Journey to the North, Part 3

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On the way back to Jerusalem, we decided to stop in Netanya at IKEA Israel to purchase some housewares for our new apartment. Now, how can I describe Ikea in Israel...? Ok, picture this: You’re in your local Ikea. There'sthe children’s playroom; the furniture on display; the single direction layout; the big, bold signage; the restaurant; the marketplace; the snack bar. Now, picture that the signage is in Hebrew and the restaurant and snack bar serve non-dairy ice cream because they’re kosher, and you have Ikea Israel. My Swedish roommate was sad to miss out. They just love that Ikea, and I guess he wanted to feel like he was home again. I know that’s how I felt.

Paul took this picture of the Ikea sign in English and Hebrew.

Eventually, with tons of housewares in tow, we arrived back to Jerusalem and caught a bus and then a taxi to the new apartment. We put away our new stuff (and by we, I of course mean Paul), we moved some furniture around (and by we, I of course mean me), and we all three slept here together for the first time. The apartment isn’t perfect, of course, but it’s lovely, and it’s mostly nice just to feel settled, and to feel like I’m really living here. We didn’t magically get wireless while I was gone, so I’m going to be spending even more time at the Yeshiva until that is settled, and will have to find other things to do with my downtime than watching YouTube, like perhaps studying for Hebrew and prepping for classes, which start on September 7.

Journey to the North, Part 2

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After leaving Nahariya, I took the train to meet my roommate Paul in Haifa, which is maybe 45 minutes south and also on the coast. We stayed at a pretty conveniently located hostel that had very nice facilities, was very clean, and contained only insane people. If Paul writes details about that experience, maybe I’ll link to it (http://paulheckler.blogspot.com/2008/08/haifa-part-1-ditz-asshole-and-nudist.html ), but I’ll give you just this tidbit right now: The first thing we saw when we walked into our dorm-style room was a middle-aged Austrian guy wearing not a stitch of clothing and climbing onto the top bunk.

Haifa is a) hot and humid, b) located on hills (big hills), and c) a really good walking city if it weren’t so a) hot or b) on hills. It was lovely, but a day and a half there was enough for me. While there, we saw a couple really interesting things. The first was an artists' village called Ein Hod, which didn’t have a ton open because apparently they close down during the summer heat, but did have some beautiful and unique crafts. The second cool thing was the Bahai Gardens, which is located on the side of one of Haifa’s hills. It has nine levels of garden, a big gold-domed shrine in the middle, and nine more levels of garden. I’ll post some pictures of that because it is absolutely stunning and hard to describe.




Nonetheless, the coolest thing we saw in Haifa was definitely the Carmelit, which is Israel's only subway system. The Carmelit has two trains of two cars each that go back and forth on a single line and has a total of six stops. The sole purpose of the Carmelit is to get you up and down the side of Mt. Carmel, so the train cars and each station are on an angle with steps to go from the bottom to the top. But the station are not consistent in their degree of steepness (to reflect the shape of the hill) so any given station may be steeper than the Carmelit cars, less steep than the cars, or at the same angle. NYC Metro’s got nothing on this. It was ridiculously cute.




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LOVE -- אהבה

The Israel Museum here in Jerusalem has a version of the LOVE sculpture in Philadelphia, but in Hebrew.

Journey to the North, Part 1

This one's a multi-parter. Watch out!

I’ve been avoiding writing due to laziness, but now I’m listening to “You Can Call Me Al” and Paul Simon always inspires me. So here goes.

I left Jerusalem last Friday morning (Yom Shishi--the Sixth Day--in Hebrew) traveling by train to Nahariya, which is on the west coast (Mediterranean side) of the country about 20-30 minutes south of the border with Lebanon. Train travel in Israel can be slow (especially going from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv, which you have to do to get anywhere from here), but inexpensive and very comfortable, if you can get a seat.

I used as much Hebrew as I could during my trip and by the end of that first train ride I had a pretty good sense of exactly what I do know and what I don’t know. For instance, I’m getting very good at numbers. For anything where the relevant part of the answer is a number, I’m in good shape. Otherwise, I’m pretty much out of luck. I have gotten really good at letting people know I don’t understand them, which usually works out, since a lot of people (but definitely not most people) speak English.

