. She says they feel betrayed by a government that first encouraged them, then removed them, then abandoned them. She complained about the fact that over two years later they are still in temporary housing and many were not given land to start farming again.
After speaking to the woman from Gush Kativ, we talked with a man who works for Peace Now, and Israeli anti-settlement organization. He said he is against the settlements because he is a Zionist, (ironically both sides use the same ideology). He believes in a Jewish state and a democratic state. If Israel annexes the West Bank and Gaza, they have two choices--they can either stop having a Jewish state because the population of Israel will be 51% Jewish and 49% Arab, or they can choose to not have a democracy and not give the Arabs equal representation. To put it another way, Israel can only have two of the three: a Jewish state, a democracy, or the West Bank and Gaza. If Israel annexed the West Bank and Gaza and ceased to be a Jewish state, it is likely that the Arab citizens would vote to end the Jewish right of return. Thus the concept of Israel as a safety net for Jews around the world would end.

What was most fascinating for me to realize about this is the way the two groups think. The settlers I met talked about doing their small part to aid Zionism and the Jewish cause. They didn't talk much about how their presence is inciting the Arabs--they focused on the fact that their settlements are small, that they are small people, and they just want to do God's work in Eretz Israel. On the other hand, the left-wing anti-settlement people I've talked with speak in much more macro terms. They talk about the eventual solutions. They talk about the sacrifices Israelis will have to make for peace. They talk in much broader terms. Of course this makes sense if you think about it--very few people would expose their children to the dangers of settlement life if they thought they could exchange a settlement for peace. But the settlers we talked to were very pessimistic about the chances for actual peace with the Arabs. They think in terms of living a life of God and doing what they can to preserve the Zionist dream--not about being an obstacle to an evident solution.
It was fascinating and difficult for me to listen to the settlers. I am firmly in the left-wing camp that believes the settlers are obstacles to peace. Even if peace does not come soon, the settlements are a blatant display of control and animosity. Letting them stay is saying to the Palestinians in the loudest possible way that Israelis are not interested in the kind of sacrifices that are necessary for peace. But the right wing settler movement is very strong politically; as the religious community demographically grows, there is less and less chance that Israel will take action against the settlements in the West Bank. (Also because "unilateral withdrawal" failed so spectacularly in Gaza. They had monumental trouble evacuating 8,800 residents from Gaza--what will they do to absorb the 80,000 Jewish residents of the West Bank?)
I don't believe there is any realistic or humane way Jews can "claim" Judaea and Samaria (the West Bank) for themselves. But I'm not an Israeli, I wasn't raised by Zionists, and I have never been directly touched by a terror attack. Any of those things could change my mind and make me an entirely different person.

Pictures of the settlements and ancient Susiya

Merry Christmas!

A great lift

2007-12-20T12:01:00.000-08:00

So I've had two conversations recently that have really given me a boost. The first was with this fellow Lawrence. He is a total kick. He's a British Jew who was educated in a yeshiva (Jewish Talmud school) and then got a history degree from Manchester University. He's 22 years old, smart as a whip, and doesn't mind everyone knowing it--he regularly corrects the teachers in class or asks random questions about midrash (Jewish law). Most of the time it's cute.
Well, we were at the local pub and we got into this knock-down drag-out argument about the nature of the Torah. I argued that the Torah is a human creation and as such should not be taken literally. This in no way diminishes my joy in Judaism and my blissful agnosticism. He argued that the Torah is a divine document. What was fascinating to me is his classic orthodox argument about proving the Torah's divinity using rational thought.
I commented that he is a man of faith so of course he would believe in the Torah. He got completely offended. He said that faith is a condescending term and his belief in the divinity of the Torah comes entirely from rational deduction. For him, faith only comes in because enough of the Torah has been rationally proven that he feels comfortable accepting the rest.
We talked primarily about one event--the giving of the Torah to Moses at Mount Sinai. He argued that the giving of the Torah by God must have happened because it was witnessed by the entire community. Nowhere else in religious history has a miracle been witnessed by so many people. It's usually mystics or desciples crawling out of caves or having dreams by themselves. In general, to believe a miracle you have to rely on the testimony of a handful of people and form your belief based on how much you trust them. However, because Sinai was witnessed by an entire people, it is unreasonable to believe that it was made up. If it had been made up, someone would have corrected the misconception because we are all descendants of the witnesses.
I of course countered this by saying that creation myths are by definition something that involves a whole people and the fact that the story tells about the entire people of Israel means that the myth was intended to make people feel like a cohesive unit, not that it actually happened. It was also written down without a dissenting opinion, which is shady. Also, the idea of "accurate historical accounts" is a fairly modern concept--one that certainly was not necessarily valued when the Torah was written.
Then Lawrence argued that the Torah could not have been invented by humans because everyone in the Torah has flaws. Normally if the victors write an account, they would present themselves in the most favorable light possible, but most of the protagonists of the Bible have character flaws.
I countered this by saying that when a priestly body wants people to adhere to a set of laws, it is more useful to say "look at how we were imperfect and smited by God and what could happen again if we don't behave" than to say "look at how perfect and great we were back then."
I could contine giving you a blow by blow, but you get the idea. It is fascinating to me that faith could be rationalized...most of my experience with faith is of the Christian variety, which strikes me as being in contrast to rationality. Of course I've never heard a Christian argue for the rational belief in God--most of the people I talk to discuss the belief in God as something that is either present or not. You're either reborn into Christ's image or you aren't. I'm probably wrong about this...and I hope my good Christian friends will correct me if I am. But nonetheless, I am fascinated that rabbinic Judaism, which was solidified during the golden age of Greek and Roman Rationalism, has such a strong rationalist base.

So yay, fun intellectual conversation. The other converstation I had was of a more...spiritual nature. It was a conversation that I was quite hungry for, as it turned out. I talked about having the doldrums and about not being alone in that sentiment. One of my friends here came over for dinner and we talked about what it is like being around such a young, self-absorbed, fundamentally not-like-us group. Several things about our conversation made me very happy. It was nice to talk about how at home, I have a great job that involves being an emotional support to people in distress. The fact that I talk to terminally ill people all day is not a burden for me--for the most part, I get a lot of good energy from being able to be present in that way and help people self-advocate. At home I also have a fantastic, supportive group of friends. The kind that will bring you soup when you're sick. The kind that will help you talk out a problem. The kind that actually know about your personal life and care to ask how you've been. I also have my lovely family, whom I talk to several times a week. But here, I don't have a spiritually fulfilling job. I don't have a wonderful cohesive group of friends. And my precious phone calls from home are few and far between. No wonder I'm not thriving here the way I expected. I am a person who fundamentally likes being of use and being around people who are spiritually present. When I don't have that energy to tap into, I become less of myself. I have been more introverted here than I have been in years. So...all this is to say that I had figured out a good thing in Seattle. I like my life there and this "last hurrah" has done a lot to show me how lucky I am. It is always good to find more reasons to be content. I have always had a bit of a travel bug...so as I settle down into a life that makes sense for me, it's very good to have some concrete reminders that I have made good decisions in my life. That "settle" is not "resignation" to a life of less adventure.
I am still happy that I came to Israel and I am still excited to spend the next few months travelling and exploring. I am glad that my friend and I are working to put a new perspective on our experience of this program.
And my haircut still sucks :) It's a combination of "spunky" and "attacked by a weed-whacker." I'll just have to grow it out...and wear lots of hats in the meantime...

