miscellaneous observations about shopping in the shuk (open market)

Buy your challah last, or it will get squished in the melee

Ditto figs (but oh, yes, make sure to splurge on figs).

There’s no point in politely asking, “May I sample one of those olives?” Just reach in with your grubby little fingers and grab, as everyone else has done already that day. And when you buy them, try not to think about that.

If the shuk were in America, people would undoubtedly take advantage of the chaos to a) steal b) pickpocket and c) cop a feel. I’d be quite easy to do all three. There is not only none of that in Israel (none that I know of, anyway–would love to hear from folks if they’ve had less encouraging experiences) but no sense that anyone would. The flip side to such a paternalistic culture is, sometimes, feeling safer. What’s interesting is that I did not feel this comfortable in the markets in Morocco and India, even though they’re of a similar cultural piece (back in the day they’d call it “Oriental”). I’m guessing that was in part because in both of those other places I was an outsider–white, American, traveller–whereas here I’m an insider. I’m Jewish, I speak the language, I have an address, etc. There are all sorts of shades between them–the white American who speaks Arabic and has an address, the Desi (Indian-American) who’s visiting family, etc. Don’t know how that shakes down, or even if this is a theory worth pursuiing (after all, I’m talking about my perceptions of my safety, which is different than the actual reality) but half-baked theories are what blogs are for, no? Anyway, paternalism, safety–not that I’m endorsing the total package–it’s complicated here, complicated at home, I’m still waiting for a way to live that doesn’t involve subtle shades of a Margaret Atwood novel.

Not about the shuk per se, but it turns out there are 3 words listed next to coriander in my dictionary, and all of them correspond to different spices (none of which smelled like coriander).

A group of Christians came storming through the shuk at some point, waving Israeli flags, singing in Hebrew and blowing on a shofar. I have no idea what that specifically was about (though generally it was clearly about the state of Israel helping to bring about the Second Coming of Christ.) The shuk employees around me when they stormed in didn’t know either.

That is all.

Tel Aviv day (yom keif)

As my friend Kirsten reminded me the other day, each of the four traditionally holy cities of Israel have a property associated with them. Hebron is earth, Sfat is air, Tiberias is water and Jerusalem, of course, is fire.

This may originally be because of the Temple, but walking around today you can still feel it–sometimes like you’re about to burn up. This morning, feeling a little crispy around the edges–having spent the better part of the last two weeks running around Getting Stuff Done–I decided to take myself on a day trip to Tel Aviv, which is an hour away. I only have a few more days ’till ulpan (Hebrew intensive) starts, and it seemed like a grand idea to spend one of them in the Holy Land’s own Babylon. (”In Jerusalem they pray,” it’s said; “In Tel Aviv they dance, and in Haifa they work.”)

When I got out of the sherut (um, service taxi–supercheap) a couple of Hasidic guys came up to me and handed me a book. My first response was, “No thanks,” having a firmly entrenched suspicion of religious people’s free propaganda (cf Hare Krishna, Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, etc). Then I remembered that these guys actually practiced the same religion that I did (oh, yeah) so I took the book. And with one glance, I became a very happy girl. The title was “Hitbodidut”. These guys were Breslovers! My lucky day.

R. Nachman of Breslov was a Hasidic rabbi in late 18th/early 19th c. and was a major spiritual thinker–kind of the Van Gogh of the era. Not a happy guy, that is to say, but WOW did he know a thing or two. I’ve actually taught from English translations of this book before–”hitbodedut” is about solitude as a prerequisite to serious contemplation of and connection to God. Which, many reading this can attest, is pretty much how I swing religiously. So I just got a book of yummy stuff in the original, at a level of Hebrew that’s just right–I have to stand on my tip-toes to get it, but mostly I can. So kewl.

I do not understand why the Breslovers are so into graffiti, though: didn’t anybody tell them that Judaism says you should follow the laws of the land, so defacing property’s probably not great?

The Breslovers use spray paint. The Chabad people do wheatpasting–the late Rebbe’s face was plastered on every freeway sign from J’lem to Tel Aviv.

Anyway. Got to Tel Aviv and wandered around Shenkin Street for a while, first. Shenkin is like Melrose in LA, the Haight in SF, and oh, maybe that stretch of B’way between 4th and Canal in NYC.

