Sukkot

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Oops, I’m very sorry for not writing for so long! Here are the highlights from the last week:

Tuesday-Wednesday, September 21-22, 2010

Tuesday night we went to the big Tel Aviv apartment and built a sukkah during Ulpan. We learned a lot of Sukkot-related words, which I currently don’t remember, which was fun. Sukkot is a huge holiday here in Israel – once again, everything is going to be closed for about four days, since it falls on a Wednesday/Thursday, and then Shabbat. Amy, Hannah and I stumbled into a sort of farmer’s market on our walk that was selling only these three things you “need” for your sukkah – we thought it was something awesome so we went in, but it was super orthodox. We were the only women in there, we were not dressed orthodox-ly, and we were clearly not going to buy anything. We left in a hurry.

Oh, something I forgot to mention was that I had a very interesting conversation with Morgan about state-sponsored orthodoxy. She told me that because studying Talmud and Torah is more holy than working, the state subsidizes men who don’t work and instead go to the Yeshiva all the time. Plus, they get more money for every child they have, so you see these orthodox women with 12 children begging on the street because the welfare they are getting can’t support their family, and their husbands won’t work. That is ridiculous. Be a religious state, that’s fine, but you can’t tell people that studying holy texts is more important than providing for their families. You just can’t. And of course the women can’t work, because they are orthodox, and also because they have 12 children. And this uses up a huge chunk of the state’s welfare allotment, which means that other people who are actually working and trying to provide for their families can’t get the assistance they need. WTF.

I remembered that conversation because apparently Sukkot is such a big deal that poor Jewish families are spending money they don’t have to build a sukkah (which is very expensive). That is crazy to me – isn’t the point that you invite those less fortunate into your sukkah with you? Then why, pray tell, are those less fortunate having to build their own sukkahs? Why can’t they go to North Tel Aviv and hang out in your rich sukkah? WHAT IS GOING ON IN THIS COUNTRY.

Also, we were talking in Ulpan about how your invite important people to your sukkah. Our teacher mentioned Abraham, Issac, Jospeh, and I was thinking about how those are never the people we invited to our sukkah at Sholem. Then I got the “this week at Sholem” email and they talked about who they were inviting to their sukkah: Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta, Nelson Mandela, Ghandi…obviously a different sort of population. I remember there were always fierce debates in my class about who to invite – Emma Goldman or Mother Jones? Ghandi or Mandela? Dr. King or Susan B. Anthony? It made me really appreciate (for the thousandth time since I’ve been here) my Sholem education. Sukkus, for us, was always a political holiday (like all holidays) and it taught me about civil rights and labor leaders I didn’t learn about in school. If we had invited old dudes from the bible every year, it would have been (a) boring, and (b) much less educational. I guess it depends on what kind of education you are aiming for, but I think the Sholem way is definitely the best. Also, I read some of the class notes to Hannah and Jodi, and they were like, “yeah, that place sounds amazing.” And I was like, damn straight.

Then on Wednesday we had a whole bunch of Ulpan, then a whole bunch of hanging out. Jodi and I bought DINOSAUR SHAPED CHICKEN NUGGETS for dinner (Morgan had them too), and we spent hours trying to watch NCIS, which was very challenging for everyone involved. But then we had a lovely dinner downstairs in the sukkah that Amy, Dante, Katie, and Nate built on their patio, with all the Yafo people and two Tel Aviv people (plus Jodi and Morgan, who are basically Yafo people at this point.) Then, after our lovely meal, we finally watched NCIS, which seriously disappointed me, by the way. If you haven’t seen it yet, go see it and then LET’S TALK. I also watched the season premier of How I Met Your Mother the other day with Amy, which I thought was excellent. Then we all went out to this bar in the flea market, which was fun until there was some too-intense conversation about the construction of masculinity going on. I love talking about gender construction, of course, but it wasn’t really working (wrong time, wrong place, needed a facilitator, wrong approach), so Dante and I sang “A Whole New World” instead.

