Hebron

Hmmm…. Maybe it’s best to start with a little bit of introduction. Hebron is a city in the south of the West Bank and is the second largest. It is a rather holy city, since it contains the Tomb of the Patriarch, which is where both Muslims and Jews believe that Abraham and other founders are interred. For a very long time it was exclusively an Arab city, until a Jewish group petitioned the government to allow them to celebrate Passover there…. And they never left. Now Hebron is a very divided city and is the only city with settlements in the heart of the city.  Half of Hebron is in Israeli control and half is Palestinian. In the Israeli half lives about 800 Jews and about 3500 Arabs. The tension and the violence are extremely intense in this one city, and there are about as many soldiers as there are Jews in the city. Many shops are closed and there are times when the Arab residents are not even allowed to leave their homes. I was on a tour with JStreet who had organized a tour with Breaking the Silence, a group of ex- soldiers that had all served in Hebron and had witnessed the injustice there.  It was really eye opening. Our guide was a great speaker and he really knew what he was talking about. The one downside was that we weren’t actually allowed to enter the city. Our group had to be served a warrant from the commander of the area that forbade us from on entering on the basis that they were afraid for the safety of our group. Basically they were afraid of settler violence and that they would strike out at us for touring the city. The kicker was that there were actually two tours with breaking the silence that day, and the other group got it fairly quickly. The only difference in  our two itineraries was that the group that got in were meeting with a group of settlers after the trip and we were not. As our group leader pointed out, it was disappointing that we weren’t able to enter the city,  but it was also showing us was it was like to live somewhere where you didn’t have complete freedom of movement. We did do a tour of the South Hebron Hills and saw a variety of settlements from illegal to legal, small to huge. We also got to speak to the residents of Susia, a small Arab village that was removed from its land for the settlement of Susia and then were evicted because they were living on an archeological site. The whole trip was rather striking. 

"Entrance to the Ark is not Limited to Pairs"

Ok.. well it wasn’t really a biblical zoo. I don’t think red pandas were mentioned in the bible and there wasn’t a whale or a leviathan, so that was a big letdown.  They did have adorable monkeys that were having a blast showing off to the crowds and my favorite part was being able to feed the birds. I had two lorries on my arm, until I ran out of food and they got very upset with me. There is a biblical section, with an ark which was kinda cool and with the walkway observatory we got to get really close to them. We had had a guide, but when everyone was stuck at the bears for a while, we moved on ahead. Which was good, because I think was got to see most of the park that way, and we still weren’t able to see all of it. I got some good pictures of the animals! 

Bus Bombing

Well, this is rather old news at this point, but I felt that it was kinda important to blog about the bus bombing. Everything I know is pretty much secondhand, but I was obsessed with finding everything I could out about this. I had Ha’aretz, Al- Jazeera, the Jerusalem Post, the BBC, MSNBC, CNN and several other papers on different tabs and kept checking them all constantly. Fox News was the most interesting I think: Witnesses Say Bus Bombing in Jerusalem. This was several hours after everyone had already established that yes, there had been a bombing and were reporting on casualties. There wasn’t even a story, just the headline. I also find it rather shocking, that sites like MSNBC and CNN were more concerned with the fact that Elizabeth Taylor had died than that there were terrorist attacks in the world’s holiest city. Perhaps what also hit home was that the woman that died was a Rothberg Student. She had been in Ulpan with some of my friends, and while I had never spoken to her, when given a description, I remembered her immediately. She was a fantastic woman and she will be missed. 

"So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David"

For most Christians making a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, there are a couple stops that one has to have to make. The Via Dolorosa for one, the church of the Holy Sepulcher for another and a host of other sites. Also up there on the list of places to go is the city of Bethlehem. As the birthplace of Christ, this city hosts millions of pilgrims every year, each one wanting to see the birthplace of Jesus.  Well…. One would expect a cave or something, not so.  The original Church of the Nativity was built over the site  by Constantine and his mother St. Helena in the fourth century, until it was destroyed by Justinian in the 6^th and rebuilt it into a much larger church.  The original mosaic floor Is still intact underneath the modern one and many of the crusader mosaics and paintings are still partially intact.  We entered the nave and stood in line with  all the others that were waiting to see the lower level and the silver star that makes the exact spot of Christ birth. I wasn’t able to get a good picture, but it was nothing like I expected. The star was set in a marble floor underneath something akin to an altar. We saw that and the milk grotto, where supposedly a drop of Mary’s milk fell and turned a black rock white… couldn’t actually find it, but I don’t doubt its there.            In a spur of the moment decision after exhausting Bethlehem, we found a taxi and decided to go to the ruins at Herodion.  While haggling for the cab, a man came up to us and offered to translate, which was pretty much a godsend. Then, he wanted to practice his English, so he stuck around and was our tour guide for the rest of the trip. We explored the ruins and the tunnels that were underneath Herodion… which seemed to go on forever! The ruins were kinda reminiscent of Masada, which makes sense since they were both built by Herod but it was still cool to go see. Then our new friend invited us to his house and we went and met his sister, his neighbors and their kids. It was really a lot of fun and probably the most spontaneous since getting here.

