Overheard at מסרד הפנים - the Ministry of the Interior

(standing in line in a tiny corridor not wide enough for 2 people)
young Haredi man: Is this where you come to make a visa appointment?
older Haredi man: Yes.
young Haredi man: If it's just appointments, why is it taking so long?
older Haredi man: You come here, you come to Africa.

(The Ministry of the Interior is notorious for being the worst of the worst of Israeli bureaucracy and chaos.)

Overheard at HUC

At Shabbat services, December 25, 2010

small tourist child: When are we going to the church?!

Love Christmas-Shabbos in Jerusalem!

לכל עיר יש שם - Every city has a name...

Many places here in Israel have multiple names. There is a well-known poem by the Israeli poet, Zelda, describing how each person has many names: "Everyone has a name, given to him by God and given to him by his parents." (A complete translation by Marcia Falk can be found here.) In Israel, cities, neighborhoods, geographical landmarks, all have multiple names, often in Hebrew and in Arabic. Last month, I had the opportunity to visit one such place, to see separately each side of the neighborhood according to its name: Silwan/Ir David, the City of David.

Silwan/Ir David is a neighborhood in East Jerusalem just south of the eastern part of the Old City, just abutting the Old City walls. Currently, it is primarily a poor Palestinian neighborhood, although in the late 19th century it served as a neighborhood for Yemenite Jews arriving in the Land of Israel, who were not welcomed by their Ashkenazi counterparts within the Jewish quarter of the Old City. In recent years, there has been an increasing Jewish presence in Silwan, not only residential, but archaeological, educational, and with regards to tourism, through the archaeological site Ir David, claimed to be the location of King David's city and palace.

I visited Silwan with Encounter, as part of an East Jerusalem seminar day through Encounter's Leadership Seminar. We met with a baller young woman, Muna, who works at a community center in Silwan, the Wadi Hilweh Information Center. I knew very little about the area beforehand, other than that it had been the site of recent conflict, and learned from Muna that in fact, it would have been pretty unsafe for me to walk around Silwan on my own. The youth of Silwan see anyone who is not like them (i.e., not Palestinian - whether Israeli, Jewish, tourist, international aid activist, etc.) as "Yahud" - Jew, and therefore settler, the enemy. They haven't had the opportunity to experience anything else. A few statistics (from Muna's powerpoint presentation): Silwan has 55,000 residents, 50% of whom are under the age of 18 - and 75% of those under 18 are living under the poverty line.

A flag in the office of Wadi Hilweh Info Center

As is the story in so many slums in so many cities around the world, part of what is happening in  Silwan/Ir David is that the municipality of Jerusalem wants to turn the neighborhood into green space, displacing the residents who live there, with no plan in place to compensate or relocate them. In my mind, this is not unique to the Israel/Palestinian conflict, but shows how class and urban politics play into this issue.

We heard about the work that Muna's organization does - gives children musical instrument lessons, usually only available to the children of wealthy Palestinian families, a children's drama group, Hebrew and English tutoring - and then took a walk around the city. Muna commented that visitors and tourists to the Ir David archaeological site turn immediately into its entrance and walk through the park, without any awareness that they are in the midst of a Palestinian neighborhood. We walked past that entrance, and kept going down the hill, past the heavily barricaded homes of Jewish settlers, decorated with defiant Israeli flags, seeing the poverty of this small neighborhood.

a mosque in Silwan, in close proximity to the exit from Hezekiah's Tunnel, part of the Ir David site

Exactly one week later, I visited the Ir David archaeological site with my biblical history class from HUC. We walked straight into the entrance of the park, without looking at the Palestinian neighborhood outside. My teacher, David Ilan, in his introduction to the site, made sure that we all knew that we were in Silwan, a Palestinian neighborhood - but that was because of his guiding and teaching, not part of the official presentation that Israeli students, soldiers, and tourists receive when they visit this site. David was also highly critical, on an academic level, of the archaeological claims that were made, that the structures found at that site are the remains of King David's palace. The ruins can be dated to a large span of years, without conclusive evidence that they are specifically from the time of King David, yet there has been a lot of hype, attention, and funding as a result of these claims.

What was perhaps the most disturbing moment of the day was the moment when we turned into Ir David, leaving Silwan behind, and I suddenly realized that I had been there three years ago, when I was working for NFTY in Israel. I hadn't made that connection the week before, because the Silwan I visited bore no resemblance whatsoever to the Ir David I had visited in 2007. But Ir David is lush and green, there is piped in harp music (possibly recorded by King David himself?!?!). As one of the other speakers we met during our Encounter East Jerusalem seminar said, "It's like religious Disney World." The noise, the dust, the traffic of Silwan was non-existent, even though it was a few dozen feet away.

At one point in our tour of Ir David, we stopped, and David started a discussion about the modern political context surrounding this site. This discussion led to another conversation among my classmates about whether or not the modern context surrounding an ancient site has a place in our learning about that site. For me, bli safek, without a doubt, it is impossible to only view the ancient sites that surround me here and to ignore what surrounds them. In this place, in this city, like nowhere else that I have been in the world, the ancient impacts those living, working, loving, fighting there today, and the modern informs how we view and understand the ancient.

a view of Palestinian homes from within Ir David

One source of information about Silwan/Ir David is a recent 60 Minutes story about it, found here.

Overheard at the Jerusalem Central Bus Station

Two American seminary girls, just after getting off the bus from Eilat to Jerusalem:
girl 1: "It's just like when you go to Florida for winter break..."
girl 2: "And you get off the plane in the northeast and you have to put all your clothes back on!"
girl 1: "jinx!"

It's finally winter in Jerusalem!

First D'var Torah...as a rabbinical student!

This is the d'var Torah I gave at HUC services this morning. It's on this week's Torah portion, Vayeshev, focusing on Genesis 38. It was really special to be able to give the d'var Torah while my parents and brother were here too!

We hear of a woman in this week’s parasha, Vayeshev. She leads to the death of not one, but TWO husbands. She is tricky and deceitful. She is a prostitute and a whore, so much so that she even seduces her own father-in-law.

Or do we? Let’s rewind. We hear of a woman in this week’s parasha, a widow, abandoned by her husband’s family. She is resourceful, modest, and brave. She is the progenitor of the Davidic line, mother of kings and saviors.

These women are one and the same – Tamar – whose experiences take up an entire chapter in the middle of the Joseph narrative. Tamar is married to Judah’s oldest son, who dies leaving her childless, and she is given to the next son to fulfill the practice of levirate marriage. This son ALSO dies, and hoping to save his youngest son’s life, Judah sends Tamar back to her father’s house. Tamar, knowing that it is her right to be married and have children, dresses up like a prostitute, sits on the road where Judah is traveling, sleeps with him, and becomes pregnant. Judah hears that his daughter-in-law has gotten pregnant by sleeping around, and calls for her to be burned. Tamar reveals the pledge Judah had given her – his personal staff, seal, and cord – saying the owner of these is the father, modestly giving Judah the chance to admit his wrongdoing rather than calling him out on it herself. Judah admits that he is wrong, and that Tamar is right. She gives birth to twins, Peretz and Zerach, and later, at the end of the Book of Ruth, it becomes clear that Tamar’s actions give rise to none other than the line of King David himself.

So which is she? Is Tamar morally compromised or rightfully strategic and resourceful? The detail that seems the most problematic and “yuck-inducing” to modern readers, that Tamar slept with her own father-in-law, is explained by Hizkuni, a 13^th century French commentator. He clarifies that although we are familiar with levirate marriage, yibum, as taking place between a woman and the brother of her deceased husband, in the time before matan Torah, yibum could happen with any male relative, including the father-in-law. Not only was this was widely accepted in biblical society, it was also fully legal, and therefore not morally problematic. So according to Hizkuni, Tamar was not behaving like a harlot, she was using the only legal road available to her to have children.

In fact, the strongest evidence for Tamar’s heroism and moral rightness lies in Judah’s response to her when she reveals his staff, seal, and cord: “Vayomer tzadkah mimeni – She is more in the right than I.” The word that Judah uses, tzadkah, doesn’t just mean that Tamar is correct in this situation. From the root צדק, for justice. Tamar had an injustice done to her when she was not given to Judah’s third son as she should have been. Although Tamar is coming from one of the most marginalized and powerless positions in biblical society – a childless widow who has been exiled from her in-laws’ home – she does not passively accept this injustice. Instead, Tamar acts strategically with the few resources she has – knowledge of Judah’s travel plans, a few carefully placed scarves, and her body, to bring about the result that she justly deserved. As it turns out, this bold act not only turned out well for Tamar, that she would have children and a secure place in her in-laws’ home, but her bravery led to the line of David, to the eventual Messiah for the entire Jewish people!

