Leaving Jerusalem

I wrote this while flying from Israel to New York a few weeks ago. It will most likely be my last post on this blog, which I started in order to reflect on my own experiences living in Jerusalem for two years, and to share them with all of you. Chag Shavuot Sameach!
 

May 20, 2011

El Al #1, TLV-JFK

Somewhere over Newfoundland… 

For the past year and a half, I have had the blessing of learning gemara with my dear chevruta, Sarah W. We started together as chumash chevrutas during our first semester at Pardes, and then began learning gemara during second semester, and continued studying together once a week this past year. This is dedicated to all of the Torah learning, laughs, and David Berman muffins when they were much needed that we shared together.

This year we have been studying Masechet Shabbat. At our final meeting as chevruta (for now), we studied a sugya, Shabbat 119a, that brought aggadot (stories) about how different rabbis celebrated Shabbat. It continued by bringing many of the well-known midrashim that are often heard and shared about Shabbat in lots of different settings. (For example, the story that two angels, a good angel and a bad angel, accompany a person home from services on Friday night to see if his house is cheerfully ready for Shabbat or not – if it is, the good angel says “May it be this way every week,” and the bad angel has to say “amen,” and vice versa).

The piece that has stuck with me all week – we studied on Sunday, 5 days before I left Israel, immediately after my final Shabbat in Jerusalem – asks how people merit or earn their riches.

רבי מר' ישמעאל ברבי יוסי עשירים שבא"י במה הן זוכין א"ל בשביל שמעשרין שנאמר (דברים יד) עשר תעשר עשר בשביל שתתעשר שבבבל במה הן זוכין א"ל בשביל שמכבדין את התורה ושבשאר ארצות במה הן זוכין א"ל בשביל שמכבדין את השבת

Rabbi asked R. Ishmael son of R. Jose: The wealthy in Eretz Yisrael, how do they merit wealth? --Because they give tithes, he replied, as it is written, "עשר תעשר" - give tithes so that you may become wealthy. 

(an agricultural mitzvah that can only be fulfilled in the Land of Israel)

Those in Babylon, how do they merit riches? --Because they honor the Torah.

 (Babylon was the site of a great deal of Torah learning starting in the 5^th century CE, where most of the material of the Babylonian Talmud was produced).

And those in other countries, how do they merit riches? Because they honor Shabbat.

Sarah and I, while discussing this sugya, talked about why it was these particular mitzvot, in these particular places, that make a person merit riches. In the case of Shabbat, Sarah pointed out, it is a very hard mitzvah to keep fully (whatever fully might mean for you) outside of Israel. In Israel, it IS Shabbat from Friday night-Saturday. It is impossible to forget about it, especially in Jerusalem, and for me, it was very easy to cultivate a Shabbat culture for myself in Jerusalem. I didn’t have to think about whether or not to drive or take public transportation, I just walked everywhere. No plans were made for Shabbat, and no one expected me to want to go out to dinner, go shopping, see a movie, etc. the air of Shabbat permeates everything.

One of the hardest moments for me this past week was when I ran a final errand on Thursday afternoon, and the cashier said, “Shabbat shalom,” as I walked out of the store. That’s how much Shabbat permeates Israeli consciousness, that we start greeting each other with Shabbat Shalom on Thursday or even earlier. But this time, I wouldn’t be in Israel to experience that all-encompassing Shabbat atmosphere of Jerusalem that I’ve grown to love so much these past two years.

I will miss that feeling. It will be hard to cultivate a Shabbat-centered week in the US,  even though I will be spending the summer with my family, where Shabbat dinner is always of the utmost importance, and even though I am continuing my rabbinical studies, and will be immersed in Jewish communities, most likely for the rest of my life. But outside of Israel, no matter one’s intentions, other distractions slip in during those 25 hours. The mail comes; the farmer’s market is only open on Saturdays.

