In my Hebrew class, there is a young Catholic Priest named Phillipe. He is from Paris. There was also, until a week ago, a Protestant Minister named Bernard, from Geneva, Switzerland. Bernard finished up his month here and is now back in Switzerland. Both Bernard and Phillipe came to Jerusalem to study Hebrew, in order to study Biblical texts in Hebrew.
Ilana, my housemate, and I invited Bernard and Phillipe over for the Shabbat prior to Bernard's departure. We wanted to share a very important part of our lives in Jerusalem and a very important part of both traditional Judaism and our contemporary outlook on it.
We went to services together at the little Conservative Shule that is in the same complex as my Yeshiva. It is a very American style service, and a crowd of mostly American ex-pats. Phillipe and Bernard are the first people I've seen get so completely frisked on the way into a Synagogue (you really can't trust a guy in a clerical collar). Stranger than the intense security was the attitude of the Rabbi. Perhaps I am spoiled by the incredibly welcoming nature of my Rabbi in Portland (the way she welcomes everyone to the Temple Beth El community could well be what brought me to involvement with Judaism). He didn't once acknowledge the sore thumbs in the midst of his congregation. I was a little saddened by that. Here are two men who belong to different traditions and who are looking to understand and learn about my/our tradition. What does the Rabbi do? Ignore them. Rabbis, I think, should be ambassadors for the traditions they have studied, to congregations and to the world. Ignoring people is just not a good way to build constructive relationships across religious lines; something that absolutely needs to happen here. Regardless, both Bernard and Phillipe enjoyed the services, and asked me the many questions they had about why things happen the way they do. I don't think I messed anything up too badly.
Dinner was lovely. We also invited a friend of ours named Michelle, who is a Rabbinical student spending the year here. Michelle (a fluent French speaker and a knowledgeable and kind teacher of Judaism) sat beween Bernard and Phillipe and guided them through the sometimes bizarre but very beautiful traditions of the Shabbat table. We also had several other guests, who did a wonderful job of teaching and a less than stellar job of learning. We ate my grandmother's brisket (I don't make it as well as she does). We discussed the rabbinic view that the Shabbat table is the replacement for the sacrificial alter. We ate delicious rugelach and drank wine. We sang Shabbat songs. It was really lovely.
This past week was Rosh Hashanah and my birthday...I'll try to post some thoughts on those events in the next few days.
Shabbat Shalom
Monday, September 29, 2008
Saturday, September 27, 2008
a hip party and the politics of conflict
Last monday I went to the hippest party I've ever been to. It involved performance art; live discordant music; paint by numbers on a re-appropriated billboard; a DJ spinning a really wonderful combination of hip-hop, eighties music and Arabic pop; and vegan food (or parve, depending on your outlook) cooked and sold by my friend Oliver. The entire shebang took place on the streets of a quiet neighborhood on the border of East and West Jerusalem, not far from the Old City. Actually quiet neighborhood is the wrong way of describing it. The party was not exactly quiet, nor was the pissed off old lady on the third floor of the neighboring building. The party seemed like a good time, but my lack of Hebrew kept me from really engaging anyone other than the three friends I came with.
Someone made mention of leaving and after six or so minutes of saying goodbye, using the bathroom, giving phone numbers and finding lost jackets we left. Walking home, we heard gunshots. They were loud but not as loud as one might imagine, and eleven shots (says the army) from an automatic weapon happen very very quickly. The shots were close enough that we ducked behind a building, and watched as cars pulled crazy illegal U-turns and blew their horns in alarm about whatever was going on ahead. Minutes after that, police cars, army vehicles, ambulances, first responders on motorcycles, and unmarked governmental SUVs arrived, more sirens than I have ever seen. Bewildered, we turned around and walked the long way home.