We're Going Caving!!!

Who wants to spend a morning slithering on your stomach through a bunch of tiny limestone caves? Me! On one of the school trips, we got the chance to go explore some of the Maccabeean  Cave that are right outside of Jerusalem. These limestone caves were originally quarries and places for refrigeration, before some were dug to be used in guerrilla tactics against the Romans in the first century BC. There initially there weren’t too many tiny holes that we had to squeeze through, but after going through the first couple rooms, we got to the first little tunnel that we really had to crawl on our hands and knees through this little windy tunnel. It wasn’t very long and after a few feet we were able to squeeze through another small hole that lead to an even bigger room. The limestone was so soft in places that it would literally crumble in your hand.  At that stop we went around in a circle and told a really bizarre ghost story in the dark that had us all laughing. Really that was the only cave that we actually had to crawl through, which was kinda depressing, since I expected more. We also went to a bell cave that was an old quarry and two burial caves, one Jewish one that still had the stones that would have been used to seal the bodies into the grottos for a year, before gathering the bones and interring them.  The other was a Christian one with Corinthian columns etched with small crosses. in contrast to the Jewish burial cave, the bodies were laid out along the wall rather than into the wall, and were not sealed in, interestingly enough.  From the limestone caves we went to an overlook of the valley of E’lah, which is where David fought Goliath. It was an absolutely fantastic view of the valley, and there were some beautiful trees at the overlook. And of course we had to stage the battle of David and Goliath between two of the students and read the story of the event. :P All in all it was  pretty fantastic trip.

Acre? Akko? Akka?

In a spur of the moment decision, my friends and I made hostel arrangements and hopped on the bus to go to the small city of Akko. While not impossible to get to, it’s not easy. After a two hour bus to Haifa and then an hour bus to Akko, we arrived in the tiny bus station and made our way to the hostel. Usually we might try to wander around the city, but when we got to the Old City, most everything was shut down by 7:30. The hostel was FREEZING! Granted the outside world was rainy and cold, but the stone building was even colder than outside. We thought that we had to pay for heat, so we didn’t say anything for a day until it was so cold that we really couldn’t take it anymore. Then we found out that they had just forgotten to give us the remote…. The actual Old City was gorgeous, but a lot of it was still under excavation. We first went to the Prisoners Museum, which was a British fortress and prison where Haganah and Etzel members were held prisoner and executed. We got to see the Prisoner’s cells, including the special treatment cells and the death row cells. We got to walk with the “prisoners” as they did their exercise in the yard and got to see the gallows where members of radical Jewish groups were executed. Moving on from the Underground Prisoners Museum we went to the Hospitaller’s fortress and entered the vaulted halls of the Middle Ages. The courtyard of the fortress is still being excavated and there but it was still fascinating how preserved that this was. It was all buried was buried and to form the foundations for several buildings that were built on top of it. My favorite part was wandering though the little tunnels underneath the city… which was actually the sewer system.  But it was still really cool! Especially since we came up out of the tunnels in a completely random part of the city, which actually happened a second time when we went to the Templar Tunnels. The tunnels were built after Saladin’s defeat and were intended to be a safe passage for pilgrims in case of another attack.  Luckily the old city does have fantastic signs and we were able to find our way back fairly quickly. Before heading to our next stop, we went to what is supposed to be the best hummus restaurant in Israel. It actually wasn’t bad, which is rather high praise, considering I don’t even really like hummus. It was really busy and I’ve never seen waiters balance and carry so much stuff at one time! From the restaurant we went to the old Turkish Bath with a rather cool multimedia presentation, but other than that it was a bit of a let down. :P I was a fascinating old city that was surrounded by so much history.