Israel, and Jerusalem in particular, is a place that inspires and challenges me religiously and spiritually. That may be the best way to sum up these past two years – everything I did was part of that: my beit midrash learning at Pardes, my academic studies at HUC, my involvement with Encounter, simply living in the crazy, throbbing, vibrant city of Jerusalem, where everyone seems to be wrestling with God and with their religious community every minute of every day. That in-your-face struggle won’t be there anymore, to inspire me to continue to commit myself to growing spiritually and to striving to be a better Jew and a better person.

About a year ago, I sat in an apartment of another chevruta, Ilan, singing songs at a seudah shlishit as Shabbat departed. One of the songs we sang was the familiar phrase, “לכול מקום שאני הולך, אני הולך, אני הולך לירושלים. לכול מקום שאני כהולך, אני הולך לציון" L’chol makom she’ani holech, ani holech l’Yrushalayim. L’chol makom she’ani holech, ani holech l’Zion.” Everywhere I go, I go towards Jerusalem. Everywhere I go, I go towards Zion. I decided that Shabbat afternoon, that before I left Israel “for good,” that I was going to have my own version of those words engraved on a ring. My version reads "לכול מקום שאני הולכת, אני הולכת לירושלים של מעלה l’chol makom she’ani holechet, ani holechet l’Yrushalayim shel ma’alah.” Everywhere I go, I go towards Y’rushalayim shel ma’alah – the heavenly Jerusalem. There is a teaching that there are two Jerusalems – shel matah (below, or earthly), and shel ma’alah (upper, or heavenly). There is the real, on the ground Jerusalem, the Jerusalem that sometimes smells like pee and has lots of traffic and suddenly gets quiet on Friday afternoon, and the heavenly Jerusalem we all hold in our hearts, the Jerusalem of our religious imagination and our highest aspirations for her. Jerusalem as-it-is and Jerusalem as-it-should-be. 

Wearing these words on my finger reminds me of that constant struggle and growth in Jerusalem, that I take it with me as I sit on this El Al plane, soon to disembark in cloudy and rainy New York, to jump into celebrating my brother’s college graduation (I’m so proud of you kiddo!) I don’t need to leave that behind. I can continue to grow, to continue to try and be the best person, and the best Jew I can be, to continue to work for not only Jerusalem as it should be, but for the world as it should be.

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!

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.

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.

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!

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

Definitely not Chinese food and movies

Jewish holidays in Israel are always special. There's something about celebrating a holiday that is usually a minority holiday, but to do it surrounded by others who are also celebrating. Chanukah in Jerusalem was no exception. Pardes was on vacation for the week, and I stayed in Jerusalem, taking the opportunity to wander around the city (and eat LOTS of sufganiyot). One night I went with some other friends from school to see the hanukkiyah lighting at the Kotel. Chanukah means rededication in Hebrew, referring to the rededication of the Temple after the Greeks trashed it and used it for idolatry. Despite my conflicted feelings about the Kotel, it was exciting to celebrate Chanukah there, where it actually happened. After, we wandered through the Jewish Quarter of the Old City to see the hanukkiyot, which are often displayed in windows or even outside of homes in the twisting alleys of the Rova, in fulfillment of the mitzvah of publicizing the Chanukah miracle. The atmosphere was something akin to going to the neighborhood with the best Christmas lights and decoration. There were tour guides leading secular Israeli families through the neighborhood, explaining the customs.

The hanukkiyah at the Kotel on the 6th night of Chanukah

lots of hanukkiyot in the Old City

Even so, I was missing Christmas, and there was always the reminder in the back of my head that Chanukah was not the only winter holiday being celebrated here. There were small reminders - plastic Christmas trees on sale at the Tel Aviv Central Bus Station, a story on Israeli radio during evening hour about Jews writing Christmas songs. So on Thursday afternoon, following the theme of celebrating winter holidays where they actually happened, I traveled with (a very large group of Jews) to Bethlehem for Christmas. Sara's roommate Katie was playing clarinet at a mass at the Lutheran Christmas Church. The mass was mostly in English, with a good chunk of Arabic, including a children's choir singing in Arabic. The mass was really beautiful, and felt universal and familiar even though it wasn't my prayers, my music, or even entirely in my language. One part of the service in particular really spoke to me, the "prayers of intercession." The prayers were read in 8 different languages, and were incredibly universal (except for the Jesus references).

