A Frum New World?

Hi Everybody,

Last time I checked in, I was attempting to explain a really hectic week. I got tired half way through the post and I said that I would continue it within the next few days. I need to stop making commitments about this blog, because the fact of the matter is that I was way to busy/tired to work on finishing that post. Having said that, I will continue it now. Thanks everyone for being patient.

Before I go on and talk about Thursday, I want to reflect a little bit about (C)han(n)uka(h) in Israel. In the states, from Thanksgiving through New Years, all you hear about is Christmas. It's all over the radio, all over the streets, in every store window, and in everybody's greetings ('Merry Christmas' [or for us P.C. folks, 'Happy Holidays']). Every young Jew has at some point looked at his or her parents and asked why there aren't (C)han(n)uka(h) decorations everywhere only to hear some inadequate response that leaves the child wondering why she still doesn't know all the words to 'Jingle Bell Rock.' In Israel, I wonder if the Christian kids ask their parents the same thing about Christmas. While the radios don't play (C)han(n)uka(h) carols (as they don't really exist in the same way), the streets are covered in decorations, every storekeeper has a Chanukiah in her window, and cars with giant Chanukiot attached to the roofs drive around the streets with chipper (C)han(n)uka(h) music blasting. I'm going to attach a few pictures of some of these decorations in addition to some pictures of candle lighting and other festivities that happened during the holiday here. I'll mention that I realize that the pictures aren't showing up in the emails that some people are getting, and if that is the case again here, just click on this link so you can see the pictures: http://beccarosenthal.blogspot.com/

This is the Channukiah I made and lit during the holiday

Two of my friends lighting their candles. I don't know what made the camera do this, but I thought it was cool.

This is on most every street pole in the streets surrounding where I live

One of our staff members. I found this picture too funny to not show everyone

This is the only picture I got of one of the cars with a Chanukiah on top of it. I'm sorry that you can't really see what's going on.

Last weekend was the final of three consecutive weekends in Jerusalem in which the museums and many other cites in the city decided to be open very late on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights.Thus, on Thursday night, a bunch of friends and I decided to go to the science museum in Jerusalem. While I don't tend to like museums, I found this one very cool. The coolest exhibit was one on deep sea life. I took a bunch of pictures of their pictures of things that live at very deep depths. Here are a few of my favorite pictures of strange looking deep sea creatures.





thursday - school, science museum




I spent the weekend in a community called Nof Hayalon which is a small Ultra Orthodox neighborhood about 10 minutes out of Modi'in. My friend and I were hosted by a family with two Ba'al Tshuvah (not born religious) Belgian parents and two kids (12 and 6). It was like being dropped in an Orthodox Utopia. The family left its doors unlocked since the community is made up of roughly 300 families who all know each other. On Friday night, we went to services at one of the four shuls in the village and were interested to see that all four of the synagogues were directly adjacent to one another. After services, literally the entire community was outside socializing. It was quite the sight to see.

After a delicious dinner with the family, we went to a community meeting that was talking about the effect of the outside secular world on the community, especially the kids. This meeting was really interesting for a few reasons, and as normal, I'm just going to use my handy dandy list to explain it to you.

