I can imagine that everyone has heard of the catastrophe that occurred at Merkaz Harav Kook Yeshiva in Jerusalem last night. 8 Yeshiva students, ranging in ages from 15 to 26 were killed in cold blood by a terrorist of unknown origin, though they now suspect that he was from East Jerusalem, and probably carried an Israeli ID card, identifying him as a citizen of Israel.
In the face of such ruthless and inhumane violence, what can really be said? The initial response is one of revenge: the desire for those who planned and carried out this attack to be murdered. Maybe even some signs of strength---ruthless violence of our own---to show the Arabs that we are much, much better at killing them then they are at killing us. After all---goes the much repeated mantra---these "animals only respond to violence." I put that in quotes because I am quoting an article in an interview in the New York Times with residents of Gaza---who said the same thing about Israelis.
Now, the next day, what will be the government's response? After all, this is the first major terrorist attack in Jerusalem in over two years: the Shin-Bet (the Israeli Agency in Charge of Policing the West Bank and Gaza) has managed to foil hundreds of attacks like these, that we fortunately do not hear about. Israeli jails are full of thousands of Palestinians and Israeli Arabs who have been arrested while in the planning states of carrying out an attack to kill innocent Jewish civilians. Why does it take the death of 8 fellow Jews to hear the calls for revenge? Do we need to wait until the rest of the world is sated by sight of spilled Jewish blood---(are 8 boys enough?) to get the green light to do what we've been waiting to do anyway? Maybe, when Israel has a particularly gruesome task at hand, it should stage a terrorist attack, complete with fake Jewish blood, ambulances, and those Haredim who wander the scene, looking for the body parts of those who have died, so that they can be buried with as much as their physical parts as possible? Who cares if the Palestinians in Gaza will celebrate the fake death of a hand full of non-existent Jews? It's them who will be awoken by the sounds of jets and bombs at night, and their cheers of joy at the death of Jewish children will be turned to the sounds of mourning at the death of their own innocent children.
And why do they make us do this? Why can't they leave us alone? Why do they make us relive the nightmares of our past---the pogroms of Russia, Poland, Germany, England? Wasn't the creation of the State of Israel supposed to end all of that? What has changed, besides our ability to turn around and kill them?
Have we, the Jewish people, done something terrible to deserve this? Or maybe we're looking at this the wrong way---that the ongoing death and destruction we have going on with our Arab neighbors is actually a gift, since it is the only thing that is able to bring all Jewish Israelis together, and that Israel would fall apart at the seams if it weren't for the glue made from the common hatred of those who seek the country's destruction. Does it make me a terrible person to consider the good that comes from Jewish death? Or---the opposite---does it make us a terrible people that the only thing that brings us together is the wholesale slaughter of our brethren? Why can't we be united around a desire to create a beautiful, just society here in Israel? Or creating beautiful, open, engaging Jewish communities in the Diaspora? Or maybe it's the human race that is terrible---that they only stop their insane, illogical anti-semetic rhetoric for brief periods when others actually carry out the violence that was planted in their heads by that very same rhetoric, and they only shut up about us running the world and all that other bullshit when it becomes undeniably clear that not only do we not run the world, but we are so pathetically dependent on their poor excuse for society that our lives are held in the balance at the whims of women strapped with suicide belts, children bearing guns, Cossacks with knives, Germans with gas chambers?
Why do we care what they think? We have our own set of morals---we know we can kill those who seek to kill us (does it matter that the reason they want to kill us is because they think we killed them first? Or because we took their grandpa's olive grove?) Why do we care when some UK Human Rights group says we are Nazis and we are creating a second holocaust in Gaza and all sorts of nonsense? Why do we put their insane reports on the front page of our newspapers?
Why won't they leave us alone? Why can't we get along? Why can't we get along with ourselves?
Friday, March 07, 2008
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Current Situation in Gaza
Recently, Israel closed off all of Hamas-controlled Gaza, in effect creating a blockade, in response to heavy rocket fire on civilian populations in Israel.
The world has condemned Israel for this, calling it "collective punishment."
The world also condemns Israel for targeted killings of members of Hamas' militant wing.
The only other option is for Israel to do nothing, and allow its citizens live in constant fear of being killed/maimed by Kassams and Kayatushas, which will eventually lead to the total evacuation of cities such as Sderot. My only logical deduction is that this is, in fact, what the world wants Israel to do. After all, Israel has already given back all of pre-1967 Gaza, so its not like they can sing the usual "End the occupation" song.
I think its about time Israel stops listening to these people.
The world has condemned Israel for this, calling it "collective punishment."
The world also condemns Israel for targeted killings of members of Hamas' militant wing.
