From Jerusalem with Love

Learning

Two days ago, I took the final exam for my Hebrew level following eight weeks of "intense" ulpan classes. The program included 200 hours of class time (the typical college course is 40 hours) and one, two or more hours of homework each day, depending on one's motivation and pace.

Because this is Israel, I discovered my grade just a few hours after the test, when half the students in my class met our teachers out for drinks in downtown Jerusalem. Shira, a crossbreed of the Tasmanian Devil and an Israeli army weapons instructor, told me I got a 94. I knew the test had been relatively easy, but I didn't think I had come that far in eight weeks.

I began the summer in panic. About half the students in the class of 20 had a Jewish Day School background, having learned things like the seven verb binyanim groups (paal, piel, nifal...) and which nouns are zachar (masculine) or nekivah (feminine) side by side with long division and US history. Much of what was taught was nostalgia for these students, but felt like a dive into freezing water for me. I struggled to keep up with the teachers and fast pace of the class, taught entirely in Hebrew.

Our teachers - Shira and Idit - were incredibly skilled, tapping into every learning style (visual, audio...) through an ever-changing array of activities, props, dialogs and games. Having learned each student's name the first day, they quickly developed rapore with a group of 17 to 32-year olds (!) from the US, Canada, Australia, France, East Jerusalem, Morocco and Japan. Our class in turn formed remarkable bonds in and out of school, hosting parties for each other, sharing life stories, and forming several cross-cultural crushes.

My weekly quiz grades hovered around 70-75. Each day, we learned several new grammar topics. By the time I was able to absorb them two or three days later, we had studied many other conjugations, rules and forms. My strength remained relatively easy memorization of vocabulary, especially anything slang or off-color. To conjugate a verb in my head took (and takes) a bit longer than pulling out the Hebrew (or, actually, Arabic) for son of a bitch.

A major challenge to learning Hebrew in Jerusalem (or other Israeli cities) is that once class ends, it's very easy to get by in English, which along with Hebrew and Arabic is a de facto official language. Even when attempting to speak with Israelis in Hebrew, many will answer in English, whether for lack of patience, desire to use their own language skills, as a courtesy to visitors, etc. And, of course, when you are new to Israel and making friends, you are particularly drawn to people who speak your language. Amongst Anglos in Jerusalem, you can effortlessly complain about the psychotic bus driver, hunt for restaurants, or discuss the strange popularity of the murse (man purse) outside the States.

About halfway into the summer, I realized I was learning rapidly, something not usually reflected on the quizzes or numerous homework assignments the teachers marked each night. I began to understand lyrics to Israeli songs I have been listening to for several years. The political posters and bumper stickers made sense - even ones without pictures of Nazi-like soldiers evicting settlers. I began to understand what the teachers were saying, even to comprehend Hebrew texts on topics like the art of cartoons and the Holocaust. The process culminated on Thursday at the bar, when Shira told me my unexpectedly high grade. "Zeh cmo yesh li maychonit hadash," I said. "It's like I have a new car!"

The eight-week summer ulpan was a fantastic start to graduate school in Jerusalem. I made some good friends and learned about diverse cultures during presentations we had to give (Izumi spoke about Japanese kimonos; Mahmoud explained Palestinian wedding traditions, and I gave a tour of Boston's Freedom Trail). I made a big leap in Hebrew and have a sense of what lies ahead during the next two years, during which I must pass another four levels. Then, allegedly, comes something like fluency. Thanks to my American accent though, I will always be able to play dumb - when stopped for jaywalking, cutting a line, or ignoring directives in general.

Let it be known that I just achieved a new low in modern housekeeping, even as I write about my academic accomplishments. Earlier today, I tossed clothes from the washing machine into the dryer. I just went to take them out, and it seems that before throwing the wet clothes in, I neglected to remove the quarter-filled container of Tide and box of fabric softener sheets I cleverly store in the dryer. The box of sheets has completely disappeared, but there are little brown chunks of cardboard here and there, mixed in with about 40 mountain-fresh scented sheets. The Tide bottle survived, having lost its lid and several ounces of tide during the cycle.

