Happy News for a Happy New Year

You may have noticed that it's been quiet around this blog lately. Too quiet. The kind of uncomfortable quiet that you find when there is something going down, but nobody's talking about it.

Well I'll let you in on a little secret my friends. There is something going down. It's not so big now, but it's going to get bigger and bigger until it takes on a life of its own!

That's right. Michelle is pregnant :)

HELP!!!!

So I must admit that I was a little surprised when I just saw that Michelle had posted to the blog a little while ago. For some reason I had it in my head that we were "taking a break" from the blog for a while.

Anyways, now that I've given you my incredibly lame excuse for not blogging let's turn our attention to the matter at hand. Simply put, I need your help.

I play around with business ideas all of the time and I think I stumbled into one with a lot of potential. I call it RecVault.com and in a nutshell, it is an online service that allows users to securely upload and store all of their recommendations, letters of reference and resumes. The "special sauce" of the site is that it will verify that the letters of recommendation and references are legitimate.

I entered the idea in a business contest online hosted at Ideablob. I need everybody to vote for my idea at http://ideablob.com/ideas/3780-RecVault-com-Store-Manage-Al

Tell your friends. Tell your parents. Tell your neighbors. Tell that guy sitting across the room from you giving you funny looks! Then tell him to get lost (but only after he voted).

I need as many votes as I can get by Friday night so that I can make it into the finals for a chance to win $10K.

Thanks in advance for your support!

Local Politics

I went to an event at Hebrew College last night, the first in a discussion series called "Jewish & American: Confronting the 21st Century." The event was entitled "Red, Blue and Jewish: Changing the Way We Talk About Politics," and it featured Steve Grossman and Jeff Jacoby in conversation. I love Jeff Jacoby's columns in the Globe -- he's a Midwestern transplant to Boston, politically conservative and Jewishly educated and committed, like me. Last night only increased my good opinion of him.

Of course, as often happens at these events, most of the questions from the audience consisted of mini-political diatribes thinly disguised as questions. Most of them had to do with Israel and the Middle East, and all but one came from middle-aged men. The one that wasn't asked by a middle-aged man was asked by yours truly -- I decided to represent my gender and age group (and place of employment) by taking the microphone towards the end of the evening.

I said that I work at the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies, and that our research consistently shows the strong, positive impact of Jewish day school education on future Jewish identity. How would the two candidates' positions on the economy and taxes, as well as education, impact our community's ability to educate our youth?

The question went over very well, as it tied together Jewish concerns and political positions, not to mention eliciting responses that showed real differences between the candidates. Afterward, I went to introduce myself to Jeff Jacoby. He was happy to meet another Midwesterner and hear a little bit about Milwaukee's voucher program, and he said that we should have a whole evening devoted to audience questions like mine! I totally agree. Bring it on!

Feminist Woes

In my office, everyone is on a first-name basis. So it wasn't until last Friday, when I was inserting a brief bio into a proposal for a new project, that I was hit with the title conundrum. While the other two bios in the proposal used "Dr. This" and "Professor That," I don't have a PhD. The default for me would be "Ms. Shain," as per the current position of the Emily Post Institute on the form of address to women in the business world:

Ms. is the default form of address, unless you know positively that a woman wishes to be addressed as Mrs.

Incidentally, this is a far cry from Chapter X ("Cards and Visits") of Emily Post's 1922 book Etiquette, in which she laments the necessity of any derivation from the Mrs. His Name format:

She is Mrs. John Hunter Titherington Smith, or, to compromise, Mrs. J. H. Titherington Smith, but she is never Mrs. Sarah Smith; at least not anywhere in good society. In business and in legal matters a woman is necessarily addressed by her own Christian name, because she uses it in her signature. But no one should ever address an envelope, except from a bank or a lawyer’s office, “Mrs. Sarah Smith.”

But I digress.

I very much prefer Mrs. Shain, because the use of Ms. as the default form of address for a woman was, if not invented, certainly pushed into the mainstream by the feminist movement. And I reject the label "feminist," because -- and I say this with all due respect to the very real accomplishments of the first- and second-wave feminist movements -- the (third-wave) feminists of my generation spend most of their time promoting a post-structuralist interpretation of gender and sexuality, which I utterly reject, and advocating for issues more and more marginal to modern women's lives.

So, as part of my rejection of this trend and affirmation of gender, marriage and other tools of the Patriarchy*, when the time came to refer to myself in the third person in this proposal, I...boldly typed in Mrs. Shain, you ask? Nope. I avoided the issue and used my first name, which was eventually replaced with pronouns in the final draft.

Oh, well. At least it didn't read "Ms. Shain."

*This is a joke.

Workin' for a Living

It's been almost four weeks since I started my new job at the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies at my alma mater, Brandeis University.

One of the books that I read with my Jerusalem book club shortly before I left was this book by a Harvard professor (an Israeli, actually) called Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment. One of the main points in the book was that, in order to be happy, we should find work that is both enjoyable and meaningful to us. The Cohen Center makes a meaningful contribution to world Jewry, and the day-by-day, hour-by-hour work is fun and challenging for me. So I guess I'm on my way to daily joy and lasting fulfillment, right?

Check me out on the Cohen Center website!

Last Vacation Post

I was waiting for Adam to post about the rest of our vacation, but he's been very busy lately, so I guess it's up to me.