When Paradise is Unappealing

2007-12-16T04:28:00.001-08:00

So many of us on the program, including myself, have reached the mid-semester doldrums. It goes something like this: "Seriously, I have to spend another 3 months in the freezing absorption center taking the same classes with the same hung over idiots? I must be off my rocker."
I spent almost a year preparing to go to Israel. I put my stuff in storage, found a sublet, arranged a leave of absence, got my health insurance sorted out, and did a million other little things in preparation for this trip. I blew a chunk of my savings to spend these five months studying Hebrew and Jewish studies in Israel--the last hurrah, if you will, before I settle down to a mortgage and being an adult. And for the most part it has been an incredible experience. I have seen parts of Israel that I never could have seen on a tour or by myself. I have gotten to know my Israeli host family and my Hebrew teacher and I've seen first-hand what the good part of Zionism looks like. I've wrestled with what it means to be Jewish. I've also had the incredible luxury of examining Israel as a society, warts and all...and it makes me wish I could spend five months exploring America in the same way.
So what happens when you know you're having a great time but somehow you're not? What happens when the doldrums hit mid-adventure?
As most experienced travelers will tell you, almost everyone gets the doldrums at some point during their travels. The food isn't the same. The amazing adventurous people you thought you would meet turn out to be not adventurous at all--and in fact are quite materialistic and cliquey. The gorgeous desert is now freaking cold. And it turns out that to learn Hebrew, you actually have to study.
I talked to a good friend last night and I was surprised at how unhappy I sounded. I consider myself to be fairly resiliant and cheerful. Now, as a good traveler, I have to focus on figuring out how to shake the doldrums and get back to the business of having the time of my life. Yes, this place is wierd and the people are wierd and it's cold and my shower is nothing more than a drain in the floor of the bathroom. But I can deal with all of that. These next three months are a time of fantastic freedom--to take a bus to Eilat and sleep on the beach all weekend, or spend the day in Jerusalem exploring life in the time of Jesus, or go swimming in the Dead Sea.
My parents will be coming for the New Year--it will be good to see them, particularly around the holidays. Together we will see parts of the country that I've never seen before. We're also going to Petra, in Jordan. (If you've ever seen Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, the gigantic palace in the final scenes is Petra. It's carved straight out of the rock.) So you can look forward to many more posts about our adventures!

Why I'm a hopelessly bad Jew

2007-12-13T13:10:00.000-08:00

(This is my favorite picture from the Holla Back Hanukkah Party)

I've been trying to find a good butcher. Most of the stores here in Arad sell meat that looks like it was not only slaughtered under a Rabbi's supervision, but also left outside for several days under a Rabbi's supervision. I've been making my rounds, inspecting the meat, and I finally found a butcher I am pleased with. It's a clean, cute little shop next to the mall and I've bought from them several times. This time, I walk in to buy some beef and I notice big slabs of pink meat next to it. I asked what it is and they replied, "pork."
That's right, ladies and gentlemen, even in Israel I can find the one non-kosher butcher shop! I was also the first one to make a treif (non-kosher) meal in the dorm (I made a curry that had shrimp powder in it). Given that I'm basically doomed, I might as well buy fresh meat :)

In other news, I got my first and last Israeli haircut. I now look like Molly Ringwald. I'll post pictures and you can share the pain :)

Here is a link to photos from Jerusalem week:

Jerusalem Week

By the way, there is one image of a pair of graves just inside the gates of Jerusalem. Legend has it that they were the architects of the walls. When the walls were finished, they were executed so they couldn't give away Jerusalem's secrets.

"You have a mushroom in your vagina" and other musings

2007-12-12T10:15:00.000-08:00

I have come to the conclusion that the bugs of Seattle bear absolutely no resemblance to the bugs of Arad. My immunity, much like the others on the program, hovers somewhere between "bubble boy" and "first year kindergarten teacher." This latest bout of Zionist Plague really took the cake.
Our entire program moved to Jerusalem for the week of Hanukkah. We stayed in a fabulous hotel (it had a bathtub!!!) and went on fascinating tours across the city. On about the third day, I started to feel a bit crappy. I had plans to take my lady-friends to meet some of my cute Israeli guy friends, so I soldiered on (bad idea) and we stayed out until just past one. We got up at 8am and I felt fine, but by the time we bussed to our destination I had a fever.
I bailed on the tour and shared a taxi back to our hotel with a fascinating woman from New Mexico who recently found out that her Catholic anscestors who had settled New Mexico were actually Conversos (Jews from Spain who were forced to convert during the Spanish Inquisition). She also told me of a priest who recently found out he is not only a converso--but a Cohenim as well! (Cohenim, or people with the last name of Cohen, are descendants of the Temple Priests. A gene on the Y-Chromosome can identify a man as a Cohenim.) I really enjoyed talking to her...and as soon as I got to the hotel room, I passed out in my clothes on the bed.
For the next three days I could be found shivering under every quilt in the room. A doctor came by and she said it was just the flu--and to wait it out. Meanwhile, a woman on our program had a serious health problem and was taken to Hadassah for surgery (she is recovering well now that the offending part was removed).
So I missed the rest of Jerusalem week and I had to cancel plans to visit a friend in Haifa over the weekend. I just took the bus back to Arad yesterday.
On the bus I noticed another problem that unfortunately was going to need a doctor's attention. The next morning the problem persisted, so I called our leader and asked her to set up a doctor's appointment for me (note: in terms of actually benefitting one's health, Arad's doctors have only a slightly better reputation than the tobacco companies). The only problem was that all of the female staff were still in Jerusalem and the only person who could translate for me was the maintenance guy! I was mortified.
Luckily, when we got to the clinic, a nurse who could speak English was on duty. She and the doctor tried to patch together what I was saying. At the end of about twenty minutes, the doctor says, "Why did you come see me? I am not a gynecologist." So I went back outside and watched the maintenance guy discuss the problem. In Israeli terms, this means yelling loudly at anyone within earshot. Finally they acquiesced and I was able to squeeze into another appointment.
Raul the gynecologist could speak some English, Hebrew, Spanish, Italian, French, and Russian. None of this translated into any kind of a bedside manner. He had my take off my drawers and climb up on a throne. Women, you know at the gynecologist in America, they drape you with a large piece of blue exam paper so you can at least delude yourself into thinking they aren't staring at your bits and pieces? I never realized how comforting that exam paper is until it became painfully obvious that no such acoutrament was to be used.
The doctor examined me, let me put my clothes back on, and announced, "You have a mushroom in your vagina." Excellent. What he meant by that was that the several days of fever had knocked out any bacteria in my body...the side effect of course being a yeast infection.
The moral of the story: getting sick abroad is more entertaining.

My food...