Yad Vashem

There’s so much to see in Jerusalem itself, so when there’s weekends that my travel buddies and I either have too much work, didn’t get around to making reservations in a hostel or just ran out of food so we have to spend the morning at the market getting groceries, there’s still a lot to do and see in the city limits. It’s a little restrictive since, so many things still close early on Friday. One of the things that is always on the Must See list is Yad Vashem. The Holocaust Museum is very much what you would expect: depressing. It takes the history of the Holocaust from a distinctly Jewish perspective that is designed to make the Museum a truly emotional visit. Yad Vashem itself is in a beautiful part of the mountains on the outskirts of Jerusalem and the view before you enter the museum is absolutely breathtaking. As you enter the museum one of the first exhibits is the remains of things that were burned by the Nazis when the Allies began liberating the camps. Photographs, letters, watches. All these things were remnants of the lives of people that seem so easy to destroy. The other exhibits examine the rise of Nazism and anti- Semitism from propaganda to anti Semitic board games and yellow stars. The museum winds itself through the different rooms so it’s impossible to miss something. It also makes it a pain with all the tour groups since they are impossible to get around them.  As the path takes you though the museum it descends into the history of the Holocaust from their isolation in the Ghettos to the beginnings of the mass murders during Operation Barbossa, made even more haunting by videos of survivors and the remnants left behind of those that has died.  Leaving the main gallery take you to the Hall of Names, which commemorates all the Jews that died in the Holocaust, with 600 photographs and short biographies of the victims. Perhaps the most moving and depressing part of the entire museum was the Children’s Memorial. To get to it, we had to walk though a stunning garden and into this tiny underground tunnel into a pitch black hall. It is so dark that it is impossible to see anything, even after your eyes adjust. As we reached the end, we could hear a female voice reading off names, locations and ages of all these children at time of death. Finally, after coming out of the pitch blackness there’s little pinpricks of light ahead and entering the main room, there’s hundreds of little lights surrounding the path in this pitch dark room while the woman kept reading. There’s one candle in the center of the exhibit and the light from it is reflected around the room by mirrors, creating this illusion of  these hundreds of stars symbolizing all these children.

Taybeh

I had an interesting predicament last weekend, of trying to find something to do. My usual compatriots had decided to go on a religious retreat in the Negev Desert. I had opted out due to have no desire to have a particularly religious weekend, and I had more than enough homework to keep me occupied. However, there is only so long that I can stand looking at the walls of my apartment, and before I went crazy and decided to clean the bathroom, I started looking into activities. I had been told about JStreet U at the beginning of the semester, however I was never able to attend an event. JStreet is an organization that works for an equal settlement of the Arab- Israeli conflict that has the approval of both sides. For more information about their goals, vision, and objectives go to: http://jstreet.org/jerusalem. The trip that I went on was billed as a trip to a Palestinian Brewery, but our first stop was to the Latin Church in Taybeh, which was amazing. Taybeh is the ancient city of Ephraim, which is mentioned in the Bible seven times and was the city that Jesus went to after raising Lazarus from the dead. Taybeh is the last completely Christian village in Palestine and is home to three Churches: the Greek Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and the Roman Catholic. We visited the Roman Catholic Church, and got a tour from Farther Raed Abusahlia of the Church and the Proverb House. The church has many fantastic paintings  depicting Jesus raising Lazarus, Jesus and the Samaritan, Saint George and Saint Michael. The mosaic behind the altar of the church depicts Jesus being welcomed by the citizens of Taybeh- Ephraim.  Perhaps the most unique part of the church is the icon of Notre- Dame of Ephraim, which depicts  the Virgin Mary holding the infant Jesus and a pomegranate. Besides just being an awesome fruit, in the Middle East the pomegranate is a symbol of fruitfulness and fecundity. According to the lore of Taybeh, Jesus told a parable using the pomegranate to explain that to reach the sweetness of his resurrection, he had to go through the bitterness of his passion. This small church is also trying to make a big impact in the world by selling Peace Lamps to put in every church around the world. “As our last resort, we address our prayer for peace in the Holy Land to the Lord with a simple and symbolic idea…Our goal is to place a Peace Lamp in every single church in the world and to unite as many Christians and people of faith in a common prayer for peace in the Holy Land”. I loved how Fr. Raed put it, that we will be prodding God over and over again until he gives us the possibility for peace. Also, attached to the church was what Fr. Raed called the Parable House. It was a three hundred year old Arabic House that was used to  explain parts of the New Testament. For example, the story of Jesus’s birth.  How it was explained was that it was unlikely that Arab hospitality would have allowed a family to turn away a pregnant woman. However she couldn’t stay with the other women and children since she was about to give birth. They could offer her the stable, which was in the house, below the main floor.  The stable would be warm and soft, and further proof was offered that the woman who had lived in the parable house had given birth to all her children in the stable. After leaving the church, we headed to the Taybeh Brewing Company, which is the first microbrewery in Palestine. It’s a small operation, hence the name, but they market everywhere though East Jerusalem and Palestine. We got a tour of the brewery and some samples as they explained their business and the intricacies of getting supplies in and product out through the checkpoints. It was a fascinating experience and I’m hoping to go back.

Welcome Back, Welcome Back, Welcome Back!!!

So, Ulpan is now over! And as much as I complained about it before, I now miss the hectic structure of the 25 hours of Hebrew being involuntarily shoved down my throat. I do enjoy being able to sleep in on Sundays and Wednesdays, but I still feel like we’re moving too fast, but now we’re not going over the vocabulary as well as we were. Not to mention, that I now have to keep up with all my other classes… and judging from the size of the readers that I had to purchase, it’s not going to be easy. I also do not enjoy the lines that have developed due to the regular Hebrew U students who also need to display ID and have their bags searched. It’s not all bad though. All of my professors are very interesting, and are excellent educators. As I stated before, the classes are very reading intensive and I’m not looking forward to the final papers of two, but hopefully it will be doable. It’s also an interesting experience not going back to my room during breaks. The 2 hour breaks that I do have during the day aren’t worth the trek back to the Kfar and then back again.