(English)

Almighty God, long ago you made this holy night shine with the brightness of your true light. We thank you for gathering us in this holy city of Bethlehem. We pray now for deepened faith. We pray for Peace and Justice for God's people in every place. By your Holy Spirit, lead us beyond the manger to serve as your peacemakers in this land and throughout the world.

(Arabic)

For all those in Palestine and Israel - those who have been here for generations, those who have more recently arrived and those who are visiting as pilgrims. Open hearts and minds to see your grace that brings hope, healing, and opportunity to all people.

(Burmese)

For all those who are imprisoned - by walls, wars, and public policies that humiliate and discourage. We pray for those enduring a long wait for freedom. Especially we remember those you will not forget - political prisoners and refugees.

(English)

For all those who live in abundance - that they might know the joy of simplicity and sharing. Grant us peace that only you can give. Give us what we need - despite what we think we want.

(German)

We pray for the leaders in government, especially those who serve in Palestine and Israel. Inspire them to uphold the truth, lift the yoke of oppression, and work for justice for all your people. Grant dignity to all women and men, boys and girls.

(Finnish)

We pray for those whose voices are stilled - victims of violence, neglect or abuse. Bring hope to those torn from their homes and land. Give voice so all people of the world can hear, care and advocate for those who are suffering.

(Swedish)

For the newborn, the elderly, the sick, and all who depend on the care of others - especially those whose names we lift in the silence...That they may find places of nurture, and be comforted by the birth of the Christ child.

(Japanese)

For all those who look to this holy but troubled land, grant the full revelation of Jesus, our Savior, who brings hope and salvation, and makes us one.

Trusting in your mercy, O Saving God, we commend to you all for whom we pray, through the one born among us, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

the inside of Lutheran Christmas Church

singing Silent Night with candles

After the service, we walked to dinner, detouring through the craziness that was Manger Square. Bethlehem was (not surprisingly) CROWDED. Tons of traffic, tons of people, tons of PA security. At first I was uncomfortable with the amount of armed security (they were very present and visible), but it was really the same amount that there would be for any large public event of that scale in Jerusalem. Even so, this region of the world really likes its guns and military.

Manger Square

Dinner was salatim and pita - definitely not traditional Christmas dinner, for neither the Jews nor the Christians in our group. But it was definitely delicious, and around 10pm, the lights of the restaurant dimmed, and SANTA CAME! It was interesting to see that Santa is the same in Bethlehem, despite the fact that his suit is definitely not meant for the Middle East in December (today's high was 74 degrees...).

It's really easy to get caught up in Jerusalem's challenges as a Jewish city, what that means, how it plays out, how the city can be home to a plurality of Jews. But this city, and this land, is holy and special to those of many different religions.

Everybody loves babies...

Everybody loves babies in Jerusalem. They're everywhere. Two stories from my trip home tonight:

I was in line to pay at the Superpharm (like CVS) at the Central Bus Station in Jerusalem. The woman in front of me got a call that her prescription was ready at the other counter, said something quickly to me in Hebrew and left. I wasn't really paying attention, and figured she was just telling me she was still in line, and had left her cart...until I looked down and saw that it wasn't her shopping cart, it was her baby's stroller. With the baby inside. Anywhere else, this would be a reason to be concerned for the baby's safety. In Jerusalem, I cooed at a strange woman's child for 5 minutes, until she came back and went on with her day.