If Tamar’s future Messianic offspring and Judah’s words were not enough, the Torah grants Tamar an entire chapter in the midst of Genesis to let her voice be heard! The Torah itself validates Tamar’s moral rightness by giving her the space to be heard in such detail, much more than many other biblical women get. Every Shabbat, we sing the words of Psalm 92: צדיק כתמר יפרח  Tzadik k'tamar yifrach– the righteous will bloom like a date-palm. Or, the righteous, k’tamar, like Tamar, will bloom.

Even though to this day, people regularly think of Tamar as being no more than a prostitute, Tamar is revealed instead to be not only active and resourceful in protecting her own future, but right, צדקה tzadkah, in ensuring the future of the Jewish people. Sometimes we need to take a second look at a narrative that we’ve heard over and over again, in order to understand what it’s really about. Too often we’re quick to accept a popular narrative about our tradition or the world around us, particularly now during our time in Israel. Instead, perhaps we should to look below the surface, to think critically about each narrative that we hear and see. Without looking past our initial feelings of disgust for Tamar’s actions, we would not be able to see her for the proactive individual that she really is, an individual who acts to secure not just her own destiny, but that of the Jewish people as well.

If I can't go apple picking this fall...

A few memories:

February 2001: I am barely 14, and traveling Israel with my grandparents and their synagogue not so many months before the 2nd Intifada breaks out. We are driving in our tour bus to Jericho, and while we are stopped (because of traffic? a stop light? a check point?), I see Palestinian soldiers? policemen? (it's doubtful that I even knew who they were at the time). They are wearing militaristic uniforms, they are marching, they are holding guns. I snap a quick photo through the bus window, and one of the policemen/soldiers sees me. He angrily shakes his finger, "NO!" I am scared, in my rational 8th grade mind, that somehow this is going to have serious consequences for our entire tour group, and I don't say a word to anyone.

Spring 2003: I eat up the stories that I learn on EIE about the Israeli military. They are my heroes. I wear the dogtags of missing soldiers around my neck. I spend 5 days in Gadna, the Israeli Defence Forces' high school pre-army program. I (briefly) consider making aliyah and enlisting in the IDF. And plus...the soldiers are SO hot.

August 2009: I step out of the Central Bus Station, back in Jerusalem for the first time in two years. There are soldiers everywhere, and for the first time, I realize that they are young, and almost look as if they are dressed in costumes. My heart aches for them, for the world in which these young people are carrying guns, while my brother, their peer, is pursuing his dreams at college.