I have several things to say about the aesthetic of Tel Aviv. One: Color!

There is color everywhere. Patterns are mixed, things clash, it’s gorgeous and bright and peacocky and a welcome change from the (lovely, but somewhat ascetic) beige known as “Jerusalem stone”. The second is that it was amazing to poke around in stores full of clothes cut right for my body type (the curvy, just-wandered-in-off-the-Russian-steppes variety). There was nothing so compelling I needed to actually purchase it (which is just fine by me.)

But man, does Tel Aviv know from cute.

After that I walked over to the beach. The Mediterranean. Warmer, more luscious and with smaller waves than at Venice Beach, though I defnitely missed the Venice Girls and (to a much lesser extent, but still) the margaritas. Sat for an hour or so, read a couple of pages of my new book, and walked the half hour or whatever to the bus station. Then I picked up the New! Free! Bike! I got from the low-tech Jerusalem version of Craig’s List (it’s a Yahoo!Group called Janglo) and rode home. I ride like Israelis drive, so we’ll see how this works out. At least I have my will in order.

Now, time to shower and go dancing. Not that I have any energy left, but dangit, I’m going to sap the next couple of pre-school days dry. Because come Tuesday, the jig is up.

ps. The spell-check function on the blog is being finnicky, and I’m too lazy to check every entry against MS Word. So have some compassion for the tired and hurried blogger, please!

9 Av

Monday night was erev Tisha B’Av, the holiday commemorating the destruction of the Temple and, more broadly, human suffering. I had decided that I wanted to spend it at the Wall—where else would you go if you were in Jerusalem? Luckily, the Conservative/Masorti movement (Masorti is the non-American name for it) was doing something at Robinson’s Arch, a little piece of the Wall kind of back and around to the side that they’ve appropriated, and that seemed the right place to be.

Getting there was horrible. I was in a personally funky state, and having a really hard day, and found that going to the Kotel (wall), teeming with people was more than I wanted to or felt like I could take.

Mobius over at Orthodox Anarchist got a shot of the whole mess, which is good ’cause my camera was having battery problems. Hope he doesn’t mind that I lifted this:

Anyway, I finally found the Masortim, and was pleasantly surprised to see how many people came out to pray in a mixed egalitarian group–there were maybe 100? Which is not a lot when you consider the numbers of the photograph, but in this town, where “davvening” means “mechitza” and “religious” means “Orthodox”, it was pretty cool. (Also, it’s more than almost any shul in the States would get.) It makes me sad to realize how used to the sexism I’ve gotten, though–I felt this gigantic wave of gratitude to all the men who showed up, like they were doing me some enormous favor by not cashing in the male privelige they could have in a shul where women are banished to the back and told to shut up. My expectations for decent human behavior have, sadly, plummeted.

It was great to be among my people, though. I ran into a couple of old friends–a recent-ish grad from my school who I adore and who now lives on the East Coast, and a Swedish guy that I met when I was here four years ago, a real sweetheart. Further signs I was in the right place.

The reading of Eicha (Lamentations) was beautiful, and of course both women and men read. (I noticed that men lead the davvening and gave the divrei Torah (sermons) though. Will be interesting to see if that’s an isolated thing or further examples of my supposedly egalitarian movement being better at the theory than the practice of equal leadership. That’s certainly true often in the States.) On previous Tisha B’Avs I’ve really plugged into the big themes of suffering, dispair, dashed hopes–some on my own personal walls crumbling, a lot on universal suffering. Last year I was working as a hosputal chaplain and saw how good the 3rd chapter is as a text for pastoral counseling (it works brilliantly, btw). Big picture stuff.

But this year, sitting in front of the remains of the Temple in Jerusalem, crying for Jerusalem, all I could think of was Jerusalem. They say the Second Temple was destroyed because of sinat chinam, senseless hatred. And feeling generally terrified to walk around the city (and particularly the Old City) dressed as the kind of Jew I am, I was feeling that a lot. And of course the whole settler thing. It’s still surprising, and really jarring, how comfortable people even in my religious-fringe circles are with the fact that this yeshiva or that community is out in “Judea-Samaria”, as they call the Territories. I guess a lot of people are more ambivalent about the settlements than I am (or certain, but just certain in the other direction.) And I have no idea, still, how to handle social interactions with people I meet who are studying for smicha (ordination) at, say, Bat Ayin, the funky-hippie yeshiva that is, yes, in the settlements. Some of them are lovely people, and certainly some people wind up there because of community or learning or whatever, even as there is some deeply political white noise in the background. Maybe that’s my sinat chinam and I need to be more openhearted, but really, the whole thing, the whole communal all of it just seems so sad and messed up. The Jerusalem of my mythic imagination, the one that I–and I think all of us Jews, on some level–yearn for is a place where we don’t all have to be so afraid, all the time.