On the bus back home from the CBS, there was a group of guys, I'd estimate in their late teens. These boys were interested in coming across as tough - hats on backwards, low pants, wearing tank top undershirts with unzipped jackets over them. You know the look. A young mother came on the bus with her baby boy, and these teens started smiling at and making faces at the little baby. No embarrassment to be caught being so unabashedly into babies in front of their friends, the boys kept on smiling at and playing with the baby for the duration of the bus ride.

ירושלים גם שלי: Jerusalem is mine too

This is a summary of a story I shared at Pardes' community lunch last week, for a project called "Take 5," where students share stories and reflections. The story was in response to the question, "Share a meaningful Jerusalem moment."

I usually don't like protests and marches. They're fun...but what's the point? What changes? So I was somewhat surprised to find myself eagerly anticipating last Saturday night's march to free Jerusalem. The march was in response to a number of incidents in Jerusalem over the past several months, showing the haredim's (ultra-Orthodox) increasing political power in this city, including the arrest of Nofrat Frenkel, violent Haredi protests against parking lots and factories open on Shabbat, and haredim moving into previously secular neighborhoods.

I am a liberal Jew, a Reform Jew, and for the past few weeks had felt incredibly lonely and disconnected from that in this city. Saturday's night march shifted that for me. When we arrived at Kikar Paris, where the march was due to start from, there was a crowd of about 100 people milling about, including many members of the Pardes community, holding signs that said "Jerusalem is also mine" and "The Kotel for everyone." That crowd of 100 grew to 400 before we started walking towards the center of the city, and by the time we reached Kikar Zion, our destination, the media estimated over 2000 people were marching. Children, teens, students, adults...totally secular, men and women wearing kippot, people who clearly had come straight from their Shabbat plans...Israeli, American, British, and more...

That Saturday night, I no longer felt alone. It's unclear (highly doubtful) that the protest will have any impact whatsoever on the power dynamics in Jerusalem, but it had a huge internal effect on me, reminding me that there are Jews of all varieties who share a vision of a Jerusalem that is truly a city for all Jews, secular, Orthodox, Reform, Conservative, and everything else in between.

The evening didn't end with the conclusion of the rally. Several of us wandered up Ben Yehuda, observing the usual mishmash found there motzei Shabbat (after Shabbat, Saturday night). We came upon a group of Moshiach dancers, ultra Orthodox men dancing and singing to music from a speaker system. In our high spirits after the march, we decided to join in their dancing, with a mixed dancing circle - separate from the ultra Orthodox men, but next to them. They almost immediately shut off the music to prevent us from dancing more, but rather than leaving, we stayed as they did the ritual of Kiddush Levana - several of our group, including 2 liberal rabbis, male and female, joined with these ultra-Orthodox men as they said the set of prayers. A moment that could have been incredibly tense was instead a moment of hope and optimism for the type of Jerusalem we had envisioned earlier, one in which we all respect each other's ways of practicing Judaism, even if we don't agree with it. The tension was definitely still there, but was tempered by the beauty and holiness of the moment.

My friend Noam Sienna's story of the evening

Ha'aretz article about the protest

Jerusalem Post article about the protest

Here is a wall at which to weep, Part I: The Kotel

8th grade: On my first trip to Israel, with my grandparents' synagogue, we visited the Kotel on Shabbat. I started to write a note to stick in between the stones, and a security guard came over and told me to stop writing.

11th grade: When I was in Israel for a semester in high school on EIE (Eisendrath International Exchange), we went to the Kotel for our first Shabbat in Israel. I wore a kippah, even though my classmates and teacher told me it wasn't a good idea. I looked through the bookshelves in the women's section for a prayerbook that was "mine," and another woman handed me an Artscroll siddur.

On subsequent trips to the Kotel - the Western Wall, the remains of the 2nd Temple closest to its holiest spot, the Holy of Holies - I felt bored, squished, frustrated, and unspiritual (for an example, read my post after being at the Kotel in September.) For years I had heard of the prayer group Women of the Wall, a women's group that prays on the women's side of the Kotel every Rosh Hodesh (the beginning of the Hebrew month). They have a long and contentious history, with Supreme Court battles, discrimination, and harassment, but I was excited to finally have the opportunity to join them in prayer and pray at the Kotel in a way that felt authentic to who am I as a Jew.

