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