This past Friday: I am in a Palestinian-owned olive orchard in the northern part of the West Bank. A Jeep full of Israeli soldiers pulls up next to us. My stomach clenches; I am scared.

~~~~~~~~

To back up a little...this past Friday, I went with Rabbis for Human Rights to participate in the Palestinian olive harvest. For the past 15 years or so, this organization has been accompanying Palestinian farmers to their olive trees, in places where those olive trees butt up against Jewish settlements. The volunteers with Rabbis for Human Rights are an international presence, and are able to place calls to the police and to the army to report crimes committed by settlers that, in theory, are more likely to be answered than if the call were to be placed by the Palestinians themselves.

After waking up incredibly early (we met up at SIX IN THE MORNING!), we were dropped off in small groups near the trees we would be harvesting. We were warned that there had already been some trouble with settlers illegally trespassing through Palestinian fields, armed with photocopies of an IDF order saying that Palestinians have the right to harvest every olive off of every tree, and told to keep a low profile and not attract extra attention from the army. There's a map of the area where I was here.

Along with a classmate, a friend, and two others, we were matched up with Jamal and his family - his wife and five of his six children were out that day to pick olives, the first day of the season for them. Jamal spoke Hebrew, so we were able to talk about his family and who owned the trees and how the olives fit into the economy. Jamal's aunt owns the trees themselves, but doesn't work the land anymore, so she gets about 30% of the profits and Jamal's family takes the rest. They harvest the olives, press their own olive oil, and Jamal's wife brines olives (fun fact: olives are NOT edible straight off the tree) at home. Picking itself was lots of fun - it was good to be outside, especially now that the weather is significantly cooler here, to be physically active climbing on trees. The kids were cute and wanted to play. Many of the residents of the nearby Palestinian town of Awarta were out harvesting their olives that day, families riding by on donkeys or packed into cars, greeting each other and having fun. My suburban self was thrilled with a little glimpse of rural life.

And then the soldiers pulled up. It was a moment - to be fair, not the first time I have had this moment. It happens often when I am at Women of the Wall (which I missed by going to the olive harvest!) - when the Israeli army ceased to be the friendly presence I looked up to in middle school and high school, and became...the enemy. Even though that word still feels too strong to use. This area was closed to us, we were told in English. We needed to leave. "You, you're b'seder g'mur (totally OK)," the soldier explained in Hebrew to Jamal and his family. We called the RHR staff who were with us, much more well-versed in these matters. "They need a signed order to throw you out." Well, they had a piece of paper with a lot of Hebrew and a signature on it...and anyway, our transportation wasn't returning for another 2 hours! So we told them we were staying...To be honest, at this point, I am scared. I am not a law-breaking, let's get arrested for the sake of social change type of activist. I'm a community organizer, who likes to take it to the streets every now and then to spice things up. And where I come from, you don't defiantly ignore the Israeli army.

The soldiers kept driving by throughout the day, sometimes slowing down and looking at us, sometimes stopping the Jeep for several minutes. My classmate shared a cigarette with one soldier, he gave her a chocolate pudding in return. Why did they want us out of there so badly? To protect the Palestinians? To protect the settlers? Nope. Because it was Friday afternoon, and they wanted to go back to their base to nap, and they couldn't until after we left.

Lunchtime rolled around. Jamal's wife and older daughter had cooked lunch over a little camp stove - eggs, potatoes, hummus, pickles, laffa (big flat pita), all of it drenched in delicious olive oil. The olive oil, the pickles, and the laffa were ALL homemade, and delicious.

We picked some more olives, and soon it was time to leave, in order to return to Jerusalem before Shabbat. As we drove to pick up the other small group, the skies opened up and it POURED - for the first time! The first rain of the rainy season is something to be celebrated (and appreciated, especially after spending a day outside harvesting). When we reached the second (now soaking wet) group, we learned that a group of settlers had found some ladders in a Palestinian olive orchard, stolen them, and thrown them into an empty well.

How useful is this, accompanying Palestinians to do the olive harvest? Clearly, it doesn't create systemic change - it doesn't change army policies or settler behavior. The organization's been doing this, with many of the same families, towns, settlements, for 15 years! That aside, clearly, the olives need to be picked this year, even if the policies don't change this year, and if having another group present will help diffuse some of the tensions or provide witness to some of the stupid crap (stealing ladders, burning olive trees, trespassing through private property) that happens, then I am glad and honored to take part (especially if I get to eat such delicious food). Yet the question that I am still wondering about - is our presence just drawing more unnecessary and unwanted attention to the harvest, from both the army and the residents of the surrounding settlements? 


Olive trees are such a potent symbol. They are one of the seven species of the Land of Israel (7 plants identified biblically as being native to the Land), and everyone, everywhere associates them with peace. And for these Palestinian farmers, they're also a livelihood. Going out and doing work like this, even though it is complicated, makes me feel like a more complete person, rather than just the part of me who sits in class. When I got back to Jerusalem that Friday afternoon (to see even more rain!), I felt that much more ready to celebrate Shabbat, although this was probably also because it was the first week in a month when there hadn't been any holidays.

Acharei haChagim

There is a popular expression in Israel - אחרי החגים, acharei hachagim - after the holidays. Nothing productive happens during the fall chagim, no plans are made, everything is on pause. "Would love to get coffee with you - acharei hachagim." "I'll definitely write a blog post - acharei hachagim." The title of this blog post is not just a rather lame excuse for not having written since August, but it is a collection of reflections on my 2nd round of fall holidays in Israel.

Yom Kippur
Part of this was written for our "HaEmek D'var" processing groups at school. Over the course of Yom Kippur, actually all contained within the night of Kol Nidre, I had two starkly contrasting Jerusalem experiences. After Kol Nidre services at HUC, I was standing on the balcony of Beit Shmuel with two classmates, looking out over the night view of the Old City. Jerusalem is completely closed on Yom Kippur - no businesses are open, and the only motor traffic are police vehicles. From our view, just a few hundred feet from Jaffa Gate, the city was silent, beautiful, and perfect. It was a moment of incredible peace, undisturbed by the usual noises of traffic that permeate Jerusalem. At moments like these, not only is it easy to love Jerusalem, it is practically impossible not to.

After we tired of that view, Beni, Ricky, and I walked down to Emek Refaim, a street in southern Jerusalem filled with restaurants and shops. On Yom Kippur, of course, all of those were closed. As every synagogue and minyan finished its service, people from all over Jerusalem streamed to Emek Refaim to people watch and shmooze. In Israel, Yom Kippur is also known as Yom haOfanaim - Bicycle Day! With the streets empty of traffic, kids take the opportunity to take over the cities with their bikes. As we watched all of the diversity of am Yisrael  walk by in their Yom Kippur whites and on their bicycles, tricycles, skateboards, and Razors, I commented that we had been looking at before was ירושלים של מעלה Yrushalayim shel ma'alah - the heavenly Jerusalem, and what we were looking at now was ירושלים של מטה Yrushalayim shel matah - the earthly Jerusalem. Wasn't this incredible? Isn't this, the community and the am, the people, what it's really about? Beni responded, "Yes, but today, Yom Kippur IS about Yrushalayim shel ma'alah." I'm not sure that we can ever remove Yrushalayim shel matah, the world-as-it-is, from the equation completely, even on Yom Kippur, yet that moment of looking out at the physical representation of Yrushalayim shel ma'alah was a clear reminder of what I want to strive for not only on Yom Kippur.

Simchat Torah
For the second year in a row, I went to Kol Haneshama, a Progressive congregation in Jerusalem, for hakafot (dancing with the Torah) on Erev Simchat Torah. As always, it was a lot of fun, good spirited, plenty of cute children waving the flags they had made in gan. Kol Haneshama has a beautiful custom as part of their Simchat Torah celebration. Generally, the 7 hakafot are loud, with fast circle dancing, singing at the top of your lungs, and getting sweaty and dehydrated. At Kol Haneshama, the first six are like this. For the final hakafah, everyone gets into one large circle in the courtyard outside the building. As the two Torah scrolls are passed around the circle, ensuring that each and every person there has the opportunity to hold a Torah scroll during the hakafot, the community sings slower songs, transitioning and slowing down from the ecstasy of hakafot 1-6. It is a beautiful tradition, because of it last year I started to feel a part of the community rather than an outsider watching others celebrate.

בין ישראל לעמים - Between Israel and the Nations

Shalom from VERY hot Jerusalem! We've been suffering through a heat wave for the past week, which of course meant that the AC at HUC would break. I've been settling into the new routine of ulpan, homework, and living in Jerusalem from my new vantage point of Rehavia resident and HUC student. I also have a visitor this week, the one and only Mat Schutzer, who was such a great host when I visited him in Brussels at the beginning of the summer!

A story from our havdalah service last night. My HUC class has a lovely tradition of gathering about an hour before Shabbat ends in a park near school for singing and havdalah (the ceremony marking the end of Shabbat and the transition into the week). Yesterday, we went to a different park, with more foot traffic and people outside enjoying the slightly cooler weather as the sun went down. Anyone who has traveled with a group of NFTY teens knows the ability of guitars in public spaces to attract the attention of little kids. On this particular Saturday evening, the kids who gravitated to the eight or so guitars and our singing were a group of Arab kids and their grown-ups. (As a side note, one of my teachers at Pardes last year commented that Jerusalem's parks are one of the few public spaces where Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs have any interaction.) We widened our circle to include them. We sang the words of the final blessing and extinguished the havdalah candle:

ברוך אתה יי אלהינו מלך העולם המבדיל בין קודש לחול, בין אור לחושך, בין ישראל לעמים, בין יום השביעי לשישת ימי המעשה. ברוך אתה יי המבדיל בין קודש לחול.

Blessed are You, Adonai our God, Sovereign of the universe, who distinguishes between the holy and ordinary, between light and dark, between Israel and the nations, between the seventh day and the six days of work. Blessed are You, Adonai, who distinguishes between the holy and ordinary.

As we sang the words "between Israel and the nations," I thought about how our circle had expanded to include those of another עם, another people, one whom, particularly within Jerusalem, is often starkly juxtaposed to be against עם ישראל, similar to the other divisions praised in the separation blessing, between light/dark, holy time/work time. Was this a division I wanted to be praising God for? Especially at a moment when the division seemed to be blurry. Yet - perhaps that is what havdalah is about. We do havdalah at the liminal moment of twilight, between light and dark, at a moment when we are trying to hold on to the peaceful holiness of Shabbat for just a few moments longer, singing just one more round of lai-lai's, before succumbing to the routine of the week. Even though we are praising these differences, and the One who Distinguishes, with the havdalah liturgy, we are still reluctant to make the separation. Just as it is said that in עולם הבא, the World as It Should Be, it will be Shabbat all the time, may it also be that when that day comes, other differences will cease to be relevant.

And a little tidbit from ulpan (intensive Hebrew language class): טיפש-עשרי=tipesh-esrei=teenager. 14, 15, etc. are ארבע-עשרי, חמש-עשרי=arba'a-esrei, chamesh-esrei, and טיפש=tipesh=stupid.

Life's a Beach

So as many of you know from my very public and detailed Facebook updates about my travels for the past month and a half, I am now back in Jerusalem after a lovely four weeks on the East Coast seeing lots of friends and family, and a fun week in Brussels visiting my friend Schutz from Brandeis. Orientation for HUC-JIR's Year in Israel program starts tomorrow evening, and I have been holding on to vacation like a kid in the last week of August - which of course meant a trip to the beach in Tel Aviv today.

Danny Sanderson - HaGalshan
יום בהיר של שמש
אין שום עננים
אני וכל החברה
אל הים נוסעים
לקחנו את האוטו
הבנות כבר שם

(It's a clear, sunny day/there are no clouds/me and all my peeps/are going to the beach/we take the car/the girls are already there)

This is often my inner soundtrack whenever I go to the beach in Israel - it's completely offbase for what the soundtrack actually is in Israel, but is completely the image I had of the beach as a kid at camp. Today, however, not only were "the girls already there," but there were ONLY girls (and women) there.  I went with two Brandeis friends who are in Israel for the summer to the single sex beach in Tel Aviv. On Sundays/Tuesdays/Thursdays, it's only open to women, and on Mondays/Wednesdays/Fridays, it's only open for men. I learned from one of my friends, who is here in Israel doing research for her dissertation on the Israeli municipal laws surrounding these beaches, that every city that has a beach, needs to have a sex separated area.

This particular beach was fascinating. It's surrounded by a high wall, although you approach it from the street above, so the wall seems kind of pointless. Except for the lack of men, the beach was not strikingly different from any of the beaches further south in Tel Aviv. I was most struck by the wide variety of beachwear - from itsy bitsy teeny tiny bikinis, to normal bikinis, bikini tops with shorts, one pieces, one pieces with white dresses over them (which once they are white, are pretty pointless as a modest cover-up), to women who were in the water in full-on street clothes. And with any of those combinations, there was a possibility of a head covering (some married Jewish women cover their hair, in a variety of ways, particularly within the Orthodox community).

This beach raises a lot of interesting questions for me - many of which we discussed while we lay out (probably with not quite enough sunscreen, at least on my end). Is there a straight line from separate sex beaches to separate sex bus lines (which have been a big issue in Israel and Jerusalem in the past year)? In my mind, I don't think so. I think these beaches enable those who act out values of modesty in their life with a particular set of actions to go to the beach, and swim, and get sunburnt. It's also very much a minority - it's a small beach, one which I didn't even know existed, nor did most of my non-Orthodox friends who I've talked to since. It's the kind of place that if you don't GO, you just not aware of it at all.

I think it's all interesting from the standpoint of creating women's only space within the public domain (although clearly 3 days a week, it is also men's only space, space that is already plentiful in Israel's plentiful domain). Being there reminded me of this article from The New York Times, about a women's only park in Afghanistan, particularly the description of how women take off their usual modest clothing once they are away from male gaze. This then leads me to the question of what specifically is driving the need for these beaches? Is it the desire to protect women from male gaze (and vice versa on men's days) to enable them to wear bathing suits? Or is it to create a space where people can go to the beach without being exposed to other people's perceived immodesty? One friend raised that this was just a nicer environment to bring your kids to splash around in the water.

I had a thought as I was wading into the (very warm!) Mediterranean for a swim, that with women's days and men's days, there really is no space for someone who doesn't fit into the gender binary, just as in a prayer space with a mechitza, or in a public space that only has male and female labeled bathrooms. But then I checked myself and remembered the miles of other beaches that don't use gender to separate either time or space.

I'd love to hear what any of you think about this - whether you've been in similar spaces, have thoughts about the genderedness or the religiosity of it...

Seeing is Believing

Yesterday was the last day of classes at Pardes - bittersweet, for sure. Now, everyone's caught up in the whirlwind of packing up and saying goodbye. But amidst all that hullabaloo, here's some Torah from my last gemara class.*

"If, in the land that Adonai your God is assigning to you to possess, someone slain is found lying in the open, the identity of the slayer not being known, your elders and magistrates shall go out and measure the distances from the corpse to the nearby towns..." (Deut. 21:1-2)

Deuteronomy 21 goes on to describe the ritual that the leaders of the city closest to the corpse need to do. The description ends with this declaration: "Our hands did not shed this blood, nor did our eyes see it done. Absolve, O Adonai, Your people Israel whom you redeemed, and do not let guilt for the blood of the innocent remain among Your people Israel." And they will be absolved of blood guilt. (21:7-8)

The mishnah (Bavli Sotah, 45b) goes on to say:
לא בא לידינו ופטרנוהו, לא ראינוהו והנחנוהו
It didn't come to our hands - and we are exempt, we did not see it - and it rests/it's ok with us. (loosely, not such a great translation)

The gemara (Masechet Sotah 46b) asks the question - how is it that this corpse got there in the first place? There are 2 points of view, one placing the fault on the legal and security system, the other, taking a more systemic perspective, says that it's our responsibility for not ensuring this person's basic needs - or else why would s/he have been wandering around outside the walls of the city alone in the first place? They go one step further, saying exactly what those basic needs are - מזון, food, and לויה, companionship.

This verb "to see לראות," which comes up in the Torah verse, in the Mishna, and again in the gemara, drew my attention. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks writes about another use of it: "I was young and now am old, yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken or their children begging for bread. נער הייתי וגם זקנתי ולא ראיתי צדיק נעזב וזרעו מבקש לחם" (Psalms 37:25) This verse is at the end of Birkat haMazon, and is deeply troubling, because at surface value, it is blatantly untrue. Can we really say that everyone who is hungry is hungry because they haven't been righteous? Sacks writes that he learned that we can understand the word "see - ראיתי" like it used in the Book of Esther, where Esther cries out to the king, "How can I bear to see the disaster which will befall my people! And how can I bear to see the destruction of my kindred!" (Esther 8:6) Sacks writes, "'To see' here means 'to stand still and watch.' The verse [from Psalms] should thus be translated, 'I was young and now am old, but I never merely stood still and watched while the righteous was forsaken or his children begged for bread." (Sacks, To Heal a Fractured World, p. 58)

This idea of seeing, and of seeing what isn't always obvious or easy - the dead body outside the city walls and hunger in our texts, and many of the things here in Israel I've written about on this blog since August - has been a central part of my focus this year. I started this blog saying I intended to see what kind of land this was. For me, that's included going to the West Bank and learning how the Israeli-Palestinian conflict impacts real people, engaging with some of Israeli society's most challenging issues through Pardes' social justice track, and not being oblivious to the position of liberal Judaism in Israeli society. Last summer, I was sitting with one of my rabbis, Rabbi Lehmann, and I said that I couldn't imagine living in Jerusalem and not dealing with these issues (in that conversation, speaking specifically about Israeli-Palestinian issues, but I think it applies to all of these). Rabbi Lehmann replied, "You're right, I don't think you could live in Jerusalem and ignore them, but plenty of other people do so very easily." It's too easy to ignore, and to not see, or to see and simply stand by...

When I was in Israel summer 2007 as a counselor for a NFTY in Israel trip, we brought our participants to Jerusalem on their 2nd or 3rd day in Israel. We had them put on blindfolds on the bus as we drove into the city and to the Tayelet, where there is a beautiful overlook of the Old City. When we arrived, we led them off the bus towards the overlook, and I talked to them about the summer and their time in Israel being an opportunity for פוקח עורים - opening their eyes to all that Israel had to offer. For me, it's about balancing both of these - taking in the wonders of Israel and the sights, smells, sounds of this country, but also seeing what lies beneath the surface.