Beach in February!

After we finished Ulpan and took the final exam we ran to get to Eilat. Literally ran. I was the last of the group to finish the exam and I was the one who forgot their passport. So we grabbed a cab and booked it to the Central Bus Station. We got through security and then ran to try to get our tickets. However, do to a language barrier we stood in front of an ATM for about five minutes before realizing that we had to go somewhere else to get our tickets. We found the bus by a miracle and then began our five hour trek to the south. With five hours after a long stressful week, one would think that I would sleep. No such luck. But there’s so much to see that it’s almost impossible to sleep. The desert is absolutely fascinating. Especially driving by the Dead Sea, the desert looks like what I would imagine the bottom of the ocean would be like. And since we did drive by the Dead Sea, the bus was going up and down the hills like a very slow rollercoaster. I didn’t notice until we went back, but apparently a lot of people did. I saw my first camel and also there were a few Bedouin camps with families shepherding huge herds of sheep and goats. Interestingly enough, since we were going to a beach community, the entire back row behind us was filled with orthodox Jews. And for the record, it seems no matter where you go that little kids smell like peanut butter. Since it seems like half this country smokes, we had to take multiple smoke breaks on the way down.  Not scheduled ones, but where we would stop to pick someone up and a bunch of guys (no women, just men) would scamper off the bus to smoke. We finally made it to Eilat and we made it to our hostel. Which was fantastic! It was nice and clean and we also got the added bonus of having our own room. We had to share a bathroom, but that wasn’t bad either. We got pizza and wandered around Eilat for a most of the night. We found a beach, with a huge boardwalk that took several hours to go through, and my friend got the random award for the night with a random shoe shopping excursion. The next morning was cloudy and cool, but with the sun out it was warm enough, so we changed into suits and wandered down to beach, when we realized that it was most definitely not warm enough to swim in the Red Sea. It was warm enough when the sun was out, but as soon as the sun went away it was cold and depressing.  So, we packed up and, we went walking with the intention of finding the Jordanian border. It was too late to go in, but we were close enough that we could walk and at least see it. So we started walking east. As you go east in Eilat, the hotels and resorts get more and more expensive. On the beach there’s a huge Hilton that looks like a sandcastle, and the King Herod resort is fantastic, not that we could actually go in, but there was a lot outside as well. Almost right on the Jordanian border, there’s an Orthodox beach, where the beach was completely enclosed and there were sides for the women and the men. We got to see Jordan and then had to head back, which made us realize exactly how far we had walked.  As part of our vacation, we made reservations at a really nice Brazilian restaurant that literally kept serving us food. As soon as we finished one appetizer they world bring us another. It was fantastic food, and I was so full afterwards it was very tempting to go to bed right afterwards. The next day there was much better and we spent the entire day at the beach. It was so much fun with the and the ocean, which was still really salty. The sun was relaxing and made it such great vacation to prepare for the new semester.

Ani lo holecht la'Ulpan b'boqer !!

The horror of Ulpan is over! Finally! After the intense rounds of study group after study group, late night stressing and watching students wander around muttering random words under their breath, the last days are over. With the oral exam in the morning, in which we were required to know two passages very well and be able to answer several questions about ourselves. We also all brought food and had a picnic that was a nice little break before taking the final exam an hour later. Which was long, drawn out and painful, but I survived. Now I go from the overwhelming joy of Ulpan 25 hours a week to the fun of 8 hours a week. 