2007-12-07T10:36:00.000-08:00

So as many of my fair readers know, I was diagnosed with Crohn's Disease shortly before leaving for Israel. Crohn's is an autoimmune disease that attacks your intestines. It can make it difficult to digest food, absorb nutrients, and, well, have a solid poo. Now I'm on some anti-inflammatory medicine that can help, but I also need to be very careful about what to eat. Most people with Crohn's notice that certain foods trigger their symptoms, but to date there is no consensus on what works for every person. There's a woman on my program, Melissa, who was diagnosed with Crohn's when she was 16. Hers was bad for many years, but she found that by avoiding wheat and sugar and processed foods, she is pretty much symptom free.
Luckily for me, a Whole Food diet works well for many people with Crohn's. I'm already a health nut, so this is like a new adventure into fun health food products. Some people have difficulty with a lot of fiber (it can aggravate an already irritated intestinal wall) but I would frankly cry if I couldn't eat fresh fruits and vegetables, and so far that's been okay.
So...what do I eat? I know you've been dying to know. I completely avoid wheat and spelt (which is really just an ancient strain of wheat), I eat very little sugar (including fake sugar), and I avoid cow dairy products. Honey is okay in small doses. Yeast is very bad, as is popcorn and spicy food. Soy products like tofu, as it turns out, makes my intestines very unhappy. Also things with a lot of oil. And caffeine. And also anything that causes gas, like beans, because it's the internal equivalent to stretching sunburned skin. Meat and rice and lentils and cooked veggies and yogurt are all great. And eating out is basically a minefield, so I can usually assume that I will feel like death warmed over after eating out (the only exceptions so far being steak and baked potato or sushi). So...it's been difficult to figure all of this out. My stomach has been basically upset for the last year and a half. I couldn't remember what a normal bathroom experience was like. As I went on meds and cut out the wheat and sugar, I started noticing all the other things that irritated my intestines.
Needless to say, I'm thrilled to be figuring this out. The more I figure out, the less I will irritate my intestines. The less I irritate my intestines, the less chance I will have to eventually switch to a more powerful medication. The less I change my meds, the less harmful side effects I will have and the less chance that I will eventually need a more invasive procedure like removing part of my intestines, which happens to many Crohn's patients.

Here's basically what I eat every day:
Breakfast--oatmeal with dried fruit. Herbal tea.
Lunch--a boiled egg, a cucumber, a tomato, a can of tuna fish, and rice cakes (at the dining hall because I can't eat anything else they serve)
Dinner--I make dinner myself. Sometimes I make homemade pasta sauce (almost all pasta sauce has added sugar) with gluten free pasta. Or I make a stir-fry with wheat-free soy sauce. Or soup. I feel lucky that I already know how to cook because this would be impossible otherwise.
Before bed--plain yogurt with some honey-sweetened granola. Melissa taught this to me--yogurt right before bed is actually great for digestion.
Snacks--all kinds of nuts, dried fruit, rice crackers, and gluten-free pretzels with mustard.

It might sound really strict, but the payoff is that I feel a lot better most of the time.

Oh the Hanukkah Fun!

2007-12-05T03:16:00.000-08:00

Yesterday we had all kinds of Hanukkah goodness. We went to Tel Arad, an ancient Canaanite city that is about 15 minutes from our town Arad. It is about 5,000 years old. It is mentioned in the Bible...when Moses was leading his people out of Egypt, after the first two years, he tried to get into the promised land through Arad but he was defeated by the kind of Arad and many people were taken as slaves. The remainder of the group was sent back into the desert to wander for another 38 years. He then led his people through Jericho to the promised land. In the Bible it was vowed that Arad would be conquored and the town would be "Like a place that ceased to exist"--so nobody would be allowed to settle there any more. Nobody knows exactly what happened, but Arad was abandoned and normally it would be occupied by future civilizations, but it was not. So the ancient city is one of the only examples of an in-tact Canaanite town. It has stones worshipping Ba'al, the Canaanite god, as well as their sacrificial altars. The other thing of note is that close to the ruins of the city, a Jewish fortress was built. Again the ruins were not resettled and we have the only example of a Jewish Temple. It was built like the main Temple in Jerusalem but on a smaller scale and to the exact proportions mentioned in the Bible.

Tel Arad

We went to an Ethiopian Absorption Center with about 300 jelly donuts to sing Hanukkah songs and play with cute kids. They were fascinated with my digital camera and kept fighting to be in the pictures, then they would pounce on the little viewing screen to see themselves. Here is a link to pictures of aformentioned cute kids:

Cute Ethiopian Kids

Then we decked out in 80's gear for the Holla Back Hanukkah Party! It was hysterical--half the people in our group were only 4 or 5 when the 80's ended, so they came to us for advice on what to wear! Man I feel old. Here's pictures of us getting our groove on:

Holla Back Hanukkah Party

Religion Part Two: The Russians and Ethiopians

2007-12-03T08:05:00.000-08:00

This is to continue an earlier posting about religion in Israel. If you would like to skip the pontificating and just get to the pictures, here's a link to photos of some of my friends here at WUJS:

Random Frolicking

I'm not sure if I talked about this before, but in Israel there is something called "The Law of Return." It states that any person who has at least one Jewish grandparent is eligible to become a citizen of Israel. A non-Jew can also become a citizen, but the process is much more lengthy. Jews who make aliyah are also given a great deal of state assistance to start their new lives in the Holy Land.
Why choose one Jewish grandparent as the standard? That was the standard declared by the Nazis. The founders thought that in order for Israel to be a safe haven for all Jews, they needed to protect anyone who would have been sent to the gas chambers. Keep in mind that this very different from the Rabbinic definition of who is a Jew. According to the Rabbis, if your mother was a Jew at the time of your birth, you are a Jew. End of story. If she isn't Jewish or converted after your birth, you need to convert as well. It doesn't make any difference if your father is Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, or Hari Krishna--Judaism is completely matrilineal.
Another aspect of this is that a person who voluntarily converts away from Judaism is not eligible for the Right of Return. There was a famous supreme court case where a Jew became a Catholic priest and was then denied immigration based on the Right of Return (he was of course still allowed to live in the country, but he had to take the long way of immigration). However, if your parents converted or if you were forcibly converted, you may still claim citizenship based on the right of return. Israel is the only country to my knowledge that has this kind of immigration law.
Anyway...so the Right of Return has very little to do with whether or not a person is a practicing Jew. Most of the time, the people immigrating to Israel are Jewish and are immigrating because they want some degree of a Jewish life. However, as Israel becomes more prosperous, there are some notable exceptions--primarily among the Russian and Ethiopian communities.

Russians--So things ain't looking too pretty in the former Soviet Union. The Russian economy isn't strong and one of the most well-known Russian exports is prostitutes. Many people are looking to get out--one way or another. Many Russian immigrants to Israel do have one Jewish grandparent...but there are also many who come with forged papers. (There is a rabbinic committee at which a new immigrant needs to prove that he or she is Jewish. Marriage certificates, statements from friends, and other documents may be used to prove one's roots.) Whether or not they are coming with forged papers, a large percentage of the latest wave of Russian immigration are practicing Christians. They are immigrating for economic reasons, not to participate in Jewish life in Israel. They do many things that tick off the local Israeli population: sell pork, open their shops on Shabbat, sell Christmas trees and crosses, etc. Arad has a large Russian population, so there are quite a few Christmas trees in our local mall. Thus far the Christian Russians have been more of an irritation than an outright war (as with the Palestinian Muslims), but to say the least, this situation will put a strain on the Israeli concept of having both a democratic state and a Jewish state. At some point the Christians will demand leadership in the Knesset--and we'll see what happens.

Incidentally, this problem of representation is not insignificant--nor is it new to the area. In Lebanon just to the north, one major reason why there was a civil war and the government has been disabled for the past few decades is because of this representation issue. In Lebanon there are Sunni Muslims, Shi'a Muslims, Druse (sort of Muslims), and Maronite Christians. When the government was first formed, representation was divided based on the percentage of the population at that time. The Christians were given the majority of the power. Since then, the Shi'a Muslim population has exploded and thus they are not sufficiently represented in the government. They have been fighting for more government power and the Christians don't want to give it to them because Shi'as are considered lower class and very different from the rest of the country. What is the major Shi'a political party? Hesbollah. The same terrorist organization that led a war against Israel last year and is funded by Iran and Syria is also building schools and fighting for the rights of its people. Of course there are many other factors that led to Lebanon's wars, but this is a major component. When the Israelis complain of the disproportionate birth rate among Israeli Arabs, they have good reason for concern.