After the Laura Ingalls Wilder fun, we went to the Badlands, which Adam really liked (that's him on that rock formation):

Mount Rushmore:

Custer State Park, where we saw bison:

Wind Cave, where we did the "Natural Entrance Cave Tour," walking through the middle level and seeing the boxwork (a rare cave formation):

And, finally, the Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota. The Corn Palace tradition started in 1892, when early settlers displayed the fruits of their harvest on the building exterior in order to prove the fertility of South Dakota soil. Today, it's basically just a sports arena.

After finishing our trip out West, we spent a week with my Dad and family in Wisconsin. For some reason, we didn't take any pictures, but we did finally get a chance to relax and unwind at the cabin in Northern Wisconsin. And we learned to play ladder ball. That game rocks!

On the Prarie

After returning from Florida, Adam and I spent a few days in Boston before turning around and heading to Minneapolis, where my mom and step-dad picked us up for a road trip to Mount Rushmore. On the way there, we also had the opportunity to stop at many of the places featured in the Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder. This was more fun for the women than for the men, but Adam and Richard were good sports. Here we are at the Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum in Walnut Grove, Minnesota:

The next day, we toured the Ingalls' homestead in De Smet, South Dakota, which was beautiful:


There were homesteading activities, like pumping water:

Making rope:

And "sewing" on Ma Ingalls' sewing machine (replica):

There were also sites in town: the surveyors' house from By the Shores of Silver Lake and The Long Winter, and the house that Pa Ingalls built. We saw those, too. Fun on the prarie!

The Happiest Place on Earth

After the cruise, Adam, Adam's sister Melanie, Melanie's fiance Adam Login (henceforth to be known on this blog as Login) and I rented a car and drove to Orlando for a four-day Disney vacation. I had thought this would be a cheap add-on to the cruise vacation, which it wasn't (Disney is expensive!), and a good opportunity to hang out with my sister-in-law and soon-to-be-brother-in-law, which it was.

I had never been to Disney World (although I went to Disney Land once in seventh grade), and I expected to love it. I'm a total sucker for fairy tales, happy endings and classic Americana. To my surprise, though, I felt lukewarm about Disney World. I loved the nostalgia element, but I wish there had been more there for adults, like Six Flags-type rides and behind-the-scenes looks at the history of Disney. I also found the endless cheer and cleanliness kind of creepy, in a Stepford Wives sort of way.

Anyway, here we are in front of Cinderella's Castle at the Magic Kingdom:

And I took this great picture as we were spinning (very quickly!) in a teacup at the Mad Tea Party:

Coming soon: our road trip through Minnesota and South Dakota!

Family Family Family!

One of the things that we most missed in Israel was family, so it was wonderful to have the chance to spend some time with my Nana, parents, siblings, aunt, uncle, and cousins on the cruise. All in all 17 of us gathered to celebrate Nana’s 90^th birthday. Together we romped around the ship, roasted by the pool, gambled in the casino and walked around Key West. The cruise also gave Michelle a chance to meet some of my extended family in a less formal setting.

One of the most meaningful moments of the cruise took place during our first dinner when the grandchildren presented Nana with a quilt composed of our profiles and handwritten letters. The quilt was made by my cousin Aliza using meaningful pieces of fabric and by printing the letters onto cloth.

(Aliza is an aspiring artist who received her MFA from Savannah College of Art and Design and who has served as an adjunct professor at George Washington University. Check out her website at www.alizalelah.com)

Other notable experiences included finding an Israeli-run Kosher restaurant in Key West (which helped alleviate Michelle’s home-sickness for Israel) and my future brother in law winning the ship’s blackjack tournament.

All in all we had a great time on the cruise and were able to celebrate a tremendous occasion with family. Just like my Nana wanted.

The First Few Days

It's been just over two weeks since we arrived in the United States, but tonight has been my first opportunity to blog. Things have been crazy and emotionally intense. In my next few posts, I'll try to re-cap the adventures of the past two weeks.

Here is the last picture we took before boarding the plane at Ben Gurion Airport (I'm on the far right):


Sadly, my kosher McDonald's-inspired smile didn't last very long. I was asleep when the plane took off in Tel Aviv, but I cried all through the landing in Boston, and when we walked out of the airport, and many more times in the ensuing days, most recently on Shabbat morning when Adam's family's synagogue sang Hatikvah during morning services. I hadn't expected to feel so homesick so soon, and it's tough, but I'm trying to focus on enjoying my friends and family.

Luckily, I've had plenty of opportunities to enjoy them. We arrived in Boston two weeks ago (on a Tuesday) and flew to Florida the next day. We were supposed to land in Palm Beach at 9:30pm and get a good night's sleep at Adam's Nana's house in West Palm Beach before driving to Miami the next morning for the family cruise to the Western Caribbean. Unfortunately, our flight was delayed by bad weather, and we didn't make it to Nana's until after 4:00am the next day. My specially-prepared kosher meals were supposed to arrive at the dock a few hours later, at 10:30am, but they were delayed by the same bad weather and didn't show up until 4:30pm -- and that only because of our many frantic phone calls to FedEx.

The picture below was taken just after the meals finally arrived, as the ship was leaving Miami. Things got much better after this point!

It's Raining in July

Just letting everybody know that we have arrived safe and sound in the US....where it rains during the summer.