So as I close out this year, prepare for a month's vacation in the States and to transition into my second year studying here in Israel, I'm thinking about how to continue holding that balance. Shabbat shalom!

*Let's be honest, it's really a procrastination technique so I don't have to pack.

49 Days of the Omer, 2 Tablets, 613 Commandments...Shavuot Tally!!

3...cups of NesCafe
3...Tikkun Leil Shavuot(s) attended (all night study session...and if you can tell me how to make that plural, you get a prize)
1...Brandeis NEJS professor
10.6km...walked around Jerusalem over the course of the evening
2...renditions of Debbie Friedman's 613 Commandments
7...constipated men of the Bible (that we could remember)
8 hours...slept after staying up all night

Shavuot in Jerusalem is a special experience. There's a tradition of staying up learning all night in anticipation of receiving the Torah, a tradition that it seems the entire city takes part in. As I walked from place to place throughout the night, I saw others doing the same, filling streets that are usually silent and empty at 2 AM with bustling social chatter.

At home early in the evening, I was studying from a book of contemporary Israeli women's midrash called Dirshuni. The midrash I was reading told a story of a young woman sitting in services while the 10 Commandments were being read from the Torah. As she heard the commandment of Shabbat, "Remember the sabbath day and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath of the Lord your God: you shall not do any work - you, your son or daughter, your male or female slave, or your cattle, or the stranger who is within your settlements," (Exodus 20:8-10) and the commandment "You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his male or female slave, or his ox or his ass, or anything that is your neighbor's" (Exodus 20:14), the young woman's thought was "And the woman, what about her? Isn't she commanded in the holiness of Shabbat? Isn't she commanded to not envy the husband of her neighbor?" In the woman's anger and fear, the midrash describes as being gathered up in God's palm, where she confronts God with her questions. God answers her, describing how Moses, prior to receiving the Torah, was commanded to separate from all women, including his wife Tziporah. Because Moses wasn't mixed up with the rest of creation, including his own wife, prior to writing down all the Torah, it was just inconceivable to him that anyone other than men would be held responsible for keeping Shabbat, or that a woman could have the inclination to envy her neighbor. God implies that God's intention in giving the commandments was for men AND women, but Moses, who could only understand out of his own experience, missed that. The midrash ends saying, "Every beit midrash in which there is no woman, no complete words of Torah will go out from it." We need to include all perspectives in our learning, not just our own, otherwise our Torah isn't complete.

The first tikkun leil I went to was at Pardes; I heard Judy Klitsner, a Pardes faculty member in Bible who I haven't had the chance to learn with because she has been promoting her new book this year. She taught about the patriarchs of the Torah turning to non-Jewish mentors (Abraham to Malchi-tzedek, and Moses to Yitro his father-in-law). Then I went to Yedidya, a nearby synagogue, where I heard Jonathan Sarna speak on Judaism in post-revolutionary America. Judaism adopted the values around it, of democracy, republicanism, and a rejection of central authority. The Jewish community could no longer rely on the rabbi's authority to enforce communal norms regarding intermarriage, among other things. . As Judaism entered the free market, "it had to become compelling and interesting, it couldn't rely on being coercive." Sarna's thesis reminded me of the midrash describing the moment of revelation, in which God literally holds Mount Sinai over Am Yisrael, threatening to kill the entire community if they do not accept the Torah. This coercive, do-or-be-punished model of Jewish life no longer worked in the New World.

After Sarna's talk, I walked 45 minutes across the city to Tchernichovsky Street, where some of my friends were holding their own tikkun leil, independent of any of the formal institutions of learning that fill this city. I think this really reflected the spirit of Shavuot, and in particular the spirit of Shavuot in Jerusalem. Anyone can walk into any synagogue, beit midrash, or lecture hall to participate in the learning happening. You don't need to have a particular amount of Jewish learning or be a major donor (Major Donor!) in order to access the learning and teaching. And anyone can teach, not only the big names who are advertised on posters all over the city in the week prior to the holiday. And as a Jewish people, we need to be aware of the diversity of experience among us, the myriad of ways that we live in the world and experience revelation. We can't rely on just one understanding of the tradition, held by those in traditional roles of rabbinic and social authority.

As morning approached, we went to meet up with those heading to Robinson's Arch, sometimes referred to as the "Kotel Masorti" (referring to the Masorti, Israeli Conservative, movement). Robinson's Arch, in the archaeological excavations next to the Western Wall plaza, is the space dedicated for egalitarian prayer, where Women of the Wall holds its Torah services, and where boys and girls can both become b'nai mitzvah. Praying Shacharit at sunrise, in the heart of the Old City of Jerusalem, surrounded by a liberal, egalitarian community was one of the more powerful prayer experiences I've had this year. When we first got there and started to get ready to daven, we were unsure if it was even light enough to put on our tallitot - and I was praying with my beautiful new tallit that I got when my mom was here a few weeks ago, so this was very important! Gradually it got lighter, and the only noise heard, other than our own prayers and the faint mumble of prayer from the Kotel, was that of birds chirping and greeting the day. The tallitot around me, of both men and women, flapped in the early morning wind. We loudly and jubilantly sang the words of hallel...and then walked home and I slept from 7:30am until 3:00pm.

Sweet as honey, sweet as honey, sweet as honey on my tongue!

*Points to anyone who read closely enough to find the How I Met Your Mother reference.

Nesher adventures

On a recent sherut (shared shuttle) trip to the airport, I had one of those classic, only-in-Israel moments. Usually, a sherut trip from Jerusalem to Ben Gurion airport is at least a 2-hour ordeal, as the shuttle drives through every Jerusalem neighborhood you never knew existed, picking up one passenger at a time, and loading up the van with their screaming babies and giant suitcases filled with presents for the family back in the states, before hurtling at breakneck speeds to the airport - all this for the low price of 50 shekel!

Instead, I was the first pick-up at 6:45, and after just 2 more stops, I arrived at Ben Gurion in less than 2 hours. At our 3rd and last stop, we picked up...wait for it...an seven person Irish-American band from Alabama and ALL of their instruments. As Naomi said in response to the text message describing the absurdity of this, "What on earth were they doing in Israel?!" The previous weekend, a well-known folk music festival, Jacob's Ladder, had taken place in the north of Israel, and they had been in the country, their first visit, to perform. And they LOVED the country, their Israeli host Menachem, and the handful of Hebrew words they spoke in their Southern accents.

Of course, the only-in-Israelness of this isn't complete yet. Right after we drove through the security checkpoint at the entrance to Ben Gurion, the driver's phone rings. He answers it on speaker phone, and the caller is looking for the ish b'mishkafayim - the gentleman in the glasses. My first thought was that for some reason, airport security was looking for him, but it turned out that it was the band's Israeli host, Menachem, calling to say goodbye to his guests. Only in Israel is it normal for someone to call the cell phone of a shuttle driver to talk to a passenger.

Of course, on my return trip from the airport, the sherut driver got out to take a piss behind the van. Only in Israel...

The Holidays Affectionately Known as "the Yoms"

Pardes observed Yom HaZikaron by visiting Har Herzl, the military cemetery in Jerusalem. It was an intense experience, even though we went near the end of the day. Many of the families had visited the graves of their loved ones in the morning, and the detritus of these visits was visible all over the cemetery in the form of plastic wrappers from bouquets, empty water bottles, and yahrzeit candles burning next to the graves. In one of my classes when we went back to school after both holidays, Rav Levi shared the words of someone in his community who lost someone in one of Israel's wars: "We have the yahrzeit, that's when we mourn - Yom HaZikaron is when you mourn with us."

The transition to Yom Ha'atzmaut from the mourning of Yom HaZikaron was quick. I wasn't sure exactly what intention I wanted to take into Yom Ha'atzmaut with me. As my friend Alanna said, my lefty political values and my Zionism don't need to contradict each other. We went to a טקס(tekes=ceremony) sponsored by Yesh G'vul, designed to be an alternative to the state-sponsored ceremony at Har Herzl. It was definitely a snapshot of the Israeli left; there were more people than I expected to see, and a diverse group with respect to age - I even ran into an old friend, Idan, with whom I had worked 3 summers ago. I was disappointed by the ceremony itself. I thought it was boring and dry; I was looking to have my lefty neshama moved and stirred up by the hard work being done by the social change workers they chose to honor with beacon lighting.

The one moment that did give me some of those chills was when all of the children present were invited to come up and light the final beacon. I think, for me, that is the intention, the kavannah for Yom Ha'atzmaut: a lot of good has been done in this country in the past 62 years, along with a lot that should not be repeated in its next 62 years. But Israel and Israelis will keep working to build a just, peaceful, and safe society for the next generation of children to grow up in.

When we were talking about Yom Ha'atzmaut in class the next day, Rav Levi offered this perspective: that Yom Ha'atzmaut is a day to take a step back from working on the country's problems. We do that the other 364 days of the year, but Yom Ha'atzmaut is a day for being thankful (which is reflected in the religious celebrations of the holiday, where Hallel, joyful psalms, is added to the liturgy). This reminds me of Shabbat - the other 6 days we work towards the world-as-it-should-be, trying to fix the world's problems, but Shabbat is explicitly the day when we stop doing that and appreciate what we have.

Zichronam Livracha - May their memories be for a blessing