The only other option is for Israel to do nothing, and allow its citizens live in constant fear of being killed/maimed by Kassams and Kayatushas, which will eventually lead to the total evacuation of cities such as Sderot. My only logical deduction is that this is, in fact, what the world wants Israel to do. After all, Israel has already given back all of pre-1967 Gaza, so its not like they can sing the usual "End the occupation" song.
I think its about time Israel stops listening to these people.
Tuesday, January 01, 2008
Crazy Israeli Cab Driver #341,979
Conversation:::: (at 12:05 AM on January 1st, 2008---I have just been picked up on a city corner in Haifa wearing a sweater, loafers, a black beanie, and...basketball shorts)
Cab Driver: (in thick accent) Why aren't you celebrating the New Year?
Me: Well....it isn't new years to me unless the ball has dropped in Times Square. You know?
CD: Well...I don't celebrate New Years because I am a Jew!!
Me: (meekly) I'm a Jew, too.
CD: You know? We have Hannukah. We have Purim. We have Rosh Hashana. Why should we celebrate this goyishe day.
Me: It is the day of when we reset the calender year.....
CD: I don't understand it! I've worked in Russia. I've worked in Iran. I've worked a lot in Nigeria. I was once in Florence, and I hear these two Israelis speaking Hebrew, and they turn to me to ask me where a certain church is. I tell them, "It is over there. But---look---there is a very nice Synagogue over there. Why don't you go there first?" And they tell me, "Why would we go there??" I don't understand it...
Me: I know what you mean. I read it in papers every day how so many Israelis want Israel to just be another "normal" country, like any European country. Why would anyone want to be normal when we are special?
CD: You are right. There is nothing good about the Europeans. I was once in Zurich with my wife. We went to a bank to take out money, and I have my Magen David (Jewish Star) necklace out, and we got up to the teller, and he is about to help us, when the manager comes and waves us off and says, "Nicht helfen die ferfluchta Juden" [Which means something to the effect of, "Don't help the fucking Jews."] So I punched him in the head until there was blood. I beat him almost to death. The police officer cames and I tell him what happened. Then, my sister's husband calls me a "ferfluchta Jude" and I beat him up, too [Note: He really said his sister's husband. I have no idea what to make of this]. The police told me I had to leave the country. I told him that is fine, that I will take my money and leave....My friends told me they thought I was brave to do this. I told them that I would kill anyone who called me a ferfluchta Juden.
Me: I probably would, too.
...........
I have more to post about this past weekend. Coming soon.
Happy New Year (?),
Michael
Cab Driver: (in thick accent) Why aren't you celebrating the New Year?
Me: Well....it isn't new years to me unless the ball has dropped in Times Square. You know?
CD: Well...I don't celebrate New Years because I am a Jew!!
Me: (meekly) I'm a Jew, too.
CD: You know? We have Hannukah. We have Purim. We have Rosh Hashana. Why should we celebrate this goyishe day.
Me: It is the day of when we reset the calender year.....
CD: I don't understand it! I've worked in Russia. I've worked in Iran. I've worked a lot in Nigeria. I was once in Florence, and I hear these two Israelis speaking Hebrew, and they turn to me to ask me where a certain church is. I tell them, "It is over there. But---look---there is a very nice Synagogue over there. Why don't you go there first?" And they tell me, "Why would we go there??" I don't understand it...
Me: I know what you mean. I read it in papers every day how so many Israelis want Israel to just be another "normal" country, like any European country. Why would anyone want to be normal when we are special?
CD: You are right. There is nothing good about the Europeans. I was once in Zurich with my wife. We went to a bank to take out money, and I have my Magen David (Jewish Star) necklace out, and we got up to the teller, and he is about to help us, when the manager comes and waves us off and says, "Nicht helfen die ferfluchta Juden" [Which means something to the effect of, "Don't help the fucking Jews."] So I punched him in the head until there was blood. I beat him almost to death. The police officer cames and I tell him what happened. Then, my sister's husband calls me a "ferfluchta Jude" and I beat him up, too [Note: He really said his sister's husband. I have no idea what to make of this]. The police told me I had to leave the country. I told him that is fine, that I will take my money and leave....My friends told me they thought I was brave to do this. I told them that I would kill anyone who called me a ferfluchta Juden.
Me: I probably would, too.
...........
I have more to post about this past weekend. Coming soon.
Happy New Year (?),
Michael
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
Parents Visit, Other Visitors, B-ball, Mazal Tov, etc., etc.
Oy. I have a lot to write about, and not much time (I am in med school, after all). I will probably just run through most of it.