This past Wednesday, Rosh Hodesh Kislev, I woke up early and shared cabs with some other students from Pardes to the Kotel, where we joined with Women of the Wall and a group of women from Congregation B'nai Jeshurun in NYC. My friends and fellow students Lauren and Evelyn led services. For the first time ever, I wore a tallit at the Kotel. I was scared; I had heard many stories about rocks, heckling from men and women who were offended by what they saw as a desecration of their holy site, even physical assaults, but I felt safe surrounded by this community of women. Singing Hallel, songs of praise, out loud at the Kotel was incredibly powerful. One line in particular resonated with me: לא המתים יהללו יה, ולא כל ירדי דומה, ואנחנו נברך יה מעתה ועד עולם. הללויה The dead will not praise Yah, nor can those who go down into silence. But WE shall praise Yah, now and forever. Halleluyah! (Psalm 115: 17-18) I felt like I was really, genuinely praying at the Kotel, for the first time in a very long time.

At this point in the service, the group (according to the veteran members) is usually receiving taunts, yells, thrown rocks, and anger from those at the Kotel who believe that this type of prayer - women praying together, out loud, with tallitot and kippot - is a desecration to Judaism and the holiness of the Kotel. But except for one woman who motioned "shh!" as she left the women's section, there had been no reaction from the others around us. The group decided to read Torah at the Kotel, instead of relocating elsewhere like they usually do.

We rolled the Torah to the reading for Rosh Hodesh, and then rolled it back up and started the Torah service, led by a young Israeli medical student, Nofrat Frenkel. At this point, the commotion started. Men came over and asked Nofrat why she was wearing a tallit, and demanded that she put the Torah away and that we leave. To which Nofrat responded, "Because it's a mitzvah, where is yours?" The police came over and started to lead Nofrat away, still holding the sefer Torah and wearing her tallit. The image of a uniformed police officer pulling away a person wearing a tallit and holding a Torah was awful, and reminded me of stories of the Former Soviet Union, of Jews arrested for practicing their religion publicly. Anat Hoffman, the chair of Women of the Wall and the executive director of the Israel Religious Action Center, called for all of us women, about 40, to follow the Torah wherever it went.

Nofrat and Anat standing up to the men who insisted we leave the Kotel

And so we followed Nofrat and the Torah, to a police station next to the Kotel. We stood outside where she was detained and sang. Dozens of women, young and old, Israeli, American, British, Reform, Conservative, Orthodox...We sang eitz hayyim hi la'machazikim bah (it is a tree of life to those who hold fast to it), pitchu li sha'arei tzedek avovam ode yah, zeh hasha'ar l'Adonai tzadikot yavo'u bo (open for me the gates of righteousness and I will enter to praise God, this is the gate of God, the righteous will enter in it). We learned later that Nofrat could hear our singing.

Anat asked us to decide if we would stay and follow the Torah wherever it went that day. I had no question in my mind about whether or not I would miss class to stay. I was there, and not leaving. At some point that morning, I had become a part of this community, rather than just a visitor. We learned that Nofrat was no longer simply detained, but had been arrested, for wearing a tallit - the first time in Israel's history this had happened. The police moved Nofrat to the police compound by Jaffa Gate, and we followed. It was incredible to watch Anat throughout all of this, keeping the group together while simultaneously mobilizing a media response and finding a criminal lawyer.