Turns out we were about 100 yards (or meters) from where a car driven by a young Palestinian man drove through a crowd of off duty soldiers, one of whom then shot him eleven times. The official story is that the young man had just proposed marriage and been turned down. The IDF claims he had ties to Hamas, and after his rejection went on a rampage with his father's car. But it just seems so much more complicated than that. And the responses from either side are just ridiculous.
The Haredi, (ultra-orthodox Jews) for instance, somehow heard about the incident and within minutes began streaming from one of their neighborhoods to the place it happened (right next to the Old City). Watching this mass migration I gave them the benefit of the doubt, that they were on their way to the Western Wall for the prayers of repentance that happen late at night in the week leading up to Rosh Hashanah. I was wrong, they were going (angry mob style) to harass and chase any Arab they could find. My friend Oliver said that they found a few, and made trouble. He also said the secular folks at the party went toe-to-toe with the Haredim
The Israeli government's response isn't wholly more enlightened. Before having a full story (especially difficult when the driver of the car is dead), the IDF prevented the family of the driver from erecting a traditional Muslim tent of mourning. Defense Minster Ehud Barack called for the demolition of the home of the family of the driver. It turns out this is a standard policy, to demolish, without due process, the homes of suicide attackers. This seems akin to putting the family of a criminal in jail.
I remember watching Bowling for Columbine the first time, and being slightly shocked at the apparent craziness of James Nichols, the brother of the Oklahoma City Bomber Terry Nichols. Nonetheless, there would be a righteous uproar if in retaliation for Terry Nichols' part in the Oklahoma City Bombing the FBI demolished his crazy brother's farm.
Hamas, for their part, has done a great job of conflating this stupid kid's love sick frustration (if that's the story) with General Eisenhower's invasion of Normandy...that the forces of good will cast off the Zionist oppression, etc. etc. Although the number of responding sirens and helicopters might confirm Hamas' statement, truthfully there are worse car accidents much more frequently. Sometimes, the people who are hurt in those car accidents have to wait much longer before the police and Magen David Adom (ambulance corps) arrive. There was an accident on my street a month ago, (no one was hurt), but the police didn't arrive to deal with it for an hour and a half, leaving the people involved in the accident to direct traffic and try and keep calm.
The kid's family deny his affiliation with Hamas, and have stated their hope for the speedy recovery of soldiers hurt in what they insist must have been a traffic accident. The families of suicide attackers don't usually deny Hamas affiliation, or wish for the recovery of those injured. I should also point out that his attack only became a suicide attack when the soldier fired into his car eleven times (it had crashed into a wall). My sense is that it wasn't a traffic accident...It just seems difficult to injure 19 people with a car by accident, even if you've just had your heart broken.
But that doesn't change the attention getting tactics of both the Israeli Government and or the Palestinian radicals. Nor does it change the fact that house demolition with due process, like the death penalty, seems a pretty questionable deterrent. When it is done without due process, it crosses a moral line in the sand and the fourth Geneva Convention...but that's another blog entry.
I came here to learn about this conflict, about the politics, the economics, the history, and the personal stories etc. This week, trying to process all the new information has been a crazy one. I hope to come out the better for it.
Someone made mention of leaving and after six or so minutes of saying goodbye, using the bathroom, giving phone numbers and finding lost jackets we left. Walking home, we heard gunshots. They were loud but not as loud as one might imagine, and eleven shots (says the army) from an automatic weapon happen very very quickly. The shots were close enough that we ducked behind a building, and watched as cars pulled crazy illegal U-turns and blew their horns in alarm about whatever was going on ahead. Minutes after that, police cars, army vehicles, ambulances, first responders on motorcycles, and unmarked governmental SUVs arrived, more sirens than I have ever seen. Bewildered, we turned around and walked the long way home.
Turns out we were about 100 yards (or meters) from where a car driven by a young Palestinian man drove through a crowd of off duty soldiers, one of whom then shot him eleven times. The official story is that the young man had just proposed marriage and been turned down. The IDF claims he had ties to Hamas, and after his rejection went on a rampage with his father's car. But it just seems so much more complicated than that. And the responses from either side are just ridiculous.
