Jerusalem Swan Song, 2007

miff (noun)

1. A petulant, bad-tempered mood; a huff.
2. A petty quarrel or argument; a tiff.
3. To cause to become offended or annoyed.

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What kind of blog do I keep, and what are its ingredients?

A college mentor used to tell students, "fake it 'til you make it!" To me in private, she occasionally said, "Matthew! You need to take yourself seriously." I faked it for years before this guidance and - despite a distinctly authentic third decade on Earth - I continue to fake it here and there.

More has changed on the seriousness front as I've learned to find my voice and make it heard, if only to myself. Journals and diaries make dependable allies because they take you seriously, and there's no point in faking it. It's difficult to get miffed at your diary for coming late to coffee or making fun of your hair, and there's nothing like an old notebook (or talented therapist) to remind you where you've been, in your own voice.

If not for Bette Midler, I would not use the word miffed, in speaking much less blogging.

I am moving from Israel to the US for the second time in six years. Usually, doing something a second time makes it easier, or at least you care less. I don't know that I care less, but I guess it's easier to click on auto-pilot, you know? For almost a decade I’ve lived between the US and Israel, never fully in either, missing both at once.

I am always planning a move, actually moving, or having just moved.

In typical form, I go out with a bang. Like the Titanic's final hours, my month has been filled with crying children and a good deal of splashing. A few days ago I finished staffing a birthright israel trip with 41 American mid-20-somethings. Imagine being a host, cruise director and social worker all at the same time, in Israel, attending to a full bus of young Jewish adults who've never been to the Middle East. My boss kept calling my co-counselor and I (left) "Julie and Julie," a reference to an era I did not witness, being just 25.

Back to tears. I made some people cry during the recently had "gift" of birthright, and it’s not unhealthy to admit this, or have a good 10-second cry twice a day when you're transitioning between continents.

The most vivid cry was had by a little girl who had come to Israel from Darfur, one of hundreds of refugees kicked out of Egypt to the Promised Land (remember Exodus?).  Israel's government is still on the fence about assimilating these refugees, so protesters set up a small tent city outside Jerusalem's government compound.

My birthright group was taking its Shabbat stroll when we came upon the tent city. One hand-painted Hebrew sign made a comparison to Auschwitz. Israeli 30-somethings (Tel Aviv types) played with rowdy Arabic-speaking children from today's Rwanda, a place called Darfur. My birthright campers whipped out their cameras and I, not unlike Princess Di, went to join the refugees (tactfully).

Shortly after inserting myself in the tent city, a little girl I had taken photos of grabbed my camera and would not let go. For a full minute it was a cross-cultural tug-of-war. At one point I lifted her off the ground as she clutched the handstrap and I the camera itself, all but certain that fierce biting would come soon. Shit like this did not happen to Diana, I remember thinking.

I retrieved my camera but catalyzed a refugee child's angry tears. Even before the tears, her eyes betrayed a total lack of joy, two deep pools of what we don’t want to see on the evening news (Lindsey Lohan, please). Even when I fished out a new pack of gum to offer in apology (below), our girl did not smile, grin, or offer reconciliation. I had made a child refugee from Darfur cry, if only for half a minute, and paid for it with a box of lemon sour gum.

Israel must also give of itself to these people, for what can be more Jewish - not to mention historically appropriate - than the Jewish state taking in refugees from genocide?

The birthright trip was fantastic, as expected. I miffed the core group of liberals/queers/Lefties by vigorously supporting Israel's right to defend itself throughout the trip. More than once I clashed with a participant over this issue, and did my best to explain what they will never have explained to them on CNN or in the New York Times.

Israel's security barrier is not an apartheid wall or a land-grab, I calmly asserted. Thanks to the fence, bombings are no longer daily or weekly occurrences here. Some people heard that line before, and were apparently untouched by hundreds (thousands?) of Israeli Jewish and Arab lives saved since the fence went up. I dug deeper and explained how the fence saves the lives of Palestinians as much as Israelis, a rather obvious fact (except for CNN viewers).