Wouldn't life be boring if we weren't always learning?

(See the "Summer Ulpan" photo album for hot new photos of my classmates, teachers and our trips to the Bible Zoo and the bar.)

Train to Geneva

Tonight I went to a rally organized by "Peace Now" in the center of Jerusalem. Trying to build on Israel's recent Disengagement from Gaza, left-wing demonstrators urged the government to move toward final status negotiations with the Palestinians and a two-state solution. A few miles north in Ramallah, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas told a crowd he wants peace with Israel and a return to negotiations.

There was no orange in sight (the color of the anti-Disengagement movement) as thousands of Israelis chanted Shalom Akhshav (Peace Now) and waved signs urging the resumption of the peace process. Walking through the crowd, I was offered dozens of bumper stickers, brochures and blue ribbons in support of additional withdrawals. Youth movement teenagers hopped onto friends' shoulders to see the giant split screen showing the two gatherings.

The centerpiece of the rally was left-wing darling Yossi Beilin's call for Israel's government to accept the so-called 2003 Geneva Accord. The controversial, non-binding accord was signed by former members of the Israeli government and top Palestinian officials. It would establish a Palestinian state in nearly all the territory captured by Israel in 1967 and transfer control of the Temple Mount - Judaism's holiest site - to the Palestinian Authority.

After Beilin's address, a singer entertained the crowd with the lyrics, "Tel Aviv will be Geneva," a taste of what peace can bring to the region. Massive white "Peace Now" balloons floated into the night sky as typically edgy soldiers and police officers eyed the surging crowd. There was talk of the weekend's events in Gaza, where terrorists fired two-dozen missiles at Israeli communities. The army responded by targeted the culprits and their weapons factories in pinpoint strikes.

The rally's organizers believe that peace is just around the corner - if only Israel would come to her senses and negotiate under fire. "But you can't let Hamas and Islamic Jihad hold the process hostage," Peace Now asserts. "Almost all of Palestinian society calls for the destruction of Israel and supports terrorism. Who are you going to make peace with?" responds the Right. "There will be peace when the occupation ends," says Peace Now. "It's the occupation that keeps our buses and restaurants from blowing up every hour!" the Right retorts.

For thousands of years, peace has alluded this scared city named for peace. Before the rally, I visited the lofty King David Tower citadel in the Old City, home to the Jerusalem history museum and a temporary exhibit on the old Jaffa-Jerusalem train. The rampart-surrounded complex contains rooms for each portion of Jerusalem's history, from the Temple Periods to Greek rule to Roman rule to Christian rule to the Crusaders to the Turks to...you get the point. Each transition between periods contained new horrors, from the burning of Jerusalem by Rome to the destruction of the entire Jewish Quarter in 1948.

The nostalgic Jaffa-Jerusalem train exhibit seemed a bit out of place amidst the very serious and deadly history of the city. Elevated model trains weaved around archaeological ruins in the citadel courtyard to the delight of children. Inside the "Crusaders' Hall," a photo exhibit payed homage to a train that has gone in and out of service for more than a century and once carried Theodore Herzl, the state's visionary, to Jerusalem.

Indeed, it was Herzl who imagined an Israel that would be a Jewish Switzerland (Geneva!) in the Middle East - a country of genteel European manners to end anti-Semitism and promote enlightenment. Herzl, who did not foresee the Arab-Israeli conflict, would be pleased to see an Israel home to high-tech innovation, Pizza Hut and frequent labor strikes. He would be surprised and dismayed by Israel's many societal chasms, including the eternal debate about how to make peace.

For Herzl, the train to Jewish statehood and normalcy went through Geneva, metaphorically speaking. At tonight's rally, I wondered if the train to peace also goes through Geneva. Can Israel end the conflict in one fell swoop, through a dramatic offer of immediate statehood to the Palestinians? Or, will powerful elements in Palestinian society continue to set the debate, calling for Israel's destruction and using terrorism to meet their goal?