Just one of the many things that we'll have to adjust to.

Goodbye Couch

Well...this is it. As I sit here at gate B7 of Ben Gurion airport in Israel there can be no question how much time we have before we leave Israel. Mostly because the annoying Al Italia employee at the gate is continually announcing it.

Michelle and I haven't had much time to post recently as we have been feverishly preparing to begin the next chapter of our lives in the US. Our last few weeks have been pretty much filled with tearful goodbyes, packing, and wrapping up our affairs in Israel.

It's hard to believe that Michelle and I have spent four years in Israel. In that regard, our time here is as much of an "era" as high school or college.

Here is to all of the good times we have shared with our wonderful friends. And here is to all of the new experiences and friends that we will meet in the upcoming months.

Tonight's Activities

This evening, Adam and I went to Tel Aviv to see my step-dad's father, Mayer, and his partner, Sandy, who are visiting Israel for Sandy's grandson's bar mitzvah. We had a lovely dinner at a Yemenite restaurant called Maganda. It's good to see family in Israel.

A strange thing happened as we were trying to get a cab from the bus station to Mayer and Sandy's hotel, though. I approached a cab driver and told him where we wanted to go. "100 shekels," he said. Offering a set price is a common way for Israeli cab drivers to 1) get an unrecorded fare that they won't have to declare to the tax authorities and 2) fleece unsuspecting tourists. "No, we want it on the meter," I replied. "Fine, 90 shekels," said the driver. "No, we want it on the meter," I replied again. So he passed us off to the next cab driver in line. The next driver asked why we were being passed along, and the first driver said by way of explanation, "Ashkenazim."

What on earth does that mean? What does ethnic background have to do with anything? Was this a reference to a cultural stereotype of some kind, that Ashkenazi Jews are...I don't know...pedantic? If so, I would like to point out that the cab fare on the meter turned out to be less than 50 shekels. I was right to be suspicious and insist on the meter. Why does that make me Ashkenazi?

When we got home, we found a pile of four kittens in our garden. Here are two that didn't run away after we stopped to look at them.

Shout Out

I'm not one for superstitions. When Adam and I decided to throw stuffed bride and groom bears at our wedding in lieu of a bouquet and a garter, I didn't really expect the guy who caught the groom bear to be the next to get married. And, technically, he won't be -- Noah and Tovah got married last August, and Adam and Danielle got married in April. But, still, it's pretty cool that Eitan and Michal are now engaged!

Here's Eitan, catching the bear. (Be impressed with my PhotoShop skills -- I put him in color so that you could find him.) Mazal tov!

Mystery Solved

Spoiler alert! Read this post first.

Good job Elana, Lex and Richard, who correctly identified the mystery key chain as an eyeglasses cleaner, and to Suzanne, whose guess of CD or DVD cleaner was mighty close.

You are all smarter than Adam, me and a good number of our Jerusalem friends.

How do you solve a problem like Maria?

I just got home from Israel Musicals' production of The Sound of Music. I wasn't sure what to expect from an amateur, English-language production in Israel, but I enjoyed it! The women who played Maria and the Mother Abbess were amazing, as was the 14-year-old who played Liesl. (Sadly, the men in the cast couldn't quite keep up with the women, but the men are much less important in this show, anyway.) For three hours, I was transported to Austria in 1938.

Except for a few touches that reminded me that I'm in Jerusalem. First, the actors playing Nazis wore red arm bands without swastikas. I thought that was a wise choice; you never know who might be in the audience. Second, none of the actresses playing nuns wore crosses or rosary beads. Third, the girl who played Liesl is shomeret negiah, and the blocking took that into account. It was actually quite well done, and I might not have noticed if I hadn't known from the start. There was also a woman who had her hair covered both onstage and in her picture in the program, and I assume her costuming was making allowances for her religious preferences, although again, I probably wouldn't have noticed had I not been sensitive to the issue from the start.

I was actually really touched by all of these small details. Where else in the world can a young girl who's shomeret negiah (and, presumably, shomeret Shabbat) play Liesl? Some days, I really love this country.

What Is This?

As Adam and I were cleaning our apartment and making piles of things to ship, sell and give away, we came across a strange key chain. It looked like these:


The key chain had clearly been some sort of corporate giveaway, because it said "McCabe & Associates" on the side, but we had no idea what its function was. So we started asking everyone who came to our apartment if they knew, but among Shabbat dinner guests, my book club and a few random friends, no one had any idea. Was it meant to clip onto a belt? Was it some sort of grooming device? We were stumped, and it was driving us crazy!

Finally, Adam went to the McCabe & Associates website and emailed them about the keychain. To my surprise, they emailed back! Before I reveal the secret, do any blog readers want to venture a guess?

Happy 4th!

This year, Adam and I were too busy to attend the Association of Americans and Canadians in Israel's 4th of July/Canada Day event, as we've done in past years. And my American flags (yes, I have American flags, and Israeli ones, too) are already back in Boston, sitting in boxes in my in-laws' living room. However, I did manage to find the time to bake an apple pie for Shabbat dinner, and Adam bought red, white and blue(-ish purple) flowers to grace the table.

In an ironic twist of fate, all of our dinner guests on this 4th of July will be British.