Hannukah in Israel was wonderful. Not only was it Hannukah, which is a great holiday in-and-of-itself, but everyone around me was celebrating! Eating at my favorite (read: the only) sushi place in Haifa, the three people working there took the time out of...making sushi....to assemble a make shift Hannukiah (three saki cups turned upside down) and light the candles. Even the dean of the med school gave a Hannukah talk, and then we ate sufganiyot. Actually, there were sufganiyot everywhere. At the hardware store, they had plates sitting around the store full of sufganiyot. It's amazing. On the other hand, the "latke" apparently never really made it to Israel, which is too bad, because I am a HUGE, HUGE fan. But...I think I imbibed enough sufganiyot to hold me over for a while, so it is probably not so bad that I didn't also have a bunch of potatoes weighing me down.
Best of all, my first Hannukah in Israel was also marked by my parents visiting me. I took the liberty of posting a few pictures from their trip here below (I hope you don't mind....). Besides treating me to a few nights at the majestic King David and eating at the finest restaurant Jerusalem has to offer, they also came back to Haifa to sit in on an Anatomy lecture (well...my dad did), and clean my apartment (thanks, Mom!) We also went to Tzfat (much more beautiful than I remembered it), and made quite a few trips to the Carmel in Haifa. Overall, it was really wonderful to have them here, and I hope they had as much fun as I did.
Since then, I've had a few other visitors. Shmuel stops in every so often. Elazar Volk has stopped by on his trip to look at the Technion. And I spent this past Shabbat up "on the mountain" (at Shmuel's) along with David Held and Jason Ruchelsman, both friends from MIT. After Shabbat, I showed Jason the better parts of Haifa (that is, Burger Ranch), and we make a very important pilgrimage to one of the most unfortunately named barbers this side of the Euphrates (let's just say common decency does not permit me to post the name in English....though, for all of those with a strong stomach and some knowledge of Hebrew, here is the barber's name: דודי פינס ).
This week was my second time playing in the weekly basketball game along with a rag-tag bunch of Israeli and American med students (as well as a few doctors). Actually, to call this a basketball game is a bit of stretch---it was more of an on-and-off debate with some basketball thrown in for good measure. I am not exaggerating that much when I say that almost EVERY SINGLE play was contested. Entering the gymnasium, an outsider might think we were arguing over a rather difficult page of the Talmud from the way people on the court were picking apart others' actions on the court and even the rules of basketball. There really was a point were my desire to leave was beat out by my appreciation of a good laugh. Plus, I got a few minutes of play-time in to show everyone that there are, indeed, terrible basketball players from Indiana.
Otherwise, I've been doing as much studying as I can possibly handle....and watching "Curb Your Enthusiasm." Actually, I had a discussion with Jason at the Shabbat table, where we came to the conclusion that most of the absurd things that happen on the show probably really happened in real life...in Israel. Indeed, there is something just sort of absurd about the way things happen here. And if subsequent blog posts haven't been enough proof of this, I will give example of something that happened today (!) that would make Larry David HIMSELF blush: I was sitting in my living room (watching "Curb," ironically enough), when I get a phone call from a friend of mine here in Israel who we will call "Lior." "Lior," who is currently a soldier stationed in Jerusalem, calls me up and says, "Michael, I'm going to need you to come down to Jerusalem next Motz'ash (Hebrew abbreviation for "Motzei Shabbat", or Saturday Night)."
"Why, Lior?"
"Well, I'm going to need you to play wingman. I just met this really attractive girl from Australia, and she has a very unattractive friend you're going to need to deflect for me."
"Come on, Lior. You could have at least lied to me....alright, I'll be there."
"Thanks, I owe you."
"Where did you meet this girl, by the way?"
"Well.....I picked her up at Yad Va'shem."
".........."
"We were there with my unit, and saw her get off the bus...and, well, I couldn't help myself."
Anyway, I want to thank everyone who has taken the time out to call/email/facebook-message me. As much fun as things can be here, it is still good to hear from all of my friends/family back home. Also, I wanted to give hearty "Mazal Tov" to my good friends Michal and David on the birth of their daughter, Nessa.
With that, I leave you with a few pictures from the past few weeks:
Three Stars and the Volks
Me and my Dad Outside my Apartment
Me, my Mom, and the best shnitzel maker in Israel (in Tzefat)
Me in front of the unfortunately named barbershop
Hannukah in Israel was wonderful. Not only was it Hannukah, which is a great holiday in-and-of-itself, but everyone around me was celebrating! Eating at my favorite (read: the only) sushi place in Haifa, the three people working there took the time out of...making sushi....to assemble a make shift Hannukiah (three saki cups turned upside down) and light the candles. Even the dean of the med school gave a Hannukah talk, and then we ate sufganiyot. Actually, there were sufganiyot everywhere. At the hardware store, they had plates sitting around the store full of sufganiyot. It's amazing. On the other hand, the "latke" apparently never really made it to Israel, which is too bad, because I am a HUGE, HUGE fan. But...I think I imbibed enough sufganiyot to hold me over for a while, so it is probably not so bad that I didn't also have a bunch of potatoes weighing me down.