1) It was all in Hebrew, and though I had an American woman sitting next to me to help translate, I actually didn't need her much as I understood pretty much everything. For those of you who have ever tried to learn another language and understanding it when spoken by people speaking quickly and without enunciation, you will realize that this is a big deal. I was quite proud of myself.
2) The men and the women were sitting separately. This is due to modesty principles, and while I was a bit shocked at first, I found a lot of benefits to this system. The women were all having a ball whispering comments to their closest friends who were sitting conveniently right next to them, and since both men and women were on the panel and both men and women were asking questions, there was nothing even remotely sexist about the set up.  It was just how it was.
3) As far as the content goes, it was fascinating. The village is strictly Ultra-Orthodox, so everyone dresses according to religious modesty laws, everybody keeps Shabbat, and everybody keeps strict Halacha (Jewish law). Having said that, people work in the non Religious world, and thus people are exposed to things that aren't in accordance with their religious principles all the time. The questions raised mostly had to do with kids, in terms of what movies they could watch, what games they should play, and where they should be able to spend free time. Though it seemed like paranoid banter, when I thought about the fact that in this culture boys and girls don't physically touch anyone of the opposite gender except for their immediate family members, the kids don't see people wearing low cut shirts or skirts, women don't wear pants (they only wear skirts), and violence/drugs/other things movies expose kids to are going to be totally shell shocking to these kids, it becomes more apparent why this type of exposure is feared. It was fascinating for me to try to view the world in which I live through a totally different lens.
4) Israelis love to yell at each other even when they aren't fighting. I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but Israelis are not known for their manners. Consequently, it's no surprise that when they are having a heated discussion, they aren't exactly mildly mannered. Having said that, after a long yelling battle between two fully grown men, there is no tension, no feelings hurt, and no change in their relationship. It is completely perplexing.

On Saturday morning, my friend and I expected to be woken up to go to Shul in the morning, but when we looked at the clock upon waking up and saw that it was 11:30, we had a feeling that Shul probably wouldn't happen. We got ourselves dressed right in time for lunch. After finishing eating, the family decided that they wanted to sing some shabbat songs, and one of the funniest song sessions I've ever participated in began. It started off with the 12 year old daughter deciding that she wanted to sing "Mi Yimallel", the Channukah song, in a round. Unfortunately, 2/3 of the family is totally tone deaf and can't keep a rhythem. She decided that the parents would start the round, followed by my friend and me, and then she and her friend would join in. She and her friend never started singing, though, since they were too busy laughing at her poor father who couldn't figure out the round to save his life. For those of you who don't spend large portions of your lives singing in rounds, I'm sorry, since you are really missing out. It's quite entertaining. We spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out, shmoozing with the family, and watching in awe as this 12-year-old girl had friends running in and out of the house all afternoon. After Havdallah that night, we were driven back to Modi'in, and we hopped on a bus back to Jerusalem. The weekend got me thinking in a really interesting way.

While I can't honestly say that I could picture myself becoming Frum (Ultra Orthodox), I can say that there are a lot of aspects of Frum life that I could really see myself being a part of. Firstly, the amount of love and support that the whole community has for everyone else in the community is so apparent. Everyone knows everyone else; one person's simcha (joyous occasion) is everyone's simcha. Furthermore, the feeling of a real quiet shabbat is magical. Imagine an entire day without a sound of a car going by--once a week every single week. It sounds like heaven. The weekend definitely got me thinking about the kind of community I want to live in when I'm older.

Sunday and Monday were both non-eventful, and since this post is long, I'm only going to mention one crazy thing: THE WIND IN JERUSALEM WENT CRAZY! For nearly the entire day on Sunday, winds were ranging from 30-45 mph. Street signs were blowing everywhere, trees were horizontal, and people were getting blown off course left and right. I did a wall sit into the wind at one point. It was absolutely nuts.

Tuesday was an average day, but on Tuesday night, our program watched a very interesting movie called 'Trembling Before G-d'. It has to do with the issue of homosexuality in the Orthodox tradition. The documentary interviewed many gays and lesbians who are attempting to live according to a tradition that tells them that being gay is a sin punishable by death. It is a fascinating Documentary, and I highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in the conflict between Religion and morality.

Today (Wednesday) was a very productive day as I went to class, worked for a few hours between classes, and then went to another class. After school, I had dinner with Rachel Heinstein in Talpiyot.

As this post is very long and I'm sure you are all as tired of reading as I am of writing, I'll just say that the next post is going to be an interesting one as well (I hope) as I am spending my weekend with the guy in this video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1F0dqkRC6g8&feature=youtube_gdata_player

I'm so excited!
Becca