to see new landscapes through old eyes

London--lost, found, and two museums

2007-08-19T14:44:00.000-07:00

Trip from Tel Aviv to London went relatively smoothly, until the end, when they made me take off the lovely earphones that kept me from hearing the poor screaming boy behind me. He screamed for two hours, most of which I couldn’t hear. But the last forty minutes of the flight, part of which was spent in circling-the-airport hell—well the good part of me wanted to help his parents and the bad part of me just wanted to strangle the kid. (The kid was in pain, so really I’m not very nice. Oh, well.) As in Israel, landed and exited passport control and security without a hitch. And bought my tickets to and from the hotel. I had memorized and drawn the map from the train station to the hotel, so I exited the station in the drizzling rain and confidently marched off in the opposite direction, having turned myself around, as usual. I didn’t realize my mistake for several blocks, by which time the rain had turned from drizzle to downpour, my poncho had begun to leak, and I was wandering aimlessly, swearing like a drunk. By dint of containing myself enough to smile sweetly and ask every passerby where Norfolk Square was, I was directed down one street, overshot it, doubled back up the next street, and finally found Norfolk. Which is a divided street with a gated park down the center. Which was locked. Which I was on the wrong side of. Yes, folks. Turns out that my hotel is a block and a half from the hotel. I just walked it with my friend Monique. It took five minutes. Last night, I walked twelve blocks to find the same hotel. I suppose I could have made it take longer, but I’m not sure how. The hotel is pretty basic—a bed, a cupboard for clothes, and a washbasin. The bathroom and shower are down the hall. There isn’t supposed to be smoking, but there is a bit. Oh, and my room is on the third (American counting) floor—and, needless to say, no elevator. So last night, I was feeling more than a bit grumpy as I tried to figure out why I had been so excited about a day in London.

Well, today made up for it, starting with an ample breakfast, complete with lots of coffee. Then headed off to the British Museum. I got there ten minutes after it opened and it was already crowded. I had no desire to learn or see anything in particular, so I just wandered. Here’s a list of random impressions:

1) Dave has said how he was amazed at the sheer effrontery of a people who can just walk into another civilization and take stuff of the magnitude that the Brits took. I would emphatically concur (and add that the Germans were no better—as witness the amazing stuff in the Permagon Museum (uh, named after the temple that the museum is built around!)). It’s also interesting that rather than saying, “okay, we took it and we’re keeping it because we can,” the signs explain that the Brits have preserved it better than the countries of origin would have. This may well be true, but it’s kind of changing the subject. Yeah, the US can’t begin to match this crew when it comes to colonization. (Yeah, yeah, I know it’s not a contest. No, I’m not trying to justify US actions anytime, anywhere. Just saying that there are a lot of very black pots and kettles lying around.)
2) I was really impressed by the number of people who visited. Yes, it’s summer and it is the British Museum, but still—people really were interested in every part of the museum (okay, more interested in the mummies, but hey—dead people; what’s not to like?). People were clustered around the Rosetta Stone, around the Parthenon, around the various statues, through every room in the museum, and they were talking about history. How cool is that?
3) I don’t quite know what to make of what survives. Historians only have what’s left. What’s left is stuff that’s hard to destroy. So an ancient civilization that expresses itself through monuments of one kind or another will leave a record. Those that express themselves in other ways—maybe not. What remains thus determines what the past is to the present—but how does that relate to what the past was to those who lived it? This is hardly a new question; I think it shapes any beginning course in historiography. However, it was the question that kept coming back as I went through the museum.
4) The museum has free tours through the day. I was in the right place and time for one on Greece. The guide was absolutely excellent. He gave a brief summary of Grecian history, then led us through the development of Greek art, particularly the way the Greeks looked at natural forms. I asked about how different cultures use stylized forms versus trying to achieve a natural form—Egyptian versus classical Greek, for example. I can’t remember the precise answer he gave, but it was clear and concise. It led me to remember that the Greeks believed that this world was a microcosm of the world of the gods. If you believe that, then learning about the natural world is a form of connection to the gods themselves. This is also true in China, where meditation on a small piece of perfection—bonsai, or a piece of carved jade—encapsulates the whole world. By contrast, if you believe the world is best expressed through patterns or through emotion or some other way, then attempting to recreate the world precisely would have little meaning. There are real consequences to each choice in the way each kind of culture understands the world. Hmm, I think I’m just restating Weber. I can live with that…

About 1 PM, the museum became unbearably crowded and it was time to meet Monique, a friend from Ulpan, who is a rabbinic student at Leo Baeck Rabbinical College. We headed over to the British Library where there was an exhibit of the sacred—the texts and practices of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. I will say less about this exhibit, although in many ways, it meant more to me. I am reminded how much I am a person of words and stories—and how little we know of the stories behind the great monuments in the British Museum (oh, we know some, I know that, but still…). There were many first, many oldests. There were examples of how sacred text is further interpreted. How it was and is beautified. How the same text is interpreted in different or similar ways in the different traditions. I was pretty happy, I have to say. And it was a lot of fun to go through with someone who was as excited and engaged in the material as I was. (By the way, the exhibit was pretty well attended, though not mobbed, and there were very serious discussions all around.) About half an hour before closing, I wanted to see the rest of the Library. Yeah, that’s when I was reminded that one floor up was the Magna Carta. And a whole bunch of other AMAZING stuff. I had twenty minutes to look at a first folio, at Chaucer, at a whole display of the writings of British scientists. And the whole time I was saying, I have to remember that I saw...well, fact is, there was too much to remember. I could have spent an entire day looking at the range—through time and subject—contained in that place. It was a whole different kind of sacred—but no less sacred for all that—than the words below. And it was different also from the concrete stuff of the British Museum. An amazing contrast.

Monique and I finished the day at a pub with beer, excellent Thai food, and conversation. She’s heading off to spend the night with relatives. I’m going to post this and head for bed. What a day! And tomorrow—back home again.

Tel Aviv and Jaffa

2007-08-17T09:03:00.001-07:00

I spent all day Wednesday museum-hopping. First, I took the bus to the Eretz Yisrael Museum. Not bad at all—lots of little buildings, each with a different focus. I did wish for someone to comment to as I walked. I covered the entire museum, from beginning to end—history of stamps and coins, of pottery and of glass, as well as a whole section on material culture—how people made food, clothing, and so on. What struck me about this last section was how similar the tools and methods were to those anywhere else in the world. Weaving, bread making, carpentry, and so on seem to have a limited range of variation. It’s a bit like falafel. Every culture has its own version of falafel in pita: some kind of carb wrapped around some kind of filling, generally with lots of options for interest. Burrito, poor-boy sandwich, mu-shu, pasties, and so on.

I almost skipped stamps and coins—I mean, who cares?—but was very glad that I didn’t. I was reminded that stamps, money, weights and measures, standards of all kinds are part of what societies need to manage—the Hubble problems of a few years bear witness to what happens when those measurements aren’t standard. There is a distinction between ideology and values and those tools that need not have ideological import. I say “need not” because, of course, we put all kinds of symbols on our money and stamps—some frivolous (the US series of “biggests”, for example); some not (whose face is on which piece of currency).

I went from that museum to the art museum and had only about an hour there. It was fantastic—great impressionist and post-impressionist collection. Some weird stuff, but I didn’t much care; there was more than enough to see. I had posted earlier about how children in London and France are taught to appreciate art. Well, I saw the consequences at the museum. I was looking at some “weird stuff,” when I noticed a French father and his daughter of about eight. He was explaining some principle of art that was exemplified by the picture—I have no idea what; couldn’t understand the language well enough—and she was nodded with great interest and concentration, adding a few words here and there. I realized then that this French eight-year-old clearly understood more about art than I did. Ouch!

That evening, I took Avital out for dinner. She drove us down to the waterfront, where there were many shops, restaurants, and most of the city enjoying the warm, humid night. It was lovely to be out with her, talking about her experiences growing up in two countries, in the army, and as a scout. The Israeli Scout experience sounds not too dissimilar to 4-H in terms of developing skills and leadership. Avital was emphatic about distinguishing it from US scouting—it has a huge membership; many, many families participate. Much more than school, it is clear that scouting has shaped her. Which makes me wonder about looking at it as an education model for Jewish kids in the states. She also spent her last year in Scouts working with Israeli kids in south Tel Aviv. These are kids who don’t have the resources—money or other people—to run effective tribes, so many teens come to help and she was one. She spoke with great pride of bringing fourth grade Jews and Arabs together and watching them go from distrust to great friendship.

She also spoke of what it’s like to be in the Army—the bonds you form with others, the sense of responsibility of knowing your country truly needs you, and the fact that she doesn’t know what she wants to do with her life and, until she is done with the Army, doesn’t have to. As we sat on the Tel Aviv boardwalk, we also talked about how there is no sense of danger or war and, late into the night, there are still families and children wandering around, both in groups or alone. So there is a very different sense of what danger means, as well as some interesting ways to compartmentalize it.

It was a lovely evening and ended with each of us showing the others pictures of people and places.

Thursday morning, Karen and Jim’s friend, Yascha, picked me and took me to breakfast. He is a lovely man with a generous spirit. We returned to the same boardwalk, this time in the daytime, and sat speaking Hebrew and enjoying the food and the waves. Then he took me to buy a suitcase (either that or just throw more money at British Air) and headed off.

In the meantime, Steven had arrived from Caesarea, enroute to the airport. We headed down to Jaffa and Neve Tzedek for the day. Actually don’t have much to report on that—both were fine to wander around, but again I am reminded that I’m much more interested in how people live now than in the history of stones. In Neve Tzedek, we did walk through the Suzanne Dellal Dance Center, though, and I felt like I was on a college campus. Amazing place for all kinds of dance. And, on the walk from Jaffa to Neve Tzedek, I detoured into the Mediterranean (finally). I did roll my jeans up, but it took two waves before I was wet to the knees. Warm and salty and very blue. What else is there to say? Anyway, glad I made it in before I left!

Kiryat Mal’achi and Yad Mordechai

2007-08-17T09:01:00.000-07:00

One of the things that pleases me most about this visit to Tel Aviv is getting around. I know which bus to take where and, more or less, how often and when they come. When I get on a bus for the first time, I take out my city route and make the connection between reality and schematic. Which then means that, when I look at the map later, I am seeing a place, not simply a set of intersecting lines. I do this because I have no sense of direction at all—put me in a place and I will turn the wrong way about 80% of the time (if it were 100%, that would be preferable, but no…). And don’t give me oral directions; I just can’t make sense of them. But a map and an address—I’m set. That, plus the buses—well, I feel like I’ve gotten a decent sense of Tel Aviv. Aside from the weather (the humidity is just about unbearable), it’s a great city. I don’t have a lot to add to what the books say about the three cities—Haifa is the working man’s town; Jerusalem, a crazy center for religion in all shapes and sizes; Tel Aviv, the center of business and art. Even with all Jerusalem’s insanity, I think I would choose to live near Jerusalem for one rather embarrassing reason—I can tolerate the climate. It is dry and hot, which I can deal with. The humidity kills me—I just can’t cope. Hardly profound, but there it is.

On to my day Monday. I left very early to get to the Central Bus Station and from there took a bus to Kastina, near Kiryat Mal’achi. It was a long, sweaty ride in a bus that had no air-conditioning and a grumpy bus driver. More of the passengers were Ethiopian than I had seen before, with many elderly women and children.

The whole area that is south of Tel Aviv is economically depressed. The Jewish Agency is trying to find US congregations to help support the area, and Beth Emek is one. For example, this summer, two students came to help with Beth Emek summer camp, as a way of connecting the two areas.

I was put in touch with Inbal, a young woman who is Miranda’s age, finishing her first year at university. She did three years in the army, completing her officer’s training, and then began studying psychology. Taking groups or individuals to the various sites/sights in the region is a part-time job for her, and one she takes very seriously. She grew up in Kiryat Mal’achi and clearly loves it and Israel. So the two of us spent a pleasant day together. She had wanted to show me a youth center, an art program, and more, but in August, much is shut down. What I got to see was a senior day center and a kibbutz. All very interesting. And, while most of this trip has been a personal journey, this part I took very seriously as a representative of Beth Emek, whose job was to bring back information we can use as a congregation.

Here is what I found out: the senior day center is a place where the elderly can go to be with community, to make things—some to decorate the center; some to sell (interestingly, the men make mosaics; the women sew. Apparently, the men are “lazier” (and I do quote!) than the women, but mosaics hold their interest, while sewing does not. Fascinating. The center offers exercise, showers and haircuts, meals, health care, and company. What I noticed most were the smiles and the smell—or lack thereof. In the US, every center I’ve been in has a slight smell of urine. That was completely absent here. Have to say, though, that I don’t know if that’s because of the kind of place or the kind of care. The center director showed me the kitchen, being renovated by donations from one American congregation; the art room, supported by another; the barber shop/salon and so on. In the middle, were about thirty seniors playing one kind of game or another. I wanted to take pictures, but was afraid of invading their privacy—not even. When the camera came out, each one wanted a picture and then to admire it. I didn’t catch on quite soon enough, but would have taken pictures of each one if I had understood sooner. The center for Ethiopian Jews was attached, but—it being August—not active. Still, I had a chance to see the work participants produce.

Inbal talked to me at length about the volunteer opportunites—drama, music, and art; helping with youth; working on computers; teaching English (no knowledge of Hebrew required) and, of course, working with the seniors. It turns out that the Jewish Agency maintains an apartment where volunteers can stay rent-free while they help. Very cool. So that was Kiryat Mala’achi.

Then we drove south, near Eshkelon, to Yad Mordechai, to see the museum there. This is a kibbutz that took its inspiration (and some of its fighters) from the Warsaw Ghetto. During the 1948 war of independence, it held off the Egyptian army for several days, eventually fleeing, but by then, other fighters had had the time to organize and get weapons. The museum itself is a nicely done place, but what I was most interesting in was the ideology behind the museum.

Two things—first, it claimed responsibility for the State—had it not been for the defense, Tel Aviv would have fallen, and so on. Same thing was true in Tzfat—it was the defense for the north. Clearly, both are true—Israel was threatened on all sides; had the defense faltered in any case, well, the situation could have been very bad indeed. And the need (both perceived and real) for defense continues to this day. Both Inbal and Tali knew that their work in the army was important in allowing Israel to continue to exist and to exist in relative security. Very different than in the US.

Second, the museum made a distinction between Jews who fought and those who went “to the slaughter.” It’s a distinction I used to make—I can remember when “Dona, Dona” was one of my favorite songs. From making that distinction, I went to a belief that people simply do the best they can and the best they are capable of. Perhaps some of those who ended up in the camps were easily led, however, some of those who ended up outside the camps were lucky. The problem, as always, is that we never know where our choices will lead and that each person has a different set of constraints—the fighters in the Warsaw Ghetto were, by and large, young and unattached. From that perspective, it’s easy to see the world in black and white and it’s easier to act without considering the consequences. And, as in a previous post, those who resisted were not left unscarred either.

Following the museum, we had a tour of the battleground and then of the honey factory (cute, but frankly, better for the ten-year-old set). I’m bringing back Israeli honey for Dave. Deborah (meaning “bee” in Hebrew, just for the record) has declared that he will need to decide whether the honey she brought back from the South of France is better than Israeli honey. A tough job, but someone’s got to do it.

Chassidic tale--or And Now for Something Completely Different

2007-08-17T08:20:00.000-07:00

Chassidic Story

<>I have heard this story twice now in Israel. The first time was from the storyteller in Haifa who was supposed to be speaking on Jewish identity. He told a long, elaborate version which gave each character specific context and motivation. The second time was at the Shabbat lunch in Jerusalem, where the Jerusalem guest told the story. This time it was primarily plot, with little description of the characters. In each case the story fit the teller. But the fact that the same story was told in two different places is enough to pass it on. And I presume my telling will fit this teller as well.
The Baal Shem Tov (abbreviated as Besht) was dying. Each of his followers came to him and to each he gave a task that was his alone to complete in this world. Finally there was only one young boy left, barely past the age of Bar Mitzvah. He was an orphan and had followed the Besht since his parents had died some years before. Now he, too, wanted a task, a mission that only he could fulfill. But the Besht was reluctant: “You are too young,” he said. “You do not know what will be asked of you.” The boy insisted: “I am past the age of Bar Mitzvah. And do any of us know what will be asked of us?” To this the Besht had to agree. He thought of this particular boy and his talents. This was a boy He could not parse the halachic arguments in Talmud, but who had a gift for story and song that some of the followers took lightly—although the Besht had noticed that when the boy began a story, they were silent from beginning to end.“I will give you a task,” he said. “But you must promise that you will not accept it until you are eighteen. It is important, but not easy, and you must be old enough to take it on with full knowledge.” To this the boy agreed immediately.“You will be my storyteller,” said the dying rabbi. “You will tell the stories I have told and you will pass on the work we have done. Each week you will travel somewhere else for Shabbat, and as long as your work continues, you will have no home. Do you understand why this is so difficult?”
The boy, being young and eager to see the world, did not understand, but nodded eagerly, nevertheless. The Besht smiled, knowing something of youth, but continued. “You will want to know when your task is completed, I suppose.” The boy had not thought that far ahead, but now he nodded obediently. “There will come a time when you do not know the end of the story, but another will complete it for you. When that day comes, it will be time for you to find a wife and a home. Will you remember?” The boy nodded again and left with great eagerness. A few days later, the Besht died, and was mourned by all his followers.
The boy, obedient to the Besht, waited for several years. He did not wait idly, but practiced telling stories to old and young. He learned songs and to play a wild fiddle. And time passed very slowly, but pass it did and eventually the boy turned eighteen. The day after his birthday, he took a pack and his violin and set off down the road to tell his first stories.
After a day or so, he arrived at a small shtetl on Friday afternoon. After evening services, he announced that he was the Besht’s storyteller and the next afternoon, during motzi Shabbat, he would be in the town square prepared to tell wonderful stories. There was not exactly a huge outcry, in fact, no one really took notice, but the boy did not care, so sure was he of his mission.
But the next afternoon, only three people waited in the town square—an old woman and her two small grandchildren. The boy was disheartened, but remembered his task, squared his shoulders and began.
Now you would think—he certainly did—that the years of practice would have helped him in telling stories. And perhaps that is the case. It is certain that his voice and body had learned to move comfortably with the words of each story he had carefully and meticulously learned. But the story he told was not one that he had practiced. It was one that flowed through his body and mouth without guidance, a story that came from that place and the people listening, but also from the words of the Besht. The boy finished the story and told another and by now a few more people were listening. At the end of the third story, he was exhausted, but twelve people were in the audience and two offered to house him for the night.
<>That evening, he ate well and talked into the night. Before he fell asleep in his comfortable bed, he took out paper and pencil and sketched his hosts in words and pictures. The next morning, he packed his few belongings, took his leave, and traveled on into the woods and to the next village.
It was same at this next village—he announced himself at erev Shabbat services, he waited until Shabbat afternoon, a few people listened as he told another story that flowed through him, and when he finished his stories, the square was half-filled. <>The first months were the most difficult as he learned how to sleep, how to pack, how to wash, and how to feed himself as he traveled, each week in a new town. But over time, he learned and over time, his reputation spread, so that when he came to the town square of each village, he would find the townsfolk already assembled and waiting eagerly. And so passed the first year and the second and the third. By his twenty-first birthday, villages eagerly waited for the young storyteller to arrive and fill their Shabbat afternoons with tales that came straight from the mouth of the Besht. And the storyteller loved every minute of it, loved the way the children elbowed each other to make space in the front, and loved the way the old men and women nodded to themselves as one part or another pulled at a memory. And also the storyteller saw the young men and women who were his age marrying and beginning new lives in their villages. He was still looked forward to the next village and the next story, but part of him began to wonder when his task would be fulfilled. He had forgotten what the Besht had told him so long ago, remembering only that there would be an end—someday.
When ten years had passed, the storyteller was a strong, confident man who knew the ways of the world and had stories of his own to tell, although these he confined to the notebooks he carried with him. His job was still to tell the Besht’s stories, not his own, and he was still proud to do so. But now he found himself lonely. The men and women his age had homes and young children. He had a different bed every night and no one to share it with. And he still could not remember when his task would end. <>One day, as he played his fiddle near a brook, a horse and rider approached. “You are the Besht’s storyteller?” asked the rider. “I have been searching for you for three months. My master, who lives in Italy, requests that you come and tell stories to his community. He will pay you well.”
“I do not tell stories to be paid,” replied the storyteller. <>
“Nevertheless, he requests that you come. He beseeches you, sir,” said the servant.
“I go where the wind takes me,” said the storyteller.
“Is there a reason the wind cannot blow you to

Italy

and my master?” asked the servant. The storyteller smiled. He was free to travel where he wanted and if a rich Italian wanted him to come to tell the Besht’s stories, why not do so?
The rich Italian was, indeed, very rich. The storyteller slept in great comfort and was fed the finest meals Italy had to offer. If this were a different tale, the Italian would have a daughter for the storyteller to fall in love with, but in fact, he had only sons. After three days, the Italian gave a banquet for the community and at its end, the storyteller stood up to begin, opened his mouth, and found that no story emerged. He stood gaping at the crowd for a moment, his mind empty and confused, then from his own travels pulled one tale and then another. He told them well and the crowd applauded, but the Italian looked puzzled and disappointed. This was not what he had expected.
The next morning, the storyteller made ready to leave. He had taken no money from the Italian, but nevertheless felt profoundly ashamed. He had failed the Besht, he had pretended to be something he was not. He felt a great need to leave and consider whether this was the sign that his task was over. And yet, how could this failure be the end? As he set off down the road, the Italian hailed him. <>
“Sir,” he said. “May I walk with you?”
This was perhaps the last thing the storyteller would have wanted, but what could he say? The two men walked in silence for several minutes and, as they walked, the storyteller felt the familiar push of a story waiting to be told.
“Last night,” he said to the Italian, “You must have been surprised at my tales, as they had nothing to do with the Besht.”
“I was,” replied the man. “But I thought there must be a reason and so I came to you today to see what that might be.”
“The stories I tell come to me without my conscious thought,” he said. “I prepare and practice, but when the words come, they come of their own accord. They have always come—until last night when they did not. Over the years, I have collected enough stories to satisfy an audience, but what I did last night was not part of the task the Besht set me. Now, however, there is a story that I would tell and perhaps it is for you alone to hear.” <>

Here is the tale:
Near Passover one year, the Besht and a few followers came to a shtetl that appeared to be deserted. This was odd—it should have been bustling with Passover preparations, but instead, the streets were quiet and doors and windows were locked. The group of travelers knocked at one door and another, but no one answered until, toward the end of the street, they heard a door being unbolted and an old woman beckoned them in. There they found the villagers crowded together in great fear.
It seemed that there was new and fiery priest who had begun preaching against the Jews, as was not uncommon for that time. It was not uncommon during the season of Passover for Christians to tell each other how Jews would kill a Christian child to bake matzo. There was no truth in this story, but those who told and those who believed would then come through Jewish shtetls, destroying all that they found. And this new priest had the gift of inspiring action, reminding his audiences of every imagined sin of the Jews from the beginning of time until the present. It was from this that the village was hiding.
When the Besht heard the story, his face grew still. He turned to the youngest member of the group—the boy who had become the storyteller—and told him to go to the priest and tell him that the Besht would speak to him. The boy, with great reluctance and fear, made his way to the Christian section of town, staying in the shadows and praying that nothing would give him away as a Jew. He knocked on the priest’s door—once, twice, and finally on the third time, the door opened and the priest stood there. The boy did not look at him, but simply muttered: “The Baal Shem Tov wants to see you.” He could hear the sharp hiss of breath and the priest whispered: “What did you say?” The boy repeated: “The Baal Shem Tov wants to see you.” The priest swallowed and said: “Tell him I will come in two days.”
The boy nodded and raced out of the village and back to the Besht as fast as he could. But the Besht was not pleased. “In two days this village will be destroyed,” he cried. “You must return and tell him to come at once.” With even more fear, the boy made his way back to the village and to the priest’s room, where he delivered the message, expecting at any moment to be hauled in front of the crowd as the first victim of the coming pogrom. Instead, the priest sat for a moment, then pulled on a cloak and followed the boy back to the shtetl. There the Besht waited in the village square. He met the priest and they walked off together. The priest never returned and without his words to rouse them, the peasants did not storm the shtetl and the Jews observed Passover in peace. <>