The group of Pardes students, both while we were waiting and singing, and in the hours that followed, talked about whether we were using prayer as a means to achieve a political end. Yes, I was absolutely there to pray, to pray with a community of women in a place that Judaism has attached a great deal of value to. But I was also there because I believe that the Kotel is holy to all Jews, not only the ultra-Orthodox who control it, and because I believe that all Jews should be able to pray there in a way that is authentic to them, and Women of the Wall is striving to bring that about. Saul Alinsky writes in Rules for Radicals that the real question is not "Does the End justify the Means?" but "Does this particular end justify this particular means?" Prayer is the tool, prayer is also the goal.

And then Nofrat came out...still wearing her tallit, still holding the sefer Torah. We sang more, joyfully now, and surrounded her. She is still facing criminal charges, and there are concerns that a criminal record will harm her future career prospects as a doctor.

Throughout the course of the morning and the hours that followed, I was scared, angry, nauseus, sad, proud, and pretty much every other emotion possible. But it was an incredibly powerful experience, with an amazing group of women. It felt so RIGHT to be there.

To read some of the news coverage about it:

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1129200.html

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1258489193200&pagename=JPArticle/ShowFull

http://blogs.forward.com/sisterhood-blog/119148/

to the North, back to Jerusalem, and north again...and then back home to Jerusalem

It's been awhile since the last time I wrote. There's a phrase in Israel, "acharei chagim". Everything happens after the holidays. Now that the holidays are over - since last I wrote, we celebrated Yom Kippur, Sukkot, and Simchat Torah - and I've gotten back into the routine of being in school from 8:30-5, things are a little less crazy. It very much still feels like summer here (will be in the 90s over the weekend!), but there have been a few rain showers - the weather is definitely messing with my internal clock; it hasn't really clicked that it's halfway through October already.

Pomegranates and Mangos and Wineries, oh my!

I had a whole week and a half off from school - the longest time I've had off (or taken off) since just after graduation. For the first part, before Sukkot started, I traveled up north to the Galil with Naomi, Laura, Lauren, and Evelyn. We rented a car, stayed on a beautiful moshav near the Sea of Galilee, ate delicious food, sang songs by candlelight on our porch at night, and went hiking in a river. The moshav had an incredible view of the Galil, and there were some of the best, juiciest, locally-grown mangos I've ever had. The son of the hostel owner, Dan, had shown us the hiking trail, and said we could call if we had any problems. After hiking through the river for 4 hours (a hike we had been told would take 2 hours), we're pretty much done with the wading/swimming. We give Dan a call, and instead of giving us directions back to our car, comes and picks us up in his dusty pick-up truck (complete with 2 Thai workers in the back), and brings us freshly picked pomegranates. As we bump through his pomegranate, mango, and lichee fields, Dan shares with us his view of Israeli society - "the problem with Israel isn't the Arabs, it's the Israelis." This conversation was sparked by the overflowing dumpsters and polluted campsites that we saw, remnants of the 2 previous holiday weekends. It's so easy to here to get completely bogged down with trying to comprehend/solve/deal with/challenge status quo around Israeli-Palestinian issues and to forget that this country, like any other, has a plethora of other socio-economic challenges. After our pick-up truck ride with Dan, we piled back into our acceleration-challenged (great for the mountains up north, really) rental car and went to the Golan Winery, for a classy wine tasting in our damp and dirty hiking clothes.

the view of the Kinneret from Moshav Almagor

It was incredibly refreshing to be out of Jerusalem for 3 days. As we were sitting in traffic in the city on the first day, trying to get out, we all just wanted to be out of the city already. It's a great city, and I am loving living here, but I never really understood when friends who had lived in Jerusalem told me that it is an intense city, and it is hard to live in. It's not always tangible, and I didn't notice it on previous trips when I was visiting...but it was great to be up north, out of the Anglo-bubble of South Jerusalem (where I live and go to school), and breathe some fresh air and speak some Hebrew. And it was also great to come back, and to come home to Jerusalem, and to come home to my apartment after being away for the first time since I moved in.

V'samachta b'chagecha - and you will rejoice in your holiday!

