133 יום

Coming back to Israel proper from Bethlehem was really interesting. I've heard so much and read so much and talked so much about checkpoints and the wall. Well here they are:

Seriously Obama, You're o.k. with this?

Merry Christmas to the World from the Bethlehem Ghetto

132 יום

First of all Merry Christmas to everyone!!! I'm just getting used to saying it. Of course just  in time to not need it anymore. Obviously, the phrase isn't of much use in Israel.

After 126 days (If I counted correctly) living in Tel Aviv, I am home. It's been a long time since I wrote anything. Don't worry, that doesn't mean I'll overwhelm you, at least not in this entry. Pretty much what happened was when December hit, I could count the days I had left. You know me; I am always thinking ahead. AKA I couldn't keep it out of my consciousness that I was leaving in X number of days. So, honestly, I didn't want to use the time to write. I tried to spend as much of my last three weeks exploring, sitting in cafes, going out, as often as I could with my Israeli friends. So, really there's not much to say about these last weeks in terms of what I did. I'll get to thoughts later. For know I'll put up some pictures from my last excursion: The Temple Mount and Bethlehem, Palestine.

Nitya in front of the Dome of the Rock (site where Abraham laid Isaac to sacrifice him to God)

The Modern town of Bethlehem

The Altar marks the supposed spot Christ was born

Outside the Church of the Nativity

106 יום

So this past weekend was phenomenal. Since September, I've been thinking about Thanksgiving, which is probably my favorite American holiday. We've been planning for about a month now trying to figure out where we could do it (we don't have kitchens and needed to be able to fit 30 people potentially) and we finally figured it out . . . pretty much the morning of. Guy got a friend of his to let us use his apartment, we spent all week getting everything we needed (cranberries and canned pumpkin turned out to be unfindable), and cooked the turkey in the hostel (definitely not normally allowed). We had to wait til we finished classes (like 3 pm) and then scrambled. I can't believe we pulled it off! Here's how it turned out:

 And after this one, I did another for my Israeli friends. Again, great fun and it was of course new for them, so that added to the excitement of it. They're now huge apple pie fans. I spent the afternoon shopping in the Shouk which was the funnest way to grocery shop, buying one thing from this vendor and that from the other. May I add that turkey is not easy or cheap to get. Our kosher turkey cost 215 sheckels or $60. And I had to order it in advance. I can whole-heartedly say it was worth it though!

105 יום Part ב

So I also want to mention a short experience I had in Turkey that really affected me. Our tour group on the second day had people from all over the world in it: Italy, Switzerland, the UK, us, India, and a Lebanese girl. I was really interested in asking the Lebanese girl about her country. It was the best I could do since I didn't get to go. So I asked her about politics and society and it was really interesting to hear her talk about all the religious divisions we talked about in class. Apparently they are very real. What really hit me though was when when she asked me "So your family has Jewish friends?" I had told her we were studying in Israel, so I guess that's why she asked. I told her of course, that Jews are some of my best friends. She told me she could never be friends with a Jew because you can't trust them. She told me there is this proverb in Lebanon "Eat at the house of a Jew, sleep at the house of a Christian" AKA, you can't trust Jewish people enough to let your guard down in their house. So I asked her if this is the general feeling in Lebanon. She said definitely among Christians (She herself is Christian) because the Jews killed Christ.

We've talked a lot about anti-Semitism in English classes growing up, reading Anne Frank and Elie Weisel's Night, In history classes talking about the Holocaust, and in my History of the Yishuv class here. That was the first time I stared it in the face.

105 יום Part א

So I want to throw in some short little posts to give you a wider scope of my time in Israel. So, as you all know how much I love music, I want to throw in a few of the songs that I will forevermore associate with this trip.

These first two I heard at least 5 times a day for the first month we were here. Apparently, lots of people abroad did, so maybe it's just an everywhere-but-America thing. Neither is Israeli, but to me they will always be the Israel songs:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkjljBNTLs4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-Z3YrHJ1sU

This next one is Israeli, specifically Mizrakhi (AKA. Middle Eastern Jewish, think of it as thee Arab Jews. Yes they do exist, although most of them live here now since their countries kicked them out when Israel was established.) Most of my Israeli friends hate this stuff, but it plays everywhere all the time, so maybe it's just them. I LOVE IT!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvBIz9rJDm0&feature=related

This last one is a song from one of the movies we watched in Israeli cinema called Yossi and Jagger. I was obsessed with it for about a week.  It's a cover by Ivri Lider of a song by Rita, a Persian Israeli who represented Israel in the Eurovision song contest.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BtK9cSjAiY

The last ones are some local TLV talent whose concerts I went to see this semester.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZY5eJi79sOI&feature=related
http://www.myspace.com/igotthehotties

100 יום

Wow, day 100. I just counted and realized. I suppose it is appropriate that after 100 days of living in Israel I have many little experiences that I haven't included that I want to throw in. First, I'm going to throw up some pictures for you of my trip this past weekend of the north and share with you what I experienced there. I'll get to the rest after this post. Our trip took us through Galilee to Nazareth, the Sea of Galilee, Kibbutz Degania (the first world's kibbutz), and Capernaum and then through the Golan Heights to Nimrod's Fortress past Mount Hermon along the Lebanese Border to Tel Hai and then to Acco (Acre in English).

Galilee

Today's Nazareth

The 4th Grotto commemorating the Annunciation

The house of St Peter

The Sea of Galilee (where Jesus walked on water)

Israel and Lebanon

Lebanon at nightfall

The Arch Cave

Acco

So that was my trip. I think I win my own prize for brevity this time. Unfortunately, there is more to it that this.  There were two experiences I had this weekend that really affected me.