The storyteller stopped and looked at his host, who was wiping his eyes. “That is not the end of the story,” said the Italian. “Let me tell you how it ended.”
The storyteller started as the Besht’s parting words, so long forgotten, came back to him: “There will come a time when you do not know the end of the story, but another will complete it for you. When that day comes, it will be time for you to find a wife and a home.” He nodded and said, “I am ready.” <>

The Italian’s tale:
Many years ago, a Jewish family was fleeing from a pogrom. It was a large family piled into a small wagon and the horse was running with all its might. If the mother had not been clutching the baby so hard; if the two older boys had not been poking each other; if the older girl had not been hiding beneath the seats—well, there are no ifs. The littlest boy, just old enough to have had his first haircut, lost his grip as the wagon turned a corner and bumped through a ditch. He found himself under a thorn bush, unable to get free, and the wagon raced on without him. Some time later, a farmwife found him crying in the yard and took him to the local monastery, which raised him as a Christian. As the boy grew he found comfort in the monks’ prayers, the same comfort that he had once found in his mother’s lullabies, although he did not then remember them and did not remember anything before life in the monastery.
<>The boy grew into a man and decided to become a priest and remain in the comfort of the prayers. Like other Christians, he was taught of the Jews’ sins and he believed them. And, for some reason, everything Jewish enraged him, infuriated him. He heard the word “Jew” and his mind would fill with resentment as words of hate came out of his mouth. The first time this happened, he was unsettled, but as the priests around him praised his fiery speech, he accepted this as a gift, and grew to embrace it.
Then just before Easter, three nights before he was to give a speech to a village arousing them to destroy a small shtetl, he had a dream. In the dream, a kind old man spoke to him: “I am the Baal Shem Tov,” said the man. “You must find me and hear my story.” The priest awoke, shrugged off the dream, and continued his preparations. But the next night the dream returned and again, the priest paid no attention. But then, after the third night, a boy knocked on his door and told him that the Baal Shem Tov wanted to see him.
It was on that walk that the Baal Shem Tov told him his story. He sang the lullabies that his mother had once sung as she rocked him to sleep. All the loneliness and rage that a small boy felt at being abandoned rose up and left, as the priest understood what had happened so many years before. Then he wept for the boy that had been and for what the man had done to his own people.
“How can I return and repent?” asked the man who had been a priest.
“You will make your way in the world, caring for those of your people who need it most,” said the Besht. “I do not know whether the damage you have done can be atoned for. But know this: if a man comes who tells you this story but does not know the end, then you will know that you have made atonement.” <>The Italian and the storyteller looked at each other, knowing that each had completed the tale of the other and each was free of their allotted tasks. They embraced and then separated. The Italian returned to his home and found that his life changed but little—except that a hole in his heart now felt full. The storyteller continued on for a time, still telling stories, but now they were his own tales of the places and people he had seen as he traveled. In not too long, he found himself in a shtetl that was most welcoming, staying with the town rabbi who had a daughter….and from this you can write the end of his story yourself. <>

In writing this, I did find that the story became my particular telling. There were bits that others put in that I thought didn’t fit; other bits that I wanted to expand. An interesting thing, telling a folk-tale….

Shabbat doesn't always come on Saturday

2007-08-14T12:33:00.001-07:00

August 14, 2007

A home in Tel Aviv

I woke up this morning with a headache and feeling like I just didn’t want to move. Not really sick, but just bone-tired. I was supposed to travel south of Tel Aviv to meet with a children’s book author who is a friend of Hedva’s, but I couldn’t face the thought of going anywhere. Instead I called home and blithered to Dave and Deborah (especially Deborah, just because she’s done this before). Then cancelled my appointment and lay about and read some of the books that fill the bookshelves of this house. The house—where I am? I am staying in Nurit and Colin’s house while they are gone. It is the lower floor of a two story house and it feels like family. There are signs of children everywhere—books, writings, clothing. There is a refrigerator full of family food (which I am supposed to help eat). The dishwasher and the washing machine are almost identical to mine. There is a pet—a small dog named Meshi (silk). Meshi is silent and very affectionate. The last two nights, she has slept by my bed, which was quite a comfort. The neighborhood is quiet and there is a small shopping center around the corner where I bought a falafel for lunch and where I will buy fruit in a bit. Tali was here last night, watching TV and chatting amiably. She’ll be back tomorrow and tomorrow evening we’ll go out to eat. In the meantime, the day has been entirely rejuvenating—tomorrow I am ready to head back into Tel Aviv for one event or another.

Shabbat in Jerusalem

2007-08-14T12:32:00.002-07:00

My companions and I separated for Shabbat. Steven was interested in going to the Kotel for services, I was not. And then I had all the problems of the day, particularly the wet phone. So I decided to go to a nearby synagogue—one I could walk to. It is Yedidya, and is similar to Beth Israel in Berkeley in terms of being Orthodox, but verging on egalitarian. The building was simple—white stone or concrete, two stories with the synagogue on top; the social hall below. In the social hall was a separate ark for a women’s minyan. Girls become Bat Mitzvah there with great regularity and men attend—although they may choose to then go to a regular service (the point is—there is choice). I got there right on time, always a mistake, and there were only a few women scattered through the women’s section, and about three times as many men. However, by the service’s end, both sides were close to full (men’s perhaps a bit more crowded). The books were entirely in Hebrew—the most amusing thing was the translation of the one Aramaic prayer into Hebrew, a very nice touch—and I could follow pretty well.

There was no rabbi and the service was led by a young man whose suffered from a common problem of youth—mumbling and speed. And yet, I found I could follow and the congregation took up melodies or silence in a comfortable rhythm that was incredibly moving and powerful. Unlike in Berlin and in Tzfat, there was nothing forced about the service; unlike the service in Haifa, this did not feel imported (although it had been initially). It was exactly what my soul needed.

After services, I headed back to the apartment. I was a bit disappointed that no one had asked me for dinner, but there hadn’t really been a way to communicate my desire. And, as it turned out, I was happy to be alone and quiet.

The next morning, with a phone still only working intermittently, I decided that I should take my cue and not try to go into the city by cab. Besides, I wanted to see what a Torah reading at Yedidya would be like. Services in Jerusalem begin early—which is very nice, they end early, too. I enjoyed the morning service as well, although the young man reading Torah went so quickly that even though I knew the words and melody, I could hardly keep up. On the other hand, he read the whole parsha, so speed may have had its virtues. The d’var Torah was given by a woman—in American-accented Hebrew, which is always easier to understand. And, as they passed the Torah around, when it came to the women’s side, a man passed it to a woman, who then carried it around. I have no trouble with men and women being separated—having separate spaces for each allows a different kind of fellowship to emerge than when families sit together—it is the prohibitions that bother me. Here, some women wore tallits, women led parts of the service, and they have made compromises with Torah reading.

During announcements, one woman said that if we wanted to be hosted for Kiddush lunch, we should see her following the service. There was ample food below, but I wanted company, and so talked with her. Her name was Linda and she knew the Bay Area and Stuart Kelman, who had hosted her. And she found me a couple who were looking to fill their lunch table, a short, round couple (Esther and Steven) a bit older than me, who were as gracious as could be. Esther went off to set the table; I found people to converse with. When Linda came back, I asked for her full name to pass onto Stuart. “Linda Gradstein” she said. My expression must have shown that I was trying to remember why the name was familiar, so she added “from NPR, but that’s my other life.” Yeah, so I had a long conversation with the Israel correspondent from NPR. What a place! The conversation, by the way, was entirely about the nature of the synagogue and about religion in Israel. Much of what she told me is woven into my description—although I will stress that the lack of a rabbi is a philosophical decision and one that has mixed results (which I understood absolutely completely—much more than she knew!). She was someone I would like to know better—down-to-earth, engaged in community life, and (as you might expect) articulate.

Lunch was amazing—Esther and Steven had been married only five years, second marriage for both and they were a pleasant, contented couple. Along with me, there were two young women from Birthright, and a man who lived in Jerusalem, but was kind of a waif (that is, currently single and socially clueless, although with a decent job and an odd hobby (codes in the Bible)). Esther had lived in Berkeley and knew the Rosens. It’s a funny thing—Stuart Kelman and Daniel Boyarin are names that keep coming back; that I know these people gives me credibility, oddly enough, and now the Rosens. It’s a very small Jewish world indeed. Esther served about five courses for Shabbat lunch: appetizers, soup, chicken with grape leaves, vegetables, and stuffed cabbage, and some kind of dairy-free ice cream cake for dessert. I’m taking notes—Shabbat afternoon meal is an custom I could get used to.

Towards evening, I went to tea with a Servas family. While that was nice, there is little more to say about the day—I went, we talked, and I returned to get ready to leave for Tel Aviv the next day.

Birthday at the Israel Museum

2007-08-14T12:32:00.001-07:00

I wasn’t sure how I would feel on my fiftieth birthday—in a strange place away from my family and friends. I hoped it would be good, but had no great expectations. I woke, got myself up and out the door to go to the Israel Museum. It was supposed to open at 9, but I got the bus early and headed out the half-mile way by 8:10. As I walked, I called home where they enthusiastically sang the requisite song. Hearing my family sing to me as I looked across a Jerusalem valley toward the Knesset—not a bad thing at all.

It turned out the museum didn’t open until 10 and I got there at 8:45. Fortunately, they let me to wander the grounds in the cool and quiet of the morning. I walked by the model of Jerusalem prior to its destruction, through the sculpture garden (some seriously weird, others terrific), and between the black wall and white dome that together make up the Shrine of the Book, where the Dead Sea Scrolls are kept. Then a cup of coffee and eavesdropping on Hebrew conversations with more or less comprehension. Finally Brian and Steven showed up and we headed into the museum. Most of it is actually closed for a serious restoration, but that turned out to be no problem at all—there was enough to keep up going the entire day; had the rest been open it would have been a two day visit anyway. I went on the Hebrew tours of the model city and of the Dead Sea Scrolls. I didn’t get all of it, but I know the stories well enough to fill in the gaps and, for the Dead Sea Scrolls, I repeated the tour in English. I found that listening to lectures is terrific—I don’t have to understand and respond, so I can begin to get pieces and put them together. Easier than the rapid-fire news or other TV shows.

I have written at length about my response to the Wall—almost idolatry of a sort. But when I entered the Shrine of the book, a warm round room, with two thousand year pieces of writing preserved and displayed, writing that is still read aloud today in an unbroken chain, an unbroken scroll of writing and generations, I felt everything that I didn’t feel at the Wall—connection to people, to God, to history, to the meanings of the story. Even writing about it, I feel overwhelmed. And how fortunate to have been there on my birthday! How blessed I am! (By the way, this is a country in which everyone, even the fairly secular say “b’ezrat ha-Shem,” with God’s help. Unlike in the US, it isn’t a statement of religious politics, simply a comment on the reality that life isn’t always in our control.)

Steven and Brian left the museum before me to go off and rest, but we were to meet again to see an art exhibit on Jewish identity and then they were going to take me out for my birthday—really sweet of them and very much appreciated by me. Once again, I found myself waiting, this time in a great restaurant attached to the “Artist’s House” (right next to the Betzalel School for Art). I didn’t get any to eat but sorbet, but it was some of the best sorbet I’ve had. I was pretty disappointed in the exhibit, but the evening was fun—a beer for me, a dinner that was odd but excellent (scrambled eggs with Israeli salad), and interesting conversation about what we had seen during the day. Steven and I are both knowledgeable Jews engaged in our respective Jewish communities; Brian is a Christian, although how or if he practices wasn’t clear and I’m always reluctant to do a third degree on that. So much of the evening was spent discussing and explaining Jewish life and practice in the past and present.

Part of what we discussed was the politics of presentation—I went on the tours as much to hear what was presented and how it was presented as to learn (I know this history pretty damn well, as I found out yet again). However, what was interesting in the tour of the Dead Sea Scrolls, for example, was who was named and who was not (the shepherd boy who found the scrolls was never named, for example, nor was the man who bought them from him). It was also a remarkably conflict-free version of the tale—not mentioning, for example, the secrecy surrounding many of the non-Hebrew Bible texts. For a long time, these texts were controlled by the Dominicans, who were more interested in protecting theology than publishing the results they found. In the past five-ten years, complete translations of the schools have been published, but what the Scrolls may mean to Christian theology in particular is still in process—and clearly somewhat frightening to Church leaders. None of this was even hinted at in the tour—none. Why not? My guess would be the desire not to offend. Too bad—it is an interesting and important story. More here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_sea_scrolls.

August 7--a mixed bag of a day

2007-08-14T12:30:00.000-07:00

It turns out the rabbinic intern who will be helping to lead services this High Holy Days was in Jerusalem at the same time I was. So we met for lunch that first day in Jerusalem. She is a rising fifth year student at the New York campus and is working on her thesis (in Jewish education), as well as acting as advisor for the new crop of rabbinic students. It turns out that the HUC-Jerusalem campus faces the Old City on one side, King David Street on the other. An incredible location, but when it was purchased around forty years ago, virtually worthless (rumor has it that it was purchased for the equivalent of one dollar). Now it is incredibly hot property, but not for sale.

We went to really nice vegetarian restaurant for lunch—roasted peppers stuffed with cheese, with leftovers to go for Shabbat evening meal—where we exchanged life stories. It was a pleasant and polite conversation—each of us telling our life stories or at least the part about how we ended up here in Jerusalem, but I don’t think either of us disclosed any deep, dark truths about ourselves or the world. In other words, a good introductory conversation to a good and thoughtful person. A couple of thoughts—first, her Hebrew seemed to be about at my level, which surprised me. I would have thought she would be fluent. However, her summer has been spent in English, as the incoming students are all really English speakers, and, as I found out later, my information that it’s hard to learn Hebrew in Jerusalem is correct. Unlike Haifa, there is little patience or appreciation for learners—too many tourists, too little time. Second, she spoke about both Rick and Laura (especially Laura) with a great deal of respect. This was interesting, though on reflection, not too terribly surprising. She is brand-new; they’ve been out for twelve years, almost a complete generation. I’m not sure what the implications of that are—but I’ll be chewing on it for a while. And finally, while we didn’t talk philosophy all that much, I am getting the sense that much of my disagreements with Rick really have to do with the direction of the Reform movement. It is so willing to go with choice and so grateful for any degree of Judaism that it feels completely bland. I am not sure what words in particular the RI used—but that is the sense that I get. As I will describe in a bit, traditional, egalitarian communities are what feel real to me—but that will be a different post.

I also got a tour of HUC, and it is indeed a lovely, small campus. A treat to see this place for Reform Judaism (whatever I may think of it personally) so close to the bastion of the Haredi.

Shopping in the Old City and Street Fair

One of my missions while in Israel was to spend the birthday money from my grandmother and parents. I had intended to buy some micrography of the parsha for the week I was born—it included the Shema and Ten Commandments, so I figured I could find it. But apparently the place for micrography is Tzfat and, due to circumstances beyond my control, I saw very little art there. I found myself a bit overwhelmed by the shopping in the Old City—so much of it is incredibly kitschy or ordinary but for the place. However, I found myself in a relatively high end store (the kind I wouldn’t normally enter except for the birthday) and there was a lovely tallit of thin wool with pomegranates, doves, and bunches of grapes on it. It came with a matching tallit bag and kippah. So I’m ending up with a tallit from Jerusalem, willy-nilly. It is a lovely thing and the grapes connect Israel and Livermore for me.

But the tallit buying took time and then getting lost took more time and energy, so that when we arrived at the Four Sephardic synagogues, they were already closed. My companions and I were tired and a bit frustrated as we trekked back along the city streets. They wanted a beer and I didn’t want to end the day—too many blind alleys. While I wasn’t sure a beer was exactly what I wanted, I didn’t have any better ideas until we passed the storyteller. All along Ben Yehuda street, which is a pedestrian mall anyway, there was a street fair. The storyteller, dressed casually, sang children’s songs—which I could follow because they were simple, and then called children up to participate. All kinds of people were there—Orthodox of all kinds, secular of all kinds, tourists and natives. And the kids were engrossed. After that I wandered up the street, past one performing group after another. The klezmer guys were the best, though—despite competing with Ethopian drumming and dancing down the road.

The day was full—Old City, lunch and tour of HUC, buying something lovely and meaningful, and finally a celebration of Jerusalem.

Individuals and community

2007-08-13T13:07:00.000-07:00

A friend commented that she has moved toward more individualism—that “the focus on groups makes me suspicious and moves me towards the individual.” When I first read this, I thought I understood it, but now I’m not so sure. What is it about groups that is suspicious? What are the advantages and disadvantages of pulling away from a group? On this trip, I’ve been thinking a lot about the relationship between individual and community. Don’t know whether what I’ve been thinking about relates to the original comment, but that comment provides the catalyst to think about the issue in a couple of different ways. One has been the majority-minority aspect of being part of a society—this is, I think, what cielledee is referring to. Another is what happens to the individual who is rooted in community as opposed to one who is not. There is probably some relationship between the two aspects, but I don’t feel like connecting them.

I think I am very used to thinking of Jews as minority groups in different societies. As I’ve written before, there’s Jewish time and Jewish practice, but it adjusts to the majority culture. That isn’t easy and I grouse about it, particularly at holiday times, but I’m used to it. I’ve never experienced a society which runs on Jewish time. Time is something that varies from culture to culture and, like language, matters only to groups. I’m distinguishing cultural time here—how we keep track of the passage of the day, the year, and what we do to mark that—from natural time—when we plant, harvest, and so on. An individual hunter/gatherer or farmer (as if there every were such a thing) would only need natural time; groups, however small, need some kind of common, cultural time and this inevitably becomes invested with meaning. When a group is an integrated minority, time is fractured.

To return to the Shoah as loss of individuals and loss of community:

My first understanding of the Holocaust was through a book called I Never Saw Another Butterfly. It was poems and drawings by the children of Terezin, which was the Nazis show camp. Music, art, poetry, and drama came out of that camp, but ultimately most of the prisoners were killed. The book gave their stories and, as a ten year old, I connected to the child my age who had written a poem I would have liked to have written and who had then been murdered. It could have been me. That connection and others (the litany of books that tell individual stories) were all about individual experiences. And it makes sense that it is the individual stories that would stick—how can you tell the story of a village that is gone? How do you show how it feels to live in a Jewish village or in a city where you can live on Jewish time in a Jewish community? It’s a much harder task. I began to understand it as I walked through the streets of Berlin and when I watched some of the home movies taken from that period. Suddenly I understood the Shoah not as six million individual Jews, but as the loss of a whole Jewish world and culture. This isn’t new to me in the abstract, but when I walked the streets or saw the videos, I could feel it in my bones.

That culture, to me, is most represented by Jewish time, although not exclusively time, also history and culture—and, of course, religion. Jewish time—that Thursday night is the end of the week and the week begins on Sunday morning. That on my walk to synagogue on Friday, the street names were all tribes (Dan Naftali, etc.). The names were bestowed with the casualness of any other housing development, but the choices were particular to Jewish culture. The language—there is no other place in the world where Hebrew is spoken. The thing about all of the above is that these are things that are almost invisible and don’t seem to matter. They aren’t about affiliating with one group or another because your group is better, more deserving, or what have you. They are simply about the underlying rhythm of life. Every one of us lives with that rhythm. But for me, in the US, the rhythm of Jewish life is continually set against the rhythm of US civil society. In Israel, that is not the case. This is the sense of completeness that I felt when I first came and it is what I will miss when I return.

So many people, of all religions, come to Israel to feel the history of the place. Ultimately, that has not been what moves me. I think I wouldn’t care where the state were located (not quite true—I do feel a connection to this land, but it is not my primary connection), so long as it were a place truly given to Jews to make a Jewish land. There is, of course, no such place. (During the various immigrations to Israel over the past century, other places were considered and even tried, but ultimately failed.) The message of Yad Vashem should be clearly that, while one Jewish civilization—not only people, but a whole way of life (in Vilna, in Berlin, in Warsaw)—was destroyed, another has risen from its ashes and that the people still live. I think that is a powerful and legitimate connection and one I didn’t really get at a visceral level until I came here. Israeli Jewish culture is not like the one that was destroyed in Europe—in is a peculiar blend of Jews from around the Mediterranean, from the US, from Europe, and more. The religious spectrum is as diverse as in the US, although with a very different state-religion relationship.

The other area of individual and community that I have been contemplating was brought home by a book I read in Jerusalem. Something like “Tales of a Female Nomad.” It’s written by a children’s book author, who lived an upscale life in LA, but was never very happy with it. She moves slowly from settled wife and author to travel in Mexico, to divorce and then travel to wherever she felt like it. She lived on very little, and had fairly amazing adventures. But as I read the book, I found myself questioning a great deal about the whole idea of traveling in that way. She takes herself to one community and then another, sometimes staying one month, and in the case of Indonesia eight years. But she isn’t part of the community—or she is and she isn’t. She has the freedom to come and to go. She is listened to and confided in precisely because she is different. This is the experience I remember from going to high school in Scotland. I was the “brazen American,” meaning I could question things, get answers, and learn the system, but always knowing I’d be going back home. So with this woman.

I think what annoyed me about the book was that she was so into telling her story of being a nomad that the reality of the community lives—of the lives of people who could not and would not leave community never came through. She did care deeply about the people she stayed with, but that isn’t the same as having a stake in the community.

The most telling and disturbing examples are from Israel and from Indonesia. In Israel, she spent some time—not much—with a Hassidic family to find spirituality (she is Jewish and was looking for her roots). She helped the women in the kitchen, but recognized quickly that they are not equal to the men and comments that she just doesn’t like being treated as second-class. Well, fine—see my response to the Wall. But as an anthropologist, you would think she’d try to understand the society in which she found herself.

Then she goes off to Indonesia, through happenstance, finds herself living in the palace of a prince, learning spirituality from him. Now she notes that Indonesia is both sexist and composed of rigid castes. Yet somehow this doesn’t bother her for EIGHT years. Why not? Because she is not part of the society. She is a stranger and strangers have a unique place in societies. People can tell her secrets, she can observe or participate without any real obligation to the society. If things don’t work out, she can move on. What pissed her off about the Hassids was precisely that she did not have a special place in that society—she was just another unimportant woman.

Now it should be clear that I wasn’t terribly fond of the author, just didn’t think she was very insightful, but I think the questions the book raises about being a nomad or being settled and what each implies about relation to a society are very interesting. She is at the opposite pole from Ilka’s in-laws, whose family is so deeply rooted—same town for upwards of 400 years—that they almost cannot move—how do you turn your back on that much history? I’m somewhere in the middle. I have no desire to become a nomad—at this point, I miss my community, my friends, my home, my kids, and did I mention DAVE. However, it is clear that I have learned a great deal on this trip—stuff that I can, I think, use to enrich myself and my community. So what’s the balance? For each individual? For minority communities, which can act like strangers/nomads in a settled community?

Old City and Amichai

2007-08-13T13:06:00.000-07:00

I’ve now visited the Old City around four times—depending on how I’m counting—and I can safely say that it is not the part of Jerusalem that moves me at all. It is full of too much history, too much kitsch, too much righteousness, too much anger, and too many tourists—of whom I was one.