I went to Nahariya to see my dad’s cousins Norman and Beth, who are fantastic. They made aliyah in 1980 and have basically been living in or near Nahariya since then. I’ve seen them many times before, but never got to spend multiple days together with them. It was really interesting to hear their thoughts on about making aliyah, religion and politics in Jerusalem and elsewhere, and living in Nahariya during wartime. It was also a lovely and relaxing Shabbat with family.




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My Whereabouts and Other Random Stuff

1) I've been in Israel a month today. Wow.

2) I got the keys to my apartment yesterday, so it's really ours now, and they even brought by some crummy old furniture, so we neither have to sleep or sit on the floor. We'll just have to sanitize everything before we touch it.

3) I'm leaving Jerusalem today to go visit my family up north and see some other areas of the country. I won't have my computer and checking e-mail may be limited, so don't flood my inbox with those messages about how much you miss me and wish I was there--honestly guys I have a life here, and I think I'm a little too busy to be thinking about you friends and family from back home. I'll return probably on Wednesday or Thursday of next week, and I assume by then the new place will magically have wireless.

The Kotel, Part 2: Tisha B'Av Style

Today is Tisha B'Av, which literally means the Ninth of Av (the current month in the Jewish calendar). Tisha B'Av is the day in which we commemorate the destruction of both the first and second Temples in addition to a variety of other catastrophes that have befallen the Jews, all supposedly on the 9th of Av. Tisha B'Av is a day of mourning and it is one of the two major fast days in the Jewish calendar (the other being Yom Kippur). It also marks the first major Jewish "holiday" that I am in Israel for. (Holiday is not really a great word here, as I think it indicates something celebratory, which Tisha B'Av is not, but "fast day," which is more accurate, does not include the full spectrum of events in the Jewish calendar.) Even if I don't stay here for a full twelve months by the American calendar, by the time my program ends in May, I will have been here for every holiday in the Jewish year. That's one of the things I am really excited about this year--and after my experience during Tisha B'Av even more so.

On Tisha B'Av you chant the Book of Lamentations, or Eicha, which talks about the destruction of the temple and is a sad but beautiful text. You are supposed to remove your shoes and sit on the floor for the Eicha service. I chose to go back to the Kotel HaMasorti for Ma'ariv, the evening service, to hear Eicha chanted. I walked over with a group of people from the Yeshiva and we arrived early and found that the area was locked (like I said, it's in a privately-owned space). Most of the group sat and discussed Tisha B'Av while waiting, but a few of us decided to walk over to the main Kotel. I don't want to talk too much about my experience there, except to say that it was very hectic at the Kotel and the Kotel plaza, but my first visit to the main Kotel since I arrived was not a negative one.

When I returned to the rest of the group, they were still waiting, so I joined the discussion. It was the continuation of at least three unique conversations that I had had with various members of that larger group over the previous 24 hours. It's those discussions, plus all of the shiurim (lessons) I've had about Tisha B'Av and fast days over the last three weeks that makes me so excited about being here for all the different Jewish holidays throughout the year; it's fantastic to be around people who really want to think about and discuss these things as much as I do, and who mostly know more about them then I do.

Anyway, about 15 minutes after I returned, the gates were unlocked for the Kotel HaMasorti. By that point, quite a large group of people had gathered, and when we sat down by the Wall, the space was pretty crowded--quite the juxtaposition to the small group of only Yeshiva students last time I was there. It was well after dark, about 9:30, and had finally cooled down. The area is fairly isolated and since we all prayed as one group (unlike at the main Kotel), all you heard was the one person among this large group who was chanting the service and then Eicha. And I sat there on the ground, with my shoes off, staring at the Temple wall and listening to someone chant about the Temple's destruction, trying to realize that this had happened immediately next to where I was sitting. It was incredibly moving experience, which made my frustration on walking back through the main Kotel plaza and seeing all the people who are supposedly more religious than I chatting on their cell phones, smoking cigarettes, and gabbing with their friends on the day of mourning even more acute.

