Hi Everybody,
Last time I checked in was more than a week and a half ago, making this the longest time I've gone without posting. It's been absolutely insane here because of finals and the fact that the internet at my building has died, so I'm writing this post from the library at Hebrew U. This post is going to be long, I don't have any pictures, so do with it what you will. I'm not going to shorten it because I have more to talk about, so skim around if you want to save yourself time.
I'll start with last Thursday (the 16th). After school, I hung out with some friends for a while, but Thursday night was very cool. I went to the Science Museum and the Israel Museum FOR FREE with one of my staff members and a friend. I had already been to the science museum, so I won't talk about it, but the Israel museum was insane. First off, it's massive. When I say massive, I truly mean massive. In roughly an hour and a half there, we saw about two thousand exhibits, ranging from art, to photography, to a super slow motion video of a bullet going through and exploding a hanging pomegranate. While large portions of the Museum were closed (since it was open late and they weren't charging anything), I still feel like I saw some incredible things. If you're ever in Jerusalem, go.
As I mentioned in my last post, I was going to spend the weekend with Yehuda Katz, a longtime student of the late Shlomo Carlebach (for those of you who don't know who he is, he is the guy who wrote the melodies for a HUGE amount of prayers Jews sing during services). I was very, very excited for it, and to say the least, it was not what I expected it to be.
On Friday, my friend and I got to the central bus station knowing which bus number we needed to catch, but when we asked where that stop was, we were misinformed. By the time we figured out where we needed to be, we were stuck waiting in a long line to get into the central bus station building, and we got the gate right as the bus was pulling away--without us. I called up Yehuda, and he told us which bus to take to get to the point where people going into his town get off the bus and hitchhike into town. His son was going to meet us there. We took the bus he said and got off at the stop we were specified to go to. While we both assumed that hitchhiking to that town was a realyl sketchy operation that would be virtually impossible for two Americans to pull off, we were shocked to find that as we were sitting on a bench on the sidewalk, car after car rolled down their windows and asked if we wanted a ride to Takoa. I asked Yehuda's son (who of course named 'Shalom') if that was a normal thing to do, and he responded that its how everybody gets from Jerusalem to Takoa. I assume now is as good of a time as any to mention that Takoa is a settlement in the West Bank. For those of you who haven't heard about the controversy of the settlements, I highly recommend you do a little bit of research after reading this post, since it's a very interesting controversy.
When we got to his home, we were instantly awed by his view. Through his window, we could see both the Herodian (one of Herod's fortresses from roughly 2000 years ago) and the view of the gorgeous barren desert. The house itself was stylistically Middle Eastern plus Santa Fe and was stunning.
Upon entering the house, we met his wife, who is your classic spiritual hippy who was among the most interesting women I've ever had the privilege to meet. We also learned that the two of them have 6 children and got to meet 4 of them. Since both of the parents are Americans who made Aliyah 17 years ago, at home they speak English while the children all speak Hebrew at school and amongst themselves. It was interesting to note the bilingual atmosphere of the household.
When Yehuda came down the stairs, he looked exhausted, and we remembered that the day we were there was a minor fast day. He was well mannered, but not quite as peppy and talkative as he had been when he did a program for Nativ. After services that night, we partook in a 5 course feast--and found out that they eat like that every Shabbat. It was fascinating for us to see that this guy who plays gigs all over the world with his band and is now promoting his solo music (which I've shamelessly plugged continually for the last two weeks) is just 'Dad' at hom, the guy who has to clean up the dog pee when it goes in the house. After dinner, we played games, read books, and my friend and I had a total blast making up a story out of their 10-year-old daughter's silly band collection. It was absolutely hysterical. The highlight of the night happened when Yehudah's wife was reading a newspaper, and she came across an ad for one of his upcoming performances. She showed him the ad, he smiled, and that was it. The kids didn't react, he wasn't surprised, and no one (except for my friend and I) was even remotely starstruck. It was interesting.
On Saturday morning, instead of waking up to go to services (which we intended to do), we woke up at about 11, just in time for Kiddush and then lunch. Again, we ate a massive feast that was completely delicious in every way shape and form. In the afternoon, we played some more games with the very peppy 10 year old while the rest of the family napped. One of the highlights of the afternoon was getting the chance to study a bit of Torah with Yehuda. He is so knowledgeable about different Jewish texts that hearing him connect various lines to various laws and stories was a fascinating thing to watch and listen to. His perspective is so grounded in Jewish tradition that hearing him talk about it is fascinating.
After Shabbat ended, we did Havdallah, and then we spent a good hour and a half just sitting and talking to Yehuda's wife. Her life story was so interesting as almost everything she did was based on her following her gut feeling and doing whatever felt right to her at the time in which she made her various decisions. Hearing her talk about how she came from New York and found her way to LA and then to Jerusalem was completely fascinating.