Much to write about. It's been awhile, and a lot has happened. This is a pretty heady time of year in Israel - Pesach is followed very rapidly by Yom Hashoah (remembering the Holocaust), and then a week later, Yom Hazikaron (Memorial Day) and immediately after by Yom Ha'atzmaut (Israeli Independence Day).

I don't have much to say about what Yom Hashoah was like, as I spent most of it home sick with strep throat. I can say, that it is true, I verified it, that there is nothing on TV in Israel on Yom Hashoah except for Holocaust movies.

Yom HaZikaron, Memorial Day for fallen soldiers and victims of terror attacks, started tonight. A siren sounded across the country at 8pm, marking the beginning of the day. In addition to the state ceremony held at the Kotel, neighborhoods and communities all over Jerusalem held their own local ceremonies. Lauren and I, along with her roommate, went to the community ceremony in Baka, the neighborhood where many of my friends live.

We arrived a little late, so we were standing in the back, near the entrance, which was heavily guarded by security and police. Towards the end of the ceremony, a little boy, probably about 3 or 4 years old, started crying - he couldn't find his parents. Watching the police and the security push aside their guns, kneel down, and take care of this little boy who couldn't find his parents, juxtaposed with the ceremony mourning all of the children of Israel who have died - 22,682 since 1860 - was striking and poignant. It reminded me of the Yehuda Amichai poem, which I may have quoted here before, "An Arab Shepherd is Searching for His Goat on Mount Zion."

An Arab shepherd is searching for his goat on Mount Zion
And on the opposite hill I am searching for my little boy.
An Arab shepherd and a Jewish father
Both in their temporary failure.


These two holidays, so close together, with their drastic shift from the mourning of Yom HaZikaron to the celebration of Yom Ha'atzmaut, are very conducive to deep conversations about what Zionism is, what the State of Israel is and could be. Coming where they do in the cycle of my own time here, after I've been living in Jerusalem for a substantial amount of time, and am anticipating another year here, they raise questions of my own relationship to this place. We had a panel at Pardes today called "Keeping the Faith," with 3 Pardes alumni, who all made aliyah, and live very different lives in Israel, with very different outlooks. One speaker talked about how he is not an armchair Zionist, and by living in Israel and serving in the army, he engages in the dirty, practical work of Zionism. I also don't want to be an armchair Zionist, yet my understanding of what my role is in the dirty, practical work of Zionism doesn't equal aliyah and enlisting in the IDF. I'm still figuring out exactly what my role is, what my relationship is to this place.

Right now I'm listening to Galgalatz online (Israeli radio). On Yom HaZikaron, the radio stations all play sad music, transitioning to happier music as Yom Ha'atzmaut starts. Tomorrow, there is another siren in the morning, and in the afternoon, I'm going to the military cemetery, Har Herzl, with Pardes. Tomorrow night, I'm going to an "alternative beacon lighting ceremony, for a just, equitable, and deserving Israel," sponsored by Yesh G'vul. There will be much more to share and reflect on over the next 48 hours.

Zichronam livracha - may their memories, of all those who have died because of this conflict, seeking safe homes and freedom for future generations, on both sides, be for a blessing - and may that blessing be that soon the day will come when a parent's greatest fear is losing their child in a crowd, not sending him or her off to war.

A visit to the Museum on the Seam

Last week, I went to the Museum on the Seam, an incredible socio-political contemporary art museum on the line (the seam) between West and East Jerusalem. It is definitely worth a visit whenever you are in Jerusalem. The current exhibit, HomeLessHome, showed different artists' understandings of what home is, and how home as a concept is impacted by governments and individuals. The museum does not only focus on how these issues play out locally (although the exhibit included work by Israeli and Palestinian artists from a variety of political perspectives, including the pain of the evacuation and destruction of Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip, and the pain caused by home demolitions in Palestinian villages).


One piece that I was particularly struck by, both by the artwork itself and the accompanying description and quote in the exhibit guide, was on the roof of the museum, from which one can see neighborhoods of both West and East Jerusalem, as well as the Old City. The sculpture, by the Israeli artist Philip Rantzer, had four iron cages placed inside each other. The artist shared an excerpt from Nelson Mandela's autobiography, that really struck me in this time right before Pesach:

It was during those long and lonely years that the hunger for the freedom of my own people became the hunger for the freedom for all people, white and black.  I knew as well as I know anything that the oppressor must be liberated just as surely as the oppressed.  A man who takes away another man's freedom is a prisoner of hatred, he is locked behind the bars of prejudice and narrow-mindedness.  I am not truly free if I am taking away someone else's freedom, just as surely as I am not free when my freedom is taken from me.  The oppressed and the oppressor alike are robbed of their humanity.  

When I walked out of prison that was my mission, to liberate the oppressed and the oppressor both.  Some say that now has been achieved.  But I know that that is not the case.  The truth is that we are not yet free; we have merely achieved the freedom to be free, the right not to be oppressed.  We have not taken the final step of our journey, but the first step on a longer and even more difficult road.  For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.  The true test of our devotion to freedom is just beginning.

I hope everyone has a happy and meaningful holiday, to those who are celebrating! It is very exciting to be here, in Jerusalem, for Pesach, when a year ago I was saying "לשנה הבאה בירושלים - to next year in Jerusalem!" Chag Pesach sameach!

For lo, the winter has passed...

As I write this, sitting on my mirpeset and overlooking the courtyard behind my apartment building, I can see my neighbors in the next building over, who have moved their Pesach cleaning outside - there seems to be an entire stove out there, being cleaned. Stores and restaurants all around Jerusalem have signs announcing whether or not they will be open during Pesach and I saw a poster last night informing me when I could take my kitchen utensils and pots to be immersed in boiling water to kasher them for Pesach - right in my neighborhood! In addition to the holiday preparations that are everywhere in Jerusalem this week, the trees are blooming, flowers are budding, and the entire city smells like a flower shop (also known as hell for those of us with seasonal allergies).

I spent last week on a Pardes tiyul to the Golan Heights, in the north of Israel. I'd been to the Golan before, but mostly for tourism and learning about the history of the area, rather than hiking. It was breathtakingly beautiful. Wildflowers were blooming, everything was GREEN (rare for this region of the world), and it was so fully and entirely spring. On the first two days of the tiyul, we hiked to waterfalls with deep pools - and I was even brave enough to jump into the freezing cold water on day 2. Hiking in Israel reminds me that no matter what, despite all the challenges of living in this country, all of the heavy, complicated stuff that I write about and think about, I love this land. I am so happy to be living here this year, to have the opportunity to stay for another year.

At Shabbat services on Friday night, at Nava Tehila, a Renewal community in Jerusalem, we sang parts of Song of Songs, traditionally read/sung around this time of year, usually at the Shabbat during Pesach:

כי הנה הסתיו עבר הגשם חלף הלך לו. הניצנים נראו בארץ עת הזמיר הגיע
For lo, the winter has passed, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on earth, the time of singing has come. (Song of Songs 2:11-12)

Singing these verses at Kabbalat Shabbat felt like such an apt description of the past week. I love that in Israel, the liturgical cycle reflects the natural rhythm of the world, rather than feeling totally incongruous.





Yesterday, I went to the doctor to get my medical forms for HUC filled out. Only in Israel would the doctor be more confused as to why I needed a physical to go to rabbinical school than with the entire concept of rabbinical school in the first place. On his shelf, next to the usual medical books, were books like "Medical Ethics and Halacha." Another one of those "only in Israel" moments...

את דתית? - Are you religious?

Coming at you live from Aroma (Israel's #1 coffee chain) in Kanyon Hadar, the mall across the street from Pardes. I've designated 12pm-1pm on Sundays and Wednesdays as class-free, an hour off - which, as all of you camp people know, is for iced coffee and checking email.

Once a week, I volunteer in an absorption center for Ethiopian immigrants (olim) in Mevasseret Zion, a small city not so far from Jerusalem. The families live in the absorption center (mercaz klitah) for 2 years after arriving in Israel. Several Pardes students go every Tuesday afternoon and spend time with the families and the kids there. My family has 5 kids, 4 of whom live at home - Isubalo (11), Tadla (8), Haftamo (3), and an infant. The Ethiopian community in Israel has not been well-absorbed into Israeli society - even after leaving absorption centers, they still live in relatively close-knit and isolated communities. They are poor and the adults speak very little Hebrew. Upon arrival in Israel, the Ethiopians were forced to undergo conversion, because their halachic Jewish status was questioned. Conversion in Israel is controlled by the rabbanut, the state rabbinic authority (and is currently in the news a lot) - those who convert in Israel are required to maintain a certain level of Jewish observance. As a result, the kids in the Ethiopian community in Mevasseret attend religious schools.

This past Tuesday, we took our kids outside to play, to the delight of every other child in the neighborhood, who couldn't wait to play with our jump rope, climb on the human jungle gyms, and ask us a million questions about where we were from, what we were doing there, and if we were coming back next week. Shira (another Pardes student volunteering there) and I were sitting on the curb chatting, when three older girls, probably around 13 or so, walked up and started to ask us the same million questions. With one new question: את דתית? (Are you religious?) I was wearing a skirt, which probably prompted the question. It's a tricky question to answer here. The word "דתי" isn't just an adjective, but a label that corresponds most closely with modern Orthodox. Particularly for these kids in the absorption center, where B'nei Akiva, the religious Zionist youth movement, has a significant presence, "religious" has a very particular social meaning. The kids hadn't heard of Reform Judaism, despite the fact that there is a vibrant Progressive synagogue in Mevasseret Zion, that I visited a few weeks ago for Shabbat with Shir Tikva.