The first was when we stopped by a kibbutz in Tel Hai literally on the Lebanese border (the picture of Lebanon at night was taken from there). We met with an American who made Aliya many years ago to this kibbutz. This whole time, I've wanted to meet someone very right wing. I didn't come to Israel to preach or to have my views reaffirmed. On the contrary, I came to have them challenged. Well that has finally happened. I realized this guy was not your typical politically correct American when the muezzin started calling and his response was "Don't worry, that's just their evening prayers. They think it helps them but it really doesn't." From there he told us a bit about his story coming to Israel and falling in love with his kibbutz and defending it in 2006 when Hezbollah attacked from just across the fence. I knew it wasn't going to be fun or easy, but I had to ask him "why". Why did Israel need to be its own country? Why don't the Palestinians deserve a state? What right did Israel have to become a country in 1948? Did the UN have the authority to do so? It's not that I didn't have answers to these questions; I just wanted to know what his answers would be. He proceeded to tell me that the Jews have always been in Palestine, that the Jewish National Fund had legally purchased much of the land settled, that the Palestinians are a made up ethnicity and that they are really Syrian, that they didn't want peace or a state, that's why they didn't accept Camp David in 2000, that now that Israel exists, there are no more pogroms, that he will do anything to ensure Israel's continued existence, and that he is so frustrated and angry at the Palestinians that while he would've let them have the territories in 48 or even 67, now, he isn't interested in giving them back. 

A lot of what he said is true, but not exactly all. Even though I had wanted to hear this, I was very bothered by what he said. I think there are two reasons. The first one took me a while to figure out. This man was so incredibly sure of himself and of what he believes. I am not. When someone has this kind of certainty, it shakes me. Instead of questioning them, my automatic assumption is to question myself and my beliefs. My consideration of his extremist views was shocking - to the point where I would call it an ideological crisis. Have you ever questioned your beliefs to a point where you almost can't bear it? Where you feel like the rug has been pulled out from under you and you've landed smack on your face and you don't know how to pick yourself back up? He had a response to all of my questions - a justification for everything he believes that I could not contradict. On some level, I can understand where he is coming from. When I imagine myself growing up in an anti-Semitic area with the trauma of the Holocaust in my immediate past and a present where my very existence is under threat and where I fell I've tried to make peace and have only gotten intifadas in return - I can imagine thinking as he thinks. I have never been able to understand the Zionist perspective until now and it is shaking everything I have thought about this conflict. I guess I got what I wanted. I finally understand this conflict better, not on an academic level, but on a human level.

I think the other thing that bothered my was that I felt like he labelled me, personally, as part of the enemy. He said things like "I will make sure that you do not take this away from me." Now, while he most likely did not mean me personally (the results of the English Universal "you" being the same word as the 2nd person "you"), the fact that he said you and with such aggression, it felt personal. He turned me into an enemy of the State of Israel, a place I have come to love, a place I have come to feel where I might finally belong. He took that away from me. I wanted to tell him that I'm not trying to take anything from him, that I just wanted to understand. But I couldn't get him to see that, or if I did, I couldn't tell. Any of you who know me well, know that I don't deal well with aggression. I kind of just shrink away and freeze. I haven't felt that threatened in a long time and it was more than I could handle. I left that experience just wanting to disappear, leave my mind behind and float away.

The other experience I had that impacted me was on our last day as we were in Acco. We were supposed to have a guided tour around the city, but as always, were were running late. Most of us would've been fine with getting back a bit late to Tel Aviv. But of course, there were those that disagreed. They were the minority, probably 6 out of 25. But they were also the squeaky wheel. So we left early and didn't have the tour. I couldn't believe it. We had come here to see the city, to experience Israel, or at least that's what I thought. Apparently, not everyone had that as a priority. It was unfathomable that not only did those kids not want to see the country they bothered to come 7000 miles to live in for four months, but that they didn't care in the slightest that the rest of us did want that. I couldn't believe Guy let them win. But in the end, I couldn't believe I let them win. Those of us who wanted to stay said nothing until it was too late, until the decision had already been made, and those who spoke won. I've never been good at standing up for myself. I'd rather avoid the confrontation. I realize now that some fights are worth having.

So that's what I have to say about this trip. It was a very emotionally draining one, but I learned a lot - about myself and about other people.

91 יום

So I just finished putting up the pictures from my last post, but I really need to put this up to vent/remember how this went because it's the kind of moment that is really coming to influence me here. To be honest, I'd also be interested to see how you react to this also.

So yesterday at breakfast, we were trying to figure out what a group of Israeli children that's been here 2 days is doing here. Someone guessed that they may be a religious Jewish group. But that was quickly ruled out because one was taking pictures and it was shabbat (the religious don't use electricity). One girl on our program didn't know about that, so I explained it to her. "That's silly" was her immediate reaction. Now to be honest, I get that, but I tried to explain to her along with a few other people that it's historically important to have a day of rest and even in a modern context that it can be nice to spend a day not worrying about the mundane (FB, cell phones, laptops, etc) worries of the rest of the week and spend time doing what you usually ignore during the week(ie read, spend time with family, play a sport or game, etc). But all she could do was go on about how it's silly to impose rules upon yourself like that. "No you don't understand" I said.  Her reaction "I'm not having this conversation that starts with 'you don't understand'" and she gets up in a huff and leaves.

Here's my question: why is it easier for the left wing to understand a man who blows up a bus full of innocent people because of what he believes in than to understand a man who takes a day of rest because of what he believes in?