The Haredi, (ultra-orthodox Jews) for instance, somehow heard about the incident and within minutes began streaming from one of their neighborhoods to the place it happened (right next to the Old City). Watching this mass migration I gave them the benefit of the doubt, that they were on their way to the Western Wall for the prayers of repentance that happen late at night in the week leading up to Rosh Hashanah. I was wrong, they were going (angry mob style) to harass and chase any Arab they could find. My friend Oliver said that they found a few, and made trouble. He also said the secular folks at the party went toe-to-toe with the Haredim
The Israeli government's response isn't wholly more enlightened. Before having a full story (especially difficult when the driver of the car is dead), the IDF prevented the family of the driver from erecting a traditional Muslim tent of mourning. Defense Minster Ehud Barack called for the demolition of the home of the family of the driver. It turns out this is a standard policy, to demolish, without due process, the homes of suicide attackers. This seems akin to putting the family of a criminal in jail.
I remember watching Bowling for Columbine the first time, and being slightly shocked at the apparent craziness of James Nichols, the brother of the Oklahoma City Bomber Terry Nichols. Nonetheless, there would be a righteous uproar if in retaliation for Terry Nichols' part in the Oklahoma City Bombing the FBI demolished his crazy brother's farm.
Hamas, for their part, has done a great job of conflating this stupid kid's love sick frustration (if that's the story) with General Eisenhower's invasion of Normandy...that the forces of good will cast off the Zionist oppression, etc. etc. Although the number of responding sirens and helicopters might confirm Hamas' statement, truthfully there are worse car accidents much more frequently. Sometimes, the people who are hurt in those car accidents have to wait much longer before the police and Magen David Adom (ambulance corps) arrive. There was an accident on my street a month ago, (no one was hurt), but the police didn't arrive to deal with it for an hour and a half, leaving the people involved in the accident to direct traffic and try and keep calm.
The kid's family deny his affiliation with Hamas, and have stated their hope for the speedy recovery of soldiers hurt in what they insist must have been a traffic accident. The families of suicide attackers don't usually deny Hamas affiliation, or wish for the recovery of those injured. I should also point out that his attack only became a suicide attack when the soldier fired into his car eleven times (it had crashed into a wall). My sense is that it wasn't a traffic accident...It just seems difficult to injure 19 people with a car by accident, even if you've just had your heart broken.
But that doesn't change the attention getting tactics of both the Israeli Government and or the Palestinian radicals. Nor does it change the fact that house demolition with due process, like the death penalty, seems a pretty questionable deterrent. When it is done without due process, it crosses a moral line in the sand and the fourth Geneva Convention...but that's another blog entry.
I came here to learn about this conflict, about the politics, the economics, the history, and the personal stories etc. This week, trying to process all the new information has been a crazy one. I hope to come out the better for it.
Friday, September 19, 2008
more thoughts on learning language (and some of the geopolitics contained therein)
From the early 1900s through the present, there have been 3 million Jewish (we can talk about what defines a Jew later) immigrants to the little strip of land called Israel. That isn't nearly the immigration that the United States saw around the turn of the 20th century, but the State of Israel (excluding the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights) is just 7900 square miles, the state of New Jersey is 8700 square miles. Although I constantly make fun of the inhospitable climate of the so-called "Garden State", the Negev Desert (which takes up approximately 55% of the Israeli land-mass) is an even more brutal place than the New Jersey Turn Pike (I know, I didn't think it was possible either)…The Land of Milk and Honey seems an exaggeration, more like land of Dehydration and B.O. But perhaps I'm too skeptical or spoiled by my pleasant north eastern childhood and my eight years in the even more pleasant New England. Perhaps the term "Milk and Honey" just gives and indication of how much less hospitable the neighboring climates are. At any rate, I digress.