And you know, I’ve written papers about the very Jerusalem I’m yearning for. And it has probably never been what I wish it was. I remember doing a side-by-side look at the communities of Alexandria and Judea around the time of the Maccabees (so, Second Temple) and in the process comparing Judea to a woman who’s been in an abusive relationship and is still trying to figure out what healthy love is.

I picture the Banot Yerushalyim, the daughters of Jerusalem, running through the city, orphaned, looking for their people, uncleanliness clinging to their skirts.

I wonder what it is that draws so many of us here. Someone once said that people move to Northern California to heal, and I think that’s true. What process to they move to Jerusalem to enact? There’s something about God, something about holiness, and something about old, old, old family wounds. Beyond that I’m just not sure.

Bedouin Issues

Friday I went on a tiyul (trip) with Bustan L’Shalom, an organization working on resources for marginalized people in both Israel and Palestine.
The goal of the trip was to educate people more on Bedouin issues and give them a first-hand look at how some abstract-sounding problems were affecting actual real people.

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Some of the members of our host family in the village by Ramat Hovav

We all drove down in a big van together, and Devorah Brous, the founder of Bustan, gave us some background on the hour ½ trip from Jerusalem to Beer Sheva, a town south of J’lem in the Negev desert. I had met Deborah at a conference several years back; then, as now, she was quiet and soft-spoken, yet solid in her words and the way she uses them.

Devorah explained that much of the land around Beer Sheva has been the Bedouins’ for centuries; both the Ottoman Empire and the British Mandate allowed them to assert and maintain claims over their ancestral land.

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From a mural on the wall of a Bedouin school

There are a number of groups within the Bedouin, and each has their own territory. To say that the Bedouin are nomads has meant, for a long time, that they’re free to move around within their group’s large land plots to follow game, and sometimes to keep peace if there are inter-tribe disputes. “Even if you only move 1km, you can avoid bloody conflict,” one of our Bedouin guides later explained. Tents—still used today in the villages—allow for a certain degree of mobility, as well as being practical year-round.

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In 1951, just after Israel won independence, the new government determined that the Bedouin were not legitimate owners of “Jewish” land. Rather, they were “intruders,” and the small villages in which they lived would not be recognized by the Israeli Government.

The government has been trying to move people into a number of recognized “townships” or “reservations”—larger towns/small cities. About half of Bedouin live in these iyyarot now.

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“Downtown” in Segev Shalom, an iyyarah

I asked Deborah about the fact that “iyyarah” is often translated as “reservation”; to Americans that word’s pretty loaded with connotations. She said that the analogy to the Native American situation is apt, even if it’s not a perfect 1:1 comparison. These iyyarot are recognized, if neglected. If a whole family moves to the iyyarot, the government is then able to take possession of their land (which was part of the program in the first place.) As a result, families often split up—with some stay on the ancestral land and choosing the traditional way of life (including working the land, tending animals, weaving rugs, etc.).

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Others, often those whose work was non-agricultural (like the school principal we met) chose to move to town. The town offers safety from the govt, and a chance at a modern, capitalist life, and that’s very appealing for some people.

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Home at the rez (also Segev Shalom)

The switchover to urban capitalism is antithetical to the Bedouin values of minimalism. One of our guides told us, “All you need is good land, a good wife, and a good horse.” That is to say, he explained, sustenance, community, and safety (that is, means of escape.) Of course, given high levels of poverty throughout the communites, the desire to make a better life in the cities is also understandable.

Those who don’t move to the iyyarot say that they don’t want the erosion of their tradition and culture that comes with urbanization, that the iyyarot are full of drugs and other urban problems, and, fundamentally, that they don’t want to give up their land to the government. Those who stay in unrecognized villages do so not because they don’t know what else is out there, but for deeply political reasons.