Ethiopians--(most of this is cut and pasted from Wikipedia because I don't remeber the facts off the top of my head). More than 90,000 or over 85% of the Ethiopian Jewish community emigrated to Israel, most notably during Operation Moses (1984) and Operation Solomon (1991).

More about Operation Solomon (so cool!): In 1991, the sitting Ethiopian government of Mengistu Haile Mariam was close to being toppled with the recent military successes of Eritrean and Tigrean rebels, threatening Ethiopia with dangerous political destabilization. Several Jewish organizations, including the state of Israel, were concerned about the well-being of the sizable population of Ethiopian Jews, properly referred to as Beta Israel, residing in Ethiopia.
In 36 hours, non-stop flights of 34 Israeli Air Force C-130s, filled to absolute capacity, transported 14,325 Beta Israel émigrés from Ethiopia to Israel, where they were given food and shelter.

The immigration issue with the Ethiopians has nothing to do with the Ethiopian Jews. They are seen as Jewish and were welcomed into the country, even though acculturing them to Israeli society was difficult because most had not seen cars, lightbulbs, etc. before. The controversy now is regarding a different group of Ethiopians.
There are many descendants of Ethiopian Jews whose ancestors converted to Christianity who are now returning to the practice of Judaism. This group of people is known as the Falash Mura. They are admitted entrance to Israel, although not as Jews, thus enabling the Israeli government to set quotas to their immigration and make citizenship dependant on Orthodox conversion. Although nobody knows for certain what the exact population is of the Falash Mura in Ethiopia many say it is roughly 20,000-26,000 individuals. However, recently some reporters and other travelers in remote regions of Ethiopia have noted that they have found entire villages where people claim they are Jewish or are Falash Mura (Jews who have been practicing Christianity).

So Israel has to ask itself several questions regarding both the Russians and the Ethiopians: Who deserves the Right of Return? Should Israel accept as many potential Jews as possible to offset the Arab higher birth rate? How many people can a developing country accept and still maintain a good economy? Where is there space for so many people in a very small country?

Hannah

2007-12-03T03:37:00.001-08:00

My Hebrew teacher is a short, squat Polish woman named Hannah. She is in her mid-60s with dyed auburn hair. She speaks fluent Yiddish and learned both Russian and English from her students. One day we learned that she refuses to write the "plus" symbol as a cross--she writes a "T" instead. She is a wonderful woman with endless patience and humor and she's a true Israeli patriot. Last weekend I went over to her house for a visit; over tea and a bowl of oranges, she told me her story.

Hannah grew up on a kibbutz. She didn't go into great detail, but she was born in Poland so I'm assuming her family fled the Nazis. Her kibbutz was politically moderate and the kibbutz next door was very left wing. The two groups of kibbutzim never talked to one another.
Hannah was always artistic and loved calligraphy. When she graduated high school, she decided to study art in Jerusalem. Shimon Peres was on the same kibbutz, so they used to carpool into Jerusalem together. She describes him as a complete gentleman.
Her specialty is enamel work--she makes amazing plaques with quotes from the Bible, abstract works, and intricate mosaics of the flora and fauna of Israel. One of my favorite is a series of the five trees of Israel--fig, olive, date, pomegranate, and grape vines. She took silver wire and wound it around to form the shape of the trees, then attached it to a piece of flat metal. Then she scooped little crystals of color into the crevices. She fired the piece to make the color stick. The result is vibrant color and intricate metalwork.
While she was at school, she met a young man who happened to live on the neighboring kibbutz. Of course she knew who he was, but they were no more than acquaintances. He quickly decided he liked her--but Hannah was not so sure. She was very serious in her studies. He kept coming up to Jerusalem to see her. After a long time, she finally decided she liked him. His mother, who was not really the mothering sort, was preparing to move to Canada with her new husband. She told him that she needed to see him married before she could leave with a clear conscience. Hannah and her parents thought she was too young--she was 19--but eventually he won them over and they were married.
After finishing her studies, they decided to move to a frontier town. She explained that many Israelis of that generation felt the need to settle the land, no matter how desolate, to truly give birth to a Jewish nation. Young Israeli couples were needed to act as teachers and exert a good influence on the masses of new immigrants from all over the world who were considered less civilized. These families, many from India and the Sephardic countries, were dumped in frontier towns and told to start a life.
They first moved to one frontier town, but they quickly decided that they wanted to be true pioneers. They decided to be one of the first couples to settle in Arad. 35 couples came the first year and 35 the second year. For the first year, everyone lived in tents. Hannah was pregnant and had the first child of Arad. Eventually homes were built--Hannah and her husband built their house with their own two hands. It started small and as they had money, they expanded it. It is now a cozy little home in the center of Arad with a small, tidy art studio in the backyard.
Hannah and her husband were together 43 years until he passed. He was very kind to her, even building her art studio before they built the house, and always encouraging her in whatever she wanted to try. The whole yard is filled with cactuses because Hannah was told it is very difficult to grow cactuses from a seed--so she decided to give it a try. And she feeds most of the cats in the neighborhood. She says she and her husband were best friends, always with a kind word for one another.
He passed on a while back, and Hannah didn't enter her art studio for five years. She said she just needed to let the time pass. Now she enjoys her grandchildren, works in her art studio, and teaches Hebrew to us at the absorption center. We are the lucky recipients of her perfectly printed script and her endless knowledge of the roots of words--including knowing a good section of the Bible by heart.

Becoming more secular

2007-11-30T07:17:00.000-08:00

So I've been in Israel for about a month and a half. In that time I've taken classes on Judaism, interacted with Orthodox men and women in my program, seen Haredi neighborhoods, and learned a lot more about what it means to be a religious Jew in the Israeli sense of the word. (In Israel you are either orthodox or secular. A person can go to a reform synogogue every single day and not be considered religious.) In this time, what did I learn? I have learned that I am completely inextricably secular. No long skirts and wigs for me!
Judaism, like everything else, is best in moderation. It is a charming religion with excellent morals, lots of diversity, beautiful songs and niggun (wordless melodies), interesting food, and challenging debates. But much like many modern secular people, I believe my Judaism informs my modern life, not the other way around. For many religious people, the Halacha (Jewish law) is their life, and they will venture into the modern world only as far as is explicitly permitted. For me, I was not raised religious and I have no intention of making my religion the (excuse the bad pun) "alpha and omega" of my life.
Things would be different if I were Christian. Christianity at its core is a religion of belief. A person can consider themselves a strong Christain and live a modern life without much difficulty. Judaism is very different in that Judaism is at its core a religion of action. There are many Jewish agnostics and athiests. The important thing for many Orthodox Jews is how you follow the 613 commandments of the Bible. In addition to the 613 commandments, there is the Talmud.
Ok, let me back up to give some background. So we have lots of religious texts. It starts with the Torah (the 5 books of Moses), the Prophets, and the Psalms. These are essentially what the Christains would call the "Old Testament." However, what many non-Jews don't realize is that while Paul & Co. were busy with the New Testament, our guys were busy writing more religious books. When the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed, Jews lost the ability to sacrifice animals and lead a Temple-centered existence. They had to figure out how to be Jewish in the Diaspora. The Rabbis first wrote the Mishnah, which is a code of Jewish law. Then they wrote what is known as the Talmud (actually they wrote two). The Talmud is the Rabbinic commentary on what thou shalt and shalt not do. It is, to say the least, extremely comprehensive.
To my knowledge, Christianity doesn't much care how you have sex with your spouse--but the Rabbis discuss it at length in the Tanakh! (Just so you know, heterosexual anal sex is permitted if you don't make a habit of it. Masturbation and the use of condoms is forbidden, but birth control and abortion are completely acceptable. And it's a double mitzvah to have sex on Shabbat.) In the same sense, being an Orthodox Jew means that your diet, your work, your clothes, your friends...everything is dictated by Halacha.
One example...I bought some black pepper from the store. It was far too much for me to use in 5 months, so I filled my pepper shaker and brought the remainder to my orthodox friend to use. She asked if I had put a spoon into the pepper to get it out or if I had merely poured it into the shaker. If I had put my spoon in, because it is a non-kosher spoon and not marked as "meat" or "milk," she would be unable to accept it. She can't come over to my place for dinner unless she brings her own food and eats on paper plates.
In this way, the dietary laws serve to isolate observant Jews from other members of the community. Back in the day, when most Jews lived together, the kosher laws served to keep the community cohesive and prevent intermarriage. After all, if you can't eat together, how can you become friends? I completely realize the role these laws have had in helping Judaism survive over the centuries. I applaud anyone who was raised in that manner and wants to continue the practice. For me, though, the choice comes down to being a member of the modern world or being a member of Orthodox Judaism. I don't believe it is possible to fully appreciate the modern world in its diversity as an Orthodox Jew.