Via Dolorosa

After feverishly cleaning the apartment, which needs to be cleaned again, my roommate and I went out to explore the Via Dolorosa, which extends through the heart of the Old City.  Starting at the Lions Gate leading in the Christian Quarter, the first station is currently a school, but was the site of a Roman Fort and is held to be the site where Pontius Pilate condemned Jesus. Across the road are two churches, the Church of the Condemnation, where Christ was condemned to be crucified and where Pilate wiped his hands of the decision. Opposite the courtyard is the Church of the Flagellation, where Christ was given the crown of thorns and mocked by the Roman soldiers. At the third station, we got stuck behind a group from Nigeria that had to touch EVERYTHING, which made them take about four times as long. Luckily we lost them by making a wrong turn and going to the fourth station before going to the third. The fourth station is a huge imposing church called the Church of Our Lady of the Spasm, which is a very weird name if you ask me. It’s the spot where Mary stood to watch Jesus go by. Down in the crypt there is a fantastic fifth century mosaic in which you are supposed to be able to see the outline of a pair of sandals, said to be Mary’s footprints. How Mary’s footprints appeared in a mosaic that was created five hundred years after her death seems rather bizarre to me, but I guess it’s an interesting commentary on the power of faith. I didn’t actually see the footprints, so I can’t attest if they look like Mary’s footprints or not. The third station is attached to the fourth and is the just a marker commemorating the first place Jesus fell on his journey to Golgotha . The fifth station is  a site where Jesus leaned against the wall  and there is a handprint in the side of the  chapel. Once again, I don’t know how much of this I believe, and I do find it fascinating in the differences in people’s faith. This is also the site where Simon the Cyrenian was forced to carry Jesus’ cross and there is a small chapel of commemoration. The sixth station is where Saint Veronica wiped the face of Christ with her handkerchief. A small pillar marks the spot that says “6 St./pia Veronica faciem Chisti linteo deterci” (trans: 6^th station, pious Veronica wiped the face of Christ with a cloth). The cloth was held to have healed Emperor Tiberius of an illness and was stored in the Vatican until the 16^th century when it was lost. The seventh station is the second spot where Jesus fell. This spot is also called the Gate of Judgment, since it is here that would have been the exit of the city and the names of the condemned were affixed to it.  We missed the eighth station, but it’s a stone with a hole in the middle inscribed with an “IC XC” for Jesus Christ and “NIKA” meaning victor. It was here that Christ consoled the women of Jerusalem. The ninth station is where Jesus fell a third time and is marked by a Roman pillar on the way to the Ethiopian compound. The Ethiopian Compound  is on top of a roof, and has been the center for intense debate. The Ethiopian Church managed to take the rooftop away from the Coptic Church and after the paperwork that specified their rights were burned, the Ottomans gave the roof back to the Copts. Then while the Copts were praying, the Ethiopian Monks came in, changed the locks and reoccupied the village. The site is still fought over, even though it’s been assed that the roof is in danger of collapse.  Another bizarre circumstance of this very sacred area is that there monks, men of God, are willing to have fistfights over one little spot. The Church of the Holy Sepulcher is even more controversial. It’s nowhere near as impressive as the Dome of the Rock, though I think it’s more impressive than the Wailing Wall, not that I should say that here.  The Church is the site of Christ’s crucifixion, burial and resurrection.  It contains the final five Stations of the Cross: the tenth, where Jesus stripped off his clothes; the eleventh, where he was nailed to the cross, the twelfth; where he died on the cross; the thirteenth, where his body was removed from the cross; and the fourteenth, his tomb. Quick Background: The Church of the Holy Sepulcher is such a Holy site that it is shared by the Roman Catholics, the Greek Orthodox, the Armenian Orthodox, the Jacobites, the Ethiopians and the Copts. Each individual division’s rights to the Church are defined by the Status Quo on Holy Sites, fixed by decree of the Ottoman sultan in 1757.  Under the Status Quo, each division is given rights to specific parts of the church and can hold services at certain times of the day or night. There have been frequent brawls between the factions, with the most recent being in 2008, but I’ve already rambled, so theres no point in going into it now. Also, since the factions cannot trust one another, the key to the Church is in the hands of a local Muslim family who has opened and closed the church for centuries.  The entire interior is dark, smoky and loud. At the very entrance to the Church is the Stone of Unction, which according to the Greek Orthodox tradition, is the stone where Christ was taken from the cross and the Roman Catholics believe he was anointed before burial. Following a very steep set of stairs that takes you through a very low archway to Golgotha. I didn’t actually get close to the last few stations, the crowd was huge and I had no desire to wait in line to sightsee. The whole altar is very ornate. More than I’ve ever seen in my life. You can’t even really see the rock underneath, except for the small peeks. Otherwise there’s so the thirteen station,  and next to it is the  Stabat Mater, a statue of Mary with a sword piercing her heart, marking where the Roman Catholics believe that Mary stood at the foot of the cross. Descending the stairs from Golgotha, we made our way to the Rotunda, where the Tomb of Christ is. Once again, there was a huge line to go see it, so I didn’t want to go to close. It was cool to see, but and I didn’t know how close I was allowed to so. Also, most Protestants believe that Christ was actually buried in the Garden Tomb, which is north of the Old City. I do really want to go there, and I do find it to be a little odd that the tomb is so close to Golgotha that it could be in the same Church, but who knows. I guess it’s just another expression of faith. 