To be not-recognized means, among other things, that they have no access to water, electricity, public transportation, access roads, schools, hospitals, or a number of other public services. It also means that the government can tear down their houses whenever it likes, as they are technically illegal.

The houses themselves are often precarious tin huts.
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The metal is a readily available even at the general level of poverty in which many Bedouin live. It is very hot in the summer and cold in the winter. We saw a number of tin houses demolished along the side of the road; the van was moving too fast for me to get a picture.

We went to one unrecognized village around which an industrial complex (called Ramat Hovav) has been built up. Ramat Hovav is, basically, a toxic waste dump.

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There’s also a nuclear reactor not far from here.

The death rate in this village has been documented as being 65% higher than it should be, with cancer, miscarrages, asthma and the like being very common. Since they have no health care, Bustan built a health clinic—illegally—both in an attempt to provide health services and to call attention to the issue.

108743_48600105084 {at} N01(.)jpg"> This is the clinic that Bustan built–it’s totally solar powered, mud walls, made of local traditional materials. Starting this week they’ll have a doctor come in weekly.
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Evidently building the clinic worked, because the day before we arrived, the occupants of the village were finally (after almost ten years in court) given permission by the govt. to move somewhere else besides one of the iyyarot. This is a huge victory, albeit a bittersweet one. They’ll have to give up their ancestral land (which is now toxic) but will be able to live somewhere besides in one of the iyyarot.

So it’s a mess, for the folks in this village as well as for pretty much the entire Bedouin population. The Israeli government is acting a lot like the United States, which is not a good model. While I don’t think that this proves anything for anybody’s anti-zionist agenda (we can find evidence of this kind of behavior in countries all over the world) it doesn’t particularly make it OK. Thank God there are groups like Bustan out there, but something else is going to need to change, and change quickly, for all this damage to be anything but irreparable. I wish I knew how that could happen.

the feral cats of Jerusalem

where did the cats go?
Originally uploaded by Jerusalem Syndrome.

Last time I was here (4 years ago), this town was teeming with feral cats. Scrawny, hungry, yowly little critters who seemed to live in every public nook and cranny–under cars, behind garbage dumps, all over the Old City. I wrote a character (in a novel that never quite got off the ground) who was obsessed with caring for these poor beasts–the epitome of Sysiphusian undertakings.

This time ’round, I’ve definitely seen plenty of them (some are howling outside my window as I write this), but there isn’t the same sense of overwhelm as there was last time. There are definitely fewer.

Validating this is the graffiti I found the other day (above), which asks, “Where did the cats go?” I have a sneaking (and somewhat chilling) suspicion that they’ve been “put” in the same “place” that Giuliani “put” all the homeless people of New York.

Meow!!!

poems and photos

mirpesset
Originally uploaded by Jerusalem Syndrome.

This is a test, to see how the blogging’ll do with photos attached. This is a photo of my mirpesset (balcony). If you peek over the edge you see lots of trees. It is a good place for davvening, or sitting with tea, or beer, or sunshine, or a book. They are a total part of the local culture–everybody has at least a mirpesset, maybe two (I have two, but the second one is mostly storage and where, eg, I’ll hang my clothes to dry since the washer works but there’s no dryer. There will probably be more pictures of my pad to come, and definitely more of J’lem and my sundry adventures as soon as I have ones more exciting than, “I went to the Supersol and they almost didn’t accept my credit card because paying from the Middle East popped up Wells Fargo fraud warnings” or “I went to the Israel Museum and it took me a sickeningly long amount of time to walk back because I don’t know anything yet.”

Actually, last night was pretty fabulous. Went to hear a friend, Yosefa Raz, read from her new book of poetry, In Exchange For A Homeland at Timol Shilshom, a cafe off of Yafo street that specializes in great cultural events. Her work is so good I think I’ll post a poem here:

Security Check at Allenby Bridge

by Yosefa Raz

I took an old man’s nail clippers
safety pins
chocolates.
I tore wrappers off birthday presents
that were never meant for me.
Shook out a thin, quiet woman’s underwear.