This little tiny country had a population of just 800,000 Jews in 1948 (about half the Jewish population of New York). Now it has a Jewish population of almost 7 million Jews, many of them immigrants who had to learn Modern Hebrew. Although the immigrant population might have prayed in some older liturgical form of the language, few of them spoke the language I'm learning now. This somewhat crazy demography required the powers that be to get pretty good at teaching the language.
Here are some stories about the joys of learning.
For the months of September, October and November, I’m enrolled in an intensive Hebrew Language course (called an Ulpan). This Ulpan is not based at the Conservative Yeshiva, where the rest of my classes are. It is at a place called Bet Haam. Bet Haam literally means "house of the people," and my guess is that it evolved from the socialist zionist movement of the early/middle part of the last century. That movement, it should be said, has given way to a much less sympathetic (in my humble opinion) free market zionism. Again, I digress.
I am at Bet Haam every Sunday through Thursday from 8:00 am to 12:30 pm. My class is a really interesting and diverse group. There are about fifteen 18-22 year old Arab students who wish to attend Hebrew University. Many of them speak decent Hebrew, but don't understand the official grammar of the language and thus have a hard time passing the entrance exams to Hebrew U. There are five Olim Hadashim [new immigrants]. Three of them are retirees, one from Queens, one from London and one from somewhere in Germany. The other two new Olim are young men whose stories I haven't yet pursued, one from India, and one from France. There are four other Conservative Yeshiva Students (like me). There is one Protestant Minister from Geneva, and a young Catholic Priest from Paris. Our common languages are Hebrew and English.
During the 30-minute Hafsaka [break, sort of] Bernard (the Minister), Philipe (the Priest), Mohammed (one of the young Arab students) and I stand around and talk about how much our faiths have in common. No, I promise this isn’t the start of a bad joke, really. It is one of the most satisfying half hours of my day. The Europeans and I drink espresso, Mohammed does not; he is keeping Ramadan. One day I tried to have theological discussions without the coffee but soon thereafter decided drinking in front of Mohammed during Ramadan was a price I had to pay in order to stay awake for the rest of class.
It's interesting. I consider myself somewhat well rounded when it comes to discussions of theology. I've dabbled enough in Eastern Religions, and have enough friends who are faithful Christians to know at least a little bit about many religions. I even know about some of the small religions, like Bahai (5-6 million practitioners worldwide) and Zoroastrianism (100,000 practitioners worldwide), Judaism (13 million worldwide). And yet when it comes to Islam (1.5-2 billion practitioners worldwide), there is a huge gap in my knowledge.
Mohammed has a similar gap in his knowledge about Judaism (I can’t speak for his knowledge of small religions like Shintoism (3 million), or Confucianism (4 million)). And as we each learn a little more from each other we realize just how much we really do have in common. Anyone who says otherwise needs to sit down with an open mind and study…you don’t even need to read the Koran, just start with Wikipedia. Bernard, Phillipe and Mohammed all seem to enjoy these conversations, which happen partially in French, partially in Hebrew and mostly in English. I know I do.
Modern Hebrew is a very interesting language. It is derived from Biblical Hebrew and from the diverse range of Liturgical Hebrews and spoken Hebrews of the late 19th century. It also has a great many words from more modern languages like, teknologia, historia, televizia, matematika, zooologia, radio, to name just a few. The Arabic speaking students in the Ulpan have a hard time with those words. The English and French speaking students do not. We (the English and French speakers) have a hard time with the great many words that are similar to words in Arabic (and include a huge diversity of gutteral sounds like I had no idea existed). It is good for both these groups of students to be in the same class with each other. We make up for each other's gaps in knowledge. And it's good for me to hear the Arabic accent, which is more pronounced than the Hebrew accent, and therefor easier to understand the differences between the gutterals "H," "cH," "kH," "AY," "A," "R."