One of my traveling companions (Steven, and that is his phrase, and a very civilized one at that) pointed out that it’s hard to live in a museum. That is what the Old City seems to be to me—a museum filled with many people laying their imagined dreams and meanings on real stones, but stones that are simply that. The Kotel simply makes me angry. The Haredi have taken it over and it is not a place for all Jews. Men and women did not used to be separated—that has only been true since 1961. Even in the past ten years, women have been restricted more and more from wearing tallits, from holding prayer groups. The women’s section is 1/3 or 1/4 the size of the men’s—and is hugely crowded as a result.

After the destruction of the Second Temple and the expelling of most Jews from Israel, Jews reflected on why such a devastating event—it was an event that dwarfs the Shoah, perhaps. Many turned inward, towards the sins of the Jews. In the Babylonian Talmud, Yoma 9b, it says that the Second Temple was destroyed because of “baseless hatred” of one Jew for another. Then there are all kinds of further discussions. But when I walk down the streets of the Old City, that is what I see—each Haredi sect setting itself above the other. And I do mean the Haredi sects—for the most part the varieties of other Jews are willing to live and let live.

Now, in fairness, when I have actually asked questions, I have been given a polite response (for example, the Hassid who explained why some mezuzahs are straight—they are Sephardic and there’s no symbolism; they just are prettier that way, fit the doorpost better—was perfectly polite to me). On the other hand, there is random rudeness—the black hats that just casually brush me off the street while studiously looking aside (I learned to walk with my elbows ready to use when they tried that); the elderly fellow who passed me on the street and lectured: “beged tsnu’a” (modest clothing—I was wearing jeans and short sleeves, not too immodest for Ben Yehuda Street!)—next time I see him, I ask: “Mi meit v’mashakh oto l’hiyot Elohim?” (who died and made you God?).

But that’s not all. There are the varieties of Christians eagerly pouring through the streets still looking for the symbolic piece of the true cross. There are Arabs—Christian and Muslim—blocking your path as you navigate from one street to another.

And every time I try to get anywhere I get lost—and when another of my traveling companions leads, they get lost too. So a lot of time is spent wandering down blind alleys that may be the rats’ revenge for experimental psychology.

However, after all these complaints, there were some pretty interesting things. There was the section of wall that has been uncovered that goes back to before Second Temple. It is in an unobtrusive spot along a path through the Old City. It isn’t that far from the Kotel and is completely deserted, to the point of having a crumpled cup tossed onto it. I see little difference between these and those ancient stones.

The Kohl archeological museum was a winner—the excavation of several destroyed houses from the Roman period.

Several Sephardic synagogues that have been rebuilt in the past fifty years.

And we wandered, while looking for the Jaffa Gate, into the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. That was quite the impressive place, the variety of churches that shared the space, the variety of Christian visitors, and the variety of decoration, mostly clashing.

While we were looking for the Jaffa Gate, it turned out that there was an “incident”: an Arab snatched the gun from a Yeshiva guard (apparently a particularly obnoxious Yeshiva, not that that makes a difference), shot him in the shoulder, then ran. He was pursued by others with guns and a regular Wild West shoot up took place. The Arab was killed and around eight others (probably tourists) injured. Yeah, and we missed it all (thankfully) because we were lost in the shuk.

Here is Yehuda Amichai on tourists in Israel. I should have just put this in instead of writing—he expressed my feelings so precisely:

Tourists

Visits of condolence is all we get from them.

They squat at the Holocaust Memorial,

They put on grave faces at the Wailing Wall.

And they laugh behind heavy curtains

In their hotels.
They have their pictures taken

Together with our famous dead

At Rachel's Tomb and Herzl's Tomb

And on the top of Ammunition Hill. They weep over our sweet boys
And lust over our tough girls And hang up their underwear

To dry quickly

In cool, blue bathrooms. Once I sat on the steps by a gate at David's Tower, I placed

my two heavy baskets at my side.
A group of tourists was standing around their guide and I became their target marker. "You see that man with the baskets? Just right of his head there's an arch from the Roman period. Just right of his head." "But he's moving, he's moving!"
I said to myself :redemption will come only if their guide tells them, "You see that arch from the Roman period? It's not important: but next to it, left and down a bit, there sits a man who's bought fruit and vegetables for his family.

Yad Vashem

2007-08-09T10:32:00.000-07:00

The Ulpan was easier to write about—an update every few days was all that I really needed to do. I mean—who really needs to hear about the conditional form? Or which verbs get “eh-eh” instead of “ee-ah”? In Jerusalem, though, the days have been so full that I have little time to update and a whole lot to throw in the updates. So here goes:

Working my way backwards—today, August 9, I went to Yad VaShem, the Holocaust Memorial.

First, a reflection on what I am about to discuss. In the case of genocide—or other horrors—is it right to compare and critique memorials to the event? Is it not enough to say that the memorial exists? That has been a serious question over the years, but fundamentally naïve. Every event has an interpretation, a meaning, and thus a use of some kind, simply by being made in a particular way. Neither bad nor good, simply the way things are. For me, having read extensively, if not deeply, on the subject, and having visited many Holocaust sites, when I now visit a place, I put in that context, compare it to other sites, and consider the political and social rhetoric. Which is fine when you’re talking a movie, but seems cold-blooded when the issue is: “So, how did they deal with typhoid deaths in the camps? A little too tasteful, don’t you think?” You see the problem…

The three of us—Brian, an ex-pat Brit from Brazil, who has joined us in seeing the sights, Steven, and me—got to the museum about ten and agreed to meet for lunch at one. In fact, the museum is an individual experience, something to wander through on your own, with perhaps the audio guide as a companion. (So I didn’t see Brian again—he ended up at the bookstore and from there to the bus with Steven about two, while I stayed on some time longer.) The problem is that I know the material so well that all I could do was critique it.

And here’s the critique: what the museum does extremely well is to lead the visitor through a winding inexorable path back and forth from beginning to end. The end, by the way, is a breathing-taking view of Jerusalem. Hmm, nothing political there. (There is nothing wrong, by the way, about pointing out that the state of Israel would not exist except for the world’s guilt about the Holocaust. However, I prefer the direct statement, rather than the implied.)

It also very carefully weaves the words of survivors into the overall context. I focused on the videos, partially for the Hebrew, but mostly because they were so moving in so many different ways. I think the one that hit hardest was of the partisans. Three of them—two men and a woman. They spoke of the high that fighting gave them, what it felt like to blow up a train, to burn a village. They spoke matter-of-factly, but their eyes were haunted. At the end, one man said: “You shot to kill. That is just what we had to do in that time.” He paused. “It took me years to get over it.” Haunted eyes, indeed. Simply haunted.

The whole place was filled with names, with words, with remnants of lives. Yet the film at the beginning that showed whole communities, not individuals, remains the most vivid statement of what was lost. The individuals were part of the whole and that whole is completely gone. And now I’ll make the connection: Israel does have the potential to have that vibrant variety of Jewish life and more so. I haven’t been a fan of “using” the Holocaust to justify Israel (and I still think it can be dreadfully misused), but now I think that linking the two really is the honest thing to do and no apologies for doing so.

What didn’t I like? This museum is particularly Jewish in focus—as the final view of Jerusalem shows. That is appropriate here, but because of that focus, it misses some things. For example, the Holocaust museum in the US focuses on how Hitler used many of the Jim Crow laws as models for the restrictions against Jews. Developing racial categories happened across the world—not only for Jews, but for all races. Even the Chinese used racial categories.

I don’t think I ever wrote about Nuremberg—it was the one week that didn’t make it in—but the Nuremberg Documentation Center focuses particularly on how Nuremberg was used by Hitler to invoke German pride in race and power. That museum spends a very long time showing in depth the way Hitler came to power—using PR, force, fear (of Nazis and of others), coopting and changing words, and developing common themes that built community. We’ve seen some of these techniques in the recent past in other places.

Both of these other museums do a much better job of answering the question of “why did it happen?” than does Yad Vashem. They show the common traits of society, the shared global values and worldview. Yad Vashem doesn’t say, but simply by its choices implies that the Holocaust was sui generis.

Yad Vashem is not simply the Museum, though. It is a whole site. I wandered through it for an hour or so, looking at memorials to one thing or another. Then I went into the Children’s Memorial. That is where I completely lost it and just sat there weeping. Part of it was because of who I am, part because of the memorial itself (and I’m not going to describe it—it simply has to be experienced). I have some reservations about the large Orthodox families in Jerusalem—I feel pretty overwhelmed by them, but after that, I can understand the impulse to have as many as possible. Makes me wish I’d had a few more…

To Jerusalem or This would never happen in the US

2007-08-07T12:46:00.000-07:00

August 7, 2007

To Jerusalem and first days

Forgot to mention that on the last day of the Ulpan I counted the steps from my dorm room to my classroom. 21 down, then 269 up. And the reverse on the way back. Just to get from my dorm room to common room areas was 21 down and 72 up.

When I got to the bus stop on Monday morning, Steven was already there. And Meir was sitting right near him. I called him by name and he was delighted I remembered it. We talked for a few minutes then he left, assuring us he would be back. The ten o’clock departure time rolled around and no Meir. We went off to stand in line and suddenly he showed up and explained something that remains unintelligible—the other bus might be full, if not he’ll give us a ride down to Jerusalem alone. (Hmm, now it makes sense—both buses had to go to Jerusalem, but if the other one had room for more passengers, he was going to just burn down there anyway, so could give us a ride.) That is what happened. We ended up in a green Egged bus with our personal chauffeur. Meir is an INCREDIBLY nice guy. He has four kids (three girls and a boy) and he and his wife run a zimmer—I include the website (www.tzofit.co.il/id/mul-har)—and, on the basis of our ride with him, would recommend the place. He drove us by Kinneret (aka Sea of Galilee), then by the Jordan border. It was a very straight shot that brought us an amazing view of the Dead Sea on the way into Jerusalem. (Which means, by the way, that we went right through the West Bank without realizing it.) We stopped for falafel—some of the best I’ve had (I know I keep saying that and really, I mean it every time. Damn, I love the stuff. I think an alternating diet of falafel and burritos would be fine with me). What amazed me about the ride was the incredible barrenness of most of it. (This barrenness, by the way, was in contrast to the area up to and around Kinneret—banana plantations, mangos, lychees, as well as vineyards and possibly peaches.) This wasn’t American desert bare. This was absolutely nothing growing. Nothing. There is a place in Torah where God has the Israelites face one mountain and receive blessings and face another to receive curses. Rick has seen the mountains and describes the one as lush, the other as barren. These were not those mountains (not a lush one there), but the barrenness sure looked like a curse to me. I left with the question of who wants this land and why.

Meir left us at a random bus stop, where Steven hailed a cab and I loaded my stuff onto a somewhat empty bus. It wound around town for a good while, picking up passengers at most stops. Which meant that when I finally got off, I had to wrestle a suitcase, a bag, and a backpack through about twenty people. Not a happy thing. Ended up, as I said yesterday, waiting for the landlady to open the door. I finally made it in. The landlady gave me a set of keys and I asked her whether I should return them. She is recovering from surgery, so said no, Yafa would get them to her the following day.

Got back, showered and was comfortably writing when the phone rang. Yafa asked very nicely if I could get the key back to her landlady who was having conniptions because it hadn’t come back by seven. I trotted down the stairs and was bawled out by this woman in a walker with both feet bandaged who asked me what she would have done had she wanted to leave? About the third time I apologized for inconveniencing me, she stopped grumbling. But man, talk about serious mixed messages!

Yafa is perhaps the polar opposite of Max and Hedva. She is a tour guide and we spent about an hour talking last night. But she is extremely busy—loves her work and is, I suspect, very good at it. But she isn’t around at all and, while polite and very welcoming, is not at all interested in a personal relationship. Which is fine with me—I’d like to get to know her, but really have no need. So that was yesterday and today has worn me out—I’ll try to catch up tomorrow, on my birthday.

When I got to the bus stop on Monday morning, Steven was already there. And Meir was sitting right near him. I called him by name and he was delighted I remembered it. We talked for a few minutes then he left, assuring us he would be back. The ten o’clock departure time rolled around and no Meir. We went off to stand in line and suddenly he showed up and explained something that remains unintelligible—the other bus might be full, if not he’ll give us a ride down to Jerusalem alone. (Hmm, now it makes sense—both buses had to go to Jerusalem, but if the other one had room for more passengers, he was going to just burn down there anyway, so could give us a ride.) That is what happened. We ended up in a green Egged bus with our personal chauffeur. Meir is an INCREDIBLY nice guy. I don't really know why he decided to adopt us, but he did. I'm deciding that all Israelis are Jewish mothers, regardless of gender or age and regardless of the gender or age of the person being mothered. It's both extremely comforting and (as in the previous post) can be almost smothering. Anyway, Meir has four kids (three girls and a boy from 20 down to 6) and he and his wife run a zimmer—I include the website (www.tzofit.co.il/id/mul-har)--and, on the basis of our ride with him, would recommend the place. He drove us by Kinneret (aka Sea of Galilee), then by the Jordan border. It was a very straight shot that brought us an amazing view of the Dead Sea on the way into Jerusalem. (Which means, by the way, that we went right through the West Bank without realizing it.) We stopped for falafel—some of the best I’ve had (I know I keep saying that and really, I mean it every time. Damn, I love the stuff. I think an alternating diet of falafel and burritos would be fine with me). What amazed me about the ride was the incredible barrenness of most of it. (This barrenness, by the way, was in contrast to the area up to and around Kinneret—banana plantations, mangos, lychees, as well as vineyards and possibly peaches.) This wasn’t American desert bare. This was absolutely nothing growing. Nothing.

There is a place in Torah where God has the Israelites face one mountain and receive blessings and face another to receive curses. Rick has seen the mountains and describes the one as lush, the other as barren. These were not those mountains (not a lush one there), but the barrenness sure looked like a curse to me. I left with the question of who wants this land and why. By the way, Meir seemed a pretty secular guy, but our conversation included a whole lot of Torah, and he knew his stuff.

I got settled and headed out to get some change for the bus. At the end of the street I stopped—there was the Tayelet Haas. It is a promenade and park that sits across a valley from the Old City. It is a beautiful park in and of itself, but the view of the city—just hard to beat. I walked for two hours--from one end to the other. Got my change by buying one of the richest ice cream bars I've ever tasted. Took a picture of a young Orthodox family from New York (at their request). After walking all the way there and back, I stopped to pick up the garbage strewn around an empty garbage can--animals, perhaps--and felt enormously virtuous.

Tzfat or a house nearby

2007-08-06T14:11:00.000-07:00

I’m sitting outside an apartment complex in Jerusalem, waiting for someone to let me in. My host left her landlady with the key; the landlady has gone missing for some reason or another (actually I hope she’s okay, apparently she just had surgery). In any case, since I have an unknown amount of time, I’ll use it to catch up on my Tzfat experiences, which were extremely interesting, but unexpected.

First, Steven and I rode the bus from Haifa to Tzfat, which was a truly godawful ride. It was very much not an express bus; the roads were narrow, hilly, and windy—which didn’t bother me near as much as the fact that the driver had been through the too-much-gas-followed-by-too-much-brake driving school and been an excellent student. Bleargh! In any case, we arrived safely at the Tzfat bus station, where I was promptly picked up by Arnon, who is Max and Hedva’s son. He is a PhD student in botany, doing research near the Negev on how to best grow native oaks in Israel and what the surrounding ecology should look like. As with many Israeli students, he is a bit older than the usual (not me!) grad student in the US—mid-thirties. He was up for the weekend to visit his parents and so able to pick me up. This was nice, since he speaks English and Max does not (I did make arrangements with Max on the telephone in Hebrew, to which Steven asked if I had passed my final exam. I pointed out that this was the midterm—the final was whether the plans worked. They did, but I think the jury’s still out on how I did—as the rest of this will show).

Max and Hedva recently moved near Tzfat from Tel Aviv—I think when they retired a couple of years ago. Their house is quite large (a bit larger than mine, I would say) and occupies the top floor of what could be a two-flat. Instead Max has all manner of collections of things in the process of being fixed, while Hedva has an area for plants. Like my mom, Hedva loves to grow plants—all kinds of flowers, some of which she grows from seed, some from cuttings, some she buys. Her garden is one of those lovely, untidy places where plants are allowed to grow as they will and when finished blooming, left for the seedpods to let fall their seeds. So it is not pristine, but it is very haimish.

They gave me a room filled with books and we talked for a while in Hebrew—I told them all about myself, then I took a nap. That evening was Shabbat, and the four of us sat around a Shabbat table. I made Kiddush and that sparked a great deal of conversation—what is religious? is the Torah a book of cruel laws or not? It would have been intense in English; in Hebrew it was an exhausting and exhilarating several hours. It is quite clear to me that speaking is getting easier. Listening though is still difficult. Nevertheless, I am quite sure that after a few months here, I would indeed be fluent. I’m really very close.

Underlying the conversation are the real facts and a deep sadness. Max was born in Belgium in the early 30’s (so he speaks French and Hebrew, but never learned Hebrew). Do the math on that one—even if he was young, he was there. It was not a subject he chose to discuss except in roundabout ways. Hedva was born in Israel, but like Max, had family in Europe, all of whom died. Not only that, but they had three children. Two were killed. I simply do not know how I could go on—generation to generation, with both bridges cut. Yet they get up in the morning and live and make things grow and fix things and clearly love each other and appreciate the world. Underneath there is a current of deep sadness, but it does not rule their lives—except that neither believes in God. BUT—there are mezuzot on every doorpost. Hedva lights Shabbat candles. And, without ever talking about it, they eat kosher style—that is, similar to the way I eat. I did not ask about the contradictions but I enjoyed them—in the midst of professed disbelief (as well as anger at the ultra-orthodox), they both practice something that defines them as Jews.

Shabbat morning, Max drove Hedva and me (Hedva never learned to drive—didn’t need to in Tel Aviv—but is learning now) to services. These were Conservative services in a tiny building and clearly for the non-Israelis. I keep intending to go to Orthodox services, simply to experience it, but after my visceral fury at the Wall, I’m not sure I have the stomach for it. This, on the other hand, was comfortable and reassuring which, given the unfamiliarity of everything else (well, the language, mostly), wasn’t all bad.

My hope was to go into Tzfat that afternoon or evening. I would have been happy to go by foot or to get myself there, but it was clear that if I went, Max would drive me. I kind of felt stuck—if I insisted on going, I would offend them; if I waited, I would be frustrated and furthermore, Max would do what Hedva wanted, but it felt like I would be putting him out a bit. And at some point, he lost patience with my Hebrew and insisted that Hedva translate from English.

Despite it all, we did go to Tzfat on Shabbat afternoon, and watching the variously dressed Hassidic men and women walk through the streets. Finally met up with Steven, who had been soaking up atmosphere and davening in various shuls all day. I was a bit envious, although I knew that, as a woman, my experience would have been quite different.

On Sunday, I found myself still at the house. I suggested to them that I walk into Tzfat in the morning while it was cool, but was assured it was way too hot. It was about 5 PM when we made it out to run errands and walk around Tzfat. First, to the bus station, to check on whether the buses really were separated by gender as had been rumored. (One thing I am learning about Israel—everyone knows with great assurance facts that may or may not be correct. This one—not so much.) The gate was open, so Hedva marched around the back and through an open door where two men were talking. She spoke very definitely, though I couldn’t really follow. The result was that Meir the bus driver said he would be happy to take a man and a woman on his bus. I should show up by 10, he would be drinking coffee and would buy me a cup. So that was set.

Then to use a computer at a community center that was only semi-working. It was free and worth every penny. (Thespacebardidn’tworkwhichmadetypingreallydifficult.) I was a bit grumbly as we finally hit the streets of Tzfat and walked into the middle of a group of Hassids dancing a Torah somewhere to loud music and with much exuberant dancing by the men. After watching for a while, we discovered that almost every shop was closed. As we passed closed shop after closed shop, Hedva got a bit panicky—clearly this wasn’t what she had expected. Finally we found the narrow alley full of artists’ shops and a few were still open. One elderly Hassid was just exiting from a shop full of prints. He had the most wonderfully gentle face and, unlike most of the rest, looked at me and saw me. He spoke Hebrew and English with the most beautiful hint of a Parisian accent. He wore a hat, a black satin coat, short pants or knickers, and black stockings (another group wore the same with white stockings). He had a long, very white beard and small round glasses. I think I knew I would buy something from him, just because he saw the face of God in every human being. I did—I found a bunch of grapes made from micrography of the Song of Songs. I thought that a pretty good thing to bring back to Livermore wine country. It’s really lovely and I was happy to buy it.

We left the store and Hedva took me back to the Ari synagogue which was almost deserted. I was able to get close to the Ark and take a picture and even to climb up to where I could take a picture of the top half (not, alas, a good picture). It’s funny, but without the crowds of tourists and without the insistent Haredim—the ones who push by women as though they don’t exist—it feels holy and sacred. The stones of the Wall, the air of the synagogue, sometimes a place is better than the people surrounding it.

Those two things—the purchase and the synagogue were enough to satisfy me. That night, we talked a bit more. Max quizzed me about homeschooling, Hedva and I tried to fix the world’s problems. They both have so much love to give—and some of the people who should get it are no longer here.

Last week of the Ulpan and on to traveling alone.

2007-08-06T10:21:00.000-07:00

August 4, 2007: I’m sitting on a bench in Biria, a village just outside of Tzfat. I’m staying with Hedva and Max, my first hosts with Servas. They are my parents’ ages, more or less, and retired here from Tel Aviv. I’ll say more about them later—now I just want to notice the quality of the air, dry and warm. There is a good wind picking up now. The air here, as I’ve noted before, is similar to that in Livermore and, thankfully, much dryer than in Haifa. It’s around 3 PM on a very quiet Shabbat afternoon. I think everyone is sleeping, although there are a few dogs barking and children’s voices sound from yards (and I can understand what they say!). I can very occasionally hear a car, but the sound is noticeable for its rarity. The bench is under a plum tree on a patch of lawn with many kinds of flowers spilling out of beds all around. From where I sit, I can see Mt. Meron in the distance; if I look through the window upstairs, all of Tzfat. I think it would take me all of ten minutes to walk to Tzfat, although the family has driven me from the bus stop and then to services. But more on that in the next post.

The last week of Ulpan—it went very quickly, almost without my noticing.

On Sunday, one more movie—Kayitz Aruch, which I found with the English title of Summer Story. Takes place during 1982, with a background of the first Lebanon war, but was really a coming-of-age story, which I am a real sucker for. It was a very well done movie and the reasons are telling. First—a strong and interesting plot that followed one character on a quest. The main character, a boy on the cusp of puberty, has a crush on an older girl, almost twenty. This girl has a bad heart and can’t do much. To amuse herself, she writes to soldiers in the war. Not surprisingly, one of these correspondences becomes something more. Ultimately, she dies from the bad heart, but not before the boy has gone on a quest to get a picture from the soldier she loves. Learning the difference between magic (that a picture will save a life) and reality (that he will grow up to be a doctor) was lovely and sad—and very funny. Second, the background of the war was absolutely serious, but never the point; it simply affected everyone’s life in very serious ways. To do this—to make the setting real and important, but not overpowering characters is difficult. Third, there were other stories mixed in to just the right degree; minor characters whose stories were resolved to greater or lesser degree. It’s a good movie from which to learn.

Two interesting things resulted—the next day, in conversation class (weekly session in trying to speak), we described the movie to the one person who hadn’t been there. This was a terrific and not entirely successful exercise that included lots of drawing on the board (maps, arrows indicating direction, and so on). Highly amusing and pretty instructive. Then, after class, I spoke with Jacob, grad student from Harvard. His original take on it was that it was highly symbolic, with the boy representing a new approach to life in Israel. I think I convinced him otherwise—it really wasn’t that deep a movie. Interesting that sometimes taking the more complex view can result in misreading a situation so badly.