Every cup the woman in the dusty black dress
packed in newspaper
so carefully ­
white china with a green stripe ­
went into a plastic cart.
She pulls at my sleeve.
Perhaps she is saying,
“Don’t break them.”

They told me:
Protect the security of the State.
Wear the uniform with pride.
How to say,
hada mamnua: this is confiscated;
ruch min hun: go in this direction;

how to take the women aside to a booth
when the metal detector goes off,
make them remove bracelet after golden bracelet,
pass the hand-held detector
over arms and legs, chest and back.
Little prices to pay
they say
there is no choice.
A humiliation of small details ­
I fingered a businessman’s toothbrush

I tried to untie the knots of string
holding together the pilgrims’ striped blankets
with my clean white gloves.

The week the pilgrims returned from Mecca
they were detained on buses at the border for three days,
ate cucumbers and yogurt they brought in string bags.
A tall man carrying a beige suitcase told me,
“We are so glad to be home.”

The Jordan river slowed to a trickle;
the lowest spot on earth.
Shed your silver sandals.
Shed your stained white robes.
The concrete is burning.

Day 3

Okay, so I’m paying for this time, since the internet at home is still not up, but here’s my experience so far on one foot:

First, massive surreal disorientation.  I was here 4 years ago, and walking around has mostly so far had the feeling of lucid dreaming, of walking into distant memories with a very different (and not so distant) consciousness.   Like walking Friday night to daven (pray) at this minyan (um, group of people praying) near where I lived last time ’round, and every corner we turned triggered a whole other set of sense-memories and emotional associations I didn’t know were there.  Beautiful, strange.
 
Got into town Friday 5am, straight to my apartment.  It’s a fine one bedroom–not fancy by American standards, but it’ll do.  The previous tenant wasn’t very handy with the cleaning supplies (which says a lot coming from me, as I’m hardly Martha Stewart) but fortunately the landlady, who I met today, has agreed to paint and hire cleaners to come in once. 
 
Had animated conversation in Hebrew with the chatty-cathy cab driver on the way from the airport.  Was feeling very pleased with myself about my language–communicating and comprehending–skills.  The next day I tried to check messages and was beside myself with confusion.  Turns out all I needed, though, was the vocab word for “pound sign” (”ladder”).  After which I could navigate the phone system without problem.  So it’s a little touch and go, though generally I’m doing better than I thought I’d be doing.  Though I have miles, miles to go before I stop sounding so silly.  It’s good that I’ll be Ulpan (Hebrew intensive) Queen in a couple of weeks. 
 
Israeli yogurt–oh, how I’ve missed you.   Richer, creamier, and in flavors like hazelnut and fig, with real hazelnuts (etc) in them.  Why don’t we have hazelnut yogurt in the States?
 
Also, a shout out to the eye candy of Israel–some of the best-looking people in the world live here, I think.  People-watching is awfully fun. 
 
Slept from 11pm Friday night ’till 5pm Shabbos afternoon.  Did not sleep last night.  Jet-lag is a mind-altering drug.
 
The davenning.  Wow.  So Friday night (me on something like -45 hours of sleep or something) went to this minyan that’s, like, “almost egalitarian”, where a lot of the cool kids (such as they are)  go.  They have women do things up to the absolute outer edge of the Orthodox understanding of Jewish law–like lead Kabbalat Shabbat (part of the service) and read Torah, but not lead, say, Shacharit or Maariv (other parts of the service.)  Women and men sit separately.  I saw a healthy smattering of kippot (yarmulkes) on the women–maybe 15%?  As well as women whose dress signified a much more traditional gender identification.   I actually felt comfortable enough there to untuck my tzitzit (I usually wear them out, but here, for personal safety as well as to not be the freak on the street [since not many women take on this traditionally male bit of ritual dress, and the men here can be, er, zealous in the enforcement of trad. gender roles] I’ve chosen to tuck them in when I’m in the street and any new situation until I can feel it out.)  So I consider that a pro for this group. 
 