Our textbook is designed to teach Hebrew to English speaking Jews. I could go into some of what I think to be the mistaken and offensive reasons to do it exclusively that way, but this blog is long enough and I'll hold off. Suffice it so say even my secular upbringing had enough Jewish education to know a bit about many of the festivals and the traditions of Judaism. So it is very helpful for me (an English speaking Jew) to learn from the textbook we're using. Not so much the majority of my class. Nonetheless, it is interesting to hear our teacher (who is incredibly patient, thoughtful and open-minded, qualities not often espoused by Israelis) explain in the simplest of Hebrew what Rosh Hashanah is. Then she asks those of us who do have some Jewish knowledge to help out. "On Rosh Hashanah we eat sweet things so that the coming year is sweet" was about the most nuanced thing I could come up with, and only with a lot of help from Renana (our teacher). I'm quite sure that none of the nuance of Jewish belief comes across in the present-tense-simple-clause Hebrew of our class. Mohammed, Bernard and Phillipe are good about having me clarify things in English or French after class, so that's good. Until one considers how much Jewish knowledge I have, which is to say only a very tiny bit…
This might sound like an intense way to spend 22.5 hours a week (including hafsakot [breaks]). It is. Fortunately we have our light moments too.
One of the retiree/new immigrants is named Paul, he's British, always has a stuffy nose, asks the most inane questions, and fits into my categorization of the Holy Land (not the traditional milk and honey one). He was taking a big swig of his water bottle, and then sneezed, water, all over the back of the three people sitting in front of him. And I mean all over. The entire class, which was in the middle of a tense and difficult discussion of the nuance of linking two nouns together, burst out laughing. It was really the perfect comic relief for that situation, and although it was certainly immature of all of us (and is possibly immature of me to post it here), it was kind of awesome. The three people he sneezed on (now slightly moist) handled it commendable grace. I would have had to go home and take a shower immediately. British Paul just sort of sat there, he didn't seem exactly happy, but not nearly as embarrassed as one would think. I would have needed to leave the Ulpan and never come back, possibly the country. Just to make matters more interesting, later that same day, it happened again, it was slightly less severe the second time, but no less funny. The next day, no one sat in front of British Paul.
It is time for me to start getting ready for Shabbat, we’re not having people over this week (a nice change of pace), but there is still a bunch of cooking to be done before we welcome the Bride of Days (a traditional Jewish way of looking at the Sabbath).
Shabbat Shalom.
This little tiny country had a population of just 800,000 Jews in 1948 (about half the Jewish population of New York). Now it has a Jewish population of almost 7 million Jews, many of them immigrants who had to learn Modern Hebrew. Although the immigrant population might have prayed in some older liturgical form of the language, few of them spoke the language I'm learning now. This somewhat crazy demography required the powers that be to get pretty good at teaching the language.
Here are some stories about the joys of learning.
For the months of September, October and November, I’m enrolled in an intensive Hebrew Language course (called an Ulpan). This Ulpan is not based at the Conservative Yeshiva, where the rest of my classes are. It is at a place called Bet Haam. Bet Haam literally means "house of the people," and my guess is that it evolved from the socialist zionist movement of the early/middle part of the last century. That movement, it should be said, has given way to a much less sympathetic (in my humble opinion) free market zionism. Again, I digress.
I am at Bet Haam every Sunday through Thursday from 8:00 am to 12:30 pm. My class is a really interesting and diverse group. There are about fifteen 18-22 year old Arab students who wish to attend Hebrew University. Many of them speak decent Hebrew, but don't understand the official grammar of the language and thus have a hard time passing the entrance exams to Hebrew U. There are five Olim Hadashim [new immigrants]. Three of them are retirees, one from Queens, one from London and one from somewhere in Germany. The other two new Olim are young men whose stories I haven't yet pursued, one from India, and one from France. There are four other Conservative Yeshiva Students (like me). There is one Protestant Minister from Geneva, and a young Catholic Priest from Paris. Our common languages are Hebrew and English.