Right now, this train is done thinking and heading toward its next stop: sleep.

(See the "Train to Geneva" photo album for pictures from today's travels.)

24 Hours in Jerusalem

It's Saturday night and I just got back from Emek Refaim, a gentrified, Anglo-filled street home to trendy cafes, boutiques and the occasional bizarre demonstration.

Two hours ago, I left Emek Refaim's Cafe Hillel and a rather unsatisfying plate of greens - I was too proud to ask for the English menu, and paid the price. As I crossed the street, a moving wall caught my attention. Yes, it was a little white wall, about six feet tall and ten feet wide, slowly weaving around pedestrians on the sidewalk. Next to the wall walked a man dressed like a traditional Arab in a long white robe and red keffeyah headdress. On hand were several guitarists playing old Israeli/Zionist songs as people danced in circles, clapped and sang along.

At first I thought this was all just entertainment. Of course, nothing here is ever that simple. Once I crossed the street and started speaking with onlookers, I learned this odd scene was actually an anti-"wall" demonstration - people protesting the route (and very construction) of a security fence to keep suicide bombers out of Israel. Attached to the portable wall was a huge poster of the West Bank showing completed portions of the fence and where it encroaches onto land over the so-called Green Line (Israel's borders before the 1967's Six Day War).

As the portable wall moved from here to there, the hunched over "Arab" followed closely astride, struggling to keep up. Someone explained this signified the fence's current construction in East Jerusalem, where it will divide some Palestinian areas from each other and in general create mobility hardships. Activists distributed propaganda railing against the Israeli government for protecting its citizens - both Jewish and Arab - with the fence.

For half an hour, I joined two other onlookers in debating a 20-something, Israeli-born Jewish activist who spoke with a British accent. The discussion revolved around Israel's "right" to exist as a Jewish State, with the protester calling for a single democratic country west of the Jordan River that would encompass Jews and Arabs (read: the destruction of Israel). Once you start speaking with them, you'll find that many people against the security fence are also against the State of Israel within any borders.

The argument was heated, and I had trouble speaking with someone so adamantly opposed to a democratic, Jewish country in this tiny, oil-barren piece of land (and a Jew no less, with family killed in the Holocaust). The activist justified Palestinian terrorism, denouncing Israel as racist and colonial. The UN Partition Plan of 1947, Irgun and Etzel, 1967, South Africa and all sorts of topics were invoked to make one point or another, and our activist was quite capable of refuting all pro-Israel arguments. Sometimes, he travels to Europe to speak with anarchist groups there about the evils of Israel.

At the end of the conversation, I told him he should be a spokesperson for Hamas, because he was quite adept at justifying their methods - and with a British accent to boot.  I tried to imagine a pro-Israel, anti-terrorism protester on the streets of Cairo, Baghdad or Damascus. One has to wonder who would lynch him first - the government or the crowd in town square. Yes, freedom of speech is alive and well in the Holy Land.

Within two minutes' walk of the portable wall scene, on the very same street, several Palestinian suicide bombers have detonated since 2000, killing and wounding hundreds of men, women and children. The anti-"wall" people make no mention of Palestinian terrorism in their comments or materials. It's as if the fence just appeared one day at the whim of the Israeli government to push a few Palestinian villages and Jewish settlements over the Green Line.

I chose to eat at Cafe Hillel tonight because of something I saw there last night walking to Shabbat dinner downtown. Outside the restaurant, 200 people were gathered listening to a speaker. As with the portable wall scene, I had no idea what was going on at first. Someone told me the people were gathered to remember the victims of the bombing that took place in the cafe exactly two years ago. Being Erev Shabbat, there were no lights, microphones or candles, things you would expect at memorials around the world - just 200 people standing in silence, some crying, remembering the destruction.