Flashback

This morning, Adam borrowed an old computer monitor from his boss and connected it to my hard drive. It's one of those old CRT monitors, with the glare-prone, convex screen. The resolution is 800 by 600 pixels. Seriously.

I'm grateful that we'll be able to use two computers during this, the home stretch of my Master's degree. But I feel a like I should be playing Oregon Trail on this monitor, not writing a thesis in Word 2007!

You Won't Like Me When I'm Angry

Apparently Israel has an evil sense of humor, or at the very least a little vindictive streak.

Our preparations (mine to sell our belongings, and Michelle's to complete her school work) were interrupted last night when our entire building and several others lost power. The electricity came on relatively quickly, and though the outage was not super convenient, we didn't think much more of it.

Until today when Michelle's computer monitor stopped working. This wouldn't be so bad except that its apparently hard to do research and write papers with no monitor. It also makes it hard to watch our slingbox. Broken monitors also don't have quite the resale value of working ones.

I guess you know how the old Yiddish saying goes..."Man plans and God laughs, and Israel laughs, points, and gives you a wedgie."

We're Fine

A few hours ago a bulldozer plowed into a passenger bus and several cars in a potentially politically motivated attack.

You can read more about the attack here

We just wanted to let everybody know that we're safe and sound.

Jaded

On Friday, Adam and I went to the Palmach Museum in Tel Aviv. I had heard wonderful things about it from friends and really wanted to go before we left Israel. (For those who aren't familiar with the Palmach, it was a defense force established in 1941 to help the British protect Palestine from the Germans. Later, it morphed into the strike force of the Haganah, the unofficial army of the Jewish community in Palestine, and helped to fight against the British occupation. The Palmach has a very special place in Israel's national myth -- something akin to Paul Revere in America, I suppose.)

The Palmach Museum is an "experiential" museum, which means that it doesn't contain the kinds of historical artifacts that you'd find in a regular museum. Instead, you follow the story of a group of Palmach recruits from 1941 until the end of the War of Independence. There are videos, sets (like stage sets), mannequins, lighting effects and all sorts of tricks to make the story "come alive" for the audience. Sound cool? It wasn't.

I actually found the whole experience really off-putting. The story of the recruits was melodramatic, rather than moving. Moreover, it lacked subtelty, romanticizing the Palmach generation to the exclusion of all critical, academic discussion of its politics and policies. This was straight-up Zionist myth, and it wasn't even good Zionist myth.

Something else bothered me about the museum, too. The characters and dialogue were so Israeli in their attitudes, mannerism, etc. that I found it difficult to relate to them on an emotional level. Maybe I would have reacted differently had I listened to the English translation instead of the Hebrew, but as it was, I trailed after our guide for an hour and a half feeling detached and cynical. I'm a Zionist, and I enjoy a good tug at the heartstrings as much as the next ideologically-motivated immigrant, but this didn't work on me at all. I guess I'll just have to find a different heartwarming Zionist activity to do before we leave!

To Be or To Be Something Else? That is My Question

Israel doesn’t have the greatest reputation when it comes to Jewish pluralism. If you could order pluralism on a menu here your choices would basically be religious or secular. With an occasional serving of Haredi on the side. In fact, most Israelis aren’t even aware that there is a difference between Conservative and Reform Judaism.

In general, as a Conservative Jew, the lack of a Jewish pu pu platter often leaves me a little hungry. And it’s not because I just fill up on rice. However, there are some benefits to the ubiquitousness of Orthodox Judaism. One of the biggest advantages, in my experience, is that Israelis with any religious background tend to be more knowledgeable than your average (i.e. not completely secular) Conservative Jew. For example, when a neighbor of ours recently passed away, every single one of our other neighbors could actively participate in the Shiva Minyan. And they could all address the mourners with the traditional Hebrew verse when they departed the Shiva house.

Now I grant that being native Hebrew speakers gives Israelis a distinct advantage, but I think the fact that their religious education, however one dimensional, is more thorough allows them to connect with observant Jews more meaningfully. There could also be a generational bias at work as my neighbors are all older, but it raises an interesting question. If I could have only one, what would I prefer my neighbors to be knowledgeable about - Jewish plurality or Judaism?

Overheard

Another anecdote from my travels on Jerusalem's bus system:

Yesterday, I was on my way to Hebrew U, as usual. There was an American kid on the bus, probably a post-high school yeshiva student, who was asking for directions (in English) to "Sheshess Yumim" street. No one seemed to know where the street was, which confused the kid, who knew that it was a relatively main thoroughfare. He kept repeating it, "Sheshess Yumim," "Sheshess Yumim."

After a minute, I figured out that he wanted ששת הימים, which Israelis pronounce "Sheshet Ha-Yameem." The kid's yeshivish, Ashkenazi pronunciation was just totally incomprehensible to the people on the bus! Before I had a chance to intervene, the kid had managed to describe the area that he wanted, and he got off the bus at the correct stop.

But I was hard-pressed to keep from laughing.

Jewish Republicans

Yesterday, I read an article for my class "The Jewish World Today: U.S. Jewry" that really agitated me. It was called "The Jewish Social Welfare Lobby in the United States," by Joel M. Carp, from a book called Jewish Polity and American Civil Society. The article was basically celebrating the organized Jewish community, and the Federations in particular, for successfully lobbying on the side of various social welfare issues -- against the tax cuts of the evil Reagan administration and the "draconian provisions" of later pieces of Republican legislation.