The actual davvening was incredible–as incredible as last time I was in J’lem, maybe more so for the fact that I have better context now.  There were about 200 people there, all singing, and–well, the davvening was about God.  It was really, truly intended to open the gates of Heaven.  most of the time in the States it feels like davvening is about the davvening, or about the community, or about the music, or maybe about how-into-this-davvening-I-am-aren’t-I-spiritual (that’s a popular one in rabbinical school circles.)  But it rarely feels as truly, profoundly about praise and about God Godself as this was.  I’m sure some of that had to do with language–it simply means something different when everybody in the room actually understands the words and can grasp how heartrendingly beautiful the psalms and prayers really are.  Some of it is about the population–the kind of people who choose to live in J’lem do so, generally, for a reason.  Some of it is about something else, though, and I’m not sure what.   More on that as the year unfolds.
 
Of course the gender stuff of this minyan–and other ones I’ll attend, no doubt–chafed.  I was keenly aware of the power dynamics when the Shatz (prayer-leader) changed from a woman to a man as we began Maariv.   As loud and connected as things were on the women’s side, I was more than keenly aware that the kavvanah (energy? intention? connection?) on the men’s side was stronger.  It.  Always.  Is.   In mechitza (gender-divided) space, it always is, and as strong as things were on the women’s side, it was still no exception.  So my urge to leap over to the men’s side and get down and dirty with them kicked in (it’s not gender dysphoria, ultimately, just a response to sexism), and I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to be not-aware of that stuff when I daven in those spaces.    It’s a problem, because in most places–and particularly in this town–the real spiritual goods, the real hot and heavy prayer energy, happens in mechitza spaces.  There are evidently a few egal places (besides the horrid one I attended 4 years ago, which was flat, empty, and frankly pathetic) that I’ll check out, and it’ll be nice to have a political home there (and maybe community, and whatever else) but… well, having to choose between one’s spiritual life and politics?  It’s a balance I’ve been negotiating lo these many years, and it’ll be one I continue to negotiate this year.  With different answers depending on how the wind’s blowing, no doubt.  But it won’t be easy. 
 
Okay, this is a longer post than intended.  If you read this blog, post a comment now and again (doesn’t have to be today, just sometime) so I know you’re out there.  More soon, when the Netvision people decide to bestow their grace and lovingkindness towards me.  I could continue to pray towards the kotel (Wailing wall) as is customary, though it could be more expedient to direct my prayers to the Netvision office……
 

here

hey, all–
 
made it to the holy land intact, easy travel and all is well.  amped on caffeine and about to go buy provisions for Shabbat; hooked up with friends and yay.  More soon….

Leaving Post

Dear Everybody With Whom I Didn’t Get To Spend Enough Time Before It Was Time To Leave (and that’s most of you):

I’m sorry that I haven’t gotten to see you nearly enough lately. It’s not because I didn’t want to, or don’t love you (au contraire!) but because I’ve been in constant motion. There’s been a lot to do. And then the handful of moments that I’ve had where I’ve not been checking stuff off some list, I’ve discovered that–even if I had allotted that time for being in a different city, and/or for being social–mostly I’ve just wanted to sit still. Stare at the walls. Walk around a garden or the streets by myself and get a big dose of my favorite addictive drug (solitude.) So I’ve been doubly Not Really Around. And it is so nothing personal–I’ve handed out all the spoons I’ve got. (The spoons concept is part of a genius essay on invisible disability, but I think it’s a pretty extendable metaphor.) So I didn’t see you enough. But I’ll be back.

And so now here we are, T-minus two. In about 10 minutes I have to walk out of here, get in a 3-hour line for my visa, then spend the rest of the day erranding. Tomorrow is more of the same, Weds I hand off my car to its yearlong keeper/babysitter, and then it’s airplane time. Have to figure out how many books, magazines, random food items and DVDs a rational human would take for 24 hours of travel.* Also have to get all my packed luggage under 70 lbs, which, come to think of it, is a slightly more ambitious goal. Getting a better night’s sleep tomorrow might be a wise choice, too, though, since last night stunk (I’m a chronic insomniac), part of me wonders if I should just throw my body clock to the winds since it’ll be a mess by Friday AM anyway? Dunno.

In the meantime, I gotta get out of here…. No wise words, just wanted to let everybody I haven’t really seen much of know that I’m thinking of you.
xo

*1 hr waiting around airport, 12 hrs to Zurich, 6 hrs in Zurich, 4-5 hrs to Tel Aviv.

Yes, sometimes prayer feels exactly like this.

Photograph by Tobaron Waxman.

www.artic.edu/~twaxma/amidah.html