Tonight, I ate at Cafe Hillel because of this memorial - as a way to process what happened there two years ago and what can happen again in Jerusalem, New York, London or anywhere else people make excuses for terrorists. It was ironic and disturbing to leave the site of a suicide bombing and, just feet away, run into people protesting a nonviolent means of preventing such attacks. The fence can always be torn down or moved, but the lives of people murdered on buses and in restaurants are over.

Living in Israel can be scary, challenging and stressful. But it can also be rewarding, fulfilling and wonderful. I am proud to live in a country that protects its citizens instead of training children to explode in cafes. In Israel, people who wish for its destruction have the right to protest with their portable wall, even across the street from Cafe Hillel.

(For photos of the "portable wall" demonstration, see the new "Bizarre" photo album).

Jewish Joy

This morning on the bus, I thought of Zionism as a triangle. The three points are the Land of Israel, Jewish faith and Jewish history. Within the triangle live the Jewish people.

What is he talking about?

Traditionally, Zionism has meant the movement to establish a Jewish State. Zion, the ancient synonym for Israel and Jerusalem, has always been the focus of Jewish prayer, thought and culture. Since Israel's rebirth in 1948, Zionism has oft been redefined, reapplied and, thanks to so-called post-Zionists, distorted. In 1975, the United Nations even adopted a resolution calling Zionism "a form of racism and racial discrimination" (the anti-Semitic resolution was not revoked until 1991).

If there is already a Jewish State, why do we need the term Zionism, or even Zionism itself? Do Americans or Argentinians or French people sit around debating the purpose of their nation, its founders' intentions or the historical role of their people? Not usually. Israel, you see, is not like America, Argentina or France.

Three-thousand years ago, the people of Israel spoke the same language (minus some new words like television and Internet) they speak today. They revered the same prophets and celebrated the same festivals they observe today. They worshiped the same God they pray to today. The land, faith and history of Israel were one and the same, which brings us back to the triangle.

This weekend, I spent Shabbat at a small moshav (village with some collective aspects) in the middle of the country. Moshav Mevo Modiin was founded three decades ago by a group of North Americans, many of them from San Francisco. The site, halfway between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, had hosted several "failed" communities during the 1960's and 70's.

Between 1948 and 1967, the Modiin region (where the Chanukah events took place) sat next to the Jordan-occupied West Bank. Most Israelis lived in the densely populated coastal plain (Tel Aviv area), "far" from these foothills (a 20 minute drive) leading up to the mountainous West Bank and Jerusalem. This was not particularly desirable real estate, so close to the border and removed from Israeli cities.

Led by the late Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, Rabbi Avraham Aryeh Trugman (our group's host for the weekend), and other pioneers, the group stuck it out and created a thriving, eco-friendly, religious moshav in the middle of nowhere. Rabbi Trugman planted most of the moshav's trees during the past 30 years. In his small backyard grow most of the Seven Species, the staple diet of ancient Israel - "A land of wheat, and barley, and vines; of fig trees and pomegranates; a land of olive oil and honey."

While building the moshav, the founders discovered impressive Christian ruins dating to 1,500 years ago, including wine and olive presses and an ancient well. The ancient Jews covered these foothills with olive trees, which are capable of living for many centuries, explained Rabbi Trugman. The 1,500-year old olive press proved the existence of olive trees in a region that - before being reclaimed by the Jewish National Fund 100 years ago - was left barren and untended for centuries.

Trees are not the only thing special about this moshav. Its spiritual leader, the late Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, launched a reawakened amongst Jews and non-Jews from New York to Tel Aviv. A talented singer and guitarist, "Reb Shlomo" blended traditional Hassidic mysticism with orthodox Jewish practice. His hippie-brand "House of Love and Prayer" Judaism broke down barriers and launched a roving ministry.

At the moshav this weekend, I learned that some songs I grew up singing in Jewish day camp and synagogue (like "Am Yisrael Chai"/The People of Israel Live and "David Melech Yisrael"/King David of Israel) are Carlebach songs. "So you remember Shlomo," a moshav mother said to her teenage daughter during the Shabbat lunch I shared at their home. "But do you remember that he was a special person?"