Monday, there was a lecture on Jewish music. Here are the notes I took at the time:

“An expert from Beit HaTefutsot is discussing Jewish music. It’s a fairly academic lecture, which makes me happy. As in, he begins by explaining why it isn’t possible to define Jewish music and then explained the problems with defining it in depth and with examples. So, if Jewish music is music written by Jews, for Jews, and with Jewish uses in mind, what do we do with the Kaddish melody, which was composed by Ravel—yes, that Maurice Ravel? Or with all the old German and Hungarian melodies that become part of Hassidic tradition?” A few days later, I find myself still interested in the way that Israeli Jews understand their relationship to the Diapora—whether through music or anything other artistic medium.

Tuesday afternoon, I finally met with Avi and Amira. Avi had been a student of my dad’s back in the late 80’s. Turns out that Avi is just my age and their oldest child is Deborah’s age (a few months older). They were incredibly hospitable, but I must say, I felt quite uncomfortable with the effort they expended—sort of “I only deserve it because of my folks and why should that be enough?” I know people make connections with friends of friends, and I’d be happy and interested to be on the other end—it’s interesting to meet people who know people, etc, but I’m still not good at being taken care of. Much more comfortable on the other end.

The events however, are worth detailing, partly in and of themselves and partly because I know my parents want to know (hi, Mom!). First, Avi picked me up and took me to tour the Technion. I had commented that I was interested in it—really, just to be polite—but it was, in fact, fascinating. The kind of work (computers, robotics, biotech, security) all was interesting and all was part of a solid, intense world that is what comforts me about hard science—the idea that there are problems and that they are interesting, concrete, and ultimately solvable. (Yes, I know that is not the whole story, but that is the feel of institutes of hard science. This is somewhat refreshing after soc science, which tends to identify problems well, but is less successful in finding solutions.) I got to see where Avi works, including the plaque that commemorates those who died in the Lebanon War. These plaques are everywhere, he said. As in the movie, the plaques aren’t the story of the people who live here, but part of the background and demonstrate how that background intrudes into the story with great regularity.

We picked up Tal, a very silent fifteen-year-old, then continued our tour. There were two things that stood out to me as we walked around the campus: the intensity and focus of the students, all of whom seemed to have to get somewhere in a hurry; and the lack of traditional or religious dress of any kind. No tzitzitim, no veils, no long sleeves. Religion seemed not to exist. Avi pointed out the synagogue and also noted that he had never been in it. Later I commented on the difference between the campuses and he told me that when Technion had been established, they had agreed that it would be a campus without politics. This was a fascinating statement and I am still chewing on it. It implies that all religion is political and that dress is always a political statement. I think there is some truth to that, but the relationships are complex—what religion, what dress, what are the cultural and political structures and how does religion relate to them? It is clear that some groups very definitely dress to define themselves and, by doing so, state that their adherence to religion trumps all else. But I don’t see a compromise—there is a clear sense of either science or religion, not both. And that last sentence doesn’t really deal with the political piece and how Avi equated the two. Okay, I’m tired and not making much sense. In addition, it is complicated…

From Technion, we went to pick up Amira from their apartment. (As a side note, in both Europe and Israel, while apartments are common, I saw a fair bit of new single houses. This is a bit of shame—the US should be taking a lesson from the apartments of Europe and Israel and moving toward smaller, more efficient housing, but instead the reverse seems to be happening, at least to some degree.) She’s a teacher in a private school in Haifa, one of the few private schools there. Her first question to me was puzzlement as to why I would want to learn Hebrew—I knew English and who needs more? How to explain? I used the example of time—of how the weekend is different here and being part of a society that functions Jewishly is something I want to understand and experience, but I’m not sure they understood. I’m not sure there really is a way to explain it.

We drove to the Druze villages. Okay, here’s where I confess. Somehow the phrase “Druze village” conveyed “villagers in traditional dress, living in small houses, and herding goats.” Uh, not so much. The “villages” were small cities, seemingly quite prosperous, and apparently suburbs of Haifa. What makes them Druze? Just the people. And apparently the people want to keep the villages Druze; Avi said that non-Druze can’t buy homes there, because they want to maintain their way of life. But, as with many places, the few older men and women were dressed traditionally, while the teens and young adults wore pants and t-shirts. The real thing to do in a Druze village is to shop—which is what I did. I had a lesson in how to bargain and paid very close attention, as I presume I’ll be doing more of that on my own. Two lessons—know your bottom line and know that every time you add something to the mix the price changes (presumably down a bit). We went into many, many shops, looking for a couple of particular things. Most was tourist junk—ceramic plates with “Jerusalem” on the front for example. The Christian version included Nazareth; the Jewish version had the skyline. But, in addition to the junk, there were a few interesting things.

We went to a special bakery where Avi insisted on buying a delicacy made with honey, cheese, and pastry to take back to the other students (all of whom really appreciated it). And then we had dinner. They wanted me to experience many Israeli and Druze delicacies, so we went to a terrific Druze restaurant overlooking Haifa. The amount of food served was truly remarkable. I can’t remember all of it, but the strangest dish was a kind of hamburger with tehina sauce. It was extremely rich—way too rich for my tastes—but very good in small quantities. Between the table covered with dishes of tehina, hummus, baba ganouj, various vegetables, different breads, and more, I felt like I needed to be two people. In fact, I kept remembering the Gerald Durrell scene with the Countess. But the evening was lovely—all together interesting. We spoke about Israel and the US relations, and then a long conversation on homeschooling, since I mentioned our homeschooling. Amira and I share similar views on what children need in the way of education. Her view of education, she said is encapsulated by the story of the Nobel prize winner (can’t remember his name right now) who explained that his view of the world came from his mother. All the other kids’ mothers asked what they learned in school. His mother asked if he had asked any good questions. This is a story I know quite well, as it is one of the additional readings we include in our Seder (around the 4 questions, of course).

Lovely and tiring evening, although I never did hear any good stories about my dad as an advisor.

Wednesday was the day before the exam, so there isn’t much to say about that. We simply studied. And there was much exchanging of emails, taking of photos, and all the hullabaloo that goes with knowing you’ve been part of a temporary community that is about to end and that you want to hang onto. The day also included a rather odd conversation. Miri, the young woman I mentioned who had also taken a class from Rosanne in Berkeley and also sort adopted me a surrogate mom (yes, there were a few who did that—actually at one point, I said I needed a shirt saying “this is a Jewish mom” and someone else said that there was no need for the shirt; it just kind of radiated out from me), is a lesbian (or queer, or bisexual, or whatever—wasn’t clear and I didn’t particularly care). In the course of a conversation about the Jewish politics of dress (what does it mean when a man wears a kippah on the street in the States? In Israel? How about when a woman does?), I mentioned that I wore a tallit in synagogue and David said his wife does as well. Miri had an immediate, strong reaction—women don’t need to do either. Women are higher and better than men spiritually (this really is an argument for why traditionally, it is not incumbent on women to do many of the mitzvot), so it’s just wrong for a woman to wear a tallis. I’m still trying to understand the contraction between her sexual orientation and her traditional understanding of Judaism. Yet another example of how inconsistent and contradictory people are (and I don’t mean that’s a bad thing. In fact, attempts to make people consistent create all kinds of problems).

Finally, Thursday—the exam went well, I think. I had worked hard on the grammar so that was okay (I hope!). The reading wasn’t too bad. However, I found myself reaching for words in the essay, so I have no idea how that went. In any case, I don’t care. The Ulpan did precisely what I wanted it to and perhaps more. It provided a structure for the language. The emphasis on grammar and the clear exercises helped me organize the knowledge I had. While some people found the explanations difficult, I did not—maybe, too, because I had seen the material before. So it was really affirmed my ability to read and to write. And, by the end, I was more or less comfortable speaking when I need to (and the last few days—see upcoming post—I have needed to!).

Not much else to say—the last event of the Ulpan, a picnic; a trip to the mall (first and last) to buy a sleeping sheet for traveling; a visit to an Irish pub in Haifa just for the fun of it and that’s about all.

Next morning, up early, did my laundry and packed and headed out the door for Tzfat. I don’t remember if I mentioned in a previous post that I’d be traveling with someone from the Ulpan who is, like me, hanging around Israel for a few weeks. If I repeat myself, so be it. I’m traveling with Steven, a computer consultant from Sacramento. He’s done a lot of traveling around the world, so he’s comfortable getting around in strange places, while I can speak the language sort of, kind of, maybe. He’s in hotels; I’m in homes, but it will be nice to have someone to talk things over with. More on that in the next post.

Shabbat in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv

2007-07-29T11:14:00.001-07:00

The last few days have been so very full. Friday morning, the last tour of the Ulpan took us to Jerusalem. Three groups of us did the quickie tour of the Old City. As with Tzfat, Friday afternoon is probably not the ideal time to go, but not quite as crowded. We began with the walk through Hezekiah’s tunnel—a tunnel built to save the Jews during a siege. Walking through the tunnel was the high point of the visit, oddly enough. The trip begins with a walk down into fairly large, lighted tunnels. After ten minutes or so, we descended into thigh-high water in a very narrow, very dark tunnel. We kept going, single-file. This was not a place for anyone with any tendency whatsoever to claustrophobia (and we did lose a few that way). After a few minutes, the guide suggested we do the tunnel in complete dark and silence. Lights off, although we were never completely silent. For twenty minutes, we walked with one hand on the wall, one on our forehead (in case the ceiling got low suddenly) and we walked. It was quite effective as a way to progress. The darkness was odd—I kept seeing phantom light—but not frightening. I quite enjoyed it, in fact. It felt welcoming, as though the earth itself was cradling me. Without sight, too, I found that I smelled and heard more keenly. Even my sense of touch felt sharper. My one regret is that I couldn’t see the shape of the tunnel as we went through it.

We emerged into very bright, hot sun. Again, a day to stay inside but we were outside in the heat. Unlike at Nahal Amud, though, there were lots of places to buy food and drink. Which gave me a chance to practice my “no lines” skills. This is hard for me. I am used to lines and waiting my turn. I forget that this attitude doesn’t exist in Israel. So, after emerging from the dark, cool tunnel and climbing up a long road in the hot sun, I was absolutely set on a slurpee. There was a line. I waited. The group is about to leave. I’m still waiting. Two yeshiva boys cut in front of me and the seller starts to wait on them. At which I burst out in very bad Hebrew: “I was here first! Why is he waiting on them?” Immediately, another guy asked me what I wanted, got it for me, and apologized. Man, did I feel empowered! And much cooler as I sipped the slurpee.

Then onto the Kotel, the Western Wall. I did not expect much from it—when so much symbolism accumulated around something tangible, it’s tough for that object to live up to the reputation. But my feelings around the visit were more complicated than I expected. First of all, the Israeli Orthodox are simply obnoxious. Their sense of entitlement and ownership of the places is just rude. If the essence of Judaism is to treat each person as though he or she is made in the image of God, these people are no Jews—they miss the entire point of the mitzvot. A young mother with three children and a stroller stood behind me and kept bumping me with the stroller, even after I pointed out she was doing it. Then she pushed her way ahead of me. Had she even come close to acknowledging me as a person, I would have moved aside for her. But her rudeness just made me mad.

Second, the portioning of the wall—I had been told that the men’s and women’s sections were different, but I really wasn’t prepared for the reality of a space for women that is only about a quarter the size of that of the men; that has much fewer places for real prayer. I felt so deeply disenfranchised (if that word can be used in this context…). More on Orthodoxy later… However, there is the religion and there are the authorities and one thing that has been clear to me ever since I was informed by the Reform authorities that I couldn’t be a rabbi is that the two are different, that the authorities are not God and don’t even have a more direct line to God than I do. So here as well. I forced myself to go the wall and find a spot where I could simply touch it. That was very moving, much more than I expected. The stone was warm in the sun, almost alive like bread dough. Obviously, I don’t mean that it felt soft as bread dough, but somehow it felt alive in the same way. And the smoothness of the rock, polished with thousands of women’s hands, sweat, oil. The rock and the people, irrespective of the rules around the people—yes, that meant something.

From the wall, we went to get lunch, and I found a place to buy a map of the city so that I could with comfort get to the sherut station and find a way to get to Tel Aviv. We had a bit more wandering around the city and discussion by the guide, and then I said goodbye to the guide and the accompanying madrich and walked down to find the sherut. This was not a huge problem—while I wasn’t entirely sure which street to take, the minute I hesitated, someone asked if he could help and directed me to the right street. (This is apparently the flip side of the “no lines”—people notice if you need help and insist on helping. Not a bad thing, actually.) Ten minutes later I was on the sherut and had discussed where I was going with the driver, who complimented my Hebrew—lovely to hear.

If Jerusalem was hot and dry, Tel Aviv was hot and wet. The air conditioning at Nurit and Colin’s was a fine and lovely thing. Because of the weather, we mostly stayed in and talked, but it was wonderful to catch up. I used some Hebrew, but speaking English with people that you are used to speaking English with does feel more comfortable, so mostly that is what we spoke. I haven’t really seen Nurit and Colin since they left Livermore around twelve years ago. (They were back once about six years ago, but my memory of that is hazy—too much else was going on, perhaps.) I know it was twelve years, because Ma’ayin, their youngest daughter was all of two months when they left and she is now twelve and just celebrated her Bat Mitzvah (a very different kind of event than in the States, but that’s another story). It’s really funny, but somehow time doesn’t matter with some people. Both Nurit and Colin are down-to-earth, open people, interested in life, warm and welcoming. The time that had passed mattered not at all, something I find incredibly reassuring, though I can’t say why. Their daughters were very much teens, but very solid and grounded. Lily (Lior), who is fifteen, was full of giggles and a few eye-rolls here and there, but also did her summer homework without one bicker or word of complaint. Avital, in the Army but near home so she visits often, clearly enjoys and respects her parents and they her. Ma’ayin, all long legs and arms, is just growing into being a teen, just peering into what it means to leave childhood. All are very sweet, but clearly very much their own people, a tribute to Israel and their parents, as well as to their own individuality (that sounds trite, but I don’t know how else to say it).

All was kol b'seder until I noticed that there were several missed calls from an unknown number--no messages though. When the phone rang again, I answered to find my favorite madrich on the phone, wondering where I was. Now, I had signed a list saying I would not be returning to Haifa. I had told the madrich (not the same one) and the guide I was with that I was leaving and even gotten directions to the sherut station. So I don't know how poor Erez slipped through the communication cracks, but I will say that I'm really ready to do some travel on my own! Good grief, what does it take?

We had a fine time catching up on the past. Shabbat dinner was at Colin’s brother’s house. His brother and sister-in-law are architects and potters, with a mother-in-law visiting and a daughter about Lior’s age. So there was all kind of cousinly shrieks and giggles, lots of family talk, and much teasing as well as serious conversation. Made me miss home and those family conversations around my table, while at the same time feeling so cared for and welcome. A wonderful night.

The next day we simply talked some more—somehow the day vanished with talking. I wasn’t terribly interested in going out in the heat and I think (I hope) they were relieved as well. Colin is working on global warming models, so that was very interesting to discuss. In addition, I think we covered community, education, jobs, and children. All good fun. Around five, I made it to the sherut station and two hours later was in my dorm room doing homework.

Bits and pieces: One of the readings in our book was a completely untranslatable poem by Yehuda Amichai on Jerusalem. There is a suffix in Hebrew that makes a duo: feet are reglAYIM; hands are yadAYIM, and so on. Well, Jerusalem is YerushalAYIM. Amichai plays on that duality, on Jerusalem being two, not one, in a lovely lament. Amichai writes so beautifully, but because he uses word plays so effectively, I don’t see how anyone can translate him effectively. (Yes, I know there are translations; I even know the people who have done those translations. Nevertheless, my statement stands.)

Looks like I’ll be staying with a couple of people in Jerusalem and then at Nurit’s and Colin’s for the last week. I’m hoping to have one night at Masada—I’ve been talked into it, despite the heat.

And finally, I was informed that a fifteen-year-old boy died of heat exhaustion yesterday at Nahal Amud.

Here’s the information from http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/123212:

(Menachem Shlomo Shapira, 15, a student at Bnei Brak’s Ponovezh yeshiva, died after fainting of dehydration and falling down a steep incline while hiking in Nahal Amud in the Galilee. He was rescued within minutes and treated for hours in a hospital intensive care unit. Nonetheless, he succumbed to his wounds.)

What is there to say other that “zichrono livracha”?

11 Av, 5767: Yom Huledet Sameach!

2007-07-26T12:27:00.000-07:00

I’ve never celebrated my Hebrew birthday, but Israel seems like the place to do it. So yesterday, I went and got pastries and today I passed them out and told everyone I was fifty. It was a good day—our teacher is so impressed at having a rabbinic student in class that she’s been doing a mini-Shabbat at the end of class. I’m not hugely impressed by the student—she’s eager and diligent, but just isn’t that on the ball—but it is a great excuse for a party. Today the teacher played guitar and sang and we sang along with her. After class the anthro prof and I had lunch and she commented that the divisions between Jew and non-Jew stood out clearly (not surprisingly). I also noticed the divisions between young and old, in terms of comfort with self. (Those of you who are young—yeah, so really, while life continues to throw challenges along the way, fact is, you do learn how to deal with them as you go. Savlanut (patience).) My birthday wasn’t particularly acknowledged at the celebration (which included two classes), but my class knew and my friends here knew—it was just enough.

I’m continuing to contact people to stay with—slowly I’m getting comfortable with asking to stay. We’ll see where I end up in Jerusalem…

While I was emailing, Emma, the recent Caltech grad with the Israeli boyfriend, sat down beside me and we exchanged medical stories. She had gotten a raging UT infection and spent a good deal of time in the ER in Haifa. So she beats my heatstroke story (which, based on previous comments, I would now identify as electrolyte and carb deficiency) pretty handily. Then we had a lovely time discussing the state of American and Israeli Jewry. Which is one thing I love about this place. The streets have Jewish names. The language is Hebrew. And even the secular Israelis know their heritage—they learn Tanakh with commentary in school.

Then I spent the evening watching a movie—Walking on Water, which is terrific, but largely in English, so it didn’t do much for my Hebrew skills. Not that I’m complaining—I’d watch it again, given the chance.

One more story—when we got to the Diaspora Museum Tuesday, the first thing we did, of course, was to find the bathroom. Two stalls, one of which had a soiled seat. So there’s this line of women all turning their noses up at the seat. I looked at it, sighed, grabbed a paper towel and got it wet and soapy and cleaned the seat. One of my roommates loved this—she laughed and said, “The only one of us who’s a mother! The rest of us are wimps, but she just does what needs to be done!” We all cracked up (and it being Tisha B’Av, this caused the madricha to come in and yell at us to be quiet), but I must say, I really appreciated that connection.

By the way, I still haven’t gotten the time really down. Sun is down now—it’s a new day, 12 Av, so my birthday is over—for a few weeks! And finally, I’ll be in Jerusalem tomorrow, then in Tel Aviv with Nurit and Colin Price for Shabbat, so out of internet contact til Saturday night.

Tisha B'Av and more

2007-07-24T09:01:00.000-07:00

July 24, 2007

Tisha B’Av

So I fully expected to fast and to feel something—anything—on Tisha B’av. This is the day that every Jewish disaster in history happened, if not in fact, in mythology, and so it is a commemoration and remembrance of all of them, with the notable exception of the Shoa, which gets its own day. What did I actually do? I didn’t fast. I didn’t go to services. I felt very little. I did ask others what they were doing and why. Israel, the guide from Brooklyn, fasts and thinks that Tisha B’Av is a good time for a people to collectively reflect on its past, present, and future (while Yom Kippur is for the individual—except all of the Yom Kippur liturgy is in first person plural…). Which is nice, but only if the community, as opposed to individuals, is actually doing that. Emma, the girl from Caltech with the Israeli boyfriend, fasts because it’s a way to remember. Erez, my hero, doesn’t do anything, but remembers good Jewish values like honoring his parents and not speaking ill of others. Joysa, the Recon rabbinical student, sees it as a way of mourning a Temple she doesn’t want to see rebuilt. I didn’t ask the guy at the falafel stand, but he greeted everyone with “yom tov,” which seemed rather contradictory. So I still don’t know how I feel, but the falafel was sababa (slang for excellent).

In the meantime, there was a trip to the museum of the Diaspora in Tel Aviv. That was interesting—not good, but interesting. It was a beautiful building, but a bit thin in what it presented. And it toed the party line all the way. All kinds of interesting issues and complexities never were dealt with. And in the end, for all the celebration of Jewish diversity in diaspora, where are we all supposed to go? Yeah, you guessed it. So a fundamental contradiction between vibrant cultures that are a response to and integrated with host cultures and one Israeli majority culture. Yes, I am more and more a fan of Ehud Ha-am, who saw the need for both, with ties between them, each strengthening the other’s understanding of self, religion, culture, and people.

One example—she spoke about the Jews of Alexandria and how that civilization was destroyed in 115-117 CE. Okay, guys, I wrote my master’s thesis on the subject (focused a bit earlier, but I read around the period). I know a little about it. She explained that the destruction happened because the Jews from Judea came to Alexandria after the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE and explained to the Alexandrian Jews that they needed to fight for their civil rights. Because, you know, the Alexandrian Jews hadn’t noticed they were missing. There are SO MANY things wrong with this I hardly know where to begin. But the most glaring is that the Jews weren’t kicked out of Judea for good and proper until 135, so the chronology is just a touch off. And we just don’t know what the trigger was that caused the Jews to be wiped out of Alexandria and around the Mediterranean in large measure—it’s one reason I chose to write on an earlier time; there just wasn’t enough information on this one. There’s more, but I’ve already written about it—just ask if you want to borrow the thesis. In any case, I said something to the woman next to me about the Jews responding to a change in policy between Greek and Roman rule, and the guide told the woman another story. I just walked away—what was the point in saying any more? Ignorant git.

Which reminds me, I started Harry Potter Sunday at 3 PM and between reading, sleeping, homework, and class, finished it at 2:15 on Monday and immediately loaned it to Mirit, the girl who loves capoeira (she’s the Berkeley girl who also dislikes Rosanne, my ex-Hebrew teacher). So it’s making the rounds. All I will say is that I was not disappointed.

A bit too much excitement while hiking...

2007-07-23T13:23:00.000-07:00

This weekend was the big trip to Tzfat and the Galilee hike. If a trip is supposed to include adventures, the hike would certainly be one, though not one that I would choose to repeat.

The plan for the trip was to spend the morning and early afternoon in Tzfat, then hike down from Mount Meron, drive to a campsite where would spend the night and the next day hike the Nahal Amud trail. Tzfat was interesting—though enormously crowded. Apparently it just keeps getting more crowded through the end of August. So don't go on Friday during the summer is the message!

Aside from tourists, Tzfat is full of the Orthodox in all kinds of dress. While being in Israel gave me a feeling of wholeness as a Jew, Tzfat reminds me how much women are not part of Judaism. When a man dressed in full black—hat, coat, knickers (yes, indeed)—turns his head as if I don’t exist, I feel, shall we say, alienated. The stones of Tzfat feel full of the events that took place there—but do they include me? I’m not so sure. The idea of my reading Torah in Tzfat just seems incongruous—wrong, somehow. But then what does that say about me and my Jewish practice? Very difficult to think about—an irreconcilable contradiction.

However, we also saw Luria's synagogue, as well as Joseph Caro's--the one a founder of Kabbalah; the other a legal mind. The synagogues reflect the differences in the two rabbis.

Then we took a bus to the top of Mount Meron and hiked down. It was absolutely beautiful—lots of good views, lots of shade. The guide was a guy from New York who had lived in Israel for upwards of thirty years and who had been guiding for fifteen years. Our path took us through places where Ketusha rockets had landed the previous years, burn patches still black on the hillsides. We saw a place where a volcano had imploded, sat under a “cedar of Lebanon,” and then out the end of the trail by an ancient olive tree. Then back on the bus to our campsite. It was a pretty fancy campsite—bathrooms, a whole cooking area, lots of places to lay out sleeping bags. We were divided into groups—some to cook a variety of dishes, some to guard, some to clean-up. I ended up on cold salad detail, something I know pretty well. It was me, plus my roommate Joysa (the Recon rabbinical student), and three other people—one girl from Wilmette who goes to Stanford and is planning on applying to HUC; another from Madison; another who is becoming a Jewish educator at JTS.