Best of all, my first Hannukah in Israel was also marked by my parents visiting me. I took the liberty of posting a few pictures from their trip here below (I hope you don't mind....). Besides treating me to a few nights at the majestic King David and eating at the finest restaurant Jerusalem has to offer, they also came back to Haifa to sit in on an Anatomy lecture (well...my dad did), and clean my apartment (thanks, Mom!) We also went to Tzfat (much more beautiful than I remembered it), and made quite a few trips to the Carmel in Haifa. Overall, it was really wonderful to have them here, and I hope they had as much fun as I did.
Since then, I've had a few other visitors. Shmuel stops in every so often. Elazar Volk has stopped by on his trip to look at the Technion. And I spent this past Shabbat up "on the mountain" (at Shmuel's) along with David Held and Jason Ruchelsman, both friends from MIT. After Shabbat, I showed Jason the better parts of Haifa (that is, Burger Ranch), and we make a very important pilgrimage to one of the most unfortunately named barbers this side of the Euphrates (let's just say common decency does not permit me to post the name in English....though, for all of those with a strong stomach and some knowledge of Hebrew, here is the barber's name: דודי פינס ).
This week was my second time playing in the weekly basketball game along with a rag-tag bunch of Israeli and American med students (as well as a few doctors). Actually, to call this a basketball game is a bit of stretch---it was more of an on-and-off debate with some basketball thrown in for good measure. I am not exaggerating that much when I say that almost EVERY SINGLE play was contested. Entering the gymnasium, an outsider might think we were arguing over a rather difficult page of the Talmud from the way people on the court were picking apart others' actions on the court and even the rules of basketball. There really was a point were my desire to leave was beat out by my appreciation of a good laugh. Plus, I got a few minutes of play-time in to show everyone that there are, indeed, terrible basketball players from Indiana.
Otherwise, I've been doing as much studying as I can possibly handle....and watching "Curb Your Enthusiasm." Actually, I had a discussion with Jason at the Shabbat table, where we came to the conclusion that most of the absurd things that happen on the show probably really happened in real life...in Israel. Indeed, there is something just sort of absurd about the way things happen here. And if subsequent blog posts haven't been enough proof of this, I will give example of something that happened today (!) that would make Larry David HIMSELF blush: I was sitting in my living room (watching "Curb," ironically enough), when I get a phone call from a friend of mine here in Israel who we will call "Lior." "Lior," who is currently a soldier stationed in Jerusalem, calls me up and says, "Michael, I'm going to need you to come down to Jerusalem next Motz'ash (Hebrew abbreviation for "Motzei Shabbat", or Saturday Night)."
"Why, Lior?"
"Well, I'm going to need you to play wingman. I just met this really attractive girl from Australia, and she has a very unattractive friend you're going to need to deflect for me."
"Come on, Lior. You could have at least lied to me....alright, I'll be there."
"Thanks, I owe you."
"Where did you meet this girl, by the way?"
"Well.....I picked her up at Yad Va'shem."
".........."
"We were there with my unit, and saw her get off the bus...and, well, I couldn't help myself."
Anyway, I want to thank everyone who has taken the time out to call/email/facebook-message me. As much fun as things can be here, it is still good to hear from all of my friends/family back home. Also, I wanted to give hearty "Mazal Tov" to my good friends Michal and David on the birth of their daughter, Nessa.
With that, I leave you with a few pictures from the past few weeks:
Monday, December 03, 2007
Crazy Israeli Cab Driver #1,320,837
Last night, I had to take a cab since it was late and the buses had stopped. Now I should first point out that even the act of getting into a cab for me has become so fraught with injustice and indignity that I shy away from it as much as I can, due to the knowledge that, no matter how much strength I muster up, I know that these cab drivers are going to take me for the proverbial ride. That is, when they hear my American accent, they hit the special button on their meter that charges me double what someone with an Israeli accent will get.
Anyway, I wandered over to the cab stand (actually the worst place to get a cab, since the cab drivers ascribe to the idea of "power in numbers," and collectively agree to screw you over), and asked for a cab to Bat Galim, about 10 minutes away from where we were. One of the drivers stepped forward and offered to take me. Just as I was about to get in, the friend I was with remembered something, and held me over for about 5 minutes, while the cab driver impatiently (i.e. constantly reminded me of his presence every 15 seconds) waited.
In hindsight, I realized that this action of making the cab driver wait around for me was the best thing I could have done: it showed him (inadvertently, in fact) that I was going to preempt his rip-off-of-a-cab-ride by wasting as much of his not-very-expensive time as I felt like. And, considering he probably wouldn't be getting any fares that night, he was forced to wait for me. I should point out that I did not mean to be so rude, but I think it at least invoked some amount of respect in the man's heart.