Israli Public School System

Sunday-Tuesday, September 19-21, 2010

These past couple days have been all about visiting potential placements and Ulpan. I went to four sites: The Holland Center (preschool for kids with special needs), Ironi Zayin (an afterschool program for highschoolers), Ironi Chet (a religious Jewish boy’s high school), and the Daniel Kindergarten (a Jewish public school right next door to us.) I wasn’t really feeling the Holland Center, even though it is an amazing place, but I want to work at Ironi Zayin incredibly badly. They are doing absolutely amazing things at that program, and it is definitely my top choice. Unfortunately, they don’t have many spaces and it’s a lot of people’s top choice. So I don’t know how that’s going to go. I wasn’t mad about Ironi Chet – too much religion, too few girls, I think, but I really liked the Daniel kindergarten. They are doing a lot of coexistence work and trying to help their Jewish and Arab students get to the same level.

At the kindergarten meeting, we talked a lot about the public school system in Israel. What I understand is that there are three “streams” of public schools: Jewish, Religious Jewish (orthodox) and Arab. My impression is that the difference between Jewish and Arab is more about the racial makeup of the teachers and the language spoken, and less about the population. Many Arab children go to Jewish schools for a better education, the way many non-Catholics go to Catholic schools in the states. The Daniel school is a Jewish school but has a high percentage of Arabs from Yafo, because they can offer a better education, and Hebrew fluency, which is needed for any higher level of learning or living. However, as you might expect, Jewish children never go to Arab schools.

After this meeting, Hannah and I had a long talk about this state-sponsored segregation, starting from kindergarten. It seems to us to be only a slightly better form of “separate but equal,” (better because Arab children can attend Jewish schools if they want/can do it logistically/can get in) which is obviously incredibly divisive. The schools aren’t even requiring them to become fluent in the other language. We think that if all schools were integrated and bilingual, it would do a lot to lessen the conflict and heal the upcoming generation of this country’s wounds. If all Jewish kids went to school and were in classes with Muslim and Christian kids, if they all were fluent in Hebrew and Arabic (and English), if they all really went to coexistence schools every day, that would be huge. It struck us that there is so much more that the government could be doing to end or lessen the conflict, but they just aren’t. It made us (sorry for putting feelings in your mouth Hannah) incredibly frustrated, because everyone is talking about how they want peace and all of that, but they aren’t doing everything they can!

Yom Kippur

Friday-Saturday, September 17-18, 2010

Yom Kippur! Once again, everything in the entire city closed down. But at least it was only for two days this time, instead of the four we had for Rosh Hashanah. Morgan and Jodi spent a lot of time over here, which was awesome. Yom Kippur is, in Tel Aviv at least, like a giant block party. There are very few cars because people aren’t supposed to drive, so kids overtake the streets on their bicycles. There were more cars in Yafo, but they still had to navigate around the biking kids. Apparently people walk and ride their bikes on the highways, just because they can. It used to be that anyone driving a car would get stones thrown at them, and it might still be that way in Jerusalem, I don’t know, but here in Tel Aviv, and especially in Yafo, there is enough religious diversity that it’s not like that.

Quite a few of us fasted, me included, so we all got together and had a very nice break fast meal downstairs, with about 2/3 of the Yafo group (plus Morgan and Jodi.) It was really nice, and a good way to end the holiday.

Oh, also, incredibly weirdly, there is nothing on the tv or radio on Yom Kippur, apparently. You turn it on, and it’s just gray. So. Weird!

Night Tour of Jerusalem

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Last Thursday we went on a night tour of Jerusalem. Since it was the night before Yom Kippur, it was called a Slichot tour (and “slicha” means sorry), because of all the people in the old city to atone. The walking around the city was very cool, although our tour guide was not very good. The tour was too long, and we all very tired, since it didn’t start until about 10pm. We didn’t get to go down to the Wailing Wall because of the huge throngs of people – it looked like those pictures of Mecca, when the center is completely filled with a swirling mass of people. (Pictures up on facebook soon.) But don’t worry, I am definitely planning on going back and going to the wall at some point, because I am certainly not going to leave Israel without being there.