The range of students and interests continues to amaze me—from the very serious “I need this and I need to do well for X program” to the “I love the language and want to learn it” to the “Golly, need something to do with my summer and being Jewish is cool so I’ll come and hang with my friends and be cool while I use mummy’s credit card.” That last group—that’s why it’s important to remember that it’s “we will do and we will listen” or “we heard and we did” not “Yo! We cool ‘cause we was born Jewish and our friends are Jewish and man, just being Jewish—that’s so cool.” They are only a small minority of the students here, but, like a single buzzing fly, can be excruciatingly annoying.

We got our salad done in a pretty good time, but other groups—hot salad, soup, meat, and potatoes—all took longer, so we didn’t eat until full dark. Then to bed—or sleeping bag. I hadn’t really paid attention to the sleeping bag, but when I got in, it was as if I had been short-sheeted. It was a sleeping bag borrowed from the Ulpan stash and it must have belonged to a child previously. Nevertheless, I slept—apparently through the fearsome hyenas that the guards chased away, along with a couple of scorpions. Why is it that I always sleep through the wildlife? I did it at 4-H camp too… Sigh.

The next morning, we were warned that it was going to be hot. I was a bit nervous about being able to make it—I had also been warned that it was strenuous—but everyone encouraged me and it sounded like the most difficult part would be in the morning. I switched guides (there were two groups, as the trip was too big for one guide), partly because of the “cool Jew” factor in Israel’s group and partly to get another perspective. Jeremy was an ex-Brit of the Marxist persuasion, who had moved to Israel and believes that this is where Jews are meant to be “a light to the nations.” More on that later, if I remember. He was fairly new to being a tour guide, but had done remarkably well on the test and lives in an urban kibbutz (which seems loosely based on Marxist principles). All this, by the way, I found out during a lunch conversation.

We began the hike at 8 and from 8 to about 12:30, it was shaded and we stopped frequently. Nahal means stream and Nahal Amud, which is the trail we took, means Stream of the Pillar. It was extremely interesting—the stream could, at other times of the year, be a flat out river and was used for water power, so all up and down the stream we saw aqueducts and small mills. There was a place where the water pooled near a stone mill fed by one of these aqueducts and there we stopped for a break—food, water, cool the feet and head and other necessary activities.

(By the way, no toilets and no culture of removing toilet paper from where you go in the woods. Which made for interesting additions to the scenery. And also meant that, by the end of the trip, I wasn’t bad at peeing in the bushes. (Yes, you did need to know that—it was not unimportant, given the amount of water we needed to drink!)

The trip was largely flat or slightly downhill and I was pleased that I had no trouble keeping up. It felt like Del Valle in the summer: hot, dry, and dusty, although the dust was a slightly different color, more gray and less brown. Similar kinds of plants—those adapted to the six months wet, six months dry cycle—although most were not precisely the same plants. Similar dryness to the air. Similar kind of terrain. So there was a real déjà vu—I felt at home in the feel of the place, and yet very much not at home in every detail. I was also very pleased that I could keep the pace that Jeremy set—I felt that my month of walking around Germany and climbing stairs to Haifa had really increased my endurance.

We ate lunch and I finished my second liter of water at what was more or less a shady wide space in the road. Some slept; I spent it asking Jeremy about what his background was. I also asked what was coming. He said were through the worst of it—it would be easier and faster from then on, although less shade and that shade would come from the hills themselves. At least part of this was a flat-out lie and was at least in part responsible for what happened later. I am still burning mad about that. I suspect there is a philosophy that people can do more than they think if they don’t know how much they are doing. I don’t support that philosophy. Even stupid teenagers who need to chivvied along do better if they are given control of their lives. Had I known what was coming, I would have gone slower, and perhaps slept at lunch. Would it have made a difference? Who knows? But at least I would have had a better chance to realistically pace myself.

After lunch, the road went through a gorge—a narrow path climbing up the gorge and then down. Okay, fambly—remember the hike where I sat on my butt? I did none of that. I climbed up like a champ, took pictures, and climbed down into the gorge again. Then we climbed up again, over pre-historic caves where people once had lived, and through a few olive trees.

By now it was about two-thirty and we were walking a very narrow path along the mountainside in full sun—later found out it had been 116. We went up and down, though mostly down, and I was enjoying myself, despite the intense heat, when I realized I was very dizzy and really hot—much hotter than I should be. So I sat down in the shade of one of the few small trees and waited for people to pass and the medic/security guard, Eido, and Erez, one of the madrichim, to show up. They did, along with one of the women from my class, whose family has a medical background.

For the next two hours we walked along the path, with Eido and Erez helping over parts that I couldn’t manage. The three of them kept making me drink water, but in fact that wasn’t the problem. I simply needed to be cooler, and (in retrospect) I think I had lost electrolytes from the water and hadn’t eaten enough. But by then it was all I could do to put one foot in front of the other and try not to fall off the mountain. We stopped when I couldn’t go on and at one point I did get some halvah—I was so tired that it took me 10 minutes to eat a very small amount. After some time, we got to a resting point in the shade of the mountain where the rest of the group had been waiting. I simply lay down and closed my eyes and waited to cool off. Eido pulled out an icepack and put it on my forehead; someone else poured water on my shirt, at my request.

Jeremy got the others playing a game. What really scared me was two things—that I knew how hot I was and how unable to move in ways I was used to moving, that my body simply wasn’t functioning, and that the people who were in charge were clearly worried about me. But as the cooling happened, I regained energy and could feel my body start working again. Then we began the second part.

This was both harder and easier—easier because most of it was on flat ground, though still in sun, and harder because, despite reviving temporarily, I was deeply exhausted and my body really couldn’t cope with the sun and the hiking. We made it to the bus, eventually, and I collapsed into a seat. Jeremy gave everyone a lecture on drinking enough and making sure that we wore hats. By the end of the day, I had drunk around seven liters of water and I had worn my hat religiously, precisely because I didn’t want what did happen to happen. So a lecture like that gives the impression that I wasn’t careful enough and doesn’t give other ways to take care of yourself. I would add: pack and drink electrolytes. Make sure the food you pack is easy to get to. In heat, keep your head wet. Make sure you pace yourself according to the terrain. And perhaps, don’t go when it gets dangerously hot. If I had done all of that in addition to the hat and water, perhaps I would have been okay. In fact, I think that my age contributed to it—I’m in the hot flash stage of life, so perhaps my body’s not as good at regulating temperatures as those of the others. Perhaps I wasn’t strong enough. But I would have had a better chance.

As we walked, Erez kept telling me that I would feel proud when I was done. How do I feel? I would do it again in a flash at another time of year. It was truly beautiful and I would like to see the part I missed because I was simply letting one foot fall in front of the other and concentrating on the ground one step ahead of me. But this was far too scary and frankly embarrassing to feel any pride about. I am deeply grateful to the three who helped me, but also embarrassed to have needed their help.

When we got back to the dorms, I felt okay enough to carry my stuff to my room. One last note: when I took my shoes off, I found that both big toes were as bruised as if I had dropped something on them, simply from hitting the end of the shoe repeatedly as I walked downhill.

Halfway Point

2007-07-19T12:59:00.000-07:00

Half the Ulpan is over and with it, half of my trip as well. This is Thursday, July 19—I left California on June 19. It seems like a very long time ago, but also like only a short time remains. Time is a funny thing, I suppose.

The past two weeks have really enabled me to come to terms with Hebrew and with the whole Jewish Studies to sociology switch. I no longer feel particularly spectacular in Hebrew ability, but I don’t feel bad about that. I am not defined by how I learn or how fast I learn and I didn’t realize to what extent I have come to feel that simply by being in the university system. Instead, I realize that when I learn Hebrew, I focus on my strengths: reading and writing, which are things I can do at my own pace and correct them as I go. So I can look up words while reading or cross out sentences and rewrite an essay. But the same things do not apply while talking. I have to keep the words in my head and on my tongue. I have to hear and comprehend without translating. To do that requires a whole different set of skills and they are skills that I haven’t properly valued, except with piano. I have to hear the sounds of the different words—the music of the words. So the future tense of the verb structure (banyan) “nifal” has the music “ee-AA-ah, like a donkey bray. That’s a little extreme, I suppose, but gets the idea. Seeing it, copying it over, really doesn’t help hearing the sound. The other half of that is speaking. It shouldn’t surprise me, I suppose, that making the sounds correctly takes practice. I’m sure I’ve said to my B’nai Mitzvah students that they need to practice out loud so their mouth gets comfortable with the words. But I haven’t tried the same thing with my own practice. It also reminds me of piano practice—it is easy to understand the theory, but making the fingers move in the correct pattern and timing—well, that’s another story. So this has been a real experience in learning about my own learning.

On the other hand, the Ulpan really does stress grammar out the wazoo. This makes me happy—I like to understand the rules and the structures—the map, if you will. It is the kind of stuff that I was never clear on in the past, but this is giving me really clear tools.

The midterm was interesting, both in studying and in taking it. I studied with other people and alone and had my students in mind as I studied. It also struck me how very different this kind of study is from studying for the oral exams. Here, I was simply following directions; there I am making up the directions as well. The exam itself was (I hope) not too bad. I was fortunate in that the reading was on Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, who revived Hebrew as a spoken language. It is a subject I know pretty well so even if I didn’t know the vocabulary, I could figure it out. So a crap shoot and I won—unlike some of my fellow students. Then one of the essay questions asked about what traditions did for family unity. Again, made for me; I wrote about Shabbat dinners and it was easy (except for the part where I felt so nostalgic for them that I got a bit teary—stop laughing, my evil daughters). However I did, it’s over.

This week’s field trip was split—some to Galilee and my group to a collection of places. We went to Beit HaShearim, where Judah HaNasi who redacted the Talmud in 210 CE, is reputed to be buried. It is a necropolis—a limestone hill into which all kinds of caves have be carved. The caves go on forever and ever—one cool, dark room after another. They are full of sarcophagi, which are decorated with a variety of symbols—some Jewish, some not. They have all been looted. I had the impulse to put stones on the sarcophagi, but no one was in them—why would I? It felt very old, but not really sacred, can’t say why. Then to a nature park, where we took a short walk on one of the few areas that are handicapped accessible. Finally, a tour of Mishmar HaEmek, one of the oldest kibbutzim, and one that is very successful. After the tour, we spoke briefly with one of the first children born in the kibbutz (the founders have all died), and then had dinner in the dining hall. It is a bit like eating at Fresh Choice every night (although the food definitely has an Israeli flavor. The kibbutz philosophy strikes me as a lot like homeschooling, in that it is very difficult to explain, but if you’ve lived it, you get it. But the community feeling is very strong and compelling.

Had an interesting conversation with the friend of one of my roommates. It was illuminating in a number of ways. The guy, who ended up staying here a few days due to other plans falling through, is probably about my age and very much a wanderer. He builds “ecologically correct” houses and is also a chemist. He enjoyed talking, so until he left, the flat was full of conversation. But it was interesting to see how he heard or didn’t hear what people (by which I mean me—really can’t speak for anyone else) said. I think this comes out of different life experiences. So, I am really falling in love with Israel. I said before that I feel whole here in a way I have never felt before and wouldn’t mind living here. Which I said in conversation. He picked up on it—asked how many years I’d been married and said that it sounded like it was my turn. My immediate reaction was distaste—almost revulsion. I find that kind of language completely inappropriate in thinking about marriage. I responded (he quoted back—I actually don’t precisely remember) that I loved my husband. By which I meant that marriage isn’t—or shouldn’t be—based on equity, but on love and on care. That isn’t to say that some sort of fairness doesn’t apply, but making sure that the halves of the cookie are even doesn’t work with children, with spouses, or with anyone else that I care about. The right question is “what do you need? What can you give?” There are of course, negotiations involved about how those needs are met, how that giving takes place, and there are places (who sits where in the car on what day) that fairness absolutely applies. However, in general—not useful.

I never could make him understand the point. I think he saw me as a woman who was submitting to her husband, who somehow kept her down. What I see, though, is someone who hasn’t been rooted in a place and with people long enough to understand the nature of long-term human relationships. Part of the reason I wouldn’t move to Israel is because I wouldn’t leave Dave to do so. And, assuming I could make him move (which I couldn’t—the man is remarkably stubborn when he wants to be), I wouldn’t because the level of misery I would cause in doing so would be too high. Why would I do that to someone I love?

Now, the other side of that is that I don’t, in fact, want to move here. I can say that I would be happy here, and I think that is true, but I have enough ties to home—meaning the US—that I would not do so. Which is another difference in perspective. For this guy, to want to go somewhere is to do so—he has no ties to anywhere. No roots. I really value my roots, my friends, my family.

So this conversation was the flip side of the walk through Winsen with Ilka’s mother-in-law. There the roots were centuries deep, so compelling that leaving would be very difficult indeed. What is the balance between being rooted and being free (roots and wings, I suppose)? Both individuals and societies need some of each, I think.

A bit later—just came in from an hour and a half of flat-out Israeli dancing. It was out of this world fantastic. I could do it every night and not get tired of it. Which tells me that I need to find a place to do it on a regular basis.

And I’m checking out places to stay after I leave the Ulpan. I emailed Nurit and she called me within the hour—I’m going to Tel Aviv for Shabbat and they extended an invitation to stay there as long as I like. Other contacts will follow, but that’s the most exciting.

Shabbat

2007-07-14T13:13:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I went to the market with Laura, my roommate who is from Holland. She was quite intent on making Shabbat dinner and I was pulled into the plan, although homework nagged at me. I wore my hat, slathered myself with sunscreen, and decided not to mind the sweat. And I didn’t—somehow it’s becoming part of the environment. The market is like Livermore’s farmers’ market, only with lots more food and open every day (except Shabbat). Fruit, vegetables, sundries, dried fruit, challah and more challah, falafel. It is alive with people engaged in living in the physical world, in contact with that world. Whole families sell food. I bought a couple of items at one store and a ten year old boy handled the transaction with great competence and confidence. I saw mothers with several children shlepping bags of groceries, each child carrying something. The children clearly felt a sense of belonging in a way that I don’t think our American children do. If I am needed to make the business run, to help in some way, then I matter and am real in the world. The activities that our children engage in—homework, sports, music, and so on—matter to them, but do not contribute to the well-being of their family. There is no reciprocity—even when we create it (you will do chores, for example), it is hard to create a real sense of need. There is a big difference between weeding the yard, for example, which can remain weedy without affecting the family’s well-being and not helping in the family business. What I am saying here is hardly new information, but the marketplace demonstrates the issues with particular vividness.

When we got home from the market—many bags shlepped onto a sherut, which hauled us up the mountain—we cleaned the refrigerator. It was a necessary task—that thing was seriously gross—and had the effect of making me feel at home in the kitchen. Then homework and preparation for Shabbat.

About ten of us went to the conservative shul for services last night. Very interesting—similar to the conservative services in the US, which is not surprising since that’s where conservative Judaism began, but nice to see a vibrant congregation that is doing some Judaism other than Orthodoxy. Last night was the send-off for the group of young adults going into their military service. I could only understand a bit of the speeches that were made, but the absolute seriousness was clear. I have heard the saying that Israel can’t afford to lose even once—the way the young people moved showed that they knew that as well. Just to be clear—this was a ritual of a sort, so I was only seeing one bit (and understanding less!) of the complexity, nevertheless, it made concrete that one aspect.

Then home for dinner. Six of us sat around a table with the night above us and Haifa below us, singing the Shabbat blessings. My first real Shabbat in Israel—Sheheheyanu!

This afternoon I went to lunch at Dina’s, who was one of my professors in Jewish Studies. Her daughter, who was just a baby the last time I saw her, is now a very cute, very feisty bi-lingual five year old, by turns adorable and obnoxious. A army friend, with her family—husband, son and one of two daughters—also came. It was a lovely, long afternoon, but completely exhausting. I spoke Hebrew as much as I could, but my understanding was so minimal—I think I get about 10% of what is said in normal conversation. But I can feel the language getting easier—the words are distinct, not a mishmash; it’s now the vocabulary I lack.

One interesting point came up in course of (English) conversation. I am realizing how complete as a Jew I feel here. I don’t feel split; I don’t feel the need to explain myself. I described that to Dina’s friend, a woman who has spent time with an organization connecting American and Israeli Jews. She commented that what she thought was interesting about American Judaism is its consciousness. Her children simply swim in the sea without thinking about why the weekend is Friday-Saturday, not Saturday-Sunday. The larger issue, of course, is being a minority versus being a minority. I think it is really important to know both feelings. As a member of a minority, one is always questioning without ever feeling completely at peace. As a member of a majority, one gets a sense of being grounded. The immediate response, by the way, is that everyone is, in one way or another both majority and minority. True enough, but I have to say, this feels different. And for all of those who said I would love Israel—indeed I do. Indeed I do.

Sof Ha-Shavua

2007-07-14T13:11:00.000-07:00

Last day of the first week and everyone is tired and a bit sick—it’s the food thing. I don’t think that anyone is laid out badly, but everyone is adjusting to new intestinal flora, new diets, and new schedules. I know that I am, anyway.

I have until Sunday morning to relax, do grocery (or other) shopping, observe Shabbat, and do my homework. All of us have to do a presentation on a topic of our choice. I volunteered for Monday, which means I get to write mine over the weekend and turn it in to be corrected on Sunday. However, it will be done and over with by Tuesday, when we go to Mishmar ha-Emek (Guardian of the Valley). (The same day that Harry Potter comes out. Which I did order at the campus bookstore. Our midterm is next Thursday, though, so I may not get to finish it as promptly as I would like…).

This whole experience is very interesting. Here I sit, overlooking a hazy valley with squares of farmland, a few ponds and hills in the background. It looks very much like Livermore, but…not quite. The roads are smaller, the cities less overwhelming and shine a bit brighter—the white stone, instead of wood and paint, and also the humid air affects the look of the place.

The first day of class, I found myself in the fourth of six levels of Hebrew. This pleased me mightily. I am very much at the head of the class in some ways, but one of the weaker ones in understanding and speaking. (Over the course of the week, however, both skills have improved tremendously, so that I can understand some fraction of the Israeli spoken by passersby, and feel like I’m cheating when I speak English.) The class has a wide variety of people from a wide variety of places: Danna from Long Island, who is fluent in Hebrew, but can’t conjugate a verb; Hanni, who is preparing to study for the Reform Rabbinate; Viola from Germany; Helaine, an anthropologist from Wisconsin; Liz, who is here from Manchester, England with her husband, a retired college professor; and many others—eighteen in all. Range of ages from maybe 20 to 70. Everyone is capable in some areas and lacking in others. Despite different personalities and goals, everyone has some desire to learn—although I don’t really know how getting grades (for those taking it for credit) affects their relationship to the material. I am, however, paying attention to how my own sense of Torah lish’ma is affecting my relationship to the material.

Class runs from 8:30 to 1:00 PM. To get there, I leave my apartment at 8 AM and walk down a flight of stairs, across an outside terrace, with plants and cats wandering around, to a set of stairs. I climb two flights, cross another terrace and climb another two flights of stairs. Then I am in the main area, near the community hall and mini-market. I climb another set of stairs and walk through the guard booth and I’m on campus. Pass by the Multi-Purpose Center to the law building which I enter. I climb four flights of stairs inside, then outside climb another three flights to a stretch of grass between the law building and the main building. I enter this building, pass by the library, the Hecht museum, the bookstore, climb one set of stairs, pass by an art exhibit, and then exit the building in front of a set of shops. Cross the street to the education building, where I open my bag so that the guard can make sure I have no bombs, then climb one more set of stairs and walk down a hall to my classroom. Have I mentioned that Haifa is built on a mountain?

After class, my inclination is to simply study—deciphering the texts is fairly intense. I can spend five hours on the material and not get bored. Having a single focus is a really interesting experience—I don’t think I’ve had that for the last 27 years. Not an experience I’d want for long—I need connections and community too much. But to know what it’s like is a gift. I have been told for years how different my experience in grad school is from those around me, as I have this other life. I have denied it for years, saying that everyone has responsibilities; it’s just different responsibilities at different stages of life. But really, that isn’t the case. I have never really known what it was like to be able to choose what to do—to simply be responsible for myself. To fix food for myself alone—or not. To have only one small room to care for. To be able to go to town or not go to town.

On the first day, I went to the bookstore and as I searched for my books, someone called out “Trish.” It was Dina, one of my teachers from GTU several years ago. She has since come to Haifa University to teach midrash. Very strange, indeed—the Jewish world is indeed a small world. She invited me for Shabbat lunch, so that should be interesting.

One other thing—I chose Haifa for the diversity of people who live here. So I don’t know why it came as a surprise to hear Arabic all over the university. There are plenty of Muslim women, dressed modestly, wandering around campus with that university look to them (gotta get to class on time, hope I’m prepared). And in the campus shops and cafes, I hear as much Arabic as Hebrew. Despite wanting this, I find myself somewhat hostile—a bit like my reaction to the German language prior to having German exchange students. I don’t intend to get to know any of the students (Jewish or Arab), simply because they have their lives and it would be an intrusion, but simply hearing is enough. As I listen, I begin to hear the ordinary language of college students, not a language of hate and destruction.

On Tuesday, we went to Akko. Jumped on the bus right after class and didn’t get back until after 8 PM. We were led on a tour by an Arab guide (named Abdul, of course) who addressed us in Hebrew and English. He was absolutely fantastic—funny, smart, an actor and teacher, and passionate about the city. I’m not going to detail that—I’ll post pictures, but really it was one of those “had to be there” times. Okay, there’s a trip to a Haifa bar planned and I’m going. L’hitraot!

Epiphany

2007-07-11T11:50:00.000-07:00

Prologue: There is a kind of story, mostly found in children’s literature, that I really love. The shape of the story can vary tremendously, but part of the dénouement has a scene where the protagonist’s soul is recognized, nurtured, and loved. For example, in Bridge to Terebithia, a boy longs for his father’s love, but his father is overworked and not comfortable showing love for his son (as opposed to his daughter. After the death of his best friend, he is angry at himself and her and runs until he collapses. It is his father who picks him up and holds him, giving him the love that he needs so badly. There is a completion—the Hebrew is sh’lamut, from the same word as shalom, and it conveys that sense of peace that comes when something is whole and complete. I have often wondered whether it was a real feeling—or simply something found in literature, a way of evoking pure emotions. Here’s my story of how sometimes one word can be enough.

The back story: When I began at Berkeley, I began with not quite enough Hebrew. The summer before I began, I took an intensive program—an Ulpan of sorts—that was designed to bump me up to third year university Hebrew. It was pretty intense—an immersion program that felt more like drowning. But I went into the third year class of Hebrew, taught by one of the few people in the world (let’s call her Rosanne) I strongly dislike—oh, let’s go with hate, my visceral reaction is that strong. Rosanne is an anti-Israel Israeli whose teaching style is entirely aural, lacking in formal structure, and, as discussion material, uses as texts literature and essays that show Israel at its worst. I endured her classes for two years, then gratefully moved on.

At the end of my fourth year, I was informed that the Jewish Studies department had decided that sociology would be a better fit for me. It was, as anyone who was around knows, a fairly traumatic experience. Despite sociology being a better department in terms of breadth, structure, and care of its grad students, enough slipped out for me to understand that my Hebrew ability (or lack thereof) was part of the problem.

So I put Hebrew aside for Marx, Durkheim, and Weber. I closed the Hebrew Harry Potter books and left them on the shelves for old times’ sake.