Our host Rabbi Trugman said the moshav's small but vibrantly decorated synagogue is filled with the spirit of Reb Shlomo. During Erev Shabbat services on Friday evening, men and women formed their own circles and danced around the room to welcome Shabbat. The ruakh (spirit) in the room was contagious, and even jaded outsiders had to smile and join the spinning circles. This is not the dry, detached prayer of most synagogues. At the "Carlebach Moshav," the music is the message (Reb Shlomo recorded two-dozen albums).

Back to the Zionist triangle. At the moshav this weekend, I saw Zionism. (No, I was not stoned.) Zionism "happens" when the Land of Israel, Jewish faith and Jewish history converge. The moshav residents live in this triangle, but they are more than just "in touch" with their land, their faith and their history; mamash (indeed) they are writing the story with every tree they plant and every Carlebach song that emanates from their hill.

Twenty-two hundred years ago, the Maccabees launched a revolt against tyranny in the hills of Modiin. Their story still resonates with the region's modern inhabitants and Jews worldwide. Twenty-two hundred years from now, can you imagine children singing the joyful songs of Reb Shlomo in the same hills where he lived and taught? If you can, then you are a Zionist.

(See the "Jewish Joy" album for photos from the moshav.)

Post-Zionist Postscript:

After 1967's Six Day War, Modiin no longer sat next to a hostile border. During the next three decades, the West Bank opened to Israeli settlement (for better or worse) and Israel's Jewish population doubled from 2.5 million in 1970 to almost 5 million by 2000. Large "bedroom communities" were built around Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and, ten years ago, the 45 families of Moshav Mova Modiin received a new neighbor, appropriately named Modiin.

The white city of Modiin offers a peaceful, suburban alternative to the cluttered Tel Aviv area. In fact, Modiin is the fastest growing city in Israel. City planners would love to get rid of the little moshav over the hill and put in luxury villas overlooking Modiin. "That's not likely to happen," one moshav resident said with a smile.

Words of Torah from Reb Shlomo:

"The closer you are to a person, the more you believe he cares about everything you do. If you bump into someone whom you are not close to, whom you haven't seen for six months, and he asks you 'What's new?,' you might not have anything to tell him. The closer you are, the more there is to tell. A really close friend even wants to hear what you ate for breakfast. A strange god is one who you don't believe cares about who you are and what you do - he's a stranger to you. The more you believe God cares about your every movement, the less you are worshiping a strange god."

Suckers

A Hebrew passage we read in ulpan highlighted Israel’s changing values since its birth in 1948. The passage – called “Which one is stupid?” in blunt Israeli style – discussed the chevraman of yesteryear, known today as the fryer. Let me explain.

Founded largely by socialists from Eastern Europe and Russia, Israel grew on the backs of selfless idealists typified by the early kibbutznik. Most pioneers came to Eretz Yisrael with nothing, fleeing a combination of anti-Semitism, war and poverty. They proceeded to drain malaria-infested swamps, sow neglected fields and found the backbone institutions of modern Israeli chevra (society).

“Forty years ago, the ideal in Israel was the chevraman,” writes journalist Ronit Forian in our textbook. “The chevraman volunteered and worked for no money, but did not ask for anything; the chevraman gave time, strength and money to everyone.”

The chevra-men and women of early Israel built a cohesive society from a melting pot of immigrants. In addition to constant attacks from Arab militias, the pre-state Yishuv faced a dearth of resources and hostile British policies against immigration and Jewish self-protection. To cope with these challenges, the individual was subverted in favor of the group.

Read the words of an old Israeli song, called the Bonfire Hora, for a sense of the once glorified pioneer-kibbutz ethos, when songs were about carrying bricks and plowing fields:

We came with nothing, we, the poor of yesterday.                                    

Fate gave us the millions of tomorrow.   

Come out to the circle, give a song to the poor.         

Here gathered to dance, sons of poverty and the spoils.                                  

Hora arise, arise!                                                                                     

Light a fire in my night, pure and full of light, hora of the campfire.