So it was possibly this imagined respect, or some recent traumatic event in his life, that this cab driver immediately began telling me some of his old war stories in a very funny half-English, half-Hebrew (his English was arguably worse than my Hebrew...which is saying something). When I say "war stories," I don't just mean old yarns; the man started telling me about his life as an Israeli commando in Lebanon and elsewhere.
If I understood him correctly, he was trained in anti-terrorist activities, which he incorrectly (and probably a little ironically) translated as "terrorism." He told me stories about being in Beirut in '82 ("I got shot in leg. Here." Me: "Oh wow. That must have been terrible to remove..." Cab driver: "No. It is still there. It does not hurt so much. Only when it gets cold out."), about being in Lebanon multiple times after that ("We landed by sea, and there was a spy who saw us. You know what ambush is? They surround us, and 8 of our men died"), and his time in Italy, ("I dressed like real Italian, with sunglasses and suit. I studied his life. This Arab, driving in Mercedes around Italy. He killed many Jews. He planned the attacks. One day, he went to turn on his car, and BOOM. I put a bomb under the car.").
But he kept coming back to the fact that he didn't feel bad for doing what he did, because he is "protecting Jews." He put it this way: "Here in Israel, we are not just protecting other Israelis. We protect Jews in America. And Jews in Europe. We protect Jews everywhere."
Anyway, it was a pretty intense conversation which I realized could only happen in a cab in Israel. It made me think about how I hope to give back to Israel, somehow, in my life. Then, I considered the fact that, thinking me an American tourist, he though I might enjoy a few made-up war stories that sounded bad ass. Though I honestly doubt it.
And, in the end, I didn't really mind paying him the 50 shekels for the cab ride.
Michael
Anyway, I wandered over to the cab stand (actually the worst place to get a cab, since the cab drivers ascribe to the idea of "power in numbers," and collectively agree to screw you over), and asked for a cab to Bat Galim, about 10 minutes away from where we were. One of the drivers stepped forward and offered to take me. Just as I was about to get in, the friend I was with remembered something, and held me over for about 5 minutes, while the cab driver impatiently (i.e. constantly reminded me of his presence every 15 seconds) waited.
In hindsight, I realized that this action of making the cab driver wait around for me was the best thing I could have done: it showed him (inadvertently, in fact) that I was going to preempt his rip-off-of-a-cab-ride by wasting as much of his not-very-expensive time as I felt like. And, considering he probably wouldn't be getting any fares that night, he was forced to wait for me. I should point out that I did not mean to be so rude, but I think it at least invoked some amount of respect in the man's heart.
So it was possibly this imagined respect, or some recent traumatic event in his life, that this cab driver immediately began telling me some of his old war stories in a very funny half-English, half-Hebrew (his English was arguably worse than my Hebrew...which is saying something). When I say "war stories," I don't just mean old yarns; the man started telling me about his life as an Israeli commando in Lebanon and elsewhere.
If I understood him correctly, he was trained in anti-terrorist activities, which he incorrectly (and probably a little ironically) translated as "terrorism." He told me stories about being in Beirut in '82 ("I got shot in leg. Here." Me: "Oh wow. That must have been terrible to remove..." Cab driver: "No. It is still there. It does not hurt so much. Only when it gets cold out."), about being in Lebanon multiple times after that ("We landed by sea, and there was a spy who saw us. You know what ambush is? They surround us, and 8 of our men died"), and his time in Italy, ("I dressed like real Italian, with sunglasses and suit. I studied his life. This Arab, driving in Mercedes around Italy. He killed many Jews. He planned the attacks. One day, he went to turn on his car, and BOOM. I put a bomb under the car.").
But he kept coming back to the fact that he didn't feel bad for doing what he did, because he is "protecting Jews." He put it this way: "Here in Israel, we are not just protecting other Israelis. We protect Jews in America. And Jews in Europe. We protect Jews everywhere."
Anyway, it was a pretty intense conversation which I realized could only happen in a cab in Israel. It made me think about how I hope to give back to Israel, somehow, in my life. Then, I considered the fact that, thinking me an American tourist, he though I might enjoy a few made-up war stories that sounded bad ass. Though I honestly doubt it.
And, in the end, I didn't really mind paying him the 50 shekels for the cab ride.
Michael
Saturday, December 01, 2007
Getting Locked Out of My Apartment, and Other Fairly Stupid Stories...
This actually happened about 3 weeks ago, so everyone who has heard it can skip to the end of this post, where there are other updates.
There I was, finished with work for the afternoon, a beautiful day, the sea is almost calm enough to see my reflection in...so naturally, I decide to go for a swim. This is especially of note because, despite the fact that I have to take about 15 steps to get to the ocean, I have never actually swam at the beach in front of my house. So I had to make a few preparations including taking a key with me that I wouldn't lose in the sea, since I was living alone at this point. So I found my extra key, and tied it to the inside of my bathing suit pocket (that velcro's closed) and set out to go swimming.