Sociology has been a challenge—in many ways, I am indeed, a sociologist, although having had the one rejection, part of me is always defending against another. Also, it was hard to embrace sociology fully, as that felt (rational thought notwithstanding) like agreeing with the rejection. But, of course, I did agree—somehow, I allowed that stupid Rosanne to define my ability. And, despite putting the Hebrew away, I knew that I still wanted to learn Hebrew and knew that the only way for me was to go to Israel where I could hear the language spoken.

The next chapter: In these first few days of the Ulpan, Rosanne has been present in my thoughts. My teacher, Etty, is an actress and a woman who uses both structure and care in her presentation. I only understand about half of what she says (well, more but it feels like half), but she uses the board and her acting training to demonstrate what she means to say, so that, by the end, I am understanding almost everything. I sank into her class with the feeling that “this is how it is meant to be.” It turned out that another person in the class was from Berkeley. Miri’s about twenty and had taken Hebrew with Rosanne. When she mentioned the name, my fists clenched and I said that I had taken classes from her and she was terrible. Miri agreed and catalogued her deficiencies as a teacher. It was liberating, but strange. It has been five years since I’ve needed to take a class with Rosanne, but I am still carrying that baggage with me.

Yesterday’s homework included an essay on the story we had read. The lovely thing about the Ulpan is that I am responsible for no one and nothing—only for learning. So, despite going to Acco yesterday (oh, yes, I will get to filling in those gaps, but don’t know when!), I spent a glorious five hours (8:30-12 and 6-7:30) doing homework. I didn’t finish, but I read every story about four times, translated every word, and wrote my essay. After class, I asked Etty to read it and she looked through it quickly and asked me something in Hebrew. I couldn’t understand and explained that I process the Hebrew very slowly. She asked if it had taken me a long time. It hadn’t—maybe half an hour for a couple of paragraphs on the sociological underpinning of the story (yeah, I know, I AM a sociologist; I can’t help myself). She read through it more carefully, fixing the plentitude of errors of first draft variety, but finding no serious errors of understanding. She finished and wrote “Mitzuyon” (Wonderful! Excellent!) at the bottom. I said, “So basically, then, it’s okay.” She looked at me like I was nuts and said, “No, basically, it’s mitzuyon.”

That’s the word. I really heard it and believed it. And in the hearing and believing, I recognized the amount of damage that I had allowed Rosanne and the whole Jewish Studies program to do to my belief in my own ability. Suddenly, too, my work over the past few years does not seem like the work of someone who isn’t very good and is barely hanging on by a thread, but the work of someone who is very determined—because without that determination, I would have given up long ago. Suddenly, I feel complete—I feel a sense of shlamut. What a gift! How wonderful!

Orientation

2007-07-10T00:23:00.000-07:00

I stayed up until 1 AM on Sunday talking and so was in no shape to write anything. But it’s going to get very busy very quickly. Tuesday, after class, I go on the field trip to Acco. And homework starts in earnest. So let me try a quick update now. And I really hope to have a bit of time for other things too.

So on Sunday, I registered. It was a most of the day affair. I continued to meet people—lots of very interesting people. My apartment is now full. In addition to Hadas and Monique, there are Fabienne, a lovely, tiny, energetic woman from just outside Paris; Joysa, who is studying for the reconstructionist rabbinate; and Laura, serious and studious, from the Netherlands.

In the “it’s a small world department, part 1,” I met Emma, who just graduated from Caltech in physics. She’s here because her boyfriend is Israeli. And yes, she does know Vera. And “iasw” part 2, the head of the program got up to talk at our orientation meeting and looked very familiar—not that I had met him, but he reminded me of someone in the clear, direct, and kind way that he spoke. He mentioned that he was from Berkeley and then, about the third time he introduced a speaker, it dawned on me that he could have been Stu Kelman’s brother. I went to introduce myself afterwards and in playing Jewish geography, it turns out that Irene Resnikoff, who is one of the authors of First Hebrew Primer, is his sister and, while Stu is not his brother, they are very close friends.

Tour of campus after that. I think I will not get a gym membership. Yeah, the number of steps between my dorm room and classroom—it’s enough. I hadn’t appreciated that, in fact, Mt. Carmel is, well, a mountain, which means up and down (repeat as needed). The tour of the city, for example, included a tram ride in a station that was on about a 30 degree angle. The train station was a set of steps and landings. I think I will not get down to the city that often—it’s actually a long way and a very long bus ride.

In which I discover that the water in the Baha’i Gardens is a tease.

2007-07-07T09:37:00.000-07:00

I was awakened early by the sun, which comes right in my window. It was hot. As it turned out, about 15 degrees hotter than outside. So I won’t be doing any sleeping late, I think. I had a cup of tea with Hadas, then went down for the breakfast and movie the program had provided—and this time there was plenty of food and coffee. I got my phone and called home—oh, god, it was good to talk to them! Then we left for a tour of the Baha’i Gardens, to be followed by a trip to the Wadi Nasnis, where there were open shops.

Because of the morning cool, I forgot 1) a hat, 2) a water-bottle, and 3) the kerchief that Valerie gave me. I had previously lost the bag containing sunscreen and bug repellent. So, yeah, not terribly well prepared. There is a long bus ride from campus into town. By the time we arrived at the entrance to the Baha’i Gardens, the sun was already high. Haifa is built on a mountain—or at least a very high hill. We began at the top and made our way slowly down the gardens, as the tour guide explained the religion and its holy sites, one in Acco; the other in Haifa. The gardens are pristine, symmetrical, and elaborate, a mixture of flowers, grass, and fountains. They are carefully without symbolic meaning so that all can enjoy their beauty. They surround the shrine in which one of the founder’s bones are buried. We walked down 700 steps to the shrine and there are 700 more below, so that the shrine is located midway down the slope. As we walked, the guide stopped us at various places to explain one point or another. We got hotter and hotter and the water in the fountains was more and more appealing. But we were all well-behaved and didn’t leap in, tempting as it was.

It was close to noon when we finished, after which we left for the market. We walked through narrow streets with small stores selling pita or dry goods and through open air markets with lots of fruit or vegetables. Eventually, we asked—meaning that I asked—where we could find a falafel stand. And we found several. The guy handed us a falafel ball. It was the best falafel I have ever had. I may go there every day. It was incredible. So we got pitas stuffed with the works, sat on the street in the shade and ate and groaned with incredible pleasure.

Then we shopped the market. I used as much Hebrew as I could, but have had a bit of trouble—I swear I heard one guy say “twenty” when he really said “tai-she” (9). I was listening for the Hebrew, but just assumed he was speaking English for the poor incompetent tourist. So there’s a ways to go. I did manage to get enough food for Sunday and Monday—including veggies!—as well as some of the missing items. Then I tried to head back to where Or had said to meet. Not successful. However, I did meet up with Steven, one of the group I had been hanging out with. He is maybe ten or fifteen years older than I am, from Sacramento, and just wants to learn Hebrew. (There’s also Chris, who is from Alaska and was a part-time bush pilot until his plane was wrecked. Now he and his family are planning on making aliyah next year. And Harriet, from Davis, whose Israeli husband is divorcing her after 23 years. And a couple of med students (Ariella and Jenny) from the Seattle-Vancouver area. Yeah, a real mix and a lot more older people than I expected. The older people are here because it is a long-term goal; the younger to have a good time—and to learn. At some point, I hope I’ll comment on how people came together, how similar groups found each other, and so on. But it’s really interesting to see how the different age groups act, what they want, and so on.) We walked and walked and walked. We read signs, asked people, and eventually ended up on a bus that got us back to the university. At which point I soaked my head. Completely exhausting, incredibly exhilarating (especially after cooling off!).

This is pretty much a summary of the day—haven’t had time to think about a bunch of stuff: the mix of languages, ages, and different programs. How different groups form. How that will change tomorrow when we are placed in classes. And I don’t know what else….

The road to Haifa

2007-07-07T09:36:00.000-07:00

I got up this morning at 5:30, made it downstairs to catch the bus that would take me to the airport—about ½ a mile from the hotel. It cost 4 pounds to go that short distance, but the claim was that it would go door to door. Yeah, this is Britain. If the French can be officious, the British can be…inefficient. So the bus didn’t, in fact, go to Terminal 4. It went to Terminal 1, from which you could take a shuttle train to Terminal 4. A poor woman who spoke only Spanish got on and couldn’t make heads or tails of what she was to do, so I told her to follow me, because of course I knew what I was doing (or not—but at least I knew the language!). It took a pretty solid ¾ of an hour door to door, but I had allowed 3 hours, so I was still plenty early. And then both check-in and security were extremely fast (Okay, so not completely inefficient).

Breakfast was a venti latte and a chewy something from the airport Starbucks. It was a bit of comfort from home and I enjoyed every bit of it. Got to the gate easily on time and met Edward, who is a rising senior from UConn, planning on being a professor of Middle-East Studies. He already knows Arabic well and was coming to pick up a bit of Hebrew.

The flight was as smooth as could be. A good breakfast, a good book followed by most of Amazing Grace listened to on my noise-reducing headphones—I felt so well-traveled. And in the window, I watched the Mediterranean go by—parts of Italy, then all the islands of Greece. Then, toward the end of the flight, I pulled out the Ulpan papers and the guy next to me turned out to be an administrator in the international program. He has been in Israel for 44 years and Haifa for 36. His field was somewhere between sociology and social work and so we talked for a while about Jews in Israel and the US. The conversation was interesting, however, I found myself feeling like a bit of a fraud at the end of it. I’ve been in school long enough to need to explain myself and feel like, if I were any good, I would be done and out by now. I’m realizing that part of my task in is to find a way to feel confident, to believe in my path, however haphazard that path may appear or be—and it is and I really don’t care but I care that others might care and judge me.

When Israel appeared in the plane window I was surprised at how many and how tall the buildings were. It looked like a set of children’s building blocks laid out below. Unreal. But when we landed, it was hard to believe I was anywhere special. Turns out that all that stuff about California having a Mediterranean climate is true. The vegetation is somewhere between LA, SF, and Nevada. I don’t think I really believed that I was in Israel until I exited the plane and made my way down into a beautiful airport. The whole country, starting with the airport, seems to be made of beautiful light stone, pink, beige, not-quite white. In the airport, there is glass and stone and somehow there was quiet—perhaps because we were coming in just before Shabbat. And the signs were in Hebrew and I could read (some of) it. Then we were through passport control, had picked up bags, and were trying to find the taxis. It is clear that my Hebrew will improve a great deal—I am forced to read the signs and can speak enough to get by. I did manage to ask where the sherut (shared cab) to Haifa was, then to tell the guy that two of us were going to the University. Ten of us piled into the sherut, then began the two hour ride to Haifa. I tried really hard to stay awake, but didn’t. And when I awoke, we were driving along the Mediterranean and the landscape was hillier and greener. The roads and buildings feel so modern, but then there are curved shapes, white stone, and it is so different and so new.

We made it to the University around 6:30 PM. I hadn’t eaten or drunk since breakfast on the plane—I had simply forgotten. But the program is really welcoming. After they gave me my packet of stuff and Edward, another student, and I were standing there trying to figure out where to go, an angel appeared. Okay, his name is Or and he is one of the madrichim (counselors). He was very kind—first showed us the common areas, then took each of us to our respective apartments.

Each apartment has six rooms—three on the first floor, three on the second—plus a kitchen and a common area. My room number is 344-1. The first number is the block or “street,” the second the particular stack, the third, the level, and finally, the room within the apartment. So I am on “street 3”, block 4, on the fourth floor, and in the first room. I have two roommates—Hadas, who is a regular student at the university studying psychology, and Monique, who hails from Cupertino originally, and is now studying to be a rabbi in England at the Leo Baeck School. Monique and her husband, who is an Irish Jew, live near Cardiff in Wales, although they only see each other on weekends because of her program.

Or had told us there was a dinner at 8:30 PM that we would be welcome to. So at 8:30, I show up along with lots of other people and wait. And wait. Finally a short welcoming of Shabbat and the line begins to move. At some point it stops. No plates left. So, being my own obnoxious self, I go to find someone to get more plates. The person I’m directed to asks if I can speak Hebrew. “A bit,” I say (in Hebrew). So he launches into really fast Hebrew (yeah, when they say “typical Israeli,” he’s the one they’re talking about). Then he repeats in English that there are no more plates, so we’ll have to wash off the plates of those who have finished and reuse. Okay, so bad temper when hungry runs in my family. And I STILL have not eaten or drunk anything. So I go back in and announce what he says to the group. Then a few people go and bring down personal stashes of plates; another guy (from Brazil and London) and use a plastic lid as a shared plate. There was no chicken left, nor any other main dish. But there were enough side dishes to get by. As several of us are sitting and exchanging information, another guy comes by and apologizes.

It turns out that the Ulpan madrichim had told us to crash the university students dinner. And because of timing, there had been a lot of us. So the guy with the mouth was really responding to the Ulpan people who had screwed up his dinner. Very interesting—once I had eaten!

After dinner, someone loaned me laundry soap and I headed back to my room. There, I met Hadas for the first time, who was talking with her friend Dekla. I asked which language to speak and she said “Hebrew,” so I did—badly. But they helped and it went okay. A bit later Monique showed up, but with little Hebrew, so we exchanged life stories in English.

Oh, and the cats—I forgot the cats. The place is crawling with cats, everything from small adults to six-week or so kittens. I am trying hard not to get attached—I mean, there is no way one is coming back with me!—but we have named the one that Hadas adopted “Kaftzanit,” meaning—“the jumper,” for reasons that should self-evident!

So that was my first day.

Food

2007-07-02T10:25:00.002-07:00

Notes on food—I’ve been eating really well, I think. But brother, is there a lot of meat in general and pork in particular here. The quantity of meat is a bit hard to take—I’m just not used to meat with every meal. And no beans at all. Virtually all protein is animal; being a vegan here would be very, very difficult. Unlike Deborah, I’m maintaining my level of kashrut, minimal though it might be. Somehow my hosts got the idea that the only problem was pork. So Ilka was very worried that I might not have enough to eat or that I might somehow slip and it would be her fault. Miriam was less worried, but certainly conscious. Neither was really aware that milk and meat together were are a far more common problem. It doesn’t bother me—I’m just used to dealing with it (in fact, I hadn’t realized how I simply do it) and what other people eat doesn’t concern me in the least. But it was clear that my hosts were trying to understand this weird practice (good luck to them is what I say!). On the one hand, I think they thought I would be offended if they ate pork, as if I might think eating it at all was a bad thing. It isn’t, of course; it’s simply part of Jewish practice. I might find a Jew eating pork offensive, particularly if done in such a way as to disrespect other Jews (or, as a Reform Jew, might not—it is a matter of choice), but I don’t give a damn how, what, or where other people eat. On the other hand, I think they thought this practice was unnecessarily weird and troublesome for them because as hosts they had to and wanted to accommodate me, but didn’t really understand how to.
And much of this is guessing on my part—everyone trying to be polite to everyone else, so I couldn’t address what I guessed were questions because they were being polite by not asking and I was being polite by not noticing their discomfort. (And I could be wrong, of course, perhaps the discomfort was all my imagination!) After services on Friday night, I had long talk with Ingrid about kashrut and gave her a detailed description of what and where kashrut comes from and how the easiest way to understand it is as a discipline. She got that—and we discussed how people gain strength from the ability to say no consistently.
The next day, walking with a bunch of Jews from synagogue, they talked about how much the Germans like their pork and how hard it is to eat. One of them, from the Netherlands, said that it’s worse there—bread is all made with pig fat. So she bakes her own.

Jews in Germany, again

2007-07-02T10:25:00.001-07:00

As I leave Berlin, I find myself a complete tangle of emotions. On the one hand, I have great respect for what the Germans have done in wrestling with their past. The Holocaust should not overshadow all of the rest of German history; neither should it be forgotten. I think Germans are really trying to manage that. However, there are really no Jews in Germany. Oh, I don’t mean there aren’t synagogues here and there. Deborah went to one in Bremen; I went to one in Berlin. But I felt like I was part of a dead piece of history, not something that could ever come alive again. Native Americans in the US are dead and gone in a similar way. That is, we Americans have wiped them out so completely that the few who exist cannot have a healthy society. Then we build museums and explain how it usta be before we came along. Here there was a tribe; there a confederation. But fact is, the population isn’t there to recreate what once was. The customs, the languages, are going. And the dominant society appropriates what symbols it will and tells the story through its own eyes—separate and apart from “real” American society.
So it seems with the Germans and Jews, only Jews in Germany are still under threat both from neo-Nazis and from Muslims. I think of France or England as having anti-Semitic strands, but the reality is that there is a whole section of kosher restaurants in France. The mere presence of that many restaurants, along with visibly Orthodox Jews on the streets of Paris speaks to a very different climate.
I do not blame today’s Germans for the Holocaust—they bear the sins of their fathers—I saw only a handful of Germans who could have been old enough to be in any way responsible. (And even in those cases, I am old enough now to wonder what I would have done in their places. I am not at all sure I would have acted, rather than simply hoping for better days.) But I think that one thing they—and the rest of the world—may not have fully reckoned with is a country that is ultimately Judenrein, although one which is condemned to tell the story of why that is the case.

Berlin

2007-07-02T10:24:00.001-07:00

Miriam and I arrived in Berlin around mid-day. The ride there was easy—we stopped in Hannover to change trains. She mostly slept; I mostly wrote and watched the scenery. When we got there, Ingrid, Miriam’s sister’s godmother, who acts as an aunt or a second mother, met us and gave us the key to her apartment. We made our way to the place, in south-east Berlin, in an area that is a bit dicey—as Ingrid described it, it is not a slum, but could become one at some point. Ingrid lives on the second floor of an apartment building that has seen better days—the paint is peeling a bit, the floors are worn. Her apartment is directly above a little Turkish lunch place from which Miriam and I got more Turkish pizzas. Several men sat around tables outside and from inside Ingrid’s apartment, we could hear them talking all day and into the night. They were the one with no visible means of support. Ingrid’s apartment, in contrast to the stairs, was bright, open, and clean. One room serves as a living room/dining room; the other as a bedroom/office. Both are large and airy. In addition to the shelves of books, there were interesting pictures on the walls, rocks of various kinds, small and interesting knick-knacks. Even after several days, new things kept catching my attention.
Miriam and I shared her bedroom; she slept on the couch one night and at her partner’s house the other two nights. She and Gerhard have been together for a quarter of a century. They lived together for fourteen years, then she decided she needed her own place and moved out. They spend weekends together and are obviously quite devoted to each other—they just don’t live together.
Ingrid is small, with short, straight iron-gray hair and small, round glasses. She smokes a bit, but was very, very considerate to do so outside, or with the smoke blowing away from others. Everything she does is with gusto and she takes pleasure from everything, large or small. It is all “schoen.” She is apparently less neat than her mother, but from my sloppy American perspective, she was always cleaning—tidying the dishes, wiping non-existent dust from a container, noticing a scrap of shmutz on the floor and immediately wiping it away. It didn’t take very long, but it was a level of noticing/action that was awesome to behold.
Despite feeling really crummy, Miriam wanted to take me off to the Neue Synagogue. So off we went. It is an tremendously impressive building—its reconstructed dome stands out over the city. But it is protected by policemen day and night, as is the Orthodox shul down the road. Bags are security-checked when entering. Made me feel very uncomfortable. We wandered around a good deal looking for Jewish Berlin and every place we wandered was closed or under construction. Finally, we found a place for a cup of coffee and sat down. We had been hearing different languages all day, but it was there that I heard “ma nishma?” (how’s it going?)—Israelis meeting in Berlin.
That evening was very tired—we ate at home and Miriam told Ingrid of her pregnancy. Such pleasure!
Next day—Friday—we spent in Ingrid’s car criss-crossing Berlin, much of which was under construction. St. Hedwig’s church; Humboldt University, Pergamon Musuem. Monuments don’t tell the story of a city though. Nevertheless—rough impressions.
In the square in front of Humboldt University (yeah, I keep thinking redwoods, too), a square of glass about two feet by three is inset in the bricks. Look into the glass and there is a room with plain white bookshelves, all empty. It was hear that the Nazis burned books.
There is a memorial to all the war dead. It is an empty room with a mother holding her dead son and weeping.
The memorial to the Jewish dead just pissed me off, at least as a memorial. I’ve heard about it—rows of pillars of different heights on ground that undulates down. It is very moving to walk through—a very isolating and meditative place. However there is NOTHING that says Jewish, Holocaust, or anything else. It is one of those pieces of abstraction that lose all meaning. I’m sorry, but I simply don’t believe there are universal symbols that work for all human beings and trying to create that is arrogant. Bah, humbug!
The Permagon Museum is, like the British Museum, a place that holds some amazing artifacts from Babylonia and Greece. A complete altar with fantastic carvings of gods and goddesses. Some really, really cool mosaics. I don’t think I had really appreciated how very small are the pieces that make up mosaics.
The Permagon Museum also had the entire entryway to Nebuchadnezzar’s city (some of it reconstructed). Lions everywhere, as well many other animals. So the lions represent Ishtar, who is a might and powerful goddess. The other animals are Marduk, a god who is one of those combination beasts: scorpion, snake, and I can’t recall what all else. I knew that Esther was Ishtar and Mordecai was Marduk, but I hadn’t realized just how powerful the Babylonian gods were and so how much of an “up yours!” the Purim story was toward the Babylonians. Yes, Dave, I know you think the ending is bloody, but come on! With heroes like these guys, how can you not like it?
Friday night, after some backing and forthing, I took Ingrid up on her offer to take me to services. It was so wonderful, both to be among other Jews in a country that felt so free of Jews, where I felt like such an oddity. To hear the Hebrew, be able to follow it. My Hebrew is quite good, so I could follow the words despite the German-accented Hebrew, catch on to the unfamiliar melodies, and make my way from page to page without a lot of difficulty. (This brings home how important a good Jewish education is—had I been less familiar, it would have been tough sledding. Reform Jews have an obligation to teach more, simply to remain part of the whole Jewish community!) I really missed my community, missed my family, and at the same time, felt more at home, more understood, than I had since I had left California. Following the service, I took Ingrid out to Kadima, the Jewish style restaurant next to the synagogue. There was a long table next to ours filled with Jews from the service. After some time, I realized that they were lesbians—very much reminded me of the people I knew from the Bay Area, right down to the baby with two mothers. It was then that I realized that “egalitarian” in Germany was code for “gay and lesbian.” Well, it turned out to be more complicated than that, but I found that out the next day.
Saturday, Ingrid went off to a Social Democrat convention, Miriam stayed in bed (a very good thing, indeed!), and I went off to brave Berlin all by myself. The day was a complete success—which is to say, I didn’t get lost and accomplished everything I tried to do.
I made it to services in good time. The congregation was clearly for Germans, but welcomed English-speakers, so one of the choices for prayerbook was Sim Shalom, my personal favorite, and the Chumash was “Etz Chaim,” also my favorite. All good, and then I was given an aliyah, which was a nice honor. The Torah reading was great—I got lost in following the portion and it was Balak, the story of how Bilaam blessed the Jews, instead of cursing them (his words are used to open the service: Mah Tovu). It was also during the Torah reading that I realized how distinctive the American accent is—I knew immediately which people were Americans and was right (one a guy from the East Coast, the other a woman from St. Louis). The service was all the sweeter because a couple had been married the previous week and there was a special blessing in their honor.
Following the service, there was a full Kiddush lunch, complete with the seven marriage blessings for the couple married the previous week. I talked with the Americans a bit (there were actually four at the service—a college student entering his junior year at Brandeis who was doing an internship in business, the woman from St. Louis who taught singing to elementary school students and had the most nasal, grating voice I have ever heard—and no, I don’t understand how those facts go together—and whose Hebrew name means “dawn star” and she took it because it came to her in a dream, and the guy from DC, who taught music as well—played lots of instruments and had supported himself as a one-man band, and was in Germany to learn German—it’s what he does with his summers.
At the end of the Kiddush, the DC guy asked if he could tag along to the Jewish Museum with me—fine. And the young couple and friends of theirs from Amsterdam were heading that way and asked if we wanted to tag along. The Amsterdam couple, who are getting married later this summer, turned out to be very interesting. She is getting her master’s in cultural anthropology (her thesis is on Jews in New York and opinions about Israel. Turns out that within the community there is diversity, but there is pressure to present a united front to the non-Jewish world. Uh, and in what way is this news? There are pretty interesting questions this raises—why would that be the case? How does dominant society’s reaction to Israel affect how Jews present their opinion? How does that case compare to other issues in the Jewish community? How about other differences historically?). She thought it was pretty amazing that I was a grad student at Berkeley. But most interesting is that in fall of ’08, she’ll be a rabbinic student at UJ in Los Angeles. So I got her email and will definitely be in touch.
As we walked, I talked to the recent bride, who told me about the community. Turns out that this is the only egalitarian synagogue in Berlin. In all others, men and women sit separately. This one is the only one with a woman rabbi, which is somewhat controversial. And it is a synagogue for the unconventional, hence the gays and lesbians, but also a fair sprinkling of converts, as well as many Russians, and Americans visiting or living in Berlin. The rabbi trained at JTS in New York, so there is a reason much of the service was familiar. So what I got was not precisely German Judaism. Am I sorry? Not really. I needed something familiar at that point in the trip and was glad to get it.
The DC guy and I continued on the route to the Jewish Museum. At checkpoint Charlie, he became engrossed in reading the history of Berlin in the Cold War. I was less engaged, so we parted. Impressions of the Jewish Museum
Really interesting medieval to pre-Modern period, complete with representations of the kind of trade goods Jews traded, household items and so on.
A few people—Gluckl of Hameln, Moses Mendelssohn—received a lot of attention.
The architecture of the building has been criticized—it is jagged and you begin by climbing to the top and then walking down through two floors of Jewish German history. I found the nooks and crannies to add interest—I never quite knew where I was going, but there were always directions if I needed them.
The museum is designed with three axes: continuity, which shows Jewish life in Germany through the centuries; Holocaust, which is really a memorial, ending with a tower of silence; and exile, showing where German Jews went. Again, there was that balance between the longer history and the Holocaust.
At the end of the museum tour, I felt that Jews in Germany have never been German; they have always been other. This is not new information, but the museum, precisely in trying to show how Jews have always been a part of Germany also showed how they were not.
Fassbinder wrote a play that showed a modern Jew in a way that, some said, was anti-Semitic. I’ll look the play itself up later (no internet now), but the museum showed a documentary about the uproar surrounding the play. Many, many people in Germany protested. Only 23 seats were sold. Jews took over the stage and an argument debating whether the play should be seen or not took place. Ultimately, it was not produced at that time; I don’t know whether it has been put on since.But the arguments surrounding it are still going on in other ways. Fassbinder, as best I can tell, argued that the offending character, a creep who was Jewish, was not reinforcing old stereotypes, but simply a character in the play. The problem is that writing is not simple. It uses culture, history, the discourses of past and present. Good writing isn’t accidental; bad writing shouldn’t be produced. So I find Fassbinder’s arguments to be disingenuous or naïve at best—if the offending character was a Jew there was a reason for it. And for his supporters to say that Jews shouldn’t protest is also ignoring history and culture. But the arguments on both sides are important—they show up in how minorities of all kinds are portrayed in the US, in the Muslim cartoon controversy, and in some of the debates around Israel’s position in the Middle East.