Please pass the AK-47?

2007-11-24T06:16:00.000-08:00

I was invited to a Thanksgiving dinner by the American Jewish Committee in Jerusalem. They serve as an informal embassy to young Americans who have made aliyah (immigrated to Israel) or who are considering it. There were about 40 young people at the dinner and most of them were in green army fatigues. Most had made aliyah, but some just decided to serve in the Israeli army without becoming a citizen.
In Israel, the country's patriotism is supplemented by Zionism, the belief that Jews should cast off the shackles of the diaspora and become new strong citizens of a shining Jewish state. If in the diaspora we were in schtetls counting our money and reading books, in Israel we will be tanned muscular workers with date orchards and cattle. Even the word "aliyah" in Hebrew is literally translated as "going up." It is the same word that we use when describing someone who is stepping onto the bima (pulpit) to read the Torah, one of the most honored parts of the service. A person can immigrate anywhere, but one can only make aliyah to Israel.
So if one who immigrates here is rising closer to God, in the same sense an Israeli who leaves Israel is literally "descending." Though the stigma is not as great as it once was, it is still not smiled upon to move elsewhere. Yes, Israelis travel--all over Thailand, Tibet, and South America as soon as their army service ends. But to immigrate elsewhere? Perish the thought.
So I found myself as one of the only people dressed in civilian clothing at this dinner. People asked me what I am doing. I replied that I am studing in a "merkaz klitah" (absorption center) in Arad. "Merkaz klitah? When are you making aliyah?" My response inevitably was met with a very polite smile. There is an underlying sense that even though I feel my place is in Seattle, inevitably something horrible will happen to the Jews there and we will bemoan our stupidity in not making aliyah sooner.

The Thanksgiving dinner was very nice, but it certainly was not an American Thanksgiving. For one thing, there were Israeli carrot salads and pickled beets on the table. The turkey was cut into pieces and cooked with dates. Dessert was not pie (berries are not sold here), but tea made with sage and lemongrass. And half the people in attendance had their AK-47's sprawled across the backs of chairs or on the floor.
The whole experience reminded me of attending a Passover seder in Walla Walla a few years ago with my Mom. The caterers were of course not Jewish, but they had been asked to prepare brisket. They had no idea that a brisket is a special cut of meat--very tough and cooked for a long time until it falls off the fork--so they made it with corned beef. It was, of course, inedible...but we had a good laugh. In the same sense, Thanksgiving in Israel is simply not Thanksgiving.

I stayed with my friend Ori over the weekend. His family is from Tajikstan and his Mom made an incredible central-Asian Shabbat dinner. My bad-ass friend put on his kipa and said the blessings. Then we went out to the pubs until 4. The next day we watched Borat--as it turns out, when Borat is speaking "Kazikstani" he is actually speaking Hebrew in a terrible accent! Sascha Baron Cohen spent a year living in Israel. It was hysterical to hear.

We had a great lunch over the weekend in this little town called "Abu Gosh." It is an Arab town close to Jerusalem. It is not inhabited by Palestinian Arabs, but by Charkesim--another Arab minority that is predominately Christian. They cooperate with the Israeli army and often act as informants. Their little town is a tourist trap--all kinds of delicious restaurants, antique stores, tchotchki stores, etc. We ate fried fish, hummus, and babbha genouj on the deck of a nice little restaurant. There were tons of Israelis and foreign tourists all over the place. Ori said it is the kind of town that proves that Arabs and Jews could get along...but I have to be skeptical that one tiny Christain minority can say anything about the masses of very angry Muslms in their midst.

Jerusalem's Old City

2007-11-21T04:51:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago I spent a weekend in Jerusalem. I was staying with my second cousin's partner's second cousin. Sounds like a distant relative, right? Well, in Israel, we're mishpacha! (we're family!) Rachel and her family were just wonderful. They cooked delicious food without flour or sugar for me. Rachel and I also went to shabbat services together at one of the few reform synogogues in Israel. In Israel, the synogoges are almost entirely orthodox and it's considered scandalously modern if there is no mechitsa (separation between men and women).
On shabbat, Rachel's son Yonatan took me on a walking tour of the old city. We went in all the four quarters: Jewish, Armenian, Christian, and Arab. The Armenians are actually Christian as well, so I'm not entirely sure why they get their own quarter, but it was very nice. We actually had to sneak into the Armenian quarter through the back of a church because they don't like outsiders making things messy/dangerous/touristy/etc. As a result, it was by far the most beautiful and clean section of the city. After about 5 minutes, an old lady shooed us away.
We of course saw the Kotel (the Western Wall) and the Jewish section. We also went along the Via Delarosa (the stations of the cross) which meandered through the Christian and Arab sections. In spite of the mobs of tourists, it was very cool.
We also went to the Mount of Olives where we saw several 2nd-Temple era graves and monuments. We also saw some olive trees that were around during the time of Jesus. They were enormous! The churches were also stunning. I have to say, if I had to pick a religion based purely on the kick-ass-ness of their places of worship, I would definitely be an Armenian Christian. There were a lot of Armenian churches even outside of the Armenian quarter and they were extraordinary.
The religious real estate market is pretty tight. For example, the church commemorating (if that's the right word) the place where Mary died is Catholic. The church where she is actually buried is Armenian. They are both very beautiful, but the Catholic one looks newly refurbished and the Armenian one is very ancient. We had to bend down into a tiny room to see Mary's grave.
We also got a little lost in the Arab quarter looking for one of the less-popular stations of the cross. We ended up in a Muslim girls' school. In their courtyard is the stone where Jesus stood while he was condemned. (Sharon, please correct me on my Catholic stuff...I'm just going on a very loose Hebrew-English translation by Yonatan). The Muslim school itself was tiny and dirty, with no drawings on the walls in any of the classrooms and desks in very poor conditionn. We started chatting with one of the fathers of the schoolgirls. He pointed to a courtyard just next to us and told us to go see the view. We climbed a few steps...and saw an amazing view of the Temple Mount! The Temple Mount is where the Jewish Temples originally stood. While the land was under Muslim control, they built a huge mosque with a gold dome on the spot. It's now one of the most contested places in the world. The Jews want the site of their temple back, and the Muslims of course don't want to give it back. In fact, the 2nd intifada started when Ariel Sharon wanted to demonstrate that Israel has control over the land--so he went to the Temple Mount even though it is prohibited for non-Muslims to enter. The riots that resulted ushered in the second intifada.
The old city was truly fantastic and I can't wait until our program's Jerusalem Week to see more!
At any rate, I have to run to class, so here is a link to the photos from the old city:
Jerusalem Old City
Also, I added several more photos to the Southern Tiyul set. They are the best ones! You can click on the link from the last post to get to them.