Jaffa and Tel Aviv

In all the guidebooks I’ve read, Tel Aviv has been touted as this modern, cosmopolitan city, especially compared to Jerusalem. We toured Jaffa and Tel Aviv, and honestly I preferred Jaffa. Originally Jaffa was the only major port city of Israel, and was a bustling city… until the Arabs revolted against British rule. British retaliation involved basically bulldozing the city and allowing the Jews to build the city of Tel- Aviv next door. Jaffa is a beautiful city with gorgeous old buildings, beautiful flowers, artistic windows and is full of designer and artistic stores. I don’t know how true it is, but we were told that most Christian churches face east, and we were pointed out a church the faces the Mediterranean, which is to the west. It was a beautiful Catholic church… no matter what direction it faces. We got to see the rocks of Andromeda, where Pericles slew the sea monster and saved the beautiful princess Andromeda, on our walk to one of the best bakeries in Israel. The bread was very good, though I was told it would be spicier. Eventually we did get to Tel Aviv, and we had a stirring lecture on the original foundation of the state of Israel. Even though Jerusalem is the capital of the Israel, the declaration of Independence and the original parliament was in Tel Aviv. The main thing that they brought us to see was the artist market, which was interesting, and very modern, and as per every artists market, was very expensive. I’ll need to go back when it’s warm and sunny, so I can see it in a better light.

Psych Testing

As I can’t work here, when the opportunity arose to make 160 shekels to participate in a psychology study, I jumped at the chance. The group was studying how people learn Hebrew and they were looking for native English speakers that were in the Aleph level in Ulpan. The first session took two hours and I have never felt more like an idiot.  I had issues replicating patterns, I couldn’t intentionally make spoonerisms of nonsense, and the proctor of the test gave me lessons on speaking English. It is bizarre how they determine the how well someone can learn a language. Most of what they did was recognizing patterns, first in images and then in words. I’m kinda interested to see what the tests are next time… and I’ll make the last 120 NIS :) 

Trials of Laundry

I will never complain about Manhattan College laundry facilities again. In the entirety  of the Student Village where I life, there is one laundry room, and joy of joys, it costs 10 shekels to wash and 10 shekels to dry. That’s about $3.50! To put it in perspective, just a wash (not including  drying) is the same price as a kilo of lentils, or 2.5 kilo of oranges, or a half kilo of mushrooms. My one roommate washes her clothes by hand, which makes me feel really lazy. Luckily, I was able to infiltrate the secret world of the Jeff Seidel Jewish student center. All you have to do is sign up for a time and laundry is free!! It might take about 2 hours minimum, but with a comfy lounge and wifi, it’s a great place to go study. It’s a pain if people don’t abide by the sign- up sheet, but at the student center they will also feed you, making it even more desirable than the laundry room. It might be a pain once the semester start, but for right now, I would rather do my laundry for free and spend my money on oranges. J

American Food

I’m doing my best to learn how to cook and feed myself on a budget, which requires a trip to the shuk for groceries. I believe that I said that there is anything and everything at the shuk. My proudest moment was finding regular American cereal for half the price of the stuff in the supermarket and American Chewy bars for a third of the price of the ones in the store. We’re pretty sure they fell off a truck. The Hebrew nutrition facts are a sticker that was pasted to the side and all the rest of the packaging was completely in English. Also, the shopkeepers are more than willing to cut you a deal. I have bootleg American food!!!

Winter in Jerusalem

So… while I went to the beach this weekend, and it was 75 degrees there, it is still January and still winter here. Which means rain. And more rain. And more rain. It doesn’t usually pour, but it will rain hard and it will rain incessantly. It’s also windy, so my umbrella is kinda sorta useless. However, I do feel bad complaining about my forty five degree weather when it’s really winter at home. 

Masada and the Dead Sea

It wasn’t the first thing on my mind get up and 5:30 on a Friday morning to on a two hour drive to go hike, but I managed to roll out of bed and get dressed to go hike Masada. Which was amazing! We didn’t spend as much time as we should have since we had to get back in time for Shabbat, but it was still a fascinating experience. We hiked up the Roman Ramp and entered the fort near the place where the Romans broke through the walls. The hike up was really steep, but it only took about 20- 30 minutes. We got to see the ruins of the original palace that Herod built as a winter palace and as a place to run away to if there was a rebellion. It was amazing what expense that Herod went to in order to build it. The remains of food that was found showed that fish and cherries were imported and the Roman Baths that were built require a ton of wood and a ton of water, neither of which is available at Masada. After Herod’s death, it was taken over by a group of Jews who valued their freedom of religion more than their attachment to the Temple in Jerusalem. Well in the summary, they decided that there freedom was the most important thing to them and they all committed suicide rather than be killed by the Romans or sent back to Rome as gladiators. We then had a long talk about the significance of Masada to the Jewish people. How it was explained, and I hope I get this right, is that it is a symbol to the Jewish people of their situation in the Middle East and how there is always there threat that they might have to make a similar decision. I’m not sure if I really understand or agree, but that’s how it was explained. On the way down we took a path on the other side called the Snake Path. It literally winds up and down the side of the mountain and it is a long series of steep stairs. While it was quite a party to hike down, my legs were shaking upon reaching the bottom, and any other time I would stand still. We spent the majority of the time on Masada, but we managed to get sometime at the Dead Sea. J First of all, Israel may be a desert… but there isn’t much sand to speak of. There is a lot of dirt and a lot of rocks, but limited sand. The beach at the Dead Sea is a small strip of rocky beach and where the sea hits the rocks, the salt builds up into huge crystals. The bottom of the sea is also really rocky, but once you can start floating it’s amazing. I loved lying with my head back in the water and it was so comfortable! However, do not put your head underwater! While I was spared the pain of getting the water in my eyes, the water tastes disgusting. The water actually feels really oily when you get in from all the salt but it does make your skin feel great. The whole unfortunate part of this trip is that there we had to be back by two in order to be ready for Shabbat. 