Bremen

2007-07-02T10:22:00.000-07:00

June 26, 2007—Bremen
Heiko and I took the train to Hamburg, where he headed off for a morning meeting, looking very lawyerly in his suit. I waited for a bit for the train to Bremen. Nothing particularly exciting about the trip, except how very, very easy it is to get used to good public transportation. Go into a train station, get a ticket, wait a few minutes, and the train comes. For example, I’m writing this on the train to Berlin. It’s a high speed train and the landscape is speeding past. I could plug my computer in if I wanted to. The people range from the businessman opposite with the tie striped in chartreuse and orange—I kid you not—who is typing on his laptop and talking on the phone to the old couple wearing knapsacks, to a group of American college students—from Humboldt State, judging by the sweatshirts (I will check later, even though it will embarrass Miriam (hey, mom’s gotta be embarrassing, right?)). I’m not paying a lot of attention to the landscape—it is familiar from the travels around Hamburg and, while it seems to be a little dryer as we travel east and a bit south, it is still largely farmland with the occasional stand of trees and a river or two. In town, there are buses every few minutes and tramcars as well. The sidewalks are divided for pedestrians and bikes and the center of town has lots of well-used bike-racks. Everyone walks or bikes in combination with one form or another of public transportation. And it works smoothly enough that I hardly even noticed how different it is from driving.
Anyway, Miriam met me at the station with no problem. We hopped a bus to her apartment. It’s on the second floor of one of a set of apartment buildings and consists of a living room, a bedroom, and a small office, which is where I slept. Very different in feel from Ilka and Heiko’s place—smaller, of course, and much more casual in feel—lived-in, I think. Miriam has a garden on the balcony with an abundance of different plants. The living room serves as a dining room as well, but also where the laundry is dried and any family life takes place. The office is crowded with books, included virtually every book that Isabel Allende has written (some in English). The computer was broken—the power supply was gone. It felt like a comfortable home—a good and loving place to be. Miriam said that they would be moving in September, to a three-story condo with more than double the space. This is a good thing, since she just found out that she is pregnant. This is very good news, unfortunately the morning sickness accompanying it is not such good news! Brings back memories long past…
We headed out to Bremen, for what turned out to be a fairly short trip. It was very cloudy and windy, but we walked through the farmer’s market (oh, yes, cherries. I have discovered the Fountain of Cherries—and they are substantially better than US cherries. I bought me some Joanna (I think) cherries and my life was complete. There was a fruit stand in front of the train station, so I found it necessary to get ½ kilo to sustain me for the train ride. They’re gone now), to a restaurant overlooking the town square where I had a salad with sautéed mushrooms and onions on lettuce. Sounds a bit weird—it was terrific.
We spent a few minutes wandering the city before it began to rain. Miriam, with some shy pride, took me into the library so that I could see the exhibition of pictures from her book. She was trained in social work and, with that background, developed and got funding for a project to bring immigrants and native Germans together. She went into ten different districts around Bremen and contacted the residents, then in each district, brought people together to cook traditional dishes, exchange cultures, and ultimately to produce a cookbook, which I saw sold in the bookstores. I will order a copy from home (maybe several!) but am trying not to buy anything while I am still in transit to Israel.
Still raining, so we went into the cathedral. Yeah, European churches and cathedrals. Rose windows, vaulted ceilings, stone and stained glass. How can you not be impressed? Yet the history of these great places is hardly unmixed. Religion doesn’t necessarily matter to the young—Ilka and Heiko got married in church; Miriam and Jan-Ole did not. Heiko’s mother sees the ties to history that religion provides and Heiko and Ilka see the social good it does. Jan-Ole is a deist and opposed to organized religion. I think it would be a great shame to give up the connection to history that religion—in Europe, Christianity of various kinds—provides, but the cathedrals are both beautiful and oppressive. Not to me—I come to them without the Christian history, so I can simply look.
The rain only increased while we were in the church and the wind picked up. Miriam is in the early stages of pregnancy and feeling really godawful. She was trying to be a good host and show me around and I was trying to show appreciation, but I finally gave up and pleaded tiredness, so we went back to her place. That evening she cooked the broccoli-noodle dish she made for us in the States and I was glad to tell her that Miranda still makes it—for herself and for Dan. While I was sleeping, Jan-Ole came in—he is a huge bear of a man, but like many tall and broad men, very gentle. He has a sweet smile and looks at tiny Miriam with such love—and she looks back at him with the same love.
Hamburg and Bremen are very different towns—Hamburg, Ilka told me, has a sense of arrogance about it. I didn’t see it when I was there—it simply looked like a big city—but in contrast to Bremen, I can see it. Bremen is smaller and more artsy, with a feel like Berkeley. Hamburg may have many immigrants, but they were not in the areas that I was shown.
The differences in the cities are real enough, but they are also representative of the people—Ilka is interested in working with children, but not with immigrants; Miriam wants to bring her project to the greater world (she will meet with people in Berlin later this year for that purpose). Heiko is a lawyer for a corporation, Jan-Ole is an occupational therapist, using the power of his body to fix people. Heiko sees no way for someone in his position to take time off to be with a baby; Jan-Ole is intending to do so with their second child. Neither is right or wrong, but are very different ways of looking at the world—and similar to different approaches in the US as well.
What was interesting, too, was that, despite their differences in worldview and despite the fact that Miriam works with immigrants, all four agreed on the problem that immigrants, particularly from Turkey and Lebanon, pose for Germany. They don’t integrate; they don’t learn German; the women are not treated well by the men and the men are arrogant simply because they are men; they don’t work, but get money for the state, and so have no motivation to work.
Ilka was concerned mostly about the lack of integration, while Miriam focused more on the way the women allow themselves to be treated, but both were concerned with the real problems that Germany is struggling with.
The next day, June 27, we went back through Bremen again, looking at the thousand year old buildings, renovated into shops and catering to tourists, at the statue of Roland and, of course, the Bremen town musicians, who were everywhere—donkey, dog, cat, and rooster. What was most interesting was the meeting for a district of Bremen called Tenever. It is a poor area, with many high-rise apartment building where the poor live—which means some Germans, as well as many immigrants. Every six weeks, the organization that Miriam works for—a government project, but different from the book project—holds meetings of the entire district. This includes the residents of the apartment buildings, their landlords, the police, the social workers, people from the schools and so on. The concept is that there is so much money and the people who live in the district can decide how to use it. They have to agree on how it gets used—unanimously—and, in fact, they do. Miriam’s boss is a thin guy, very fiery and charismatic. He gave the impression of including people in the discussion, but there was no question that he was in charge. It was a fairly impressive display—he really kept control, but with the intent of allowing individuals to state their cases. Makes me wonder about how power is used—it almost seems like you need someone in charge in order to create an egalitarian power-sharing. Contradictory, but there it is.
The meeting went on a long time. I could understand not a word—of course! But it was very interesting to watch the body language, to see how Miriam’s boss ran the meeting, to see how similar the personalities were to those I know from the congregation—the man who spoke way too long; the woman who was sure she was being discriminated against; the presentations; the group that came in to make a statement and then left. Eventually, the time came for Miriam’s presentation and then we left, stopping on the way home at a Turkish stand for Turkish pizza. This is like a tortilla in shape, but made of wheat and bit more yeasty. On that base is put a red spicy sauce, some lettuce or red cabbage, sauerkraut, tomatoes, feta cheese and/or meat, and a garlic sauce. It is rolled up and wrapped in tinfoil, just like a burrito—and is eaten in precisely the same way. And it is just as good, though quite different in taste.

Hamburg, Bergen-Belsen, and Winsen

2007-06-27T06:38:00.000-07:00

June 23, 2007--Hamburg

Ilka and Heiko live about 45 minutes out of Hamburg, in a very nice condo. It’s an up and down living space with a more or less circular staircase in the center from which rooms radiate out on each of three floors. The ground floor has a kitchen and living room dining room combination, including a backyard patio where Ilka has planted flowers. The second floor has three bedrooms: the master bedroom, the clothes closet (since, as Ilka says, they have no children!), and Ilka’s office. The third floor, built under the eaves, is Heiko’s office, but since he doesn’t bring much work home, he intends to turn it into a lounge—someday. In the meantime, he explained, Ilka had made him clean it up and it was set up for me, with a comfortable bed in the corner and plenty of space.

I dumped my stuff and experienced the glories of a real shower—the first since I left home (Joseph’s home had a hand shower, but it wasn’t like having hot water pouring down on my head—oh, the joy!). Then lots of good coffee and fresh bread of all kinds, along with various cheeses, meats, jams and more. And Ilka brought out the black bread that she couldn’t find in the US. I think it really was my favorite—dark with sunflower seeds. After breakfast we drove back to Hamburg for the day.

So—driving. In many ways it really reminded me of the US—the roads are relatively wide (at least Chicago-wide, if not California-wide!) and there are several lanes. The cars are smaller than in the US, but not remarkably so—much like the US would look if we removed the SUVs. However—the autobahns are definitely different. Ilka drove at speeds ranging from 100-160 km/hour. And she was not the fastest on the road. I wasn’t afraid at all, but had I been behind the wheel, I would have been terrified.

The scenery again was both familiar and different. Fields of corn, wheat, barley. Cows and a few sheep. Potatoes, which I’ve never seen in bloom, and asparagus. Fields separated by trees and bushes, not fences. Oak trees, lots of oak trees, and some evergreens. It was vaguely Midwestern in feel, with a touch of Washington for good measure. The buildings though—not at all. Those pictures of European farmhouses? Like that. And the new construction (and there is a lot) carries the feel in the peaked roofs and in the kind of brickwork.

Hamburg is a port city with several rivers that feed into the harbor. So there are bridges and ships and buildings overlooking both. It feels a little like Chicago—comfortable with itself, beautiful in places, rough in others. The skyline is like no American city, though. What I noticed about it was the church spires—some new, some old. One was burnt in WWII and the blackened spire, still quite beautiful, remains. But it is the spires, not skyscrapers that define the landscape.

The first thing we did was to buy me some shoes, which turned out to be more difficult than I would have imagined. The “best” shoes were all very expensive, even without the euro-dollar conversion. After looking in four or five stores ranging from discount to the equivalent of Macy’s, I found a pair of comfortable sneakers designed for walking for only three times what I would have paid in the US. They don’t leak and, after several days of actually walking and walking and walking on them, I can attest to their comfort.

The one thing I had mentioned being interesting in seeing was the Jewish community. This turned out to be very difficult and ultimately unsuccessful, at least in actually meeting Jews. We took trains to the area near the university, where a new Talmud Torah had just been built. The old one had been destroyed during Kristallnacht, but remained standing. There was an open space between old and new. Here had stood a synagogue and the bricks of the square outlined where its rooms had been.

The new school was beautiful—new red brick, fresh paint, and a nice locked metal fence. There was a little guard booth with two policemen in it. I asked why—there had not been trouble in Hamburg, but other places, and they were taking no chances on vandalism. The guard told us the synagogue was but ten minutes walk away. Have no idea what stride he uses, but it took us at least twice that—and it began to rain. The synagogue was, again, surrounded by a fence with a bell and there were several guards. We could not get in, although it was clear that people were inside. In some ways it didn’t surprise me—not many Jews and somehow protected. The original guard had given us a phone number, which Heiko called on Monday—it was only possible to see the place on Friday and Saturday and only by pre-arrangement.

I am still thinking about this—the guards, the inaccessibility. In the US, my concern is how we publicize ourselves—that is, how we make ourselves open and welcoming. Yes, I know synagogues are vandalized (TBJ in Redwood City, the synagogue in Sacto a few years back), but these are events that are rare and ultimately the response of both Jewish and non-Jewish communities is to reach out, not to withdraw. In retrospect, it would have been very interesting to talk with the Jews of Hamburg, but I really didn’t set that up with enough care.

We had dinner at a pub, with very good dark German beer. Ilka recommended the matjes (herring) in cream sauce on a baked potato. I have only had herring from jars and found the texture rubbery and taste overly fishy, so I was a bit leery, but figured that a recommendation is a recommendation. What a difference fresh makes! The fish was tender and sweet and went extremely well with the beer, the potato, the sour cream and onions. Stuffed myself without shame!

Then the train to St. Michael’s church. It is a huge Lutheran church—I’ll try to find a picture link, because I can’t do it justice. Its belltower overlooks the whole of Hamburg, so we took the elevator up to the top. But it was coming down that was amazing. There we took the stairs. Coming up I hadn’t appreciated just how high up we had gone. But coming down seemed to go on for a very long time. And as we descended, the sound of bells tolling grew louder and louder. Eventually we passed four enormous bells—each the size of a small car—all tolling. The ringing vibrated the steps, my clothing, my entire body in a way that was both a bit frightening and absolutely encompassing. I really wanted a picture, but I felt too overwhelmed to linger.

From there we went to a prenuptial party—can’t remember the name of the party. The groom was a childhood friend of Heiko’s; the bride a German girl who had grown up in upstate New York. The ritual that was the excuse for the party was the breaking of ceramic (porcelain) plates as a symbol of good luck for bride and groom. (No, I don’t know why. And neither did Ilka or Heiko. Reminded me a bit of the Jewish tradition where the mothers-in-law break a plate between them…) There were salads—with meat and cheese, marinated vegetables, and barbequed sausages and pork cutlets. There was very little that I could eat—however, I really didn’t WANT to eat, still being full of delicious matjes and beer.

June 24—Bergen-Belsen

Bergen-Belsen was burned by the British after the war. It is, therefore, not a camp, but open meadow and trees. You enter through an exhibit that rehearses the history leading up to the Nazis and throughout the war. It was, I thought, a careful and thoroughly done narrative, neither excusing the Germans nor demonizing them, neither focusing exclusively on Jews nor ignoring the millions of others killed as well. The voices in the room were German—I heard no English except from our group. Outside, paths lead through the camp. The history itself was too familiar to move me much, but when I saw the stone memorial with stones from those who had visited heaped on top, I cried. I had no stones—and there were none around, but I felt the absence, as though I couldn’t quite connect, wasn’t quite respectful enough of the dead. The dead were buried in mass graves that are great huge mounds, each labeled: here lies 1000 dead; here lies 2500 dead, and so on. It is a terrible sight in one sense, but in another it feels like the dead are at rest under the trees and grass—that they make that place sacred and blessed. Sounds odd, I suppose—how can people who died in such circumstances bless the place? I don’t know. I think it comes from the effort to connect and to do t’shuvah on the part of the living. When I think of their memories being for a blessing, it is because when we remember and when we truly atone we are blessed by the dead.

June 25—Winsen

I went with Ilka to school in the morning. It was wonderful to see Ilka take charge of these six and seven year old children. Ilka begins the day with having them sit in a circle. They sing Frere Jacques in several languages: German, French, English, Spanish, Turkish. Then she introduces me, has them tell a bit about their weekend. They sit very quietly all through the end—as with any group of kids, some say a lot, some a little; some mumble and are unfocused, some look at the group with clear eyes and comfort.

When Ilka sends them off to work, they sit at desks set up in groups of four or six, similar to American school setup. The kids are remarkably similar and yet different from the kids in the US. Some of it has to do with stuff: The backpacks, for example, are shaped differently. Rather than being soft-sided, they have rounded plastic sides, and a plastic frame. The pencil boxes are different. But the activities and behavior is so very similar. I think they are more controlled, a bit more willing to take direction. It is a hard thing to put my finger on, though—just slight movements? Clothes?

I watched the first and second grade combo, then went to give an English lesson to the four grade students. They were at the “my name is… I am ….years old. I have…brother” stage, so I gave them a geography lesson in English (well, the teacher translated most of it…) Then I got to watch PE with another group of first and second grade kids. They ran most of the time. But most fun was “pulling carrots.” Here the kids lie down on the ground, face-up, in a circle with feet pointing out and head in, tightly holding hands. One kid tries to “pull” a carrot (kid) out of the circle. When you get pulled, you help pull the others and it continues until everyone’s been pulled out of the “ground.”

Finally went to the last lesson, third grade, and a lesson on food, which is where I learned how to say fruit (obst) and vegetables (gemuse). Yes, indeed, keep me in elementary school and I might learn to speak German…

Speaking, by the way, is really interesting. I can’t. I simply have no idea. Sometimes I think I’ve figured out a word, but most of the time I’m wrong. So I rely on the Germans I’m with to speak English to me and mostly they do. The kindness of strangers…

In the afternoon, Heiko’s parents brought me to their home—it’s over a hundred years old. Heiko’s mother’s family has lived in Winsen for several hundred years. It’s a very different mindset—I simply can’t imagine being that attached to a place. Anyway, she very much wanted a chance to practice her English and I was happy to oblige. We sat in her kitchen and I did a little bit here and there to help. It felt so good to be in a kitchen and preparing food. I do so much of it at home and it’s so much a part of what makes me feel competent…And there’s the bonding that happens around small tasks—cooking, cleaning, painting, gardening, physical tasks that engage the body and free the mind.

We had new potatoes, white asparagus, scrambled eggs, and strawberries. Yes, the strawberries are good…and the potatoes are remarkable!

After lunch, we tramped all around Winsen. More beautiful old buildings, including the church where Heiko and Ilka were married. And then, right at the end, she remembered the Jewish cemetery. Somehow I hadn’t thought that any Jews lived in these towns. I just figured they were too small to support a Jewish community. Yet there they were…several sets of gravestones, some dating back several hundred years. The cemetery was overgrown with grass, but the gravestones were upright and in good conditions. The ones from the 1850s had English on one side and Hebrew on the other. There were a few recent ones—that is, from the Shoah—but only a few. Still, under this peaceful village—somehow Jews were taken away. Heiko’s mother said the Jews from Winsen had attended synagogue in Luneberg, some miles away.

Heiko, Ilka, and I had been to Luneberg the previous evening for dinner. It is an old medieval town with beautiful brickwork—kind of braided in texture—and the copper roofs that seem to be everywhere. But I would never have guessed that Jews had lived there. Was there a cemetery, a synagogue, a Jewish quarter? I don’t know.

The whole experience is a bit unsettling. What am I looking for here? I don’t think I came with any real agenda, simply to see the places from which people I cared for and care about live. I want to see what they want to show me. Yet, the Holocaust still underlies the trip. I didn’t want it to, didn’t expect it to. I don’t hear it in the German language anymore, nor see it in the people on the street (except when I see someone who is stereotypically German in features). But there is a question in my mind—where did my people fit into this place? What happened to them? What does it mean to have lived in a city for 400 years as opposed to Jews, who were not secure in Europe?

Being a Jew in America is something I take for granted—I am comfortable with myself as both. I would not be comfortable as a Jew in Europe, I think. This is pretty fragmented, I’m afraid—needs more thought. I’d take comments, though…

Paris to Hamburg

2007-06-24T07:39:00.000-07:00

Written in Gare du Nord and on the train to Hamburg, June 22, 2007
Next installment, the end of June 20:
Left London on the Eurostar. When I entered my car, there was a family with four kids looking for their seats. The parents (Southern US accents) were discussing the fact that they had all the seats surrounding one and were hoping the occupant (me) would make a switch with one of their kids. I had specifically asked for the window seat because I really wanted to…get this, look out the window. So, while I didn’t mind sitting next to one of their kids, I really did mind giving up that window seat. Which I said, very politely. The father didn’t address another word to me. He ended up sitting next to and turned his body away from me the whole trip. The kids listened to ipods, played video games, and whined most of the trip. They did not look out the window. I did. What I saw was most interesting for what was not there—houses, people, animals. It was singularly deserted land, both going through Britain and France. There were trees and green plains that appeared to be fields (though I couldn’t tell what crops were being grown), but no animals, no people, and few buildings. I don’t really understand how this could be. I did doze off here and there, but it seems unlikely that the dozing would have corresponded so precisely to habitation. When I arrived at Gare du Nord, Joseph was there to meet me. He is short and a bit plump and rather difficult to understand. He has definite opinions about everything, starting with the fact (and it WAS a fact) that I should dye my hair so I would look younger than my mother. Otherwise, he said, I looked just like her, so he knew me immediately. He shepherded me through the rather daunting train station, explaining where we were going and cautioning me as we went. I didn’t understand more than a tenth of what he said or what the significance was. Eventually we made it to the suburbs, to his house, where his houseguests, a professor from Tucson and his family had made dinner for us. The professor and his wife are Indian, with their two high school age daughters, and the food was wonderfully spicy (can I describe the spices? Not a chance). However, as a special treat, they had prepared shrimp. Okay, so what do I do? I thought about eating it and just couldn’t do it. I thought about explaining that I don’t eat shrimp, but clearly Joseph was eating it and I didn’t want to embarrass him or get into a religious discussion. So, suddenly, I developed an allergy to shellfish. Not really a lie—I don’t think I could have eaten it—but it preserved everyone’s dignity, I hope.
Throughout the meal, Joseph explained to the girls how they should thank their mother for every single meal she prepares for them, then how they should be looking to get married (at 14 and 16!), then how they should be going into the city without their parents. The girls teased him back comfortably and so the evening ended.