As I was leaving my apartment, I had to get the key out of my pocket to bolt my door...and it wouldn't lock. It was the right key, it fit in the key-hole, but it wouldn't lock. So I start trying to open my door (which needs a key to open even when it is not locked), and it wouldn't open, either. Try as I might, I could not figure out what was going on. And then it struck me: since I had taken my spare key, I had left my regular key on the inside of the door (where you need your key to lock/unlock the door as well), and Israeli doors have this peculiar safety function, whereby NOBODY (even someone with a key) can unlock your door if you have the key sitting on the inside.
So I'm standing there, feeling like the dumbest kid ever, wondering how am I going to get out of this fix. Should I call a "instalehtor," the Israeli version of a fix-it man, to take my door out? Will he even be able to do anything to my monstrous door? I don't even have my cell phone....Hmmm....Can I climb into the window? There *must* be a way I can use my awesome climbing skills to get me out of this bind...
So I walked around the apartment, only to realize for the first time how very far my second floor apartment is from the ground (about 25 feet). And...nothing that even looks remotely sturdy enough to handle my girth. So I really start panicking. What am I going to do? Will I have to call the fire department to put a ladder up to my window? Does Bat Galim (my neighborhood) even have a fire department? And, again, how am I going to do any of this without a cell phone?
Ugh. Anyway, to cut out the rest of the hysterical thoughts running through my head ("... what am I going to do about medical school?!") I finally realized that I need to do what I should have done about a month ago when I first moved in: meet my insane Russian neighbors. Well. I actually had no reason to believe they were insane. Or Russian, for that matter (besides the fact that 90% of this neighborhood is Russian). But they were, in fact, crazy Russians.
So I knocked on their door, and a Russian Grandfather (he will henceforth be referred to as "the grandfather") who looked a little too much like my physics adviser from college, but with a few gold teeth, the thick, undeniable reek of cheap vodka on his breath, and no knowledge of English...or Hebrew, for that matter. After it became quite clear that we had no common language with which to communicate, he went and got a woman I suppose to me his daughter, and the "mother" of the house. She did know Hebrew, and I was able to communicate my need for a tall ladder. She starts yelling to wall in Russian, and a massive, baby-faced man who looked about my age emerged quite clearly from a nap, and got a ladder that was about 6 feet tall (not quite the 25 feet I needed to get into my apartment's open window).
However, freshly equipped with some equipment, I am determined to not be locked out of my apartment forever, and I start to look for somewhere around the building that an extra six feet of height might actually help. The grandfather accompanied me on this most silly of quests, and even in his mid-afternoon alcohol induced stupor, he was able to send an agreeing nod to me that this was, indeed, not going to work.
I then notice, for the first time, that there is a porch off of this happy Russian household that is about 4 feet off the ground, which would put me another 4 feet closer to the end of this farce. So I climb up onto the porch with their ladder, and realize....that it is still about 15 feet short of my living room window.
This is the point where things turned towards the funny. My new friend, the drunk Russian grandfather, started bringing all of the various pieces of broken furniture that had been sitting in our shared yard rusting away for Lord knows how many years, developing sharp points and other things that would make them distinctly NOT good for climbing on. Yes---he had brought over these aging living room pieces not because they reminded him of his days cruising for ladies along the Moskva River in the 1920's. He wanted to stack them up into a pile.....on which to put the shoddy ladder....to try to climb up to my window.
Fortunately, as soon as the pile was up to his standards (read: a mess) and was about to attempt an ascent of Rusty Mountain (despite my pleas in a combination of Hebrew and English he couldn't possibly have understood), his "grandsons" emerged from the house to pull him off of the hill o'junk. Once grandpa had been convinced to give up on his climbing adventure, I had a new item to ask for: a rope. The grandson was unsure, then asked the grandfather if he had a rope in Russian. The grandfather ran inside with a speed and focus that could only be attained by a man his age with the help of some particularly strong concoction....and emerged a minute later bearing a long rope with a grappling hook at the end. You might be asking yourself, "why did this old Russian man living in Bat Galim have a grappling hook?" That, my dear readers, is a mystery to me to this day.
So grandpa looked up at the rusty, metal apparatus directly below my window (that was apparently there to hold an air-conditioner at one point), and started twirling the hook above his head, for enough time for me and the grandsons to get out of the way. After about 5 tries, the old man actually had got the hook solidly caught on the air-conditioner holder. To test the stability of the air-conditioner holder, grandpa started swinging around on the rope with all of his weight...and it held.
So let me try to paint a picture of this scene right now: Russian Grandpa, Russian grandkids, and I are all standing outside my apartment building, on a small porch piled about 4-5 feet high with rusty, old furniture, on top of which is a ~6 foot ladder, looking up at this criss-crossing of metal about 20 feet above our heads, to which is attached a grappling hook, which a drunk old Russian man is swinging around on.