When it was time for Yehuda to go to his gig in Jerusalem, my friend and I piled into his car, and we had a really interesting conversation about life in the West Bank, which I'm going to try to tell you about now. The conversation began as we drove downhill a steep road with no street lights. When I asked him why there were no lights, he explained that the Palestinian Government didn't see the need to build street lights, and the Israeli government doesn't worry about it since Palestine has control over the area (even though the Israeli government still rules). While there are areas in the West Bank that are not particularly safe for Jews, within his settlement, there is not any aspect of danger to be seen. Every family leaves its door unlocked since it is a gated community and no one who doesn't live there will be able to come in. As I asked him questions about his interactions with Arabs in surrounding villages, he explains that contact is very minimal as it mostly takes place at supermarkets, and that there is an attitude of live and let live amongst the people who live in the West Bank. The settlements themselves, while controversial, are being built since large plots of land in the West Bank are dirt cheap and building projects cost far less than they do in the major (more expensive) cities. As our car sat in the line to go through the military checkpoint from the West Bank into Jerusalem proper, Yehuda spoke a bit about his experiences at these checkpoints. We watched a truck driver have to get out of his truck, open the back, and watch soldiers go in and search, yet our car was waved right through since we had an Israeli license plate (which is different from the Palestinian plate). The moral of this paragraph is to tell everyone who reads the news about what life is like in Israel, especially as it regards safety and security, that nothing is as the media explains it to be. ESPECIALLY in a place as controversial as Israel. Like with previous things, I'm happy to answer questions if you want to ask them.
He dropped us off at the bus stop and continued on his way to the gig he was playing that night. Before we got out of the car though, he extended a sincere invitation to join him for another Shabbat at some point, so we will MOST DEFINITELY be taking him up on that offer.
This post is just beginning...so keep going everyone.
The last school week was not all that exciting as lots of time was spent in class and in the library, and very little exciting things happened. Sunday (the 19th) was among the most exhausting days ever. I had class from 10:30-2:30, I spent nearly 5 hours in teh library doing research for one of my papers, and then I went to one of my teachers' house to have a makeup class session. I left his house at 10:15 and crashed upon getting home. Monday was a pretty normal day. I had class for a while, came home, wrote a REALLY epic song about Jerusalem (I'll record it as soon as I can and try to get it up on iTunes soon), then went back to class. Tuesday was the same routine of going to class, spending a lot of time in the library, and coming home exhausted.
For our Tuesday night program, we talked about the right of Jews in the Diaspora to influence Israeli life and politics. It was interesting to see how differently people in my group view diaspora-Israel relations. It was also interesting to notice how my own personal views have pretty much flip flopped since getting to Israel 4 months ago.
Wednesday and Thursday had literally only one exciting thing between teh two days: on Wednesday afternoon, I came back from school only to find a girl who was on my bus on an Israel summer program two years ago and went on Nativ last year sitting in the lobby at Beit Nativ. We had a lot of fun catching up and I thoroughly enjoyed hearing about her experience from Nativ last year as she has already done so many of the things that we are preparing to do now. It was also interesting to note that just as our experience is completely shaped by the people who are on the program with us, hers was totally different than ours just by virtue of the people.
Now I'm getting sick of writing, so I'll talk about this weekend in a more quick manner.
I spent this past weekend with my staff member's family in Ramot, a neighborhood in Northwest Jerusalem with 3 boys from the kibbutz track. It was a blast to see how he interacted with his family, and to see the general environment he came from. On Friday, we went to services at a very Carlebach style Shul, and I LOVED the service. I was sitting by myself since I was the only girl from our group going to services at the orthodox shul, so I got to have a completely different experience than I'm normally used to, which was a lot of fun. After services, we came back to his house and enjoyed dinner with his family, the four of us, two of his mothers closest friends, and his family friends from Chicago. There were two languages flying around the table at all times, and I was proud to understand a lot of it. After dinner, we played a really funny game of the Jewish Version of Apples to Apples, and had a really funny time trying to translate some of the cards into Hebrew. Shabbat day was vary low key. We went to shul in the morning, and were amazed at the brisk pace of the service. It is no doubt that services in the states (at conservative congregations at least) are too long, so going to a service that gets everything done in literally an hour and a half is quite refreshing. We got back to my staff member's house and helped prepare some of the appetizers for lunch. After eating yet another incredible meal, we enjoyed some very much needed afternoon naps. Upon doing havdallah that night, we left to head to the bus stop to go back home with a container of his mothers leftover cholent in hand. To say the least, we'll be eating well this next week.
I should probably mention that this past Shabbat was Christmas, and literally, all of us forgot. We remembered to say Merry Christmas at the table in the morning, but we all laughed as we realized how irrelevant Christmas is here. Some of my friends went to Midnight Mass at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, but I was out for the weekend so I didn't.
Today, I woke up, took a final (which was embarrassingly easy for the amount I studied), and am now sitting in the library trying to motivate myself to finish my paper. I'm blogging instead.
This week marks the last week of my stay in Jerusalem as on Thursday, I get on a flight to Spain and then a week later I'm off to Rome. By the beginning of February, I'll be on a Kibbutz.
I'll check in before I go to Europe, and until then, Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year!
Becca
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