Last Week in Israel (Part 1)

Yeah, it has been quite a while since I actually gave an update of what is going on here in Israel. I am sure that most of you that don't live under a rock know about the offensive in Gaza ("Operation Desert Rain"). I just want to start off by repeating that I am very safe here, and that while there have been small changes in normal day-to-day life (in the form of adding extra prayers for the captured soldier, to having to change my plans for Shabbat due to my friend not being given the weekend off from his base), everything else has stayed the same, and there is no reason to be any more worried about my well-being then you are used to.

Anyway, I will only give a very quick summary of last weekend (June 21st-23rd), since the weekend that just passed is fresh in my mind, and I want to share it as quickly as possible.

On Thursday afternoon, I left Efrat early in order to catch the 5 PM kickoff time for the US-Ghana World Cup game, which ended in disappointment (US' elmination from the tournament). I met up with my good friend Matt Cons (fellow MIT student, AEPi Brother), who is studying at a Yeshiva in Jerusalem called Ohr Sameyach. After watching the game, and then drowning our sorrows in a few more beers, we went and drowned our sorrows in some wonderful Shwarma off Ben Yehudah street.

Afterwards, we met up with fellow MIT student Chaim Kutnicki, who is working at the Technion (in Haifa) for the summer. After wandering around downtown Jerusalem for a while, we split with them, to go meet up with even MORE MIT students: Sam Korb and Josh Sklarsky, both of whom were town for the Meeting of the Elders o...I mean, the World Zionist Congress, as official delegates. We met them at the penultimate American bar in Jerusalem, Mike's Place, where they were showing the Brazil v. Japan game (4-1 defeat by the Brazilians, naturally). Having no other place to stay, and having (somewhat intetionally) missed the last bus back to Efrat, I rudely invited myeslf to stay in Sam's hotel room (at the Hotel Renissance), which he gratiously allowed, and was quite a nice break from sleeping on the slabs of wood we call beds here at the Yeshiva.

The next day, we walked clear across the city of Jerusalem, to get to Emek Refaim, to return to the delicious "Coffeeshop" I talked about a few weeks ago. On the way, we got to see the Hebrew University campus, the hip (?) neighborhood of Rehovot, and lots of Israelis laughing at how tired we looked from a stroll across the city. We had lunch, took a taxi back to the hotel, and parted ways (note: Sam was returning to America for about a week, only to fly BACK to Israel to make Aliyah this coming Thursday! Mazal Tov!).

I met up with my friend Herschel at the bus station, and we got the last bus back to Efrat before Shabbat. Shabbat was IN the Yeshiva last week, and there is not too much to say about it. A Rabbi connected with the Yeshiva, Rabbi Fink, gave various words of wisdom over the course of the day. I slept a lot.

That's about it for last week. I will not skip to this most recently passed Thursday.

After a grueling game of soccer, I got a ride with one of the Rabbinical students and his wife into Jerusalem, around 8 PM. After getting in, I had 15 minutes to kill before meeting up with my friend Rachel Lando, so I bought a beer and a pack of gum, and sat down in the middle of a promenade, and took in the cool Jerusalem night, filled with people relaxing on what is basically a weekend night. Rachel is studying at Pardes, which is a very open-minded, traditional instituation in Jerusalem dedicated to teaching religious Jewish texts in a more academic manner. Rachel is studying there (I think) as part of her Jewish Studies major at Wellesley, or maybe just because she is interested....but I think it's for credit.

Anyway, she met me at the center of Emek Refaim (I really like this street, if you haven't noticed), and we went back to her apartment. She is renting a room in an aparment with two Orthodox girls, neither of whom seems to be actually staying there this summer: one of them was moving out for the summer on Thursday, and the other one apparently is never there anyway. Adding to that that the apartment is well-located, and, compared to the trailer I'm currently living in, is a luxurious manision, I would say that Rachel has got a pretty good deal. There is also a display case in her aparment displaying the largest number of shot glasses I have ever seen in one place: there were probably about 200 different shot glasses in the display case, which was quite confusing to me because I couldn't help but think: who is doing this much drinking in this apartment? And: who needs more than two shot glasses, one for you and your friend to say a l'chaim?

Anyway, a little buzzed from the gross Israeli beer I had drank on the curb, I sat and chated with Rachel's boyfriend, my good friend Eitan Reich, who is currently holed up in provincial San Fransisco, working for some company called Google (I hear they're some sort of internet company). He told me all about the free food, the free movies (to see "An Inconvienient Truth"....which would NEED to be free for me to see), and the free trips to theme parks (all during working hours, no less) that his job has provided for him, which I told him was nothing compared to the schwarma he wasn't eating there (and I AM eating here). We then talked about his future trip to Israel (at the end of July), and what we were planning on doing when he came (besides eat schwarma). Alright, enough about our internet conversation.