During the 30-minute Hafsaka [break, sort of] Bernard (the Minister), Philipe (the Priest), Mohammed (one of the young Arab students) and I stand around and talk about how much our faiths have in common. No, I promise this isn’t the start of a bad joke, really. It is one of the most satisfying half hours of my day. The Europeans and I drink espresso, Mohammed does not; he is keeping Ramadan. One day I tried to have theological discussions without the coffee but soon thereafter decided drinking in front of Mohammed during Ramadan was a price I had to pay in order to stay awake for the rest of class.
It's interesting. I consider myself somewhat well rounded when it comes to discussions of theology. I've dabbled enough in Eastern Religions, and have enough friends who are faithful Christians to know at least a little bit about many religions. I even know about some of the small religions, like Bahai (5-6 million practitioners worldwide) and Zoroastrianism (100,000 practitioners worldwide), Judaism (13 million worldwide). And yet when it comes to Islam (1.5-2 billion practitioners worldwide), there is a huge gap in my knowledge.
Mohammed has a similar gap in his knowledge about Judaism (I can’t speak for his knowledge of small religions like Shintoism (3 million), or Confucianism (4 million)). And as we each learn a little more from each other we realize just how much we really do have in common. Anyone who says otherwise needs to sit down with an open mind and study…you don’t even need to read the Koran, just start with Wikipedia. Bernard, Phillipe and Mohammed all seem to enjoy these conversations, which happen partially in French, partially in Hebrew and mostly in English. I know I do.
Modern Hebrew is a very interesting language. It is derived from Biblical Hebrew and from the diverse range of Liturgical Hebrews and spoken Hebrews of the late 19th century. It also has a great many words from more modern languages like, teknologia, historia, televizia, matematika, zooologia, radio, to name just a few. The Arabic speaking students in the Ulpan have a hard time with those words. The English and French speaking students do not. We (the English and French speakers) have a hard time with the great many words that are similar to words in Arabic (and include a huge diversity of gutteral sounds like I had no idea existed). It is good for both these groups of students to be in the same class with each other. We make up for each other's gaps in knowledge. And it's good for me to hear the Arabic accent, which is more pronounced than the Hebrew accent, and therefor easier to understand the differences between the gutterals "H," "cH," "kH," "AY," "A," "R."
Our textbook is designed to teach Hebrew to English speaking Jews. I could go into some of what I think to be the mistaken and offensive reasons to do it exclusively that way, but this blog is long enough and I'll hold off. Suffice it so say even my secular upbringing had enough Jewish education to know a bit about many of the festivals and the traditions of Judaism. So it is very helpful for me (an English speaking Jew) to learn from the textbook we're using. Not so much the majority of my class. Nonetheless, it is interesting to hear our teacher (who is incredibly patient, thoughtful and open-minded, qualities not often espoused by Israelis) explain in the simplest of Hebrew what Rosh Hashanah is. Then she asks those of us who do have some Jewish knowledge to help out. "On Rosh Hashanah we eat sweet things so that the coming year is sweet" was about the most nuanced thing I could come up with, and only with a lot of help from Renana (our teacher). I'm quite sure that none of the nuance of Jewish belief comes across in the present-tense-simple-clause Hebrew of our class. Mohammed, Bernard and Phillipe are good about having me clarify things in English or French after class, so that's good. Until one considers how much Jewish knowledge I have, which is to say only a very tiny bit…
This might sound like an intense way to spend 22.5 hours a week (including hafsakot [breaks]). It is. Fortunately we have our light moments too.
One of the retiree/new immigrants is named Paul, he's British, always has a stuffy nose, asks the most inane questions, and fits into my categorization of the Holy Land (not the traditional milk and honey one). He was taking a big swig of his water bottle, and then sneezed, water, all over the back of the three people sitting in front of him. And I mean all over. The entire class, which was in the middle of a tense and difficult discussion of the nuance of linking two nouns together, burst out laughing. It was really the perfect comic relief for that situation, and although it was certainly immature of all of us (and is possibly immature of me to post it here), it was kind of awesome. The three people he sneezed on (now slightly moist) handled it commendable grace. I would have had to go home and take a shower immediately. British Paul just sort of sat there, he didn't seem exactly happy, but not nearly as embarrassed as one would think. I would have needed to leave the Ulpan and never come back, possibly the country. Just to make matters more interesting, later that same day, it happened again, it was slightly less severe the second time, but no less funny. The next day, no one sat in front of British Paul.