Sukkot in Jerusalem was pretty special. Before we left to go up north, Evelyn, Lauren and I ventured to the shuk arba'ah minim, the 4 species market, to buy our lulavs and our etrogs for the holiday. We built a sukkah on our porch - very cozy, Esti and I had a super cute movie night in it one night over vacation. There were sukkot ALL OVER the city - every restaurant, many homes and apartments - for more about Sukkot in Israel that feels very similar to my experience, read this post from 10 Minutes of Torah. My class had a bagel brunch in the sukkah on Pardes' roof during vacation, and Evelyn gave a d'var Torah that really resonated. A lot of the time we talk about going into the sukkah, this temporary, unstable structure outside of our homes, as a time that reminds us of our vulnerability. In times like these, surrounded by the impact of the economic crisis hurting ourselves, our families, and our communities, we already feel pretty vulnerable. There's another interpretation (and I apologize for not knowing where Evelyn found it), that the sukkah, with its 2-3 walls is like a hug. Hugs are comforting, and remind us that there is hope and support in the world, but they do not make everything better, just the confidence that one day, they will be better.

the sukkah at 2/10 Shneur Peleg!

Haifa, Haifa, Ir im Tachtit, Haifa, Haifa, ir amiti...

Haifa Haifa, a city with a subway, Haifa Haifa, a real city! (~David Broza)

Towards the end of vacation I spent a few days in Haifa with Orly. There are street festivals everywhere in Israel during Sukkot, and we went to a pretty loud one (with some delicious fried street food), and then wandered up towards the Haifa International Film Festival, where there was yet another street fair. We did lots of very touristy things, including the clandestine immigration museum (MUCH more fun than anticipated, especially when reading the particularly awful English exhibit explanations) and took a cable car up the mountain, just for the fun of it. I also got to see Joan and Joyce from Shir Tikva, who were in Haifa for the film festival!

Orly and I at the clandestine immigration and naval museum

the view of the Mediterranean from the cable car

V'samachta b'chagecha II

Friday night was yet another holiday, Simchat Torah. I went to Kol Haneshama, or as I like to call it, everybody's favorite Progressive Anglo synagogue in South Jerusalem. It was awesome. Lots of energy and spirit and dancing, ran into lots of people I know who I hadn't yet had the chance to see here. For the last hakafah, they did this beautiful custom I had never seen before - we all formed one circle, outside in the courtyard (rather than the small circles and dancing that had been happening up until then), and the Torah scrolls made the hakafah, went around the circle, instead of us. It was really nice to end on a quiet and reflective note, instead of dancing like crazy right up until the end. The next morning I went to another set of hakafot at Kedem, an egalitarian minyan with lots of Anglo students, and the last hakafah was for all those in the room working for peace. Most of the room hesitated, very few people immediately identified themselves as being peaceworkers. It's hard, especially since it is a primarily student community - I study fulltime now, I'm not directly working for the world-as-it-should-be, and it is a struggle I wrestle with every day, along with many of my friends and classmates.

Garbage garbage garbage!

On Sunday the Pardes social justice track traveled to Har Hiriya, a giant landfill outside of Tel Aviv, in the (slow) process of being converted to a giant park and environmental education center. It's literally a mountain (har=mountain) of trash that was built up from the 1950s until about 10 years ago. It's still used as a transfer station for trash - a lot of trash. We went the day after Sukkot ended, and the amount of debris (especially plant material) from the holiday was ridiculous, as was the amount of recyclable materials. The whole scene was very Wall-E-esque (a great movie, one that I first watched all the way through with Hilary A. Spear) - trash being compacted into bricks, trucks pushing through and sorting it. It was fascinating to be at this garbage dump, to see a side of Israel that I've definitely seen, that tourists don't see, and probably many residents don't see it either (definitely not a side of the US that I've seen).

garbage trucks from Tel Aviv and its surroundings dumping the day's trash

Bashanah ha'ba'ah neishev al hamirpeset...

Next year we will sit on the balcony...