As my green highlighter whipped furiously across the pages, I kept thinking to myself, who decided that government social welfare programs are the realization of the imperative of tikkun olam? Moreover, who elected the Federation spokesperson for all American Jews? What about those of us who believe in limited government, free enterprise and personal responsibility -- do we have a voice (as Jews, that is) in Washington?

Not having the time for more than a token protest, I added a new link to this blog, right. (J, thinking of you!)

Babies and Buses

Yesterday, as I was making my way home from the National Library on the 24A*, a woman boarded my bus with a baby in a stroller. She glanced around at the other passengers, and her eye landed on me. She then took her baby out of the stroller, plopped him in my lap with an offhanded, "Hold him for a sec," and proceeded to pay the driver, collapse and secure the stroller and adjust her shoulder bag. The whole process took about two minutes, after which she sat down next to me and took the baby back with a casual, "Thanks."

A few minutes later, noticing that I was making funny faces at the baby, she asked me, "Do you have experience with kids?"

Now, maybe I'm just an uptight American, but...isn't that the kind of question that you ask someone before you plop your baby in her lap? Moreover, isn't it a bit dangerous to hand your baby over to a total stranger on a bus? For all the mother knew, I could have had a highly contagious disease, or been a crazed baby-napper!

While I was mulling this over, I noticed another mother get on the bus and go through the same process, handing her baby to a middle-aged woman before paying the driver and securing her stroller. I wonder if this is just the accepted practice in the particular neighborhood...?

*Note: As I later discovered, this was the wrong bus to choose. Unlike the 24, the 24A doesn't get to my neighborhood. If you're ever trying to get to my apartment from the National Library, take the 9 into town and switch to the 4, the 4A or the 21.

Food for Thought

I had an interesting experience in class today. My professor was lecturing about the concept of competing identities (e.g. national identity, ethnic identity, religious identity, class identity, etc.). To illustrate his point -- and to wake us up, as it was a very theoretical lecture -- he put the following statement on the board:

We're Jews, as opposed to they, who are...

The students were supposed to finish the sentence. The range of responses was fascinating! Some people said non-Jews, while others said Christians, Muslims, Arabs, goyim (not sure if the slightly pejorative connotation was intended), "Reformim," "potential Jews" and -- my personal favorite, from a fellow immigrant -- Israelis.

Then we did a similar exercise. This time, the statement on the board was:

We're Israelis, as opposed to they, who are...

This time, we got Arabs, Palestinians, Americans, new immigrants, Ethiopians (immigrants to Israel, that is), Russians (ditto), foreign workers, Diaspora Jews, "חוצניקים" (which I don't really know how to translate, but it means people from outside of Israel) and even Haredim.

Then we talked about the fundamental assumptions underlying each response. Are the Jews primarily a national or religious group? Is being Israeli a matter of citizenship, culture or adherence to a particular political ideology?

I wonder, if the statement has been, "We're Jewish, as opposed to they, who are..." the answers might have been different. Is it an adjective-noun thing?

Up For Grabs

As our impending departure from Israel speeds ever closer I’ve begun to detect more and more subtle changes in my life. Here are a few examples:

• At work I’ve begun documenting everything that I know how to do.
• I’m trying hard to get in shape for the family cruise that we’re going on as soon as we get back.
• We no longer have a small crock pot (it was sold on Friday).

As more and more of our belongings get sold off, Michelle and I have also tried to focus on things that we would like (or in some cases need) to do before we leave. This ranges from canceling our phones, to eating at our favorite restaurants, to visiting the Kotel. It’s reached the point where I worry that if we don’t actual schedule a time to do all of these things, they might slip between the cracks.

So. What would you do if you only had 38 days left in Israel?

Hat-tastic

I might have found something of a sideline career.

When I was first starting to buy hats, just before Adam and I got married, I looked in stores all around Jerusalem. It seemed like every hat I liked had the same label: Imaga. And, as chance would have it, Adam knew the company's owners, because J-Town Productions (Adam's employer) hosts the website for Imaga Hats. They now give me a discount whenever I go to the factory store. And Edoardo, one of the owners and a native Italian speaker, helped us when we were planning our trip to Italy last February.

Well, it turns out that the Boston-based Imaga sales representative recently gave up selling the hats when she had a baby. Edoardo is looking for someone to replace her, and Adam volunteered me! It would be a way to make some extra money and maintain access to my favorite hat designer, and we're setting up a meeting to discuss the possibility. I think it would mostly involve arranging tables at local Israel fairs, or at synagogues with hat-wearing populations on occasional Sunday mornings. I'll keep you updated!

Voice of (a Handful of) the People

I went to a rally last night! It was organized by Ne’emanei Torah vaAvodah to protest the Supreme Rabbinical Court's ruling from the end of April, which invalidated thousands of conversions carried out in Israel over the past few years by Rabbi Haim Druckman, head of the Israeli Conversion Court. Some background:

Rabbi Druckman is a prominent religious Zionist rabbi who was called upon by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon back in 2004 to form and modernize the Israeli Conversion Court. The goal, at that time, was for Rabbi Druckman to facilitate the conversion of the approximately 300,000 non-Jews who have come to Israel from the former Soviet Union over the past decade and a half.