Well, I was the first to volunteer to try to climb this rope. I figured, it WAS my fault that we were all out here; also, this Russian grandpa was certainly not going to (succeed at a) climb up this rope, and his grandkids weighed about 50-75 pounds more than me, when I feared that weight was going to prove a big issue in surviving this climb. So climb I did. And I got as far as the air-conditioner holder, when the grandkids started yelling for me to come down. I was *so* close, but I was worried that they saw something that I did not, and, as I did not want to die, I listened to them. In fact, I do not believe they saw anything, since as soon as I got down, one of them took off climbing the rope, climbed onto the air-conditioner holder (which trembled under his weight), and jumped into my living room window.
One minute later, I was in my apartment. Home, sweet home.
I thanked them numerous times in Hebrew and English. Then we parted ways, and I rushed to tell someone about this story. Fortunately, the story doesn't quite end there. About 30 minutes later, the Russian expedition team knocked at my door, along with a heaping plate of shnitzel (breaded chicken breast). I invited them in, showed them around my un-furnished apartment, and brought them into my kitchen where I offered them a drink. We talked about our respective lines of work, and the grandkids drank some orange juice.
The grandfather (I kid you not) helped himself to 2 shots of vodka (that I had offered everyone). The end.
Anyway. My life:
Things are going well. I conquered another bought of Jerusalem Sickness, which is some unexplained virus I seem to pick up every time I go to Jerusalem (I think I started calling it Al-Husseini's Revenge, after the last Mufti of Jerusalem, a good friend of Hitler, among other terrible things). I was in Jerusalem en route to Efrat, where I spent Shabbat at my former Yeshiva (Yeshivat haMivtar). Which was very, very relaxing (except for the bus ride there, which was running late due to a crash, so a detour was taken through Beit Jallah (aka a Palestinian town)...but we made it in one piece, so alls well that ends well).
Medical school is going along: nothing special there...just the normal human dissections, biochemistry, cell biology, neuroscience, embryology, Hebrew, Introduction to Clinical Medicine, and Ethics and Law. Ugh. Gone are the lackadaisical days as a physics undergrad at MIT....
I gained a roommate. His name is Michael Sherman (yes, it has gotten a bit confusing with all the Michaels around), and he is from Boston, and a fellow student on the medical school program. You will all meet him if you visit.
And....back to work. I plan on updating this a bit more often with glimpses into my somewhat boring life. I also enjoy hearing from you....please write!
Michael
There I was, finished with work for the afternoon, a beautiful day, the sea is almost calm enough to see my reflection in...so naturally, I decide to go for a swim. This is especially of note because, despite the fact that I have to take about 15 steps to get to the ocean, I have never actually swam at the beach in front of my house. So I had to make a few preparations including taking a key with me that I wouldn't lose in the sea, since I was living alone at this point. So I found my extra key, and tied it to the inside of my bathing suit pocket (that velcro's closed) and set out to go swimming.
As I was leaving my apartment, I had to get the key out of my pocket to bolt my door...and it wouldn't lock. It was the right key, it fit in the key-hole, but it wouldn't lock. So I start trying to open my door (which needs a key to open even when it is not locked), and it wouldn't open, either. Try as I might, I could not figure out what was going on. And then it struck me: since I had taken my spare key, I had left my regular key on the inside of the door (where you need your key to lock/unlock the door as well), and Israeli doors have this peculiar safety function, whereby NOBODY (even someone with a key) can unlock your door if you have the key sitting on the inside.
So I'm standing there, feeling like the dumbest kid ever, wondering how am I going to get out of this fix. Should I call a "instalehtor," the Israeli version of a fix-it man, to take my door out? Will he even be able to do anything to my monstrous door? I don't even have my cell phone....Hmmm....Can I climb into the window? There *must* be a way I can use my awesome climbing skills to get me out of this bind...
So I walked around the apartment, only to realize for the first time how very far my second floor apartment is from the ground (about 25 feet). And...nothing that even looks remotely sturdy enough to handle my girth. So I really start panicking. What am I going to do? Will I have to call the fire department to put a ladder up to my window? Does Bat Galim (my neighborhood) even have a fire department? And, again, how am I going to do any of this without a cell phone?
Ugh. Anyway, to cut out the rest of the hysterical thoughts running through my head ("... what am I going to do about medical school?!") I finally realized that I need to do what I should have done about a month ago when I first moved in: meet my insane Russian neighbors. Well. I actually had no reason to believe they were insane. Or Russian, for that matter (besides the fact that 90% of this neighborhood is Russian). But they were, in fact, crazy Russians.