It was certainly weird being in the Old City, and being in Jerusalem in general. In Tel Aviv, the conflict seems like more of a political issue, but in Jerusalem you are confronted with the religious reality. The biggest building in the Old City skyline is a church. The entrance into the walls is riddled with bullet holes. The religious conflict is overwhelming, and I don’t really understand how people can see it as a completely holy space. I find nothing holy in hate, war, violence or fear, and Jerusalem is filled with all of those things. It also didn’t help that our tour guide was completely pro-Israel the entire way, and made no effort to provide another side to anything he was saying. We’ll see how I feel after having actually been to the Wall.

Pictures!

Pictures from the past week-ish are now up on Facebook! Take a look!

Word updates coming soon!

Teaser: we went to Jerusalem and I have bug bites! That's what I get for leaving my Yafo!

MeeshMeesh

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Sorry I haven’t updated this in so long! Here are the last three days!

Today I went to two placements; one which I liked and one which I didn’t. The first was Save a Child’s Heart (SACH) http://www.saveachildsheart.org/, which is an incredible organization that brings children with heart disease from developing countries to Israel for life-saving surgery. They also train medical personnel so that the children can get proper care when they go back home. 50% of their children come from Palestine, with another large chunk coming from Iraq. The rest come from all over Africa and some from South America and South-East Asia. As a volunteer, I would be playing with the kids in their house (they all live together) and visiting them in the hospital pre-and-post-op, as well as giving their parents some relief from constant caregiving.

We went to the house and met some of the kids, which was very intense. They ranged from what looked like 4 years old (but could have been older since kids with heart disease don’t grow very well) to 12. Most were from Ethiopia (they had a big group come in) with little Asian girl with a Chinese-sounding name. We played with them for a few minutes, which worked very well despite none of us having a common language.

I need to do some introspection on whether I will emotionally be able to handle working there a couple times a week, but I think it’s a really amazing place. If anyone is looking for an organization to donate to this Jewish holiday season, I strongly recommend this one. All of their doctors and the surgeon are volunteers, so it only costs $10,000 to save a child, including travel and logistical costs. The family pays zero dollars, even for the most complicated open heart surgery there is (one kid had heart on the wrong side of his body, and they saved him.) It’s really really amazing. They have saved over 2,400 children.

In the afternoon I visited a community center that I didn’t like as much. The guy doing the presentation wasn’t very good, and he seemed like he wanted only people with good Hebrew who would be here for 10 months. Plus the work wasn’t as coexistence oriented as I wanted. So, at least I can cross one of my 9 of the list!

After that, we tried to go to this dance performance in Tel Aviv (The Inbal Pinto Dance Company http://www.inbalpinto.com/). We went to dinner and got super delicious food, but it took a long time and then we got lost, so we found the place a few minutes after the performance started. And the men were snooty, so we decided to come back and see it when they will be back in November. We ended up just getting drinks at the really nice and comfortable bar/restaurant outside the theater. It was a really great setting, and I had one of the best drinks of my life (called “Summer Apricot,” which is how I learned that “apricot” is “meeshmeesh” in Hebrew.) We decided that we want to go there all the time and be slightly yuppie, but feel really good about.

We (Morgan, Jodi, Hannah, and I) had a really interesting conversation about how we, as opposed to other people in the program, are doing. A lot of people are kind of disillusioned with experience at this point, and we talked a lot about that. Obviously, adjusting to a new place takes a long time, and I honestly wasn’t expecting to feel this settled for a month, at the very least. I also think that it is hard for the people who just graduated college in May (which is over half the program, I think.) For me, because I lived in the real world for a year, and it was SO not what I was looking for, especially socially, I knew what I wanted in a very specific way. This program is much more like college than like real life, and that was exactly what I wanted. I wanted a built-in social scene and structure, which I am getting. But for people that have had that for the past 4 years, and haven’t had time to miss it, it certainly feels different.