It is time for me to start getting ready for Shabbat, we’re not having people over this week (a nice change of pace), but there is still a bunch of cooking to be done before we welcome the Bride of Days (a traditional Jewish way of looking at the Sabbath).
Shabbat Shalom.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
religious graffiti
Rebbe Nachman of Breslov was the founder of the Braslaver Hassidic dynasty. He was the great-grandson of the original Hasidic Rebbe, the Baal Shem Tov. Rebbe Nachman believed that concentrating on one word was a way of meditation.
A hundred years ago one of his more recent disciples "found" a letter from the Rebbe that was signed na nach nachma nachman meuman [Nachman from Uman], which is a play on/meditation on the Rebbe's name.
The phrase appears everywhere, bumper-stickers, storefronts, kippot, and my personal favorite... Graffiti.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
warm ocean, barack obama (the coffeeshop) and fresh juice
School started up again this past week, and after two very relaxing weeks off from learning Hebrew intensely, I'm back to the grind. Last Sunday, the day before everything started, I took a trip to Tel Aviv.
I have a lot to say about Tel Aviv, much of it interesting historical information about how the city went from being a sand dune in 1908 to a huge cosmopolitan area in a very short time frame. About how the international community still recognizes Tel Aviv as the capital of Israel because the status of Jerusalem is somewhere between disputed and occupied (depending on whose side you fall). And that there is more Bauhaus architecture in Tel Aviv than anywhere else in the world; hence it is on the UNESCO World Heritage list. I could go on and on about these dorky thing. Rather than bore everyone, I figured I'd just post four vignettes with photographs.
Until I put my toes in the Mediterranean Sea, I had never in my life been in a warm ocean. It's a little alarming at first to be expecting Gulf of Maine cold, and instead feel salty bath water. Actually, it's really alarming. When it comes to bodies of water, I associate cold with clean and pure. I associate warm, with stagnant puddle. I didn't exactly get over that sentiment, but managed to swim anyway. Turns out there is something to be said for the ability to feel one's appendages when one departs the water.
This is a photograph of a little cafe I walked past. This cafe has, appliqued to it's window, a large image of Barack Obama. Above Barack's face it says Brucim HaBaim, which means something along the lines of Bless those who come. It's a formal welcome, the kind of saying that ends up on doormats and Hotel Brochures. Under Barack it says something I can't decipher and Obama 08.
Tel Aviv has a hundred little storefronts that sell juice. Jerusalem has a good many as well, but in Tel Aviv, every little corner store has an old lady or a young man (no one in between) who will squeeze or juice anything you want. I had Mitz Gezer VGinger (Carrot Ginger juice). It was delicious for $3.50. It was spicy and sweet.
Finally, lest any of my swine obsessed friends (you know who you are) worry about visiting me and forgoing the salty succulence that is pork for a week, know that it is available here, at the Palace of Pork, in Tel Aviv. Just don't plan on cooking it in my kosher kitchen.
Tonight is Shabbat and I have a lot cooking to do. I am making brisket, my grandmother's recipe. Buying the brisket was exciting. I don't know the Hebrew for First Cut Brisket. "Brisket." I said to the butcher. "Ma [what]?" He said. I pointed at something that looked like brisket, and said "Brisket," again. The butcher looked at me and said "Steak." "Lo lo lo [no no no]," I replied. "BRRISS-KIITTT," I sounded it out slowly, because language barriers don't actually exist. If I just speak slowly and loudly enough everyone will understand my English. The butcher did not. I was at a loss. Finally my years in the professional kitchen came to my rescue, and I remember trying to explain where different cuts of meat came from to our Arabic speaking dishwashers. I gestured to my upper ribcage, where on a cow the brisket is. "Brisket." I tried again. The butcher smiled. "AHHH," he said. I got my brisket, it wasn't that expensive, and it smells delicious in the oven right now.