Southern Tiyul

2007-11-18T04:55:00.000-08:00

We spent the last five days camping and hiking in the Negev desert. The views were absolutely incredible. It's not like any other kind of hiking I have ever done. There was absolutely no water--none. We carried it all on our backs. 3 Liters per day even though it was only in the mid-80's, which is considered mild. I can't even imagine doing that hike in the summer.
The first day we were in a deep wadi. On part of the trail we had to belay down about 20 feet. It wasn't difficult, but several people were afraid of heights so we took a long time. In the meantime, a group of young orthodox girls in full skirts were also belaying down...they kicked our asses!
The second day we split into two groups. I did the harder hike and it was incredible. We hiked about 7 miles from our campground to Eilat, the southernmost city in Israel. From the hills above Eilat we could see Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. The earth was yellow, black, red, and brown. I hope it comes through in the pictures. It reminded me of pictures I've seen of the painted desert in Arizona.
The third day we went through the Black Canyon, which was another wadi bordered on both sides by dark black cliffs. Unfortunately by this time my camera ran through two batteries.
I was only able to upload some of my pictures. I'll upload the rest later. The pictures of water are from the aquarium at Eilat. In the background is Jordan. The mosaic is a Hamsa my group created while we were staying at Kibbutz Ketura during the last two nights.
Pictures of the Southern Tiyul
Now I'm back in Arad and back into classes. I hope I will have a chance to write more.

Darfur Refugees

2007-11-05T12:05:00.000-08:00

Today we listened to a lecture and panel discussion about refugees from the Sudan who are now living in Israel. The press, in general, has described them all as "Darfur refugees," or refugees from the genocide there. We had a lecture by a UN employee who told us about the real situation. He did ask us to use our discretion in passing on what we learned because it could affect how people apply for refugee status, but I can give you some general information. We also listened to a panel of Sudanese refugees in Israel.

The Sudan is divided into two parts: the Christian south and the Muslim north. Now the Muslims are in power. Darfur is a Muslim section of the country, and that is where a genocide has been taking place since 2003. However, there has been a civil war in the Christian section for the last 20 years or so. One other important fact: Sudan is part of the Arab League, and as such they prohibit travel to Israel. They treat any Sudanese who has traveled to Israel as an enemy combatant and execute them.

The UN office is in Egypt, so many Africans who are fleeing strife go to Cairo to apply for refugee status. However, refugees in Egypt are not allowed to work, send their children to school, etc. The Egyptians are also, as a whole, extremely prejudiced to Africans with black skin. Refugees in Cairo work illegally and, according to our panel, face constant violence.

The dilemma of the UN is to know who is an economic refugee and a refugee from political strife. For example, Mexican migrant workers to America would be loosly considered economic refugees, but because they are not in fear for their lives back home, they are not eligible for refugee status. Nobody doubts that things are bad in most of Sudan, but many are considered economic refugees. Refugees from Darfur are an exception.

Many Sudanese from all parts of Sudan fled to Cairo and have been living there under very harsh conditions for several years. Israel is seen as a comparatively prosperous and humane country compared to the neighboring countries. Slowly refugees in Cairo have figured out that they will be treated better in Israel. Many hire Bedoin smugglers from the Sinai penninsula (ie Egyptian Bedoins who are also known for running guns into Gaza; they also smuggle prostitutes from the former Soviet Union) to take them to the Israeli border. Along the way, many are treated poorly and even raped by the Bedoins.

Once they are in Israel, they are in legal limbo. Because they are already refugees in Egypt, they are ineligible for refugee status in Israel (though this can be circumvented with the right petition). Also, the UN has to decide if they are economic refugees or political refugees.

On our panel, every Sudanese was from southern Sudan. Not one was from Darfur. In fact, of the 1800 Sudanese refugees in Israel, only about 500 are from Darfur.

Now Israel has a dilemma. If it sends any of the refugees back to Egypt, economic refugee or not, there is the chance they will be sent back to Sudan and executed. Recently 48 Sudanese were turned back at the border, sent back to Sudan by the Egyptians, and they completely disappeared. Nobody knows if they are alive or not. However, if Israel is too attractive of an option, the floodgates will open and many more refugees will come. There are now about 50,000 recognized refugees in Egypt and almost 3 million unrecognized ones.

Bedoins and Zircon Yakov

2007-11-01T06:07:00.000-07:00

I have photos from two tiyulim (field trips) we took over the past week. The first was a trip to Zircon Yakov (lit. "remember Jacob"), a town that was one of the original pioneer settlements. The park in those pictures was a donation by a wealthy benefactor who helped to support the residents of Zircon Yakov and other towns as they learned to farm and battled malaria.

Photos: Zircon Yakov

The second set of photos is from a trip to Bedoin villages. The Bedoins have a very traditional nomadic culture that is based on a clan system. There are Bedoin communities all over the Middle East, but many are now confined by the political borders of the modern map.

As you read below, please keep in mind that our tour was led by the only Jewish activist for Bedoin rights. She is extremely left-wing and only told us her side of the story. We haven't yet had the opportunity to hear other viewpoints.

The Bedoin are an Arab minority in Israel. A large number of them live in the Negev desert in the south (where Arad is located). Unlike many other Arab groups in Israel, they and the Druse are known for being loyal to the state they live in. Many serve in the army.

One large issue in Israel is how the Bedoins are treated. They are not a large population (less than 200,000) but they have very specific living requirements. Most still have some form of agriculture and raise sheep and goats. Israel is obsessed with land (note the Palestinian conflict), particularly land that is being used by Arabs. It's not an issue of ownership--Israel owns 92% of the land in the country. Any time you buy property you are actually leasing it from the government. The issue is actually who is using the land. Bedoins are Arabs, so even though they are nonviolent and serve in the military, they are distrusted.

The Bedoins are scattered throughout the Negev, but primarily in a small triangle in the center of the desert. They were relocated there (away from the greener fields near Gaza). Israel will only recognize certain villages as "existing." This is an issue because if a village doesn't exist, it doesn't have access to water, schools, health clinics, etc. The Israeli government has been encouraging many Bedoin clans to relocate into cities, but this won't work for them because of their clan-based system. The few that have been relocated have been plagued by unemployment and violence. There are several cultural reasons for this. A woman may go out in her own village, but it is not acceptable for her to be seen by members of other clans. If she is in a city, she is very much confined to the four walls of her house (much like Saudi Arabia, which is primarily Bedoin). If there is a clan fight, distance has been one of the best solutions. That's impossible in the city. Also, in the city, the Bedoins have no way of making a living. Israeli Jewish society is just the tiniest bit racist (if I can even say racist...Arabs and Jews are both Semitic peoples), so it is extremely difficult for them to earn a living outside of agriculture and ranching.