It's a common question, especially when I tell Israelis that I'm studying Talmud and Torah at Pardes. I've been asked it when sitting in a bar on a Friday night (not usually the favorite stomping ground of the religious). Adult Israelis (as opposed to teen girls in the absorption center) have usually at least HEARD of Reform Judaism (reformim as they're called here), but are less likely to have some knowledge of what it means when I say that I'm a Reform Jew.

Breaking down religious stereotypes since 1986...

Today is our last normal class day until after Pesach - tomorrow we have a day of classes about Pesach (including a showing of The Prince of Egypt!), and then it's vacation! Vacation plans include a trip to the Golan Heights with Pardes, a long weekend in Turkey with Benn, seder, visitors from Boston, and some traveling around Israel. It's definitely spring here in Jerusalem: trees are green and blooming, the weather is significantly warmer (already hit high 80s!), and it smells like flowers everywhere. When I tried to buy cake mix last week to bake a birthday cake for a friend, I failed at the first grocery store I went to - they had already cleared out the chametz from several of their aisles, replacing it with kosher for Passover cake mix - gross!

Haredim and Hamentaschen

Haredim...
Last week, my friend and fellow Pardes student Dan and I joined a group of leaders and staff from the Jewish Agency's Board of Governors meeting to take a tour exploring ultra-Orthodox (haredi) life in Israel. The tour took us to a girls' school in the haredi Jerusalem neighborhood of Geula, a business employing primarily haredi women in Modi'in Illit, and an employment center in Beit Shemesh. I learned a lot more on the trip than I was expecting, especially since Dan and I had been told that our primary role in being there was to talk about the impact that MASA (a project of the Jewish Agency and the Israeli government that is one of the key financial reasons that enables me to be in Israel now) has had on us. It was a great opportunity to see a slice of Israeli life that I don't come into much contact with in my life in the liberal, pluralistic community of South Jerusalem.

The haredi community is usually very separate from the rest of Israeli society (or the society of whatever country they are living in). They live in tight-knit communities, marry within their communities, and remain within the haredi world for employment, avoiding contact with the secular world. This can be seen even by looking at the itinerary for my day exploring the haredi world. Our first stop, Geula, is a Jerusalem neighborhood inhabited almost entirely by various sects of the haredi community. The second location, Modi'in Illit, is an entirely ultra-Orthodox city/settlement, on the other side of the Green Line. It  has a population of 50,000, and is the fastest growing city and settlement in Israel.

The common thread among most of the places we visited was how haredim can participate in modern society while still remaining within the haredi community. In Modi'in Illit, we visited CityBook, a business that hires haredi women to do legal work that has been outsourced from an American real estate company. 10-15% of the work force is out on maternity leave at any given time, due to the emphasis on family and childbearing in the haredi community! I was really struck by how the company made both halachic (Jewish law) and cultural adjustments to their offices in order to be a viable employment option for these women. After consulting with rabbinic authorities, they put glass windows into all of the office doors, to enable a man and a woman to have a private business meeting without violating Jewish laws about men and women being alone. Culturally, they set aside a room in the offices for women to use when coming back from maternity leave for pumping breast milk, instead of using a closet or trying to find other private space like women in so many other offices have to do. That's not a legal adjustment, but it is acknowledging the cultural realities of the community. One of the women employees raised the point that haredi women have always entered the workforce; historically they were expected to be the family's primary breadwinners while the husbands studied fulltime in yeshivot. What's different now is that the community and businesses are approaching it on a more collective level, by placing offices and businesses in places that are physically the center of haredi life. The business even receives subsidies from the Israeli government, which wants to encourage employment of minorities, including the haredi and Arab sectors of the labor force.

In Beit Shemesh, we met with three soldiers from the Israeli Defence Forces unit Nahal Haredi. The rabbi who founded it (originally from Boston!) wanted to address the rift between the secular and religious parts of Israeli society. One of the biggest points of contention is army service - most ultra-Orthodox men don't serve in the IDF, unlike the rest of their peers who serve in some way, either through enlisting in the IDF or doing national service (volunteering in some part of Israeli society). A popular bumper sticker in Israel, reflecting this tension, reads "גיוס לכולם - Enlistment for All." This special army combat unit was created to make a space for haredi young men to serve in the army without having to compromise their religious practices and cultural standards. The unit is 70% haredi and 30% national religious (modern Orthodoxy in the US) - but everyone is religious. One of the soldiers said, "This is not the place for non-religious guys looking to spend less time in the army." The soldiers do two years of combat service, and their third year in the army focuses on vocational training and completing their high school diplomas, so that post-army, the men who participate in this combat unit can enter the workforce. In Israel, it's very difficult to enter the labor force in a meaningful way if one hasn't served in the army, and for haredi men, they have not studied secular topics or gained any marketable skills other than learning gemara.

It struck me the extent to which Nahal Haredi has caused the IDF to change, rather than creating change within the haredi community itself. These are two social institutions in Israel that, at least at face value, are incompatible. The army adjusted to make space for the haredi world, rather than the haredi world adapting itself to the army. Although the unit has been around for 10 years, they still struggle to recruit young men to it. Those who come are often those who haven't succeeded in yeshiva, and like young people in any society who don't succeed on their expected path, are drawn to drugs, drinking, fighting, etc. (instead of addressing potential learning disabilities or different aptitudes that might lead to a young man not thriving in a yeshiva environment). Many of the soldiers are told by their families to not come home, and if they do, to not come home wearing their army uniforms. There is a lot of anger and embarrassment still within the haredi community to some of their sons participating in Israeli society in this very basic way.

The funniest moment of the day occurred as we were leaving lunch with the haredi soldiers. They are young men, look like any other young Israeli soldier - wearing small kippot, very clean-shaven, have the sleeves of their army uniforms rolled up as far as possible (it shows how macho you are, obviously. Only weaklings roll their sleeves down). I asked a question of the speakers and got a rushed answer because we needed to be leaving. As I was collecting my things, one of the soldiers came over to me and very eagerly said, "What was your question? I can answer it!" I was dressed my most modestly for the day - long denim skirt, carefully layered shirts, looking very much the part of a modest Orthodox young woman. I thought, "You don't want this, honey. I know it looks like you do, but you really don't...I'm going to be a Reform rabbi, I study gemara...really, really not your type!"

...and Hamentaschen!
Last weekend was Purim! In Jerusalem, this resulted in a four and a half day weekend! We had a half-day of school on Thursday due to the Fast of Esther, no school on Friday and Saturday as usual, Sunday off for Purim, and Monday off for Shushan Purim. Shushan Purim is celebrated in walled cities (such as Jerusalem), in recognition of the fact that the Jews of Shushan (the walled Persian city where much of the Purim story takes place) had an extra day to pursue and kill their enemies than Jews in the rest of Persia. Excellent. Sheryl and I went to the shuk on Thursday afternoon; I had to buy ingredients for the Shabbat lunch I was hosting as well as materials for mishloach manot (packages of food and treats sent to friends and neighbors on Purim). The candy store was PACKED with others looking for the same thing. The next day, on Friday, as I walked past the high school near my house, I saw a teenage girl run out of the Purim party/carnival to pick up some baked goods from a parent waiting in a car in the street. Her costume? Sexy Santa.

Although it rained all weekend (and the Dead Sea has risen 8 centimeters!), the rain stopped (some) in time for Shushan Purim. Sara G. and I went to hear the megillah read at Kol Haneshama (well, two chapters of it), and then ran through the pouring rain to Pardes to see (and act in!) the Purim shpiel. The next day, by some miracle of heaven, I woke up in time to go to a megillah reading organized by Women of the Wall at the Kotel. (See this interesting article from the Jerusalem Post about women's megillah readings.) After some much needed lunch and a nap, I went to a seudah (festive meal) at my teacher Meesh's house, along with most of the rest of Pardes. One of the things I love about the Pardes community is that our teachers do things like open up their homes to the entire student body for holidays, it was very sweet of Meesh, her husband, and her kids to host all of us.


Noam and I in our costumes (he's the Rambam!) at Kol Haneshama megillah reading - Terry told me it looked like I wasn't in costume, I had just walked into the wrong synagogue!


Women's megillah reading at the Kotel

Taking it to the street

Last week, on Rosh Hodesh Adar (the first day of the Hebrew of Adar), I had multiple opportunities to get out of the beit midrash - where, contrary to what you might think from reading this blog, is where I spend most of my time.