Since the fence prevents suicide bombers from entering Israel, the Israeli army has lessened operations in Palestinian cities and towns where the bombers are bred. By 2007 it should be obvious to anyone with an attention span that the likes of Hamas and Hizbullah try their hardest to operate from within their own civilian populations. The more innocent Arabs killed by Israel (and the US and its allies), the better for our neighborhood terrorists, who are currently winning the international battle for hearts and minds through stellar PR and a total disregard for human life.

What could be more liberal than an Israeli security fence that prevents the wrongful deaths of Palestinian children?

At another point during the trip, several participants likened the birthright "Mega" event to a Nazi rally. The event featured 4,000 birthright participants from 13 countries filling a giant auditorium, waving flags, screaming at pyrotechnics and swaying to live music accompanied by exotically-dressed dancers. The display made some people uncomfortable, miffing them as it were - especially the flag waving, which is so not 2007 and has no place outside the Olympics.

To put a different frame on the rally, I dug into my memory bank and pulled up Canadian media theorist Marshall McClellan from COM 101. McClellan said "the medium is the message," meaning that new media like radio and later TV (and now the Internet) assume lives of their own, becoming more influential than any message they transmit. I urged participants not to fixate on the "medium" of this rally and read into what doesn't actually need reading.

The "Mega" to me is many things - a Jewish pep rally, a thank-you to the philanthropists, a celebration of Israel and a giant disco. There really actually are not any messages attached to it. Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni spoke for five minutes at the "Mega" and - I swear - did not actually say anything. Still, at least several of my unnerved charges feared a Goebbles-like figure might take the stage at any moment and call for the expulsion of Arabs.

How do you make people understand what should be obvious, five minutes from Yad Vashem?

I shouldn't fixate on the political/controversial aspects of the trip, because they by no means characterized the experience for anyone. My co-counselor and I staged several small and large group discussions and were consistently gratified to hear people's stories, perspectives and goals. The trip is in many ways an extended, ten-day therapy session. There's even a small co-pay in that participants need to cough up funds for a meal or two, and that’s all.

Like a good therapist, birthright at its best does not tell participants what to do, where they should live, or what kind of Jews they should be. It immerses individuals in the encounter with Israel and lets them draw their own conclusions. Try not to miff them too much with wake-up calls, curfews and rules about drinking during the day. Do let them poke around at the market for 30 minutes, and sit next to hot, bronzed Jews with large guns.

I was on my surest footing when telling participants about various NGO's and nonprofits I'm familiar with or have done work for in Israel, particularly in Jewish-Arab co-existence. I can count on one hand the number of agencies operating in this realm, and most of them are quite modest in budget. I support these agencies and their brave visionaries with all my heart. They are like surgeons working to retrieve the life of someone going down on the table.

When a patient's situation looks bleak, good surgeons kick it up a notch and fight. On a good day, half of me sort of knows the Middle East will know war far more destructive than anything we saw last century; it's only a matter of time, the writing's on the wall. I struggle to find the voice of my other, "glass half full" half, which says that surgeons sometimes win, and pushing one of epi plus three of Bob Marley might save a life and thus the world.

There is hope, we need more surgeons.

During my two Jerusalem years, I've more clearly connected my "Israel" career to a vision of social justice and repairing the world. I love Israel because it empowers women, and not just the Jewish ones. Any revolution is doomed to fail if women are not on board. Instead of shipping arms and treasure to the Palestinian Authority, Egypt and the like, Israel and the US should work to educate and empower Muslim women.

How can women have power in societies that keep them in burkas or won't let them out of their houses? Is the role played by "liberated" women in Israel more threatening to local regimes than control over a few miles of oil-barren land?

As an American, I recognize I am blessed. In no other country on Earth would I be able to live the life I lead and freely "be" who I am. I made sure to wear my Old Navy American flag T-shirt (two of them!) during the trip. More than once, I reminded participants that countries are really governments and governments are really just people and people make mistakes. There will never be a country or a government that does not screw up (and big time), just like there will never be a person incapable of error.

