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 II: Bethlehem

graffiti on the security wall next to Bethlehem
Bethlehem is less than 5 miles from my apartment. When I went there this weekend, I was not there on an organized trip, but for some tourism and to visit my friend Sara, who is living and volunteering in Bethlehem this year.

I traveled with my friends Naomi and Amy, starting with taking an Arab bus from Derech Hevron, a few blocks from my apartment (where I usually take buses headed in the other directions, towards the center of Jerusalem). Our first stop in Bethlehem was the Church of the Nativity. While I was there, taking in the art, the quiet, and watching the other tourists around me, it struck me how places that are holy, no matter which religion they are holy to, have a shared aura about them. It was incredibly easy to be peaceful and reflective there, even though it is by no means my holy site. The Christian tourists had a respect and an awe for being present at Jesus' birthplace, and were able to fulfill their own religious needs without pushing or shoving other people. Unlike some other holy spaces I know... In this week's Torah portion, Vayetzei, Jacob wakes up from a dream and says, "אכן יש יי במקום הזה ואנוכי לא ידעתי - Surely God is present in this place, and I did not know!" (Genesis 28:16) This occurs in the middle of nowhere, in a pile of rocks that Jacob is misfortunate enough to have to sleep on. If Jacob can find God there, surely it's possible to experience the Divine Presence in any place that people have treated as holy for generations.

On Saturday morning, we walked along the separation wall by Bethlehem. The wall is covered with graffiti, some of which deeply resonated with me, and some of which deeply angered me. It encapsulates the diversity of viewpoints found there - on either side of the wall, there is not one, single, unified opinion, but a full spectrum of opinions and beliefs regarding this incredibly complex situation.

I was struck by the ease of crossing between two very different worlds, and the deep contrasts between them. When I got off the bus on Saturday in Jerusalem, all of a sudden I was back in Shabbat world, watching Jews head to Shabbat lunch, when 10 short minutes before I had been surrounded by Christians and Muslims going about an ordinary day. Because I hold an American passport, I have the privilege and ability to go places that Israelis cannot (into the Palestinian territories), and places that aren't accessible to Palestinians. Bethlehem mentally feels very far, especially from Pardes. As the week started and friends at school asked me what I did for Shabbat, there was a double-take when I said I spent part of it in Bethlehem. Bethlehem seems so FAR! Even though it is actually very close, the putting up of a wall and establishing check points (both actual and metaphoric), distances the place and its people from my daily reality.

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/

Beyond Pita and Falafel: Sustainable Eating in Israel

(Originally posted at RACblog)

A few months before I left to spend this year studying in Jerusalem at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies, I brainstormed a list of all the things I was looking forward to enjoying once I arrived in Israel…most of which was food. Falafel, shwarma, shoko b’sakit (chocolate milk in a bag), chocolate bars filled with pop rocks, the fruits and vegetables of Machane Yehuda, Jerusalem’s open-air market. So much of what I love about Israel is connected to its foods.

In the almost three months since I’ve been living in Jerusalem, the ways I connect to Eretz Yisrael through eating its food have moved beyond junk food and street food, to incorporating my Jewish social justice values in the way I cook and eat in Israel, through a CSA share (community-supported agriculture) and the Tav Chevrati.

When my roommate Sarah first suggested signing up for a CSA, I thought it sounded like a great idea for my health and lifestyle, but did not immediately connect it to my social justice practice. A CSA in Israel works similarly to one in North America, with one crucial difference: in Israel, the growing season never ends! We receive a delivery of organic vegetables every week, year round. My roommates and I signed up with Chubeza, an organic farm located outside of Modi’in, and come home every Wednesday night to a large box of vegetables on our doorstep. Every week my box includes tomatoes and cucumbers (necessary for Israeli salad!), and a variety of other vegetables: eggplant, corn, scallions, winter squash, radishes, beets, sweet potatoes, herbs…

My CSA is a weekly, tangible example of the bounty of Israel, described in Deuteronomy: “For Adonai your God is bringing you into a good land…a land of wheat and barley, of vines, figs, and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey; a land where you may eat bread without scarceness, where you will lack nothing…” (Deut. 8:7-9)

Being a part of a CSA in Israel is important to me because it means that I eat locally and sustainably. I can walk into any supermarket here and find many of the same brands that I purchase in the United States, but I know where my vegetables are coming from – they aren’t coming from thousands of miles away, and they are grown on a farm within Israel’s borders. Every day, when I pack lunch and cook dinner, I automatically act out my values regarding the food I put into my body and the ways I spend my money when I am living in Israel.

Of course, even on a student budget, I don’t eat every meal at home. When I go out to dinner, for coffee, or for ice cream, I look for the Tav Chevrati, the social seal, an initiative of the Jerusalem-based non-profit organization Bema’aglei Tzedek, Circles of Justice. The Tav Chevrati, the “Tav” for short, indicates that the food establishment respects the legally-mandated rights of its employees and is accessible to people with disabilities. Workers must receive minimum wage, be paid on time and overtime, and be treated within the minimum of Israeli labor law. The business must grant access and service to people with disabilities. I personally struggle with the idea of rewarding businesses for doing what is required of them legally, yet if the government is not stepping into to enforce the minimum legal requirement, the only reason business owners will uphold these laws is if they have an economic interest in doing so – if they know they will gain customers (including Israeli citizens and short-term and long-term foreign visitors) by having the Tav. It is not about kashrut. The list of businesses with the Tav includes both kosher and non-kosher restaurants. The Tav is about the just treatment of human beings and reaching towards a vision of an ideal Israeli society. The reason I support businesses with the Tav is because I believe in the dignity of each and every person, whether they work in a restaurant as a waiter or a dishwasher, or want to be able to eat in the same restaurants I have access to as an able-bodied person.