Rachel and I walked all the way (20 min) from her apartment to Kikar Tzion (Zion Square), where we met up with Matt Cons (see above), and Rachel and I greeted with the official "MATTT COOOOOONS" yell that...is had become a rather silly tradition at our fraternity. We were all very hungry, so after wandering around the various food places available in downtown Jerusalem (that range from a baked potato restaurant, to a hippie/Vegetarian place, to Burger King, to schwarma, to sushi....all of it kosher), we finally settled on the famous "Burgers Bar", which has some wonderfully large hamburgers and french fries. Two of Rachel's friends from Wellesley, Hannaheller and Yael, joined us at the Burger Bar and a little while later, we left....

...only to run into a huge posse of AEPi guys (including one Joel Miller, former AEPi Northeast Consultant, ie the guy who annoyed me all the time while I was President). Well, it wasn't exactly a run in with them---I had found out that Joel would be there a few weeks ago, had called him, and arranged to meet him that night. But still, Jerusalem is the kind of place were you can run into all of the people you don't really expect to run into, and so I was probably trying to exaggerate this effect. My sincere apologizes, but I hope you get the point.

Me, Matt Cons, Joel, Rachel, her two friends, and a posse of about 12 very "fratty" looking guys made our way over to the trendier side of Jerusalem (read: where you can hang out with Isrealis, and not just American tourists...like ourselves), and got a table, a round of beers, and about 5 hookahs for all of us.

Things get hazy around this point, but I remember lecturing the "new Joel" (a guy named Adam) about what needs to happen around our house to make it a better place in the years to come. I think I also lectured some guys about spending time at the "Aish" Yeshiva (because they brainwash people...which is true), and I bored Rachel with a sortment of topics that I am sure she couldn't have cared less about. Also, at some point, the AEPi guys called up their friend, "Rabbi Sam" to come hang out with us. "Rabbi Sam" turned out to be a girl that Rachel knew from Sunday School in Miami, who was studying to be a Reform Rabbi in Jerusalem. Another instance of this "Jerusalem Syndrome" (not to be confused with the actual, clinical "Jerusalem Syndrome", where people believe themselves to be actual or reincarnations of characters from the Bible).

Anyway, once again, I did not have a place to stay. I had orginally thought I would be able to sleep on the couch at Rachel's luxurious apartment, but her roomates were not having it (ie a boy on their couch). So I had to appeal to Joel to let me stay at his place, which he assented to, only to later remember that the Rabbi in charge of their trip had forbid the bringing of guests to where they were staying (it's a long story why there was a Rabbi involved here....but I will spare you the details). After a lot of drunk arguing between the lot of them, they decided that there would be no problem with me staying at their place (after all, they had an extra bed), but that I would have to be awake and out of the place by 7 AM. I should note that this arguing was taking place at about 3 AM. Realizing that, as a beggar, I could not also be a chooser, I thanked them very much, and followed them back to the Old City, amid talks of fraternity politics and whatever else it is the frat guys talk about.

They were staying in what is called "The Diaspora Yeshiva", which is a thinly veiled outpost of Aish HaTorah (the organization I earlier noted for their brainwashing, a comment which I stand by), and it was literally situated in the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem. Though it was beautiful there, it was rather spartan, but I very quickly passed out.

True to my word, I woke up a few hours later, thanked Joel for the accomodations, and made my way to the Western Wall, the most obvious place to go find a minyan at 7 in the morning. Not fully awake, wandered around in circles for a while, and somehow found myself outside of the Old City walls, where there were about 10 different police squads getting in formation for the day: I guess there was increased security around the city due to the operation in Gaza. The "increased security" (as I later saw it) seemed to consist of having a huge number of police people standing around EVERYWHERE YOU WENT, as well as a "checkpoint" into the city where they were interrogating people on the basis of how dark their skin was, which really didn't seem to be too effective, but....they are the pros.

I prayed at the Western Wall, and then found a little cafe and had some breakfast. Having made plans to meet my friend from the Yeshiva who had invited me to accompany him to a friends house for Shabbat, I had some time to kill, so I sat by the Jaffa Gate and took in the sites, and, more importantly, the people: Hasidic Jews, non-Hasidic-religious Jews, non-relgious Jews, non-relgious Muslims, somewhat-religious Muslims, Israeli police, Israeli soldiers, all of different colors and stripes. Also, I ran into none other than Matt Cons at the gate, who was going to enjoy the Jerusalem morning, only to be pulled aside by me.

After talking for a while, my friends showed up at the gate, too: there was Daniel, the Austrailian who recently made Aliyah, and with whom I was tagging along with for Shabbat, Brad, another kid from the Yeshiva who studies at UPenn the rest of the year, and a girl named Elana, who was from Chicago and was friends with Daniel. They had just been to the "Arab Shuk" or Arab market in the Old City, where Daniel, in an attempt to bridge the cultural divide between Austrailians and Arabs, had taken to drinking coffee every Friday morning.

...and I will need to finish this later. Sorry to leave you hanging, but I need to go do some MCAT studying. Hoepfully, I will finish this tomorrow.

Best,

Michael