We're Off On an Adventure! ... Once We're Done with Ulpan and If Its Not Shabbat

Theres so much to see in Jerusalem, that it would be impossible to see it all in one day. I went with friends to explore that Old City, which has a labyrinth of small streets with vendors yelling at you. Never look at one of them or look into their stores. They will never leave you alone until you walk so far that you can’t hear them calling. However, bargaining is really easy. For the most part all you have to do is walk about four steps away and they lower the price about 30 shekels. Everything is usually pretty expensive initially, since a lot of the stores are meant for tourists, especially near the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. The Church is a very uninteresting from the outside, and without the sign and the tourists, It would be really easy to pass by. The Wailing Wall was much more impressive, and there, and there is something that says you’re in an important place by having your bag searched and being required to go through a metal detector.  We actually got to see the paratroopers practicing for their initiation, which was really cool, before going on to actually seeing the Wall. The women’s section is about a quarter the size of the men’s , which is interesting, but to be expected. I was able to get rather close to the wall, but as I was kinda underdressed in jeans, and as I didn’t exactly know what to do, it seemed like the best thing to stay a few yards away. It was a fascinating experience, but I barely scratched the surface of the Old City. 

How to Get Free Food

So, the basic rule of thumb for getting free food in Israel is to pretend that you’re interested in becoming a better Jew. I’ve discovered a plethora of seminars that offer free food after ulpan during that 1-2 time block that is perfect for an afternoon sanck. Nothing much, mostly pita and humus, but whatever free food I can get, for minimal effort. Last Wednesday, I went to a lecture on Talmudic Jewish Dream interpretation from a campus from Visa: Your Passport.  It was a fascinating lecture and a really entertaining speaker. The basic premise at the end was that your dreams are calling you to be a better Jew, but if you take the Jewish part out, your dreams are basically telling you to step above settling for life substitutes, such as food, and focusing on bettering yourself, like in the pursuit of knowledge. Basically your dreams are a mixture of earthly senses, and our imaginations. Jewish writings offer a confusing mix of the preposition that dreams are the “thoughts of our hearts” stating that we dream about what we think about, that “a dream is a sixtieth part of prophecy” so that a dream is a minor prophecy, and that a dream is a mix of prophecy and nonsense. And an interesting part of this is that the Talmud states that someone that doesn’t dream over a period of seven days is evil.  Luckily I dreamed yesterday, so I pretty sure that I’m not possessed by the devil.

All My Apologies

Because I’ve been so bad about posting, I’m going to break this up in a few posts. So if at first it doesn’t look like a lot, read on. Basic rule of journalism is that if something looks way too long, people won’t read it. And since that’s how I feel, it’s probably a good rule to follow J This week has been so crazy, hectic,  painful and amazing that there’s so much to say but no time to say it.  So I hope I covered everything I wanted to mention.

Adventures of a Non- Hebrew Speaker in an Outdoor Market

After our first day of classes, I went with friends to the shuk, which is a huge outdoor market that actually covers an entire neighborhood of Jerusalem. Fruit and vegetable vendors, meat, fish, candy and sweet all in one little area and everything is much cheaper and fresher than what I can get in the grocery store. Oh, and most of the shopkeepers don't really speak English, so we had a lot of miscommunication, gestures and hand signals. We found a place where we can get bulk grains and on Thursday I made my first meal all by myself. Nothing great, but it was the first real meal I had had since Monday and it was fantastic. It might be bad that I’m already making a mental list of things I want when I get home, and one is a good home cooked meal. A cup of good American coffee would also be pretty sweet, not gonna lie. But the shuk was definitely a unique experience to say the least. We walked one entire alley before turning around and actually buying stuff. There’s so much going on and its overwhelming.  

Ulpan: Learn Hebrew or Die Trying

I have Ulpan every week from Sunday to Thursday. Since this was a short week we had class on Friday, but that is an anomaly. Essentially I have an intensive Hebrew language class for five hours every day, where both my teachers will refuse to speak English unless there is a   question that they cannot answer in Hebrew and still have us kind of understand. We still haven’t learned the entire alphabet, but now I can kinda read the street signs if you give me a minute. My favorite part is that Hebrew has two alphabets and we have to learn them both at the same time. Cursive we’re learning how to write and read, but print we can pretty much only read. Cursive is faster to write, which is awesome, but  most of what we do in class is cursive and most signs are in print.  As long as eventually I handle being in the market and ask how much something costs without getting swindled I’ll be happy. 