So I knocked on their door, and a Russian Grandfather (he will henceforth be referred to as "the grandfather") who looked a little too much like my physics adviser from college, but with a few gold teeth, the thick, undeniable reek of cheap vodka on his breath, and no knowledge of English...or Hebrew, for that matter. After it became quite clear that we had no common language with which to communicate, he went and got a woman I suppose to me his daughter, and the "mother" of the house. She did know Hebrew, and I was able to communicate my need for a tall ladder. She starts yelling to wall in Russian, and a massive, baby-faced man who looked about my age emerged quite clearly from a nap, and got a ladder that was about 6 feet tall (not quite the 25 feet I needed to get into my apartment's open window).
However, freshly equipped with some equipment, I am determined to not be locked out of my apartment forever, and I start to look for somewhere around the building that an extra six feet of height might actually help. The grandfather accompanied me on this most silly of quests, and even in his mid-afternoon alcohol induced stupor, he was able to send an agreeing nod to me that this was, indeed, not going to work.
I then notice, for the first time, that there is a porch off of this happy Russian household that is about 4 feet off the ground, which would put me another 4 feet closer to the end of this farce. So I climb up onto the porch with their ladder, and realize....that it is still about 15 feet short of my living room window.
This is the point where things turned towards the funny. My new friend, the drunk Russian grandfather, started bringing all of the various pieces of broken furniture that had been sitting in our shared yard rusting away for Lord knows how many years, developing sharp points and other things that would make them distinctly NOT good for climbing on. Yes---he had brought over these aging living room pieces not because they reminded him of his days cruising for ladies along the Moskva River in the 1920's. He wanted to stack them up into a pile.....on which to put the shoddy ladder....to try to climb up to my window.
Fortunately, as soon as the pile was up to his standards (read: a mess) and was about to attempt an ascent of Rusty Mountain (despite my pleas in a combination of Hebrew and English he couldn't possibly have understood), his "grandsons" emerged from the house to pull him off of the hill o'junk. Once grandpa had been convinced to give up on his climbing adventure, I had a new item to ask for: a rope. The grandson was unsure, then asked the grandfather if he had a rope in Russian. The grandfather ran inside with a speed and focus that could only be attained by a man his age with the help of some particularly strong concoction....and emerged a minute later bearing a long rope with a grappling hook at the end. You might be asking yourself, "why did this old Russian man living in Bat Galim have a grappling hook?" That, my dear readers, is a mystery to me to this day.
So grandpa looked up at the rusty, metal apparatus directly below my window (that was apparently there to hold an air-conditioner at one point), and started twirling the hook above his head, for enough time for me and the grandsons to get out of the way. After about 5 tries, the old man actually had got the hook solidly caught on the air-conditioner holder. To test the stability of the air-conditioner holder, grandpa started swinging around on the rope with all of his weight...and it held.
So let me try to paint a picture of this scene right now: Russian Grandpa, Russian grandkids, and I are all standing outside my apartment building, on a small porch piled about 4-5 feet high with rusty, old furniture, on top of which is a ~6 foot ladder, looking up at this criss-crossing of metal about 20 feet above our heads, to which is attached a grappling hook, which a drunk old Russian man is swinging around on.
Well, I was the first to volunteer to try to climb this rope. I figured, it WAS my fault that we were all out here; also, this Russian grandpa was certainly not going to (succeed at a) climb up this rope, and his grandkids weighed about 50-75 pounds more than me, when I feared that weight was going to prove a big issue in surviving this climb. So climb I did. And I got as far as the air-conditioner holder, when the grandkids started yelling for me to come down. I was *so* close, but I was worried that they saw something that I did not, and, as I did not want to die, I listened to them. In fact, I do not believe they saw anything, since as soon as I got down, one of them took off climbing the rope, climbed onto the air-conditioner holder (which trembled under his weight), and jumped into my living room window.
One minute later, I was in my apartment. Home, sweet home.
I thanked them numerous times in Hebrew and English. Then we parted ways, and I rushed to tell someone about this story. Fortunately, the story doesn't quite end there. About 30 minutes later, the Russian expedition team knocked at my door, along with a heaping plate of shnitzel (breaded chicken breast). I invited them in, showed them around my un-furnished apartment, and brought them into my kitchen where I offered them a drink. We talked about our respective lines of work, and the grandkids drank some orange juice.
The grandfather (I kid you not) helped himself to 2 shots of vodka (that I had offered everyone). The end.
Anyway. My life:
Things are going well. I conquered another bought of Jerusalem Sickness, which is some unexplained virus I seem to pick up every time I go to Jerusalem (I think I started calling it Al-Husseini's Revenge, after the last Mufti of Jerusalem, a good friend of Hitler, among other terrible things). I was in Jerusalem en route to Efrat, where I spent Shabbat at my former Yeshiva (Yeshivat haMivtar). Which was very, very relaxing (except for