There's been lots of good times on the mirpesot (balconies) of Jerusalem this weekend. On Thursday night, and continued on Shabbat afternoon, a group of us shared stories and wine on my friend Evelyn's lovely mirpeset. It was beautiful, and exactly the kind of evenings I was looking forward to having this year. It was really powerful to here the stories of what brought all of us here, to Pardes and to Jerusalem, this year, and what we're looking for out of our time here. Last night we watched the sun set and the stars come out from Evelyn's mirpeset, and it was awesome to see all of Jerusalem laid out before us at night. We did havdalah outside after, and listened to the sounds of families starting to build their sukkot around us.

On Friday night, the egalitarian minyan had Shabbat services and a potluck dinner at my friend Sheryl's, also on her mirpeset. The view was incredible, and it was really awesome to be praying and singing and celebrating Shabbat while seeing the whole city and being outside under the sky. As we were waiting for everyone to gather for dinner, we started singing to the melody of Bashanah Haba'ah. Od tireh, od tireh, kamah tov yih'yeh bashanah bashanah haba'ah. You will still see, you will still see, how good it will be, next year. It felt very right for right before Yom Kippur, on a weekend when we spent so much time sitting on balconies expressing our personal hopes for the coming year.

Israel turned its clocks back last night, ending Daylight Savings Time - just in time for fasting on Yom Kippur. Of course, it doesn't make the fast any shorter, it just means that it will end earlier in the day on Monday, around 6pm. The West Bank changed their clocks about a month ago - just in time for Ramadan. Love it that we all equally manipulate time and nature to serve our religious needs. There's an interesting article on Ha'aretz about how it came about that Daylight Savings Time ends so early, about a month before the US and Europe.

G'mar chatimah tovah and an easy and meaningful fast to all those who are fasting!

Which side are you on?

Shana tova! Rosh Hashanah in Jerusalem was wonderful - lots of food (to all of you who said everyone gains weight in Israel, you were right), services at no less than 4 different communities, and a little bit of rain (early in the year for Jerusalem).

My friend Sara, with whom I was a madricha (counselor) 2 summers ago for NFTY in Israel and is now living in Bethlehem and volunteering with an organization that does recreational activities for Palestinian youth, was with us for the holiday. She can walk to the checkpoint from her apartment in Bethlehem, and once through the checkpoint, it is a less than 10 minute bus ride to our neighborhood. Sara was telling me about how Bethlehem residents used to just walk over a hill and be in Jerusalem. On Friday night, Sara and I went to my cousins' for dinner. One of my cousins, on hearing where Sara was living, said, "We used to just walk over to Bethlehem to do our shopping. Just over the hill." It's poetic/tragic that both sides can have the same shared narrative and collective memory without even realizing it, yet each view it as uniquely theirs.

As Sara and I were walking to services this morning, we passed countless synagogues and minyanim on our way to our destination. There are so many prayer communities in this city, in this neighborhood particularly. I could hear it as I was walking on the street over the holiday, different prayers and singing rising through the windows of every community center and synagogue. People pray much louder here than they do in America. Not just the Jews...I wonder what it was like in the Old City today, with both Rosh Hashanah and Eid happening simultaneously. I could hear shofar all over the city today, even as I was getting ready this morning with my bedroom window open. In America, we pray behind thick walls and surround them with classrooms and social halls and offices and parking lots. It's much harder to get close to other people's prayers, to hear them. Even when a synagogue and a mosque are right across the street from each other.

Our apartment may be on the other side of the Green Line. For more on how we figured this out, see Naomi's excellent blog post about it. It's frustrating and angering that I moved into an apartment in some ambiguous no man's land between Jerusalem proper and the Green Line (see Naomi's for the detailed historical/geographical explanation of our neighborhood) without knowing. Shouldn't there be a sign or something? There is definitely no green line painted down the middle of Rehov Beitar. B'kitzur (in short), Jerusalem is a complicated place with lots of ambiguities.