After all this, I think I'm probably far more confused about what Tisha B'Av means and what it means to me than I was when I arrived, but I've learned a ton about it over the last few weeks and had a uniquely moving Tisha B'Av experience. I can't wait to get confused about all the other Jewish concepts and events I'll experience this year.

The Kotel

Since I haven't really written this week, there are a few topics I've been interested in addressing, but haven't gotten a chance to yet. One was in reference to something interesting that I heard this week about Jerusalem, which is that, in Israel, Jeruslaem is a religious bubble and an Anglo bubble. That's something I've been thinking about a lot since I heard it, but I think I'll wait a couple weeks until after I've traveled around the country a bit to really discuss it.

In the meantime, I mentioned last week that I went to the Kotel, but I never got into that. What I actually went to was a place called the Kotel HaMasorti--The Masorti Kotel. Masorti is the Conservative movement in Israel and the Kotel HaMasorti is this part of the wall that is owned by the Israeli Archeological Park where men and women can pray together. I don't want to belittle this place for those who find it meaningful, but for me, it was nothing better than a consolation. The claim is that it is as holy as any other part of the Western Wall, which is not inaccurate, but it is not enough. First of all, because it is on private grounds, access is limited. You can get in free in the morning, I think before 9 or 10, but a lot of people I've talked to about don't even realized that. And if you want to go with a group during that time you have to call ahead. Second of all, it's very isolated (and isolating), since you can't see the rest of the wall--the image people think of as the Kotel. When I went with the Yeshiva group, we were the only ones there.

The reality is that both of these points are important deterrents to the very real threat of attacks on men and women praying together at the Kotel. On the other hand, because of the situation, I felt like I lacked that feeling, that closeness to Judaism and to Hashem that I hoped to experience when going to this particularly holy place. That is unfortunate. This weekend is Tisha B'Av, the holiday when we commemorate the destruction of both the first and second temples, and that will likely mark my first trip to the part of the Wall that most of us think of as the Kotel since my arrival three weeks ago.

I don't really have the ability to get into too much more about this issue right now, but it's definitely a loaded one. The Masorti movement has accepted what I've referred as a "consolation," while other groups, like the Reform movement and the Women of the Wall, have chosen not to and continue fighting for their right to pray as they choose with everyone else. As I understand it, they fight this particular fight at their own risk. I don't want to simply say that one group is right or wrong--some people seemed extremely moved by the Kotel HaMasorti--but it's not an option that works for me.

The Ringleader

I just finished week two studying at the Yeshiva, and it was not an easy one. I'm still really enjoying classes, still getting along really well with the other students in my program, but in addition to that, I also spent the week looking for an apartment. I've found it difficult and stressful enough looking for an apartment in a language and culture I understand, that trying to do it here was just all-consuming. I'm going to be living with two guys in my program who will also be here for the year and the first problem that we were faced with was that a lot of people aren't willing to rent to mixed-gender groups, which is why the apartment I had lined up when I arrived here fell through in the first place. Also, not surprisingly, people are wary of renting to foreigners who can't really be tracked down if they bolt. There are actually a variety of ways of dealing with that problem if it should occur, and they mostly involve putting down a huge amount of money as security. Once these things got dealt with, there was the problem that we don't have accounts or checks in shekels, and one of my roommates is from Europe so we can't use the dollar (which landlords won't take right now anyway).

Yesterday, we signed a contract (in Hebrew) for a lovely, two-bathroom, three-bedroom apartment 15 minutes away from school. We got off easy by way of security, in that they're basically just going to take rent three months at a time as our security. But, because of the currency issue, it will be paid in cash. Which means that when we signed that contract we also handed over the equivalent of a little under $5000 in cash. It was intense.

Nonetheless, as of August 15, I have a long-term home here in Jerusalem, which means I won't always have to go searching for somewhere to eat for Shabbat, like I've been doing. The result of that this week is that a classmate from my Hebrew ulpan invited me and my future roommates over to have Shabbat with him and his family this evening, so I am off to that. I'll share plenty more about my new place, and actually begin to talk about my classes now that I have time to breathe and the ability to focus again. Shabbat Shalom!