According to the Court's latest ruling, all conversions that were conducted by Rabbi Druckman -- before and after his appointment to the Conversion Court -- will no longer be recognized by the Chief Rabbinate. They're apparently not kosher enough for the ultra-Orthodox rabbis who make up the Supreme Rabbinical Court. Adding insult to injury, about two weeks ago, Rabbi Druckman was summarily dismissed from his position as head of the Conversion Court. The whole debacle signifies not only the capitulation of the Israeli government to pressure from the ultra-Orthodox community, but also the total failure of the religious Zionist community to stand up for its halakhic integrity and address the desperate need to find creative halakhic solutions to the problems of conversion and, among others, agunot and mesuravot get.

Tonight, a group of converts and religious Israelis who oppose the delegitimization of Rabbi Druckman -- and, more broadly, the delegitimization of those who are seeking solutions to serious religious-social problems in this country -- staged a rally across from Jerusalem's Rabbinical Court. Adam and I went to add our voices to the mix. We were disappointed by the relatively low turnout and lackluster atmosphere. I was also unhappy when one speaker, berating the ultra-Orthodox for "inventing" their own Torah, said derisively, "There's one type of Reformim and the other type of Reformim." I thought the rally was meant to stress the openness of the Jewish people, not move the line of hatred a millimeter to the left.

Still, I'm glad that we went. And I'm proud of Jerusalem's Anglo community for being so well-represented at the event.

My teacher Esther looks on as my friends Sarah and Alexandra sign a petition.

Rabbi Riskin of Efrat speaks against the ruling.

The small crowd at the rally.

Success!

That's right ladies and gentle folk. My proposed one day boycott of Fox News by super left leaning liberals was a smashing success. Of course it was helped by the fact that by definition, anyone who watches Fox News, even accidentally, can no longer be considered a super left leaning liberal.

That may sound unfair, but at least I'm not as bad as the Michigan Democratic Party. Because apparently they can do anything they want. Even tell you its members who they would have voted for if somebody theoretically had been on the ballot.

Pizza Sababa....Where Everybody Knows Your Name, Address, and (Probably) Credit Card Number...

Yeah yeah, the title of the post really goes with Michelle's post from earlier tonight, but I highlight that to demonstrate that there are some things here in Israel that we'll miss when we get back to the US. One thing in particular that I DO enjoy about Israeli society is that it is significantly less litigious than the States. For example, when an intercity bus fills up here, the bus driver will let people stand/sit in the aisle even though it's technically illegal. The bus driver knows that everyone is in a rush and bends the rules to help a few people get to where they are going a little faster.

That kind of legal nonchalance would never fly in the US because the first person to take a tumble would sue the bus company for millions. I mean how could you ever use any mode of transportation ever again? An example of this was recently found at the Fox New offices. This crazy lady sued Fox News because her office had an infestation of bed bugs. The infestation was so bad in fact that over the course of 7 months she was bitten 3 whole times! In honor of her suffering I think that all super left leaning liberals should send a message to Fox News by officially boycotting Fox News in favor of CNN for the next 24 hours. Even if the article intended to write that she was bitten on 3 separate occasions, I still don't see how she can suffer from post traumatic stress disorder severe enough to stop her from working. Sounds to me like she had an infestation of the crazies.

Check back tomorrow to see if the boycott was a success.

You know you order in too often when...

This evening, with an almost-empty fridge and low energy levels, Adam and I decided to order a pizza. I called our favorite provider, Pizza Sababa, and gave the guy our address. Halfway through, he interrupted me:

"Shain, right? Regular cheese pizza?"

Oh, dear. It might be time to move...

Um, right.

I was walking home this afternoon and ran across a strange site. In an alleyway near our apartment, around 200 large cardboard boxes had been stacked against a garden wall. According to the stickers on the outside of the boxes, they had come from Canada, and each contained 1000 cartridges of a lidocaine/epinephrine injection. (That's an anesthetic used in dentists' offices, as I discovered later.) No shipping address was visible. Across the alley were 10 plastic garbage bags full of the paper instructions that come with prescriptions. And the boxes and garbage bags were totally unattended.

I waited a few minutes, thinking that the responsible party would come back, but no one appeared. I opened a box (they weren't sealed) to check that the contents were as stated, and sure enough, they were. It seemed ridiculous to leave 200,000 cartridges of a drug sitting alone, in the hot sun, on a Jerusalem street corner, so I did my civic duty and called the police, then sat down to wait for them.

When the police cruiser arrived 20 minutes later, I explained the situation to the two cops, who seemed at a total loss as to what to do. They poked around in a few boxes and stared at them, scratching their heads. Finally, one declared, "The boxes are stacked neatly, so they haven't been abandoned." Um, right. I'm so glad you're in charge.

The cops proceeded to tell passers-by not to touch the boxes while they started knocking on doors, looking for the owner. At that point, I left. It was hot, and I need to get some work done this afternoon. A while later, I popped back outside to see what had happened and saw some men loading the boxes into a big truck. Whether the owner was found or the police just hauled the boxes away, I'm not sure.

Israel Has Made Me Mean

After yet another terrible Al Italia customer experience (why do I fly with them again?) I found myself getting incredibly mad/defensive/argumentative. As soon as the Al Italia staff started giving me problems, I immediately switched into attack mode instead of appealing to the staff members for help (not that, on their part, any help was offered). We descended into a classic Israeli battle of wills where neither side is prepared to back down from their position.