Using the reality of universal imperfection as a starting point, we must get over our "p.c." mindset and loudly announce that, yes, some societies are superior to others, or at least oppress their people a whole lot less. I for one would not choose to live in a country where brothers murder their sisters in "honor killings," or where gays are hung in public squares by the government. Should I be embarrassed to think my society is "superior" to such cultures?

I'm not Pollyanna. I know my country refuses to allow millions of Americans the right to make a life with the partner of their choice, not to mention the tax breaks. If I wave an American flag and no one's around to see, what does it mean? Am I betraying myself, or others? How do we raise children to care about people in danger, or people who've been marginalized by fear and hate? I want children to ask why some people get rights, but not others. Asking the question is half the battle.

In a related matter, at one point during the trip I felt compelled to tell a large group of participants I did not vote for George W. Bush. What I did not have the baitsim to tell them was the obvious (and heavily documented) truth behind the highly-ridiculed "axis of evil" notion. Today's Americans want their evil confined to places of worship and the movies, not the real world.

Yes, one can draw a line from Tehran to Damascus and on to Beirut and chart the movement of Islamofascist ideology, weapons of mass destruction (sorry to reintroduce the words) and calls to destroy the West. It's time to think like Churchill, not Chamberlain. Don't let the absurd medium that is George W. Bush muddle the urgent message behind his accurate framing of what could easily turn into another, nuclear holocaust. It's not like Bush himself coined the “axis” term, or thought the thoughts behind it, right?

One of my biggest blessings as an American is the freedom and mobility to move back and forth between my homelands, regularly (not done yet, with G-d's help). I recognize that millions of Americans face poverty and discrimination and hardships I have never encountered. My blessing is not everyone's. I have two Promised Lands; how many people have none?

One does not need a million dollars or a PhD to change a person's life. As a matter of fact, I imagine there's quite a few people out there with a million dollars or a PhD who've never changed a single person's life, not even their own. My Jewish Israeli cab driver the other day told me how his family "adopted" a young Arab woman from the north, helping her access education and resources. This is peace, not a slip of paper signed by Yassir Arafat.

The turning points in one's life are often unplanned, like people who cross your path and leave you with wisdom, or confidence, or love. I wouldn't be writing this, or sitting in Jerusalem today, were it not for a flyer I saw in my Boston University dorm eight years ago for "a free trip to Israel."

A few times during the trip this month, the Israeli tour guide used me to model the map of Israel. The country is long and awkwardly fitted, so this was not a stretch. My elbow makes a mean Golan Heights, and, at one point, Ronnie the guide showed (at right) how the national water carrier takes water from the Heights down to the desert, which according to him was just below my waistline.

Let's stop there, because my private life is decidedly for another blog, or, more accurately, dozens of notebooks I've written since I was 14. I'll accept crying in public (briefly), but not sharing my mind's little black book, unless it yields a lot of funds or awareness for important causes.

Speaking of important causes, let's get back to birthright, the most successful project in the Jewish world today. More than 150,000 young Jewish men and women have visited Israel on this "gift" of a trip since the first buses in 1999 brought me and a few hundred American college students to Israel for free. Considering the world hosts just 13 million Jews, 150,000 is nothing to cough at.

Israel has the capacity to make one think all kinds of thoughts, and head in all kinds of directions. Even if the direction a birthright alumnus heads in turns out to be their same, pre-trip path, no one leaves without some new brain synapses forming, or at least losing a few in the desert.

In less than a month I resume my career as a professional Jew in Boston, where I will be managing Israel campus initiatives for Combined Jewish Philanthropies (CJP). This includes making sure more of Greater Boston's thousands of Jewish college students receive the gift of birthright, and do something with it, anything, upon their return. On some campuses, just two or three-percent of Jewish students have done birthright, despite the abundance of seats made available by generous donors.

The Boston area's 70+ colleges and universities have turned into a key battleground for Israel's legitimacy and the preservation of Western values; unfortunately, the battle is going the wrong way. I am going to get frustrated, and often. Hopefully there will be surgeons.