(Hora Medura, lyrics by N. Alterman)

Alas, no one sings about poverty and immigration anymore. After introducing the chevraman of early Israel, our ulpan reading outlined the value shift in Israeli society. “The chevraman of yesterday is today’s fryer,” writes Forian, using the slang for sucker. “The ideal today is not to be a chevraman…and not to give of yourself until the end, rather first to think what is good for yourself and to put yourself in the center.”

Today’s popular music is not about pioneers or sharing; like American music, it is about the individual – in love, in conflict, or just plain horny. The days of austerity are over – Israel's current GDP per capita is similar to that of Britain, Finland and Ireland. No longer “third world” and provincial, today’s Israel is a high-tech powerhouse that sent tons of medical supplies and recovery equipment to hurricane-stricken New Orleans.

Behind rosy economic statistics hides another reality: approximately 1.2 million Israelis -- a fifth of the population -- live in poverty, according to government reports. Israel now rates second only to the United States among Western nations in terms of social inequality. Many factors feed into the situation, including government policy, an influx of foreign workers and the need for an inordinately large army. Acting Finance Minister (and former Jerusalem mayor) Ehud Olmert told Israel Radio about a recent trip to a Negev Desert development town, where a family with five children had just one item in its refrigerator – a container of yogurt.

Has Israel completely eschewed socialist values to chase the American Dream? Can the chevraman of yesteryear find a home in high-tech Herzlyia without being labeled a sucker? The “group before individual” ethos can still be found in Israel’s unique army, but downsizing and shifting security needs have altered even that bastion of social cohesion. Are the days of horas around the bonfire and shared sense of purpose over?

Take a look at the lyrics to “Take it All,” a recent song from pop-sensation Sarit Hadad. The song is apparently directed to an estranged lover, but I can also imagine a young (and possibly cynical) Israeli using these words to address a society that has changed so much in just a few decades:

You fed me a thousand stories and promises                                                 

And you let me live between dreams and fantasies                                          

But I have the strength to forget you                                                            

Because I'm through playing the game of love                                                

Take it all, I'm fine alone                                                                            

I'm getting along without you, I'm independent                                                

Take it all, I'm fine by myself                                                                        

If love is a movie, there's only a blank screen                                                   

I have within me a love without end                                                            

But not even one drop of it remains for you                                                   

I know that there is no more life in this life                                                    

I'm finished, there is no way back                                                                

My innocence has disappeared and is lost forever

(See the “Gallery” photo album for file photos of me with two well-known Israelis mentioned in this article)

"Ode Shabbat"

Ode Shabbat, another Shabbat.

Yesterday, I really got down with Shabbat, walking five or six hours in a big circle around the city. Shabbat in Jerusalem is shocking the first time you see it - the streets are almost totally empty, except for some walkers. Everything is closed and shuttered. You are almost forced to do something different, spend time with family, or at least watch TV all day (unless you are shomer shabbat and don't use electricity on Saturday).

Shabbat is the perfect day to take a long walk. For those of you who know Jerusalem, I walked from my apartment in Baka through the German Colony, down to the Givat Ram Botanical Gardens, up past the Knesset and Supreme Court, down Yaffo Street to Ben Yehuda, then across the city center via King David Street and back down into Baka.

I spent a couple of hours at the botanical gardens, which were more impressive than I'd anticipated. The site includes areas for six regions of the world, from Australia to North America to Europe. There were literally five other people in the entire 30-acre park, so it was a great experience with several homework and nap breaks.

After the gardens, I headed downtown for lunch.  I thought something would be open on Yaffo Street (the main road downtown), but everything was closed, even the central bus station complex. I decided to go to the Old City, knowing Arabs don't keep Shabbat and I could buy lunch. On the way, I spotted a welcoming sign with golden arches and the words "Fifty Meters." Once again, globalism saved the day.

Take a look at the  "Ode Shabbat" album for photos of the garden and other interesting moments along my walk, as well as the "City Views" album for an idea of the city's look and topography.