June 21, 2007
Joseph had arranged for me to meet his daughter Laurence on Thursday. She was to take me to the Jewish Museum (never mind if I had intended to go elsewhere!). He put me on the train at 9:30 and headed back to work. I disembarked at Luxembourg, opposite the Gardens and was immediately taken back 19 years when Dave and I had visited Paris. We had stayed very near that station, in a great little hotel that served an amazing breakfast of baguettes, croissants, and café au lait every morning. What a way to wake up. And then Dave would head off to his workshop and I would head off to explore the city—and those gardens. Laurence is just a little older than Miranda—she will turn 24 later this year. She is Orthodox—like my cousins came to it as young woman—and is due to have a baby in a few months, so she was pretty unmistakable. She was quite serious the whole day and really pretty clueless about the city. I insisted on buying a map—I don’t mind being lost with a map, but without that…I’m really lost. And it was a good thing. I don’t think she really had a clue about the city. We ended up going the wrong way repeatedly. Eventually, we found the Jewish district and a LOT of kosher restaurants. Oh, and a lot of tourists. (In fact, throughout the time in Paris I think I heard more English—American and British, both—than French. Well, perhaps I exaggerate a touch. But only a touch.) Fantastic spinach quiche for lunch, then Laurence dropped me at the Jewish Museum.
Now, I had intended to go to the Musee d’Orsay and the Rodin Museum, then meet Maja for dinner. But really—what difference did any of it make? Laurence apologized for getting us lost and walking more than we needed to, but it meant I could take in the streets, the people, the buildings. I find describing the place difficult. It was both very much like the US and very different. The kinds of buildings—well, iron railed balconies, ornate windows, construction that is clearly very old simply doesn’t exist in the US. Unlike in London, there were few building cranes and, like part of London, there’s a lot of graffiti. Anywhere there is concrete—walls, pillars, embankments—on the train lines is covered in colorful paint. Much of the graffiti is well done, but the paintings speak to me of poverty and anger. I was trying to figure out why that was the case. Perhaps it is because graffiti is the art form of the underclass, therefore when I see it, I associate it with anger and despair. Or perhaps the artists really feel anger and despair and that comes through in the graffiti. Last year, in soc of culture, Ann showed an interesting documentary on graffiti filmed in NYC. In it, the artists speak about what they do as art, driven by pure love of creation—but implicitly or explicitly, they also speak of getting away with something in a world they perceive as being stacked against them. So perhaps both.
It was also interesting to observe the people. There were the obvious tourists with backpacks, cameras, and maps. Or, lacking any of those accoutrements, they walked in groups of two or three, or as families, looking around with unfamiliarity and interest. I really didn’t see any acting obnoxiously. In some ways, they (and me with them) remind me of babies learning about the world. The problem we have with tourists is that they (and we) don’t look like babies, so we expect adult behavior, meaning knowledge of the cultural rules. But that knowledge can’t come in a day or even a week.
But what I found really surprising, particularly in contrast to my visit years ago, was the change in shape. Like Americans, the French have gotten heavier. Not as heavy as Americans, but heavier in comparison to the past. And, as in America, it appeared that the poor are heavier than the well-to-do.
Oh—Jewish museum, right. It was terrific. Opened just ten years ago. It featured a temporary exhibition of Rembrandt painting, so there were a lot of visitors. What I really appreciated, though, was the permanent collection. It included the history of French Jewry, but also Jews of the Middle East. The curators tied the history and place together through language and ritual objects, showing how the first is used in both sacred and secular way to tie Jews together as a people, while ritual objects tie Jews together as a religion, but also tie them to the surrounding culture, whatever that might be. So the first room opened with six different Hebrew texts, ranging from Torah and Talmud to a modern, secular poet. There was a room of hanukkiahs from many different countries. Each different region had influenced the design—for example, some incorporated symbols of the zodiac; those from Muslim countries shied away from human or animal reproductions. The same was true for the ketubahs, the clothing, and so on.
One of the most interesting bits were sets of etching of different Jewish rituals from different times and places—circumcision and marriage, for example, in several places (including one of the glass being broken). Traveling light, so I didn’t buy a book (and the books didn’t capture the feel of the actual pictures) but I sure wanted some tangible remembrance.
One other thing that was brought out forcefully was how many times thriving Jewish communities throughout Europe have been destroyed. The lines from the Passover Seder about how many times our enemies have risen in the past to destroy us, but God has protected us came back to me as I stood in front of the cases. As a modern, rational American I always gloss over them, knowing the history at a theoretical level, but really not feeling it. In the context of the museum, two feelings—first just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you and then how that line is really a cry of pain and anger mixed with hope for the future.

After I left the museum, I took the train back to Gare du Nord (really a whole city of a train station) and went to get my tickets for the trip to Germany. That accomplished successfully, I promptly got on the train in the wrong direction. This became clear when the city gave way to open spaces and power stations and the people on the train felt a bit…dangerous. I was quite proud of myself—I figured out how to get reoriented and made my way back to Chatelet de Halles to wait for Maja in front of the Pompidou Centre. June 21 was a festival of music, a night where everyone in the city who wanted to make music could. And they did—some really good, some…not. I passed heavy percussion, a dance band from Serbia (and a guy watching tried to pick me up…go figure: first I get called sir, then someone wants to have dinner with me. Strange). The weirdest stuff though was that played by two groups dressed in full American Indian tourist regalia—war bonnet, deerskin jacket, and musical instruments to match. The music was not Indian, but kind of new age with an imagined Indian flavor. I found it offensive, actually, in the way it perpetuates stereotypes while claiming someone else’s culture (okay, so who owns culture?…that’s another question and I’m not going there now).
Maja and I had a dinner of crepes and sat talking under the shadow of Notre Dame until I thought it time to head back. With my unfailing memory and sense of direction, I got on the wrong train again. This one did get me back to Joseph’s house, but in a very circular way. So I was quite a bit later than planned. Nevertheless, he was up and quizzed me about my day—explaining to me how he had told what to look for and if I had only followed his instructions! I explained that I always get lost and so I simply expect that I will. It really does make life simpler—I feel so happy when I do it right the first time!
Then he decided to tell me why the Orthodox life his daughter has chosen is simply wrong because it is intolerant. He doesn’t believe in God and thinks that if God exists, he would kill Him (which seems a bit intolerant to me). Why? Well, he cannot reconcile the existence of evil in the world with God. More specifically, he listens to the stories of the Orthodox rabbis and rejects their interpretation of God—as do I! He told me two stories. The first was in answer to the “why bad things happen to good people” question and Joseph asked it because one of his siblings was born with Down’s syndrome. The rabbi explained this with the following parable: Once there was a farmer who had two donkeys. He let one go free and tethered the other. One day the one which ran free got into the crops and ate them all. The farmer then beat the tethered donkey. Why? If he had been free, he would have done even more damage. By analogy, the child born with Down’s syndrome would have done great damage if he had been born without handicaps. I shudder to think of the twisted mind that came up with this piece of reasoning. I understand the motive, but it is a terrible view of human nature and of God. What is interesting is that Joseph accepted the authority of the rabbis to define God and humanity. His response was to reject this view, but not to replace it.
The second story is of a person who was born comatose, remained comatose until he was twenty. When he was twenty, someone had a question about whether some meat was kosher or not. They brought it to him and asked his judgment, whereupon he woke up, said it was kosher, and promptly died. The explanation? Sometime before he was born, there was a great rabbi. He did all manner of good things and was well-respected. But once, just before Shabbat, an old woman came to ask him if a chicken was kosher. He was tired, it was late, to really look it over would take time, so he just said it wasn’t kosher. As a result, the old woman went hungry. When the rabbi died many years later, the heavenly judges were arguing about whether he was worthy of life in the world to come and the question of the woman and the chicken came up. The judges argued back and forth, then decided to send him back for one more chance, but to keep him “pure” to make him comatose. This time he chose right and died.
Joseph saw this story as being precisely like the other. I think it quite different—rather than explaining something bad, here the comatose man is simply a plot device to present two morals: 1) Even when you are tired, you may not shirk your responsibilities because your actions deeply affect others and 2) it is never too late to make amends, even after death. So I rather like this story and both morals. Joseph, though, saw only the comatose man on the bed, not either moral.
Very interesting conversation, both to understand some of his beliefs about the world and to think about the nature of tolerance. Joseph was angry that his daughter and her husband are not tolerant of others (although Laurence was quite sweet and clearly doing her very best to please her father—I mean, why else would she go out of her way to meet me?). Yet, in his anger, he was quite intolerant. This is the difficulty of pluralism—it requires the acceptance of those who don’t, who can’t accept your ways of doing things, although they might accept you. So my cousins accept and love me and, I think, even respect my Jewish striving. This does not mean that they can come to a Bar Mitzvah or a wedding—to do so would violate their beliefs and practice and it would be wrong of me to be hurt, to feel it as a personal slight.

June 22, 2007
How I got to Hamburg—or a very long journey!
I made it to Gare du Nord 45 minutes before the train to Hamburg was to leave and successfully negotiated my way through up to the Eurorail station in plenty of time—or so I thought. However, that turned out to be quite wrong. I knew that I had to have my Eurorail Pass validated, but could not figure out where to do it, though I searched and asked two people. Finally, about 20 minutes before the train was to leave, a Eurorail employee whose job was clearly to help confused tourists approached me. When I explained what I needed, she pointed to the ticket line. Now I hadn’t needed a ticket, so that hadn’t been where I expected to stand. It was a very long line full of people, you know, buying tickets. My problem was simple—a mere stamp. I asked if there was anyway to get it, as I would clearly miss the train if I really had to stand in the line. No, she explained, I should have arrived earlier (which I had done!). But I have a ticket—what will happen? I asked, near tears. She told me that my ticket would be refunded and I would have to get a ticket for a later train—very sorry, she said, but there is no other way to do it. Of course there were any number of ways to have done, but I was in France, the land of bureaucracy, where treating everyone the same takes precedence over any individual circumstances (for better or worse—in the US, we tend to let individual circumstances rule and that isn’t always for the better), so I got in line and waited. Eventually the train left without me. I told myself that the worst that would happen is that I would lost some time and money and this is what travel is, so deal. And I waited. And waited. I could describe the people standing in line with me—the Americans with their backpacks, the old woman wearing a long black coat, with white hair and flat feet who eventually was pushed to the front of the line where she took a very long time to complete her arrangements, the Egyptian family. And the whole time, I watched my bags because I began to see people who hung around the station, begging—but also, I believe, stealing.
On the trains, they would come in and give a little speech—“help me, I have no mother or father, I’m hungry, please, I’m sorry to bother you, but I need money.” And so on. I don’t know how true it was—by the time I was standing in line, they seemed to be a recognizable group. Joseph said they were gypsies and, indeed, from the young pregnant woman to the boys to the couple men, they had a similar furtive air that set them off from the crowds. In any case, I steered very clear of them. And in the train station, I watched my bags with care.
Eventually, I made my way to the front of the line. I explained the situation with some trepidation—I had already spent a good deal of money on the train and was absolutely convinced I would be spending more. Not the case. The young woman was brusque and clearly considered me to be an idiot, but quick and helpful. The only option was an overnight train to Hamburg, arriving at 7:15 the next morning. Oh, and it was only 19 euros, less than I had paid for the day train. I had no choice—I took it. And that gave me a full day in Paris. Where to go? Musee d’Orsay or Rodin?
When I got to Musee d’Orsay, the lines extended back to the metro station. By now I was quite hungry, it was raining and my poncho was in the bag I’d left in a locker (btw, the locker arrangements include baggage screening), and I was carrying a heavy backpack. But what could I do? Paris is full of restaurants and I began to walk aimlessly away from the museum. After a few blocks of walking in the drizzle, I discovered that my shoes had holes in them. The next restaurant I came to, I sat down, squishy shoes and all. And here I had the most wonderful salad Nicoise it has ever been my pleasure to enjoy. I didn’t even mind the couple sitting next to meet engaging in an animated conversation punctuated with flourishes from their cigarettes.
The rain stopped, I made my way out of the restaurant, and down the street to Rodin. Now this was absolutely wonderful. I just don’t think anyone can capture emotions the way Rodin does—resolution and despair, love, amusement, pain. And contrast between formal busts, the scenes from Greek mythology, the figures that told a story with emotion. I went first to the garden and wandered through the sculptures there. Then, when the rain came down again, I went inside, where there was special exhibit of Japanese prints and Rodin’s connections with Japanese art. I saw his drawings and, while very different from his sculptures, had a similar passionate quality. So, a good time.
I’ll not say much about the train ride—it was long and the train stopped often. I had a couchette, a room with six beds—two sets of three beds each. I had the top bunk, which was a little disturbing looking down. The train took off, stopping often throughout the night and starting again with horrible screeches that, at first, I took for some terrible calamity. By the third start, I was more or less used to it, and slept restlessly until we arrived in Hamburg where Ilka and Heiko met me.

First day or days--I really can't tell...also the directions come up in French!

2007-06-20T14:36:00.000-07:00

June 20, 2007

Jam-packed flight with everyone in a good mood. Lots of different kinds of people traveling—a large group of mostly high school age singers (and their parents) with matching t-shirts going to build good will by singing around Europe (I thought of Beth’s similar experience a few years ago). A less obvious group of Stanford MBA students on the way to celebrate graduating by checking out how the Russians do it. I talked with the spouse of one for a while. It was an interesting conversation. His wife is a pilot and he’s a firefighter. He described being the nurturing parent and how much he loves and misses their daughter (who isn’t along for the ride). I thought—yeah, just wait ‘til she leaves home if you want to experience missing your kids!

I’m realizing that there are a couple of questions that have already come up and will continue to:
One is: Why aren’t you traveling with your husband? This is actually an interesting question because it can mean so many things. It can mean precisely what it says. It can mean “Your marriage much be in trouble or you wouldn’t travel alone.” It can mean either “You should stay home to take care of your husband” or Your husband should come and take care of you.” Point being—it’s an oddity that needs to be explained. When I started planning, though, I didn’t think of what I was doing as unusual, simply pragmatic.
The other question is: Why do you want to learn Hebrew? This is much harder to answer, because I don’t really know why. I just know I want to do it. I want to be competent to speak and to understand—I feel inauthentic without that capability, somehow. I’m not even sure what I mean by inauthentic—as a Jew? As a scholar? I don’t know. And why this area in particular as opposed to intensive Talmud study, say? But “inauthentic” isn’t quite right, because I don’t feel like I’m going out inferiority, but out of love, out of pure love for the language. So I have no reason. It’s enough for me to really want it, without needing to explain it, but I know that we humans like explanations (which are really stories about our life and world) and not having a good “story” is a bit unsatisfying.

Below me are sharp mountain peaks poking out of glacier ice—Greenland. Looking at them, I can see why some have trouble believing that global warming is occurring. There is a serious amount of frozen stuff there—hard for me to look at that and believe it might vanish.
I tried to take a picture, but it didn’t work—I can’t get the flash to turn off. The sun has never set this whole trip. It dips below the horizon and pops back up. I missed all of Canada, sleeping and woke up over the Atlantic, a few minutes before coming up on the coast of Greenland. So the first pictures I took were of sunrise/set and of the islands and coast. And then we moved over land and the glaciers took over. For the last few minutes, we’ve flown over mountains peaking out of ice, and then low clouds, and now higher clouds. Something happened in me when the flight attendant confirmed that it was indeed Greenland. Somehow this great adventure became tangible. And we land in three and half hours…

Somewhat later…

I’m sitting on a bench overlooking the Thames. It’s an odd sight, actually. Tour boats are going up and back and every now and then the voice of a tour guide floats up unintelligibly, but with that edge of authority distinct to tour guides of every kind. The buildings on the other bank are such an odd mixture of new glass, old spires and domes, and everywhere building cranes. The weather’s also about perfect—blue sky with puffy clouds, a nice wind, and a temperature that is fine for either sitting or walking.
This is the “Thames walk,” and boy, people sure do. It’s lunch time and a hell of a lot of them are running past at various speeds. Lots of tourists meandering, and not a few people simply taking a break from work and eating. I walked down the Thames from the Jubilee Bridge to the (new) Globe Theater.
On the way, I stopped at the Tate Museum and took a tour at the Globe. I could do more—I have the time, but need a few minutes to absorb it all.
The Tate—one really interesting exhibit on cities. Nicely done, showing where the urban population comes from, how it’s distributed, how people get around. A 3-D “map” of population density illustrated how dense Mumbai and Cairo were (35,000 people/km²) as compared to LA (900 people/km²). How many people ride public transportation (7% in LA as compared to 70% in Tokyo (I think it was Tokyo)). Interesting stuff.
Then I wandered off to see the art, but what really interested me were the incredible number of school groups touring the museum. We’re not talking bored high school kids. We’re talking six year olds, sitting politely in groups, being made to pay attention (one little girl let her attention stray—she wasn’t doing anything, just not looking at the docent—and her teacher pulled her attention back to the front), but also actually engaged in learning. Older kids (say, ten) observing museum etiquette as they wandered about with sketch pads. And we’re talking boys as well as girls.

Continued down the road to the new Globe, where there were tons of school groups, all in different uniforms and many groups segregated by gender. I decided to go ahead and spring for the tour, largely because they were rehearsing and I wanted the chance to see how they did it. They were rehearsing the end of Merchant of Venice, which was a jolly jig. The guide explained that all of Shakespeare’s plays ended with a jig…there was a lot of competition, so you wanted to send your audience out dancing in the aisles, as it were. Which raises the “Shakespeare in Love” question: what happens when your two protagonists have offed themselves (as in R&J)? Or “that’ll have’em rolling in the aisles.” Well, it turned out that you just manage to dance around the bodies. In the case of Romeo and Juliet, the parents lifted up their dead children, had them join hands, and they participated in the dance. The docent assured us it was very effective performance. Oh, and in the case of Othello, they just pushed the bed with the dead bodies on it to the rear of the stage and danced in front of it. Yeah
Turns out this is the third Globe (the first burned down, the second was torn down by the Puritans). It was made as close to the original as legality allows (as in, the reed roof has been fireproofed!). The joints are held together, not with nails, but with wooden dowels. The walls are plaster and goat hair (go figure).
Othello and Love’s Labour’s Lost are both playing August 19, the one day I’m in London. I might just go…

Oh, and I didn’t really think I looked like a guy. Not once, but twice today I have been addressed as sir. Huh?

I'm posting from a suburb of Paris now, but too tired to fill in those details now.

Leaving for the airport in two hours....

2007-06-19T06:27:00.000-07:00

All ready to go. One itinerary, typed out and posted for Dave. One carry-on, complete with enough clothes--I hope!--all packed in neat ziploc bags. Hope that keeps everything together. Miranda sewed hooks onto a wrap-around skirt to make it wind-proof. I went off with her and bought a swimsuit and a few other things. Nice mother-daughter stuff. One backpack, also carefully packed. I talked to Deborah while organizing the various documents and copies into different labelled envelopes. I believe the word anal was mentioned. But I feel pretty calm and confident. Two months. Can't hardly believe it.

Getting ready: here's the plan

2007-06-16T12:31:00.000-07:00

Last night I dreamed that I was leaving and my mom took me to the airport to get my flight, but I couldn't find my ticket, then I did, but it was attached to other similar things--they were all like transparent honey packages, but with ticket info on them--and I couldn't figure out which was the right one. When I did, it turned out that I had only a few minutes to get to the gate and, of course, I was a LONG way away and the counter help tried but couldn't, although they thought the plane might be late. Then I realized I'd taken the fob for the car. And I was only half-packed. But, frantic as I was, I realized that I could solve the problems--send the fob back, buy clothes overseas. Then I woke up and thought, "Oh, I'm having a pre-travel anxiety dream right on schedule. How interesting!"

Here's the final plan:
Leave San Francisco on June 19, arrive in London early in the morning of June 20. Hang out in London til afternoon, then take the Chunnel train to Paris, where my parents' friend, Joseph will meet me and take me to dinner. I'll stay with him that night and the next. June 21, I'll hang out in Paris, then meet Maja for dinner. Very early the next morning, I'll take the train for Karlsruhe, Germany, and from there to Hamburg. It's a clunky way to go, but otherwise I have to go through countries for which I have no rail pass. And I don't really mind--I'll be seeing a pretty good chunk of Germany as I go.
I spend the weekend and Monday with Ilka and her new husband Heiko. Tuesday morning, June 26, I go to Bremen, where Miriam picks me up. On Wednesday, I'll observe her leading a meeting for work. Then Thursday morning, we take the train for Berlin, where we'll stay with her godmother until Sunday evening, July 1. Then I take the train to Nuremberg, meeting Maja and her mother. We'll stay there a day or two, then take the train to Munich, where I'll meet her father, as well. On July 4, I'll take the overnight train from Munich to Paris. That afternoon (July 5), back on the Chunnel train to London, where I meet my parents for dinner (my dad has a conference in Wales that ends that same day and they'll be heading through London on the way to visit friends in Scotland) and a few hours of rest before I board the plane for Israel VERY early on July 6.
I'll go directly from Ben Gurion airport to my single dorm room at the University of Haifa. Classes begin on Sunday, July 8, and end on August 2. In addition to the Ulpan (and I'm really looking forward to being immersed in Hebrew), the program includes many side trips--to Jerusalem, to the Galilee and Tzfat, and I can't remember where else. But I haven't made plans for my last couple of weeks because I figure it will be easier to do when I'm there and have talked to people. In the meantime, I've gotten names of friends of friends and family, so we'll see...

Oliver Twist

2007-06-13T12:31:00.000-07:00

Last night we went to Oliver Twist at the Berkeley Rep. Very interesting production--reminded me of Nicholas Nickleby in the multiple forms of narrative, the doubling and tripling of characters, and the incorporating of scene changes into the action.
The promo describes the adaptation as:
"Inspired by the vivid world of the Victorian music-hall, Neil Bartlett’s staging of Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist uses the original language of Dickens’ novel to dramatize one of the most deeply felt stories ever written about childhood. A cast of unforgettable characters brings the underworld of 19th-century London to thrilling life—a city teeming with danger and fear—all seen through the eyes of an astonished child."
So that Victorian music-hall was represented by a stage that was a wooden box full of things that popped up, doors and trapdoors on all surfaces that opened and closed in multiple ways, signs and banners that hid the stage for just a moment.
One of the actors was a superb violinist who used the violin as his part in the chorus--he was one of Fagin's crew for the most part. But all the actors became a Greek chorus throughout--even singing or chanting Dicken's words when appropriate.
Oliver was portrayed as the "principle of goodness" and I really got that he wasn't a person, simply a principle around which the other characters reacted--Fagin wants to use that goodness to make a profit, Bill simply doesn't care, Nancy wants to save him (and, actually, she is the character that changes the most around that principle), and so on. But the character isn't really a person, just an ideal.
The story was told through reading from the book (the same character who played Artful Dodger did the reading) while the characters acted or posed, through the chorus and pageant, and through acting. And the play progressed and the Artful Dodger became more character and less narrator, the book narration faded out.
Having trouble finding more to say--really should have posted this last night when it was fresher, but so it goes...

Beginning

2007-06-13T09:44:00.000-07:00

This is a test of sorts. Who can read this? And here are a few quotes about travel:

"Unusual travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God."
- Kurt Vonnegut

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeing new landscapes, but in having new eyes."
- Marcel Proust

"A man travels the world in search of what he needs and returns home to find it."
- George Moore

"All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware."
- Martin Buber