Over the last 4 years I adopted this method of Israeli conflict as a survival mechanism to wade through the thick and tedious Israeli bureaucracy. I have also seen people succeed with sweet talk, but I’m not the kind of guy who can walk around calling everybody “sweetheart.” I have noted to several friends that while my method of dealing with this bureaucratic conflict is often successful, I hate both the way that this behavior makes me feel and the fact that such tactics are successful. In this case not only was I on the losing end (for now) of the exchange, but the instinctive conflict-oriented behavior actually prevented me from addressing the problem at hand and finding a mutually satisfactory resolution.

I had several hours on the plane to reflect on potential solutions to the problem and came to a second realization. I am not a nice person. I was a nice person once. I cared about other people’s feelings and went out of my way to lend a helping hand. I’m not quite sure how, but I think Israeli culture has slowly beaten the “nice” out of me. That isn’t to say that the “hard” behavior is without any redeeming value, but I would rather be in the default state of niceness with the ability to harden myself if necessary.

I’m trying to think of a witty line to turn this all into a funny joke. But I can’t. It’s just sad.

Overheard in the Grocery Store

A good reason not to bring your toddler shopping:

Little Girl [grabbing something from shelf]: Mommy, I want this!
Mother [looking at what the little girl has grabbed and seeing a box of menstrual pads]: Do you even know what those are?
Little Girl: Band-Aids!
Mother [reaching to take the box away]: No, they're not. This box is for grown-up women.
Little Girl [holding firmly to box, voice rising in volume and pitch]: Band-Aids!
Mother [noticing that people are starting to stare]: Hush!
Little Girl [planting feet firmly on the ground and brandishing the pads]: Band-Aids!

I thought it was funny, but the mother seemed ready to sink into the floor.

Mazal Tov

Mazal tov to our friends Gail and Alen on Alen's legal adoption of their kids, Gabi and Sasha. This is the first successful adoption by a lesbian of her partner's biological children in Jerusalem. My friends were a landmark case!

As the young, female, straight contingent at Friday's celebratory party, my friend Becky and I were elected to run the "make-up corner" for the little girls. I had the sense to run away when the brushes passed from our hands to the kids', but Becky was a better sport that I!

It's True

Confirmed. And I'm not just saying that because Michelle is my wife.

For the record, David Cook would rock Bon Jovi's "Always."

Move Over, Simon Cowell

Tomorrow will be the face-off between David Cook and David Archuleta on American Idol, which Adam and I watch regularly. In honor of this event, I will post an American Idol story that Adam never got around to posting, but will (hopefully) confirm, to corroborate my outstanding musical intuition.

Two weeks ago, we were watching the Top 4 compete, and Adam and I were discussing what song we'd like to hear David Cook sing. Adam suggested Bon Jovi, but I thought of something else. "You know, that song from the movie with the big rock...the one they played over and over on the radio that summer when we were in high school?" For some reason, this very precise description did not convey to Adam which song I meant, but we got there eventually: Aerosmith's "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing," from the Armegeddon soundtrack. Adam still thought Bon Jovi would be better.

So you can imagine my self-satisfied grin when, last week, during the Top 3 competition, the producers of Idol chose "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" for David Cook to sing in the final round. Thank you, thank you. I could be a record producer.

Immigrant Takeover

Yesterday, I went to the first meeting of one of my new classes for this semester, called "Who Are We? Diaspora Jewry." There were about a dozen students in the class, many of whom I recognized from my department. As we were going over the readings on the syllabus, the professor, who is always sensitive to language issues, told us that many of the readings were available in both Hebrew and English. Then he asked for a show of hands: how many people had difficulty reading Hebrew?

To my surprise, all but three hands went up.

Soft laughter ensued as the immigrants in the room suddenly realized our majority status. But one of the native Israelis was not amused. "Difficulty reading Hebrew?" she asked, consternation in her voice, perhaps wondering whether she had misunderstood the question. As we nodded, her face registered an expression that can only be described as horrified.

I decided to take it as a compliment that, over the course of the individual introductions that had preceded the syllabus discussion, she hadn't recognized us by our accents.

One of These Things is Just Like the Others

As I flew early this morning to Rome en route to Boston on Al Italia (official motto: We find a new way to #$&* you every time) I was slightly surprised that they remembered to serve me a Kosher meal. I was very surprised to see that the Kosher meal was the exact same as the regular meal, just wrapped in plastic. Now I must admit that I normally make an effort to sleep for the entire first leg of the Israel-Italy-US journey so this may not be an infrequent occurrence, but it was similarly interesting. Really, assuming the airline is serving Israeli products, shouldn’t all of the flights out of Israel have pretty much de facto Kosher food?

Yom Ha'atzmaut

Yom Ha'atzmaut fell on a Thursday this year. Because the weekends in Israel are Friday-Saturday, this meant a three-day weekend, and Adam and I wanted to make the most it. So, after celebrating Israel's 60th in downtown Jerusalem on Wednesday night with food, music and Israeli dancing, we got up Thursday morning and headed north for a real Israeli weekend. Together with four friends, we rented a "tzimmer," a little guest house, at Moshav Amirim in the Galilee.