Because adults and young adults get tedious, I will be returning to my so-called "pied piper" duties at Boston's Temple Israel - teaching fourth Sunday and Tuesday school and running monthly youth group outings. I am proud to say that during my four years at Temple Israel before moving to Jerusalem, I did not make one child cry. Nor do I intend to in the future. I just won't take anyone's picture, and everything should be fine.

And what of one of the other "some" people I made cry? Another was a participant who reacted strongly to my sharing a news story in which some Israeli youths threw cats into the annual Log B'Omer bonfires (there was a context, I swear). The said participant had already been miffed by the alleged cruelty of Israelis toward the cat species, and my callousness prompted tears. I apologized profusely, and, later in the trip, helped her lay out a bowl of water for cats during a picnic, even as the rest of the group cursed the dozens of felines circling our food (cats are like squirrels here).

If you make someone cry, you should apologize, and you might need to do so lavishly.

So what happened the past two years while I was allegedly a graduate student in Jerusalem? Was it worth the effort? There was a lot of growth, most of it internal. In a region obsessed with roots and layers of habitation, I can't say I dug so deep or built so tall. Most of the marks I left have been in cyberspace, or hiking trails. 

My "at-bat" theory of life has more than been confirmed by the vast number of projects, initiatives and long-shots I've taken. I filmed two weeks of a reality show last year only to see it cancelled during the war, before any of my segments aired. I published stories, editorials and perspectives on four continents, and even got called into my school principal’s office for one of them (but no sour grapes).

With friends I launched two ambitious Internet ventures, and both seem to have failed. I’m not fluent in Hebrew, but 70% of the way there, maybe, at least according to the final exam, oy. I did a lot of gratifying volunteer work with kids and human rights agencies in a city where G-d seems to be everywhere but humanity difficult to identify. 

We won't even talk about dating.

As per my "at-bat" theory, the only way to hit a homerun or two is to keep going up to bat. Strikes and foul balls are the curtain before the Overture, you might say. People should never give up trying to transform themselves or their communities or the world. Most of the stories and topics I love are closely tied to transformations, both sudden and gradual. I collect these stories in notebooks and occasionally share them with others. A transsexual the Israeli army helped go from F to M. My great uncle, the fighter pilot, lost over European skies as my grandparents languished in Auschwitz. Ancient Egyptians preparing for the next world. The State of Israel. Sometimes we choose our transformations, but they are often forced upon us.

My Jerusalem graduate student years were bookended by death and cut by a miracle. There's no place like the holiest of holy cities to ponder Creation and wrestle with reality. I see so much creation in Jerusalem, and so much destruction. We are most like G-d when we create - a garden, a child, a place to contemplate. I feel closer to G-d than ever, and also alone. I am in your face, ready to dispute, reluctant to take responsibility. Trying to take myself more seriously, whatever that means. A year or a decade or grad school are more than the events therein; they are the invisible themes running between events, and themes can be elusive.

What are the themes of your life, and do you have a theme song?

If this is my Jerusalem Swan Song, my last graduate school blog entry, does what I write here obligate or define me? What if the topics above only represent, say, 15% of the things I actually do and think about? What if 85% of my life will never appear in a blog, or even the pages of my own journal?

We are all victims of the censor, and the censor is often oneself. During the second of her two years in hiding, Anne Frank rewrote and censored her original diary with an eye toward publication. Later, after her death, Anne's father went on to remove references to sexuality, family relations and other "inappropriate" topics. The Anne Frank you read growing up was censored first by Anne, and later by others. Even today, some prefer to distill Anne to her "people are really good at heart" line, as if the message of Anne Frank has nothing to do with her dying a harrowing death in a Nazi concentration camp before her sixteenth birthday.

A censor has the power to distort and deceive, and so do each of us. Words are powerful, more powerful than weapons, because it is only through words that weapons assemble themselves. Judaism teaches the world was created with words, literally the word of G-d. The "Genesis" story was the first and ultimate act of communication, not to mention creation.

Where do my words place me in the world, and where will they lead others, if anywhere?