Another big consideration that Morgan and Jodi brought up is that many people have (we think, look at me putting words in other peoples’ mouths!) an idealized version of Israel, especially after doing Birthright, which almost everyone on the program has done. On Birthright, apparently, everything is clean and nice and exciting and there is no seedy underbelly. Here, in Yafo and South Tel Aviv, it is dirty and sometimes smells like trash and things don’t work and you have to cope every day with the seedy underbelly. In addition to our volunteer placements, which are obviously dealing with needy populations, we are living in areas that are economically depressed. When we walk around in big groups of girls, men in cars honk or yell stuff at us, and you have to watch your step on the street cause the stones might be uneven, or maybe water will drip on your head, or maybe you’ll step in dog crap (like I did yesterday.) But I really love Yafo! I think it’s a really awesome place. But I (and the other girls in the conversation) never thought of Israel in that idealized way, either logistically or politically. I never felt like being here would be easy, luxurious, or feel like home. When you get off the plane and walk towards customs, there is a huge sign that says “WELCOME HOME.” I never expected to feel like this was home, or to feel an instant affiliation or connection with Israel, which I think a lot of other people did, either subconsciously or consciously. I certainly understand how hard that is, and how shocking it can be to realize that what you’ve thought and expected your whole life is so different.

Anyway, I hope the people that aren’t happy start to feel better as we get more settled and fall into more of a routine. And I hope I keep feeling as good about it as I do. Honestly, I am learning and using my brain, I have really good friends, we talked about racism, “Their Eyes Were Watching God,” the concept of “good hair,” and dinosaurs tonight at the bar, and I’m living in a way nicer apartment than when I was in Boston. For me, at least for now, it’s all good in the hood.

Fajitas and Florentine

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Today I didn’t visit any volunteer sites, although I have two tomorrow. I just hung out and mostly did nothing until Ulpan, which was very good. We played charades at the end. My team lost horribly, but my acting skillz did not let us down. We don’t have ulpan for 5 days in a row (damn Yom Kippur!) so I think we should all play Pictionary and charades to remember vocab words. It’s fun. So far, I have 3 favorite Hebrew words: zarzar (cricket), meeshmeesh (apricot) and melachfafon (cucumber.)

After ulpan, some of us went over to one of the Tel Aviv apartments where Morgan made us FAJITAS! Absolutely delicious fajitas! And she’s from Malibu, so she knows what Mexican food needs to be like. It was amazing. After that, we went out to a bar in the super hippy/trendy bar area, called Florentine. We convinced this guy, Oren, who lives with Morgan and others in one of the apartments to come with us, which was awesome. He is in an army program where he: volunteered for a year, then worked with a youth group for 6 months, served in the army for 6 months, now is supervising at that youth group for a year, then maybe serves another 6 months in the army, and then is done with his service, which is pretty awesome. Also, he was hilarious and knew how to get places, not to mention he read us the entire all-Hebrew menu. Super useful fellow.

So anyway, Allyson was with us, and she was like “Oh, I met this girl who DJs here sometimes, I wonder if she’s here.” Allyson disappears for 30 seconds, then pops out of the first bar we saw saying: “She’s here, and she says we can come to the private birthday party in the back!” So we got to go into this super nice back room (and sing happy birthday?) and it was very awesome. We felt very important. After being there for quite a while, Oren took us to this amazing ice cream store, which was some of the best ice cream in the entire world, in my humble opinion. It was fantastic.

Visiting Placements

Monday, September 13, 2010

Today I visited two volunteer sites! The first was called Aros El Bachar, which is an Arab women’s empowerment organization. This amazing woman decided that the Arab women of Yafo needed a place to go to learn English, computer skills, and other skills that will help them get jobs. They also offer legal consultations and help the women be aware of their rights. To help them make money, they have a doll-making collective, and they make the most awesome dolls ever. Hopefully soon there will be a website just for the dolls and I will link it when it is up. They need help mostly with teaching English. It would be different from our other English teaching opportunities (there are many) because it’s much more unstructured, so there is a lot more leeway and room for creativity, as well as responsibility and lesson planning.