Furthermore, this is about power; power that is made up of organized people and organized money. In order for the Tav Chevrati to be successful in creating a more just Israeli society, one that I am proud to participate in and support, many, many people need to intentionally support the establishments that do have the Tav Chevrati, and tell those businesses that they are there because of their commitment to social justice. Eating justly does not need to be contained to my kitchen; it is a practice I can continue when I am out exploring Israel and Jerusalem. It is not something we need to leave in the United States either. If you are coming to Israel, on your own or with a synagogue trip, seek out restaurants with the Tav Chevrati (see the English list here) and encourage your traveling companions to do the same.

Both my CSA and my support of the Tav Chevrati are ways that I live my life in Israel justly. My time here in Jerusalem is not only about my own learning, but is an opportunity for me to have a daily, tangible impact on Israeli society.

"Maybe God created the desert so that man could appreciate the date trees."*

I just got back from 3 glorious days spent hiking in the Negev with Pardes. It was incredible to be out of Jerusalem, and spending 6+ hours a day outside and hiking in the desert. It's both physically and spiritually refreshing. Our guide, Dan, encouraged us to take moments of silence throughout our hiking, rather than continuing the same conversations we have in Jerusalem. It led to lots of deep breaths and personal spiritual reflection, at the same time as I was pushing my body physically in ways that it's not used to. Unlike up north, where we saw many other hikers and their garbage, over the course of the 3 days, we only saw two other hikers, and very little signs of others. I'm always struck by the diversity of the desert - once you are in it, it seems like it goes on, unchanging, forever, but every day we hiked through vastly different terrain.

On the first day, we hiked through Nahal Mishmar - a nahal is a riverbed, in this case, a dried up one. The picture above is looking back through the nahal, and the picture below was when we were standing on the ridge above the nahal. The Dead Sea is in the background.

On the second day, we saw a machtesh, a geological formation, looking something like a crater, that occurs only 5 times in the world - three are in the Negev, and two are in the Sinai desert. The picture below is of Machtesh Katan (little machtesh) - not so little!

A desert is defined by receiving less than 200mm of rain a year, on average. We were hiking in the EXTREME desert, which receives less than 70mm of rain/year, on average. Dan told us that humans have yet to find an environment on earth so extreme that no life can survive there. Even in this most extreme of environments, we saw snails, animal poop, plants, trees, bushes...there are snails that can survive for over 800 days on 1 drop of water!

A tree in the desert!

On the morning of our last day in the desert, we woke up at 5:30 to watch the sunrise over the Edom Mountains in Jordan. My friend Sheryl and I almost didn't make it due to a malfunctioning alarm clock, but we woke up in time, and it was well worth it!

When I was in the desert, everything seems incredibly simple. There is nothing manmade to be seen, literally just land and sky. I felt very far removed from the complications of life in Israel - the politics, the opinions, the debates. It feels as if nothing else matters - power is irrelevant, because there is just land and sky and creation. Yet even in the desert, one is never too far from these challenges. Dan started many of his talks with, "Not to talk about politics, but..." There are debates about water, borders, archaeology, ecology, resource allocation, nuclear power.

Roommates in the desert

*From Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist, my favorite desert book. When we got back to where we were staying each night, our hosts had delicious sweet, juicy dates awaiting us. So good!

a little bit of Torah

I learned this this past week in my Rambam class with Rabbi Levi Cooper:

In Rambam's (Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon) Mishneh Torah, he talks about the idea of kiddush hashem, the sanctification of God's name. The first few chapters on this topic focus on what kiddush hashem was at Rambam's time (12th century), martyrdom for being Jewish, and lays out rules and guidelines for what the circumstances are for an act to be kiddush hashem. Basically, when someone gives a person a choice "do this or I will kill you," there are guidelines for when you should do the "this" or be killed (kiddush hashem). One of these conditions (if several other conditions have already been established) is:

ואם אנסו להעבירו בעשרה מישראל - יהרג ואל יעבר -הלכת יסודי התורה, פ"ה, ה"ב

If he is forcing one to transgress in front of 10 people from Israel - he should be killed and not transgress (Hilchot Yesodei HaTorah 5:2)

The relevant part, in mine (and my teacher's) mind, is the fact that kiddush hashem is a public act. And not just a public act in front of whomever happens to be around, but in front of one's own community, in front of other Jews. Rambam specifically says "10 from Israel," not saying a minyan (in Rambam's mind, a quorom of 10 Jewish adult men) - an understanding of what is legally required for prayer. This isn't legal, it is not halacha (Jewish law). By making this a public act, in front of a person's community, Rambam is saying that what matters isn't God's presence or the individual's relationship with God, but rather the individual's relationship with their community. What is relevant is not what you do in your heart, but how you represent yourself to your community.

From an organizing perspective, this makes a lot of sense to me - we get public commitments from our targets, we strive to bring politics back to the public realm where they belong, rather than in the back room. We value transparency. An elected official can easily not follow through on something that he says privately to his friend, but this is much more difficult when that commitment is made in front of 2000 people and the media.

Another element is that this kiddush hashem is done specifically in front of your own community. When we do work to bring the world-as-it-should-be, but completely separate it from our communities, or are not public about it, it makes it a lot harder for others to join in that work.

To open this up for comments (which are ALWAYS welcome) - what are your thoughts on this? For what actions is this relevant for you? Does it only matter when we do things in public, or even more specifically, in front of our communities?

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