I'm also making something of a ratatouille because we have kilograms of eggplant (so far as I've learned about the metric system, a kilogram is roughly 2/3 of a mile) and piles of basil from our farm share. Ilana, my roommate is making a mixture of roasted butternut squash and locally grown organic sweet-potatoes. There will also be a large salad, much humus, much wine, much Challah, many rugelach, and eight guests. Oy.
Shabbat Shalom
I have a lot to say about Tel Aviv, much of it interesting historical information about how the city went from being a sand dune in 1908 to a huge cosmopolitan area in a very short time frame. About how the international community still recognizes Tel Aviv as the capital of Israel because the status of Jerusalem is somewhere between disputed and occupied (depending on whose side you fall). And that there is more Bauhaus architecture in Tel Aviv than anywhere else in the world; hence it is on the UNESCO World Heritage list. I could go on and on about these dorky thing. Rather than bore everyone, I figured I'd just post four vignettes with photographs.
Until I put my toes in the Mediterranean Sea, I had never in my life been in a warm ocean. It's a little alarming at first to be expecting Gulf of Maine cold, and instead feel salty bath water. Actually, it's really alarming. When it comes to bodies of water, I associate cold with clean and pure. I associate warm, with stagnant puddle. I didn't exactly get over that sentiment, but managed to swim anyway. Turns out there is something to be said for the ability to feel one's appendages when one departs the water.
This is a photograph of a little cafe I walked past. This cafe has, appliqued to it's window, a large image of Barack Obama. Above Barack's face it says Brucim HaBaim, which means something along the lines of Bless those who come. It's a formal welcome, the kind of saying that ends up on doormats and Hotel Brochures. Under Barack it says something I can't decipher and Obama 08.
Tel Aviv has a hundred little storefronts that sell juice. Jerusalem has a good many as well, but in Tel Aviv, every little corner store has an old lady or a young man (no one in between) who will squeeze or juice anything you want. I had Mitz Gezer VGinger (Carrot Ginger juice). It was delicious for $3.50. It was spicy and sweet.
Finally, lest any of my swine obsessed friends (you know who you are) worry about visiting me and forgoing the salty succulence that is pork for a week, know that it is available here, at the Palace of Pork, in Tel Aviv. Just don't plan on cooking it in my kosher kitchen.
Tonight is Shabbat and I have a lot cooking to do. I am making brisket, my grandmother's recipe. Buying the brisket was exciting. I don't know the Hebrew for First Cut Brisket. "Brisket." I said to the butcher. "Ma [what]?" He said. I pointed at something that looked like brisket, and said "Brisket," again. The butcher looked at me and said "Steak." "Lo lo lo [no no no]," I replied. "BRRISS-KIITTT," I sounded it out slowly, because language barriers don't actually exist. If I just speak slowly and loudly enough everyone will understand my English. The butcher did not. I was at a loss. Finally my years in the professional kitchen came to my rescue, and I remember trying to explain where different cuts of meat came from to our Arabic speaking dishwashers. I gestured to my upper ribcage, where on a cow the brisket is. "Brisket." I tried again. The butcher smiled. "AHHH," he said. I got my brisket, it wasn't that expensive, and it smells delicious in the oven right now.
I'm also making something of a ratatouille because we have kilograms of eggplant (so far as I've learned about the metric system, a kilogram is roughly 2/3 of a mile) and piles of basil from our farm share. Ilana, my roommate is making a mixture of roasted butternut squash and locally grown organic sweet-potatoes. There will also be a large salad, much humus, much wine, much Challah, many rugelach, and eight guests. Oy.
Shabbat Shalom
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