That morning, along with several other Pardes students and other friends from around Jerusalem, I prayed with Women of the Wall. (see this post for more about WOW) It was a beautiful, unseasonably warm and sunny morning, a welcome change from the torrential rain of Rosh Hodesh Kislev. After, many friends, both in Israel and back home, asked how it was, and my immediate response was "uneventful." Considering that the first time I joined the Women of the Wall, Nofrat was arrested, anything else after that is relatively uneventful. In reality, there was a huge crowd of women (and a significant number of male allies) present to welcome in the joyful month of Adar with song, prayer, and dancing, and many on both sides of the mechitza who verbally and physically protested against our prayers.

There's a tradition that when Adar enters, joy increases, reflecting the joyousness of the Jewish community at having escaped genocide at the hands of Haman in the Purim story, and the general fun and craziness that accompanies the celebration of Purim today. That joy was definitely present that morning - with the warm (almost hot!) sun, we sang Purim songs "מישנכנס אדר מרבים בשמחה - when Adar comes in, we increase in joy!" as we walked the Torah to Robinson's Arch, the archaeological site next to the Kotel that has been designated for egalitarian and women's prayer and Torah services. Despite the anger that I heard and saw at the Kotel - several ultra-Orthodox women literally pushed their way into our group to try and disrupt our davening, while a large group of haredi men, armed with a megaphone, bellowed "GEVALT" (like oy gevalt - Yiddish for things that are really bad), yelled that we weren't Jewish, and that there is one Torah and it cannot be changed - the predominant emotion among the women I prayed with on Rosh Hodesh was that of the joy that one could find in any synagogue in Jerusalem on the morning of Rosh Hodesh Adar.

The same day, Pardes as a community had a "Yom Iyun shel Chesed" (translation: Mitzvah Day), in memory of two former Pardes students who were killed in a terrorist attack at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem in the summer of 2002. That afternoon, I got on a bus with 50 other Pardes students, faculty, and their family members to go to a farm outside of Rehovot to pick produce for an organization called Leket. Leket, whose name comes from the commandment in the Torah to leave behind in your field the produce that falls or doesn't get picked in the harvest for the poor of the community to glean, is a food rescue organization that collects produce from farms and leftovers from parties, wedding halls, etc. We visited a farm that exists purely to provide fruits and vegetables for those lacking food security, and spent the hot afternoon picking oranges (and eating a couple). It was great to be able to be outside on such a beautiful day, and we picked 3 TONS of oranges, which were distributed into kids' lunches for school the next day.

One of the challenges I've had since even getting to Pardes was thinking about transitioning from working and acting in the world to sitting and learning, for its own sake, full-time. This was compounded when Rav Landes, the rosh yeshiva at Pardes (the #1 in charge), in talking about etiquette in the beit midrash to the whole community, included among his etiquette rules that not only should cell phones and email not be used in the beit midrash, but the news shouldn't be read also. For me, my study of Jewish text in the beit midrash is incomplete without that connection to the rest of the world. Yes, I am studying Torah for its own sake this year, but not with blinders on. Pardes does not constrain its activities to the beit midrash - Yom Iyyun shel Chesed, and our weekly volunteering (there are no classes on Tuesday afternoons, and most students volunteer at various non-profits in and around Jerusalem). Reflecting on my time so far in Jerusalem, particularly through talking with Rabbi Gold and Shir Tikva's 11th and 12th graders while they were here last week, I realized that I really haven't limited myself to my learning in the Pardes beit midrash. Through my volunteering (more on that in a future post), time with Women of the Wall, and involvement with Encounter, I've embraced a teaching that Rabbi Gold shared with me last year: "My Torah is walking - I'm following it to the public square."

In that spirit...

Pardes is doing a community learn-a-thon this week to raise money for Haiti relief through AJWS, American Jewish World Service. As a community, we are all doing extra learning, our teachers are donating their time to teach evening classes on social justice issues, and we are reaching out to our friends and families to donate money in support of us and this dire humanitarian crisis. You can donate here.

And for a laugh, check out this Youtube video (starring me!).

West Bank Story

A tale of two cities...Bethlehem and Efrat. Two weeks ago, I spent two days in Bethlehem with Encounter, an organization that brings Diaspora Jewish leaders to Bethlehem to hear and experience Palestinian narratives and life. The following Shabbat I spent in Efrat, at the home of one of my teachers from Pardes.

Encounter was a challenging and intense experience. One of the most powerful parts of the trip was listening to a panel of Palestinian women activists, sharing their own personal and professional narratives. One woman, Rula, shared how she, an East Jerusalem resident, gave birth to her son in East Jerusalem when her husband was living in Jordan. Because the father's identity was bureaucratically "unknown," Rula couldn't get a birth certificate or an Israeli ID for her son. If she traveled to Jordan to reunite her son with his father, he'd lose any chance to have documentation. As a result, the only solution was for Rula to divorce her husband, and she finally got papers for her son when he was 5. She said, "Ask any woman if she'd pick her husband and her son - her son! I don't want my son to be added to the refugee list."

Sheerin, who currently works for the UN in Darfur, offered one of the hardest to hear stories, simply because of the hopelessness that she voiced. She told of how her niece asked her, "Why are they doing to us?" Sheerin said, "10 years ago, I would have thought carefully about how to answer...now, I just say they hate us." She doesn't think non-violent activism will work, and is frustrated without any answers, solutions, or ways to move forward. She chose to leave her home village outside of Bethlehem, and was faced with a choice between San Francisco and Darfur. She chose Darfur, because she wanted to see what it felt like to be an outsider to a conflict. Sheerin described how here (in Israel/the Palestinian territories), she's the weakest - she is black (relative to those who are in power) and Palestinian. In Darfur, it's the opposite. She has power, she is white (relative to those who are the victims of the genocide in Darfur), she is Arab and Muslim, she works for the UN. In Darfur, it's hard for her to be associated with Arabs, and connected with those who are committing genocide and human rights abuses. It was very hard for me to hear what she said about not wanting to be Israeli and have oppression done in her name. It raises deep questions for me about what is done in my name, for my sake, that I may or may not agree with. I believe in a Zionist ideal, a Jewish state that lives up to the highest prophetic values of Judaism with respect for the dignity of every human being, and there are so many examples that I see here, day after day, not only with respect to the Palestinian territories, that aren't living up to that expectation.

The State of Israel will be open for Jewish immigration and the Ingathering of the Exiles; it will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture... -Declaration of Establishment of State of Israel

My home stay, with an older Muslim couple in Beit Sahour, a city just east of Bethlehem, presented a much more optimistic perspective. Atala, who teaches Islam in a Christian school, where his students are both boys and girls, Muslims and Christians, believes that religion can bring us together. We all pray to the same Divine power, we all pray for peace every day. His and his wife Jamila's hospitality was lovely - even though we were full from dinner when we arrived, they made delicious tea, we ate fruit and candy next to their fireplace, and then in the morning, I ate so much bread, eggs, tomatoes, and salads that I wasn't even hungry when it was lunch time.

On Friday, we heard a panel of non-violence activists. One shared a story of driving through a checkpoint, and the soldier asked him something along the lines of "How do you deal with it? Isn't life awful for you?" He responded, to an Israeli soldier who grew up in a settlement outside of Hebron, "How do YOU stand it? Standing outside, in the rain, on a cold winter day?" And the soldier cried, because the Palestinians whose papers he checked all day long had never recognized his pain and asked about him.

The stories and realities that I heard were painful, inspiring, depressing. Sometimes they conflicted with the stories and realities that I have learned over the years. The takeaway message, as I discussed with Rabbi Neal Gold last night (Shir Tikva's 11th and 12th graders are in Israel for the week, it's been great to see and spend time with them. Looking forward to Shabbat with the group!) is: it's complicated, and anyone who thinks it isn't is missing something.

Shabbat in Efrat, after spending 2 days in Bethlehem seeing how West Bank settlements and their growth are having serious consequences for Palestinian life, was challenging. My friend and fellow Pardes student Amy and I went to our teacher Hindy's house in the north of Efrat, a neighborhood called Zayit. From the windows of the synagogue where we went to services, we could see Jerusalem...and Bethlehem. Hindy are her husband are liberal, West Wing-lovers, but it was impossible for me to forget that I was in Efrat, in a settlement in the West Bank. This is a small country, and everything is very close, yet very removed. Efrat and Bethlehem are totally different worlds. Not everyone moves there for deep, ideological reasons - Hindy and Mark moved there because they needed more space than they could afford in Jerusalem, where housing costs are skyrocketing. But the political still comes out, in the form of self-interest: as we left shul on Saturday, Hindy and Mark grumbled about the overcrowding in their synagogue, and as we walked home, pointed out the site that their new synagogue will be built on...but can't be built yet, along with a lot of other planned construction, because of the settlement freeze. this contrasted sharply with my visit the week before to the Hope Flowers School in al-Khader, a village next to Bethlehem, which is in the path of Efrat's future growth, and could face serious problems with access if Efrat continues to grow north. The view outside of one of the windows in Hindy's apartment faces an Arab village, so close that we could clearly hear every word echoing from the minaret throughout the day.

View West Bank Story in a larger map

Our Shabbat overall was lovely - I had a great time with Hindy, her husband, and her cute kids (even though they didn't like me very much), and Amy and I went for a walk in the unseasonably warm February weather on Shabbat afternoon. All of these stories are part of the narrative of this confusing place, even when they conflict with each other.