It was the first weekend in May, and everything was blooming and beautiful up north. This was our front porch...

...and this was the view from the porch. That's the Sea of Galilee in the background.

These next photos were taken during our Friday morning hike at Nachal Yehudiya in the Golan Heights. We climbed down the ravine to the foot of the waterfall, and Adam and Doron went swimming.

Other weekend activities included soaking in the outdoor hot tub with glasses of wine, barbecuing (and eating) enormous quantities of meat, singing, playing Taboo and generally enjoying each other's company. This photo was taken right before Shabbat: Adam, Doron (with Rosa, a local puppy who befriended us), Avi, me, Elana and Rachel.

Congratulations All Around

Congratulations are also due to my childhood playmate and (technically) step-niece, Aimee, who is also planning to get married. This photo of me with Aimee and her adorable children, Wesley and Ellianna, was taken during our recent trip to the States.

Belated Mazal Tov

While Michelle and I were in the States over Passover we made a special trip out to Enfield Connecticut. Why Enfield you might ask? Because that's where my sister and her new fiance Adam live.

Yep! Melanie got engaged during Passover! We've known Adam for years now and we all think he's a great guy, except for that fact that he's Yankees fan, and we couldn't be happier for them.

Mazal Tovs all around!

Yom Hazikaron

The things that I've always found most moving about Yom Hashoah and Yom Hazikaron in Israel are the air raid sirens. At 10:00 on the morning of Yom Hashoah, and at 8:00 on the night of Yom Hazikaron and again at 11:00 the next morning, air raid sirens are sounded in honor of the victims. People stop wherever they are and stand at attention. Cars literally stop in the street. Everyone is still together, to honor the memory of the fallen.

At least, that's how it's supposed to work. On Tuesday night, the night of Yom Hazikaron, I went outside and stood on the street to hear the siren. And, yes, cars stopped in the intersection, and some people got out of their cars, and there were people out on their flag-draped balconies standing at attention. But there was a car roaring down the street at full speed, too. The driver looked middle-aged to elderly, and I wondered...who are you? Why don't you care about this moment? It really bothered me.

Yesterday morning, during the second siren of Yom Hazikaron, I was working at Hebrew U. When the siren went off, the other woman in my office and I stood and were silent. But just outside the window, I heard loud, obnoxious chatter that lasted for the full two minutes. When the siren ended, I looked outside to see a group of four Arab university employees sitting on a bench and laughing.

On my first Yom Hazikaron after making aliyah, I was standing on Agron Street with my fellow Conservative Yeshiva students for the morning siren. The Arab construction workers on the Yeshiva campus chose to continue their work during the siren, making lots of noise and generally ruining the experience for everyone on the street. Afterwards, I confronted the worker nearest me and asked whether he had perhaps not heard or understood the siren. He responded, "Yeah, I heard it, but what do I care?"

I berated that guy, all fire and fury over his disregard, not just for the fallen Israeli soldiers, but for his Jewish-Israeli employers and for the students and passers-by who were truly mourning a loss. If Arabs in this country want to remain seated for the siren, I can understand that. But at least in Jewish environment, like the Conservative Yeshiva campus or the campus of the Hebrew University, they can sit quietly. There is no need to show that kind of disrespect to the people around you.

Still, unlike four years ago, I didn't get into a confrontation yesterday. I just sighed and went back to my business. I suppose that shows more wisdom, but it also shows a resignation that I didn't feel three years ago. And that makes me sad.

Employment!

It's official -- I have a job lined up for the fall! Starting the day after Labor Day, I will be a full-time research associate at the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies at Brandeis University. For those who aren't familiar with the Cohen Center, they conduct cutting-edge scholarly research on the American Jewish community, and they're quickly becoming the center of Jewish social research in the United States. It's a perfect match with my interests and skill set, and I'm really excited.

I'll be doing mostly quantitative research on Birthright Israel, the free 10-day trip to Israel for young Jewish adults ages 18-26. (Yes, it's really free -- paid for by private donors like Edgar Bronfman and Sheldon Adelson, as well as various North American Jewish federations and the Israeli government.) What is the impact of the Birthright Israel trip? Does it strengthen the Jewish identity of trip participants, as it was meant to do? How can the trip be leveraged into long-term communal involvement? These are the big questions on the research agenda.

Yom Hashoah

Tonight marks the beginning of what is formally called "Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Day." Nefesh B'Nefesh was giving out tickets to tonight's official opening ceremony at Yad Vashem, the one that airs on Israeli television, and Adam and I decided to go. This will be our last Yom Hashoah-Yom Hazikaron-Yom Ha'atzmaut in Israel for a little while, and we wanted to soak up the whole Israeli experience of these holidays.

The theme of this year's Yom Hashoah ceremony, in line with Israel's 60th birthday celebration next week, was Holocaust survivors in Israel. The picture below is from the beginning of the ceremony. Merav Gruber, an Israeli actress, is reading the last letter written by a victim named Tzipora Bierman, from the Białystok Ghetto in 1943. We also heard from seven survivors who went on to make significant contributions to the State of Israel. It was just the kind of sobering-yet-uplifting Holocaust memorial ceremony that can happen only in this country.

We're back!

Yes, we're back from our Passover trip to the States and from our blogging hiatus. Adam and I will be now be blogging jointly here at Shainkeit. Come visit us often!