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!

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.

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!

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.