Because the Israeli government refuses to recognize many villages, what results is a smattering of shacks across the landscape. Because the homes are technically illegal, the IDF (Israeli army) can come bulldoze them at any time. On our trip we happened to see a demolition group practicing. The Bedoins are naturally very frustrated by this situation.

Photos: Bedoins

Religion: Part One

2007-10-31T09:43:00.003-07:00

Bridget posted an excellent question on the blog:

"As far as you can tell from these early explorations, what percentage of the population there is "religious" vs. "non-religious?" We keep hearing about what amounts to undeclared civil war between the two sides...to what extent is this accurate?"

There are, of course, many facets to this issue. The short answer is, "Yes, that's accurate." I'm not sure about the exact percentage of orthodox vs. secular Jews (their terms) in Israel, but it is about 15% orthodox to 85% secular. The orthodox are by no means a homogenous lot...although the same could be said for the secularists.

So a bit of history...there were several waves of aliyas (immigrations to Israel) both before and after the founding of the state. The first few in the 19th century were of religious Jews who were rather unsuccessful at farming the land. Most died of malaria (coastal Israel was one big swamp at the time). The succeeding waves were mostly secular Jews who were facing some form of persecution (pogroms, anti-Semitism, the Holocaust). These secular Jews are usually who we refer to when we talk about the Zionists. Herzl, a staunch secularist, was their leader. They wanted to cast off the shackles of Diaspora Jewry, which was seen as materialistic, weak, antiquated, cerebral, and consumed with Halachic law (Jewish law). They wanted to create a new country of strong, independent, brave Jews who were rooted to the land of their fathers.

Today in class we read some of the poems of Bialik. He was one of the major early Zionist poets. He wrote an epic poem called "City of Slaughter" that describes the Kishinev pogrom in Russia (1903). It became a main rallying cry for Zionists. Forgive the length, but it is a fascinating poem (watch how he shifts the blame):

"In The City of Slaughter," by
Haim Nachman Bialik

Arise and go now to the city of slaughter;
Into its courtyard wind thy way;
There with thine own hand touch, and with the eyes of thine head,
Behold on tree, on stone, on fence, on mural clay,
The spattered blood and dried brains of the dead.
Proceed then to the ruins, the split walls reach,
Where wider grows the hollow, and greater grows the breach;
Pass over the shattered hearth, attain the broken wall
Whose burnt and barren brick, whose charred stones reveal
The open mouths of such wounds, that no mending
Shall ever mend, nor healing ever heal.

There will thy feet in feathers sink, and stumble
On wreckage doubly wrecked, scroll heaped on manuscript,
Fragments against fragmented --
Pause not upon this havoc; go thy way ...

Descend then, to the cellars of the town,
There where the virginal daughters of thy folk were fouled,
Where seven heather flung a woman down,
The daughter in the presence of her mother,
The mother in the presence of her daughter,
Before slaughter, during slaughter, and after slaughter!
Touch with thy hand the cushion stained, touch
The pillow incarnadined;
This is the place the wild ones of the wood, the beasts of the field
With bloody axes in their paws compelled thy daughters yield;
Beasted and swined!
Note also, do not fail to note,
In that dark corner, and behind that cask
Crouched husbands, bridegroom, brothers, peering from the cracks,
Watching the sacred bodies struggling underneath
The bestial breath,
Stifled in filth, and swallowing their blood!
The lecherous rabble portioning for booty
Their kindred and their flesh!
Crushed in their shame, they saw it all;
They did not stir nor move;
They did not pluck their eyes out; they
Beat not their brains against the wall!
Perhaps, perhaps, each watcher had it in his heart to pray:
A miracle, O Lord, -- and spare my skin this day!
Those who survived this foulness, who from their blood awoke,
Beheld their life polluted, the light of their world gone out --
How did their menfolk bear it, how did they bear this yoke?
They crawled forth from their holes, they fled to the house of the Lord,
They offered thanks to Him, the sweet benedictory word.
The Cohanim (descendants of priestly families) sallied forth, to the Rabbi's house they flitted:
"Tell me, O Rabbi, tell, is my own wife permitted?*
The matter ends; and nothing more
And all is as it was before ....

Come, now, and I will bring thee to their lairs
The privies, jakes and pigpens where the heirs
Of Hasmoneans lay, with trembling knees,
Concealed and cowering, -- the sons of the Maccabees!*
The seed of saints, the scions of the lions!
Who, crammed by scores in all the sanctuaries of their shame,
So sanctified My name!
It was the flight of mice they fled,
The scurrying of roaches was their flight;
They died like dogs, and they were dead!"

*"permitted" in the sense of, "may I sleep with her now that she's been raped?"
**the Hasmoneans and the Maccabees are some of the great warriors of Jewish history.

So the conflict between the orthodox and the secularists predates the formation of the state. When the state of Israel was created, it was firmly under the leadership of the secularists. In fact, despite the Holocaust being a major impetus for the creation of the state, Holocaust survivors were looked down upon for many years in Israel. They were "like lambs being lead to the slaughter" because they didn't defend themselves. They were seen as products of the Diaspora.

When the state was created, there was a small community of Orthodox Jews living in Israel. Ben-Gurion, the leader at that time, considered them to be a product of the past, of the Diaspora, and truly believed they would become extinct and unnecessary upon the creation of the Jewish state. He set up several policies that cause Israel considerable trouble today. For one, he exempted them from military service. For another, he gave them a small stipend to allow them to live while studying in the Yeshivas.

Today in Israel, the fact that the orthodox are exempt from military service is a huge issue. When I was on my Birthright tour last year, the soldiers in general spoke very respectfully of the Arabs--even the Palestinians. They reserved their scorn for the orthodox. They are seen as parasites, just breeding bigger and bigger families and being a drain on the state. They don't fight for their country. They are intolerant. Etc.

One additional issue is that some of the ultra-orthodox do not believe in the modern state of Israel. They believe that Israel will resume and the temple will be rebuilt only when the messiah comes. Some do not speak Hebrew because it is a holy language that should only be spoken when the messiah comes. They speak Yiddish--the ultimate Diaspora schtetl language--and cannot communicate with much of the general population. There are a few orthodox cabinet members who consistently vote with the Arab Israeli members on matters of the state (because of their common belief that the state should not exist). One cabinet member recently participated in Akmadenejad's Holocaust Denial Forum in Iran (Jon Stewart's joke: you don't want to be the guy ordering the kosher meal at that thing).

The orthodox, because of their much higher birth rate, are growing quickly. (Incidentally, the orthodox and the Arab Israelis have a birth rate about twice of that of secular Jews, much to the dismay of the secularists).

So...yes, there is a great divide. It affects all aspects of Israeli society, from the army to marriage (the orthodox control marriage and a woman has to be ritually clean before she can marry. It's not uncommon for a couple to hop over to Greece to get married because the state will recognize all foreign marriages). It also affects the Israel/Palestine issue. Except for the ultra-orthodox who believe that the state of Israel doesn't exist, most orthodox are extremely right-wing in their politics. The traditional Israelite homeland, Judaea and Samaria, is located exactly in the West Bank. The Tomb of the Patriarchs is in Hebron (a large West Bank city). The orthodox form a large portion of the settlers who were trying to populate the West Bank and Gaza and were very forcibly removed by Ariel Sharon a few years ago as part of a unilateral withdrawal. It's a complicated issue.

Next time: Religion Part Two: the Russians and the Ethiopians.

note: Thanks John S and Bridget for the fact and spelling corrections!

Photos from Maktesh Gadol!