The Longest Day of My Life

Explanation: Since I didn't sleep on the plane this was  made even worse, but essentially I was awake from seven  a.m. on January 17th to 5:30 p.m. on the 18th. Thus it was the longest day of my life : p

The first day was hectic beyond belief. We moved in about 10 am, maybe a little earlier, then I went with some of my roommates to go get our cell phones and modems. Then one roommate’s stuff that she had ordered for pickup had arrived and we walked back to campus to help her carry all her bedding and linens. Also, I live in a bomb shelter, literally. My room, and every room 1, are built with extra thick walls and have a double door outside my room door. One would think there would be benefits to this, since it should be reasonably soundproof. Nope. I can hear everything. Then again, I’m probably the loudest in the apartment. The internet is awful in my room and even though we’ve only been here a few days it’s not uncommon to see me hunkered down in front of my computer in the living area. The first day we had a tour of the campus, which is beautiful, but confusing as hell. Our guide kept trying to point out different roads that intersected but I got so confused that I’m probably going to have to try and explore on my own one day when I’m not busy. After the tour they took us to a lecture hall for orientation and let us all sit in comfy chairs for an hour as someone talked to us. I’m pretty sure I was asleep for half of it and most everyone else fell asleep at least once. Finally after all this we had a trip to the mall, which is on the other side of town, in order for us to get a few essentials and I was finally able to get a pillow.

Totally random, but there are no squirrels in Jerusalem; only cats. There are cats everywhere. I mean everywhere. They are essentially like squirrels except bigger and I’ve been warned not to touch them. I’ve also never seen a pigeon, but there are crows everywhere. 

In Israel

Well, I’m in Israel. For better or worse, I’m here. Arriving in Newark was easy enough. Being selected for special security was also so much fun. I got the full body pat down, but the woman was very nice and apologetic about the whole matter.  Apparently I wasn’t the first person EL Al had been searched. Not to sound accusative, but it is true that everyone who I know was searched were not Jewish. My carry on was also selected for a special search, and I had to hand it over to security two hours before our flight so that they could hand search it.  Later I was called back and told that my duffle bag was not allowed to fly. Not my stuff, which they boxed up and put on the plane and safely arrived in Tel Aviv, just the bag itself. For some unknown reason the bag was not allowed to fly and is being/was shipped home. The flight itself was fine, except that I couldn’t sleep and I’m definitely bringing some kind of sleep aid for my trip home. I did a couple easy Sudoku, read a little of by book and watched a few movies. Nothing really exciting. However, the stars over the Atlantic were amazing. There is something truly fascinating about these tiny pinpoints of light in the dark sky when the rest of the world is completely pitch black.   Also, the lights of the cities in Europe were fantastic as we flew over. I’m so glad I had a window seat even though the guy next to me fell asleep and didn’t wake up for eight hours. Even arriving in Tel Aviv was really simple, except for the momentary panic when my cell wouldn’t work and I had to remember that I was half a world away and not in upstate New York anymore.  My suitcase was one of the first to come on the baggage carousel, but I watched my box go around three times before I realized that it was mine. When we got on the bus to get here, I got my first wave of homesickness as the exhaustion finally began to take its toll. Luckily when I got to campus and signed in, I found out that I actually have 3 American roommates and one Israeli. At first I thought it would be interesting to live with all Israeli roommates, but I probably would have gone completely nuts. We each have our own rooms in our apartment, which I hate. I can’t wait to have a roommate again no matter who it is. It just seems to distant, especially now that it’s the weekend and there isn’t much to do. I’d usually be talking and hanging out with people and we’re each in our own separate rooms on our computers. It’s still morning at home, so there’s no one online to talk to and talking to too many people just makes my homesickness worse. In the grand scheme of things, my roommates have been amazing and I guess I’m going to have to learn to exist in a less social environment. I will need to find an English bookstore, since I will run out of books soon and believe it or not there is a limit to how many times I can read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.

Prepature

The fact that I’m leaving in three days to go halfway around the world is kinda starting to freak me out. Also, I don’t know If my ADD will survive the 10 hour flight! I got the passport, and the visa.  However, I still need to print my tickets and the instructions on what to do once I get to the airport.  Minor detail. Hopefully some step in the instructions is to instantly reminisce about everything I’m going to miss from home and sob uncontrollably, then at least everyone else on the group flight will have to do it and not just me. : ) We leave for Newark tomorrow, in order to have one stress free night before I leave.  I’m supposed to be at the airport four hours early in order to go through security, which I suppose is a good thing and will hopefully be the start of an amazing semester abroad!!