The second site was the Arab-Jewish community center in Yafo. The center is on incredibly nice grounds, which was kind of weird for us, but we were warned not to forget that it is still an incredibly needy population that goes there. The center was very cool – they mostly need help doing English in the “American Corner” which is partially funded by the US Embassy. That really freaked some of the people from the program out – they were unhappy about doing something so “American.” I was talking to one person, I don’t remember whom, and she was saying: “I never went to Israeli corner anywhere…this kind of American propaganda scares me.” I told her that I had thought that all Jewish summer camps are affiliated with Israel, as are many synagogues and Jewish communities, not to mention college Hillels, and wasn’t that like “Israel Corner?” I think I feel that if the American Embassy is going to be spending money to help poor Yafo kids learn English – why not? They could be doing a lot worse things with my tax dollars. Like killing and oppressing Palestinian children. Spending money in a coexistence community center is not a problem for me, at least at this point.

At the community center there is also a youth leadership program where they train teenagers to be leaders in their own communities. She mentioned that they talk about things like racism, which obviously caught my attention. I’m not sure if I’d be able to work there because of the language barrier, but it is definitely something I want to look into more.

After the site visits, we had Ulpan. I went to the lower class and told the teacher I wanted to be in her class and I had already done the homework. She was like, “Okay, cool.” No sweat. And this class is SO. MUCH. BETTER. They are doing things that I already did in my class at AJU, but I know we’ll finish that tomorrow or the next day, and then it’ll be perfect. But it’s a fun, funny, relaxed, but still very fast paced class. She speaks to us only in Hebrew but is always careful to make sure she is understood. It’s pretty thrilling to understand 3.5 hours of pure Hebrew, even if much of it is communicated through pantomime, or through one person getting it and telling the rest of us in English. It’s fun. And SO MUCH BETTER. I’ve started calling it “Baby Hebrew” (a name which has spread like wildfire) and I love my baby Hebrew!

The WEIRD thing about today is that Justin, the dude from LA I had facebooked before we came, left the program! I knew he was upset because his apartment was gross and filled with cockroaches, but I didn’t think he was going to quit the program. Apparently he is crashing with a friend in Tel Aviv and is hoping to get a job. Since I didn’t hear from him the reasons he left so I won’t speculate here on this public forum. But anyway, I’m sorry to see him go. He was pretty hilarious to have around.

First Day of Ulpan

Sunday, September 12, 2010

Today was our first day having a real program after all these days off for the holidays. We took our first bus in Yafo (they have all been shut down for Rosh Hashanah and then Shabbat) to the central bus station, which seems to be bigger and more hectic than Port Authority. After some mishaps (oops) we found Benji (!) and our group, and headed over to the Bina building for more volunteering info with Avital. I found out from Benji that I was placed in the intermediate Hebrew group, instead of the intro group like I had expected. I was even more upset when I found out that Morgan, my number one twinsey, was also in that class. Morgan is pretty much conversationally fluent, and she is my translator when we go out. WHAT? So I asked Benji if, after today’s first class, I could downgrade a level if I need to. He said yes (after objecting to the word downgrade,) so that was slightly comforting. But still scary!

After more talking about volunteering placements (our visits start tomorrow!) we went home. I did some laundry and cleaned the apartment and we all helped settle in my 4^th roommate Allyson, who just switched from the Tel Aviv track to ours! Yay! I’m very glad she’s going to be living with us. She’s sharing a room with Tiffany, which seems to be working out well so far. We’re all very happy to have her.

Then it was time for our first Ulpan class! (Ulpan is the word for Hebrew class – I don’t know what kind of Hebrew class it has to be to be classified as “ulpan,” but whatever, that’s what ours is called.) Half of our ulpan classes are in Tel Aviv and half are in Yafo; classrooms in Yafo are very expensive so they are held in our living rooms instead! Which is super convenient for us!