2007-10-26T07:18:00.000-07:00

Well, I am here in Arad this weekend. I had planned to go to Jerusalem to visit some friends, but they are at a rave this weekend (Israelis are a bit obsessed with raves and techno music). I really needed the break! We've been going to classes, field trips, Hebrew lessons, seminars, etc...and we're exhausted. We haven't really even had time to do our Hebrew homework! Luckily for me, it's been review so far. We've blazed through present tense conjugations and next week we'll tackle past tense. I feel sorry for some of the folks who are already over their heads. (Thank you again, Hila, for the Hebrew lessons!)
As promised, here are the pictures of the beautiful hike last weekend:
Maktesh Gadol

A great weekend

2007-10-20T10:04:00.000-07:00

Well, it looks like the photos will have to wait, because the technical difficulties are still being worked out. That's too bad becasue the views on the hike were absolutely stunning.
We awoke early and traveled deep into the Negev desert. Along the way we learned from our guide that "Negev" is literally the ancient hebrew word for "south." This week's Parsha (the part of the Bible that is read during services) is "Lech L'cha" which describes Abram leaving the land of his fathers and traveling through the Negev. With our hiking boots and CamelPaks we weren't exactly Biblical, but we had a fantastic trek nonetheless. The first hike was along the "big crater," a geological phenomenon that was formed when sea life dies and sediments around a mountain...then several million years later, when there is no longer a sea, the soil of the island erodes very quickly but the sediment with the sea life remains. It looks like a crater, and hence the name. I wish my description would do it justice, but you'll just have to wait for the photos.
The second hike (after staying up most of the night hanging out with our Bedoin bus driver and some Dutch honeymooners) was also in the Negev. We got off the bus at 9am, already baking in the heat. The guide told us that this location used to be a stop along a Nabataean trade route. For more on Nabateans, click here:
Nabateans
The Nabateans were nomadic people who built Petra and are thought to be the descendants of the Bedoins. The guide said there is enough water here to service 1000 camels--and we all laughed. It is high desert with almost no vegetation. He took us down to a hidden underground pool built straight into the rock. It had steps and religious carvings. It was very impressive, particularly for something built over 2000 years ago.
We then went hiking through narrow wadis (dry streambeds) and the rock arounds us was very much like the photos you see of the painted desert.
Well, we came back Friday afternoon just in time for Shabbat. Since this is the opening weekend, we all celebrated together. In the future, we'll be left to our own devices. I'm excited to explore some of the shuls in town, particularly the Indian and Persian temples. There are actually 7 students from India here (India has a tiny native Jewish population of about 1500).
After services, about 10 of us took a stroll around Arad. At a bus stop we met an old Jewish couple. We used our collective Hebrew knowledge to chat for a bit and then they invited us to their home to see some medals. Our curiosity piqued, we followed them home. They walked very slowly and it took us about 20 minutes to follow them the 4 blocks home. As it turned out, they are from Warsaw and are survivors of the Holocaust. The husband received a medal for helping to build a memorial made out of gravestones. He is 84 and his wife is about the same age. They are truly darling people. They have acted as a host family for several WUJS students--their first student is now a grandmother. We of course wanted to be adopted by them immediately, but they mentioned that they are looking for a "religious" person (in Israel, that means someone who is Orthodox and keeps shomer shabbas, ie no writing or turning on lights on Shabbat). They fed us wafers and showed us pictures of their grandchildren. Then we went home...and I slept for 12 hours.
In other news, I am actually quiet lucky. There is one woman on the program who has Crohn's and another was a research assistant for Crohn's clinical trials. They are giving me a lot of advice on what I should and shouldn't eat (yogurt and potatoes are good, raw tomatoes and bread and peppers are bad), as well as some book recommendations for when I get back. Apparently anything with a peel is "a bit dodgy," as my roommate would say. I love me some fruit, so I'm investing in a blender! It feels good to get a handle on this thing.
Tomorrow the classes start. I have Hebrew class in the morning and then a few of us are going to head to the Dead Sea for an afternoon swim.

ps-Only one cockroach today! Hopefully the spraying worked!!

If cleanliness is next to godliness...

2007-10-17T07:12:00.001-07:00

...Arad is just below Pittsburg. Don't get me wrong, I love it here! The desert is gorgeous, the Russians are kooky and damned loud, and everyone is very friendly. They seem to be aware that a new batch of "Olim Hadashim" (new immigrants) has landed, so they treat us with extra patience. It's a nice little town and the weather seriously could not be more perfect. It's tank top weather. We have finished signing up for classes, so tomorrow we are getting up at 6 for a "Tiyul" (hike) to something called the "large crater." It's a two-day adventure, so of course I'm excited! My British roommate seems a bit nonplussed about the lack of showers during that time...but oh well.
About the cleanliness (or stunning lack thereof)...when I got in, the room was covered in a thin white film of dust. It was like Mount St. Helens exploded next door. I cleaned that up only to find cockroaches in the kitchen and bathroom. They bug bombed those (I love the smell of carcinogens in the morning) so hopefully they won't be back. I also picked a bug out of my chicken at lunch. So all in all, it's better than Beijing but it will definitely take some getting used to. I'll send pictures of our hilarious ghetto kitchen (complete with a gas burner that is fed directly from the natural gas fields below Arad) and our equally ghetto bathroom (there is no shower to speak of--only a drain in the floor and a shower curtain).
My roommate Dahlia is lovely...she's from London and she's slightly older than I am. We get along well, and we've also been hanging out with a girl from Australia and another from Turkey. All together we seem to make up the cougar set of the program.
I will send pictures as soon as I can...there are some technical difficulties to be worked out.

Ani po!!!!

2007-10-14T22:24:00.000-07:00

I am here!! It's 4:30 in the morning. I'm sitting in Ben Gurion airport waiting for the "Absorption Authority" to give me a ride to Arad. The office doesn't open until 7am. I smell like a rose and I have been slowly nibbling on the now petrified PB&J sandwiches Sharon made me. One of my classmates, a graphic artist named Shlomo, is sitting next to me and almost delerious with exhaustion. I'm just thrilled that he has more luggage than I do.
Today I meet my roommate and hopefully find my way to a shower...more later! I hope you are well!

Happy New Year!!

2007-09-11T10:19:00.000-07:00

Happy Rosh Hashanah!

(To wish someone a happy new year, you say "L'Shanah Tovah!" which means, "To a good year!")

Contact information in Arad

2007-09-07T13:54:00.000-07:00

I am almost ready to go! Here is my contact information:

Kate Hallman
c/o WUJS Institute
25 Yoshiyahu Street
Arad 89022, Israel

Fax: 972-8-9955472

Email: katezibbit@gmail.com

Welcome to my blog!

2007-06-19T17:42:00.000-07:00

Dear Friends and Loved Ones,

Welcome to my blog! As many of you know, as a good little Jew, I am going to the Mother Ship of Eretz Israel! I am planning to study in Israel starting in October 2007. The ulpan (Hebrew school) has been around since 1968 and is organized by the World Union of Jewish Students.

I'll be studying in Arad עֲרָד, a little town in the Negev desert. It is 25km west of the Dead Sea and 45km east of Beersheba, near the famous Masada. It has a population of about 23,000 people. Interestingly, it is the home of the famous author Amos Oz and is renowned for its clean air--it is a popular destination for asthmatics worldwide.

You can check out a descrption of my program at http://www.wujs-arad.org/. I'm doing the "Land, Language, and Society" track.

I will keep you updated as I get closer to leaving!

Much love,

Kate