With great trepidation, I went into the intermediate class (in my very own living room!) Immediately, it was way over my head. He spoke only in very fast Hebrew, and I caught maybe 1 in 10 or 20 words. Usually the word “ani” which means I, or “ken” or “lo,” which are “yes” and “no.” By the end of the 4 hours, I was pretty frustrated. Then the teacher came over to me while we were doing an exercise in the book (the same book I used for my class at AJU, funnily enough) and said something like “why haven’t you finished it?” It was something where you had to read the sentence and fill in the missing pronoun, either “I,” “you (masculine or feminine),” “you guys (m. and f.)” or “them (m. and f).” I understood the pronouns, but it took me so long to work through the sentences since I don’t actually know any Hebrew, that it was taking me way longer. So he came over and started explaining the pronouns to me in a way that made it seem like he was frustrated with me. I tried to tell him that I know the pronouns, but I can’t get the context. He didn’t seem to be listening. Then he told me I should think about switching to the other class, and I told him I expected to. Then he seemed mad (????) and said they were starting from the absolute beginning and would be working on the alphabet for weeks. I told him only one person didn’t know the alphabet, and he was like “No, I read the tests myself.” And I was thinking: “Really, did you read my test where all I wrote was “I don’t speak Hebrew” in Hebrew?”

Then towards the end, Adam, who seemed to be only slightly above my level, started saying that he was frustrated and wasn’t getting anything. The other girls in the class tried to encourage him, but the teacher was strangely silent. Then he started saying that he thought we weren’t motivated enough, especially those of us who are here for only 5 months. Some people tried valiantly to respond, but it was just really weird.

After the class I talked to Hannah and Katie who were in the lower class, and I’m definitely going to switch. In this first class they covered basically everything I learned at AJU, so it should be perfect to jump in tomorrow. It’s not that I don’t want a challenge, or that I don’t want to push myself. But there is a difference between pushing yourself and being in a level that is far too difficult for you, where everything is over your head and you are struggling so hard to keep up that you aren’t understanding or retaining anything. That is not at all constructive, and I know the frustration I felt was impeding my learning, not enhancing it. I learned a long time ago that I learn best when I’m comfortable – I don’t excel in stressful situations. I know that the lower level class will be the best place for me, and will really push me to improve and to be at the top of the class, which is how I learn best.

I’m hoping there won’t be any tsuris about me switching classes – I’m planning to just tell Benji tomorrow morning at the placement tours and then show up to the lower class. I’m even going to do the homework she assigned so I’ll be an ideal pupil. She’s gonna love me! Plus, I get to be with Hannah, and a bunch of my other friends! Yay!

After the disastrous ulpan, I hung out downstairs on the patio for a while, and then got the best falafel of my LIFE. He cooked the falafel themselves right there for me, and it was super delish. Plus, I managed almost the whole thing in Hebrew (all I said was “falafel,” “ken,” “lo,” and “zayoo” (that’s all,) and “toda” (thank you), I think.) The best part is that it’s only 3 blocks from our apartment! SCORE! Then I hung out in the downstairs apartment for a while, which is always delightful, and now I am going to bed. I gotta wake up super early tomorrow to go see two placements before lunch, and then ulpan in the afternoon!

I am Harry Potter

Saturday, September 11, 2010

Today is Caroline’s birthday! HAPPY BIRTHDAY CAROLINE!!!!!

Today I woke up late, did some stuff around the apartment, and then in the early afternoon met some of the Tel Aviv people at the beach. It was really nice and warm down there, and the water was great, as expected. I walked down to the beach by myself, and I realized it was the first time I had walked around by myself at all! Crazy! But I didn’t get lost and found my people on the beach without trouble, so that was lovely.

After a while we got hungry and went at got falafel on Yefet, one of the main streets of our part of Yafo. It was super delish. Then we returned to the beach, where I was VICIOUSLY STUNG BY A JELLYFISH. But it’s cool, because it stung me in the shape of a lightning bolt. You know what that means. I’M HARRY POTTER. I’m also a horcrux, which is pretty badass. It stung quite a bit, but it was fine. Some other people got big stings too. I have pictures that I’ll post soon – it’s pretty spectacular! Then Dante and I watched the sunset over the water – there were clouds for the first time, which made it super pretty. Almost like Maui style! AND there was a tiny green flash! I was practically eating pupus and drinking experimental Maui Sunrise Piña Coladas.

After I got home and showered, I doused my sting with vinegar and watched half of Anchorman with Vanessa until she was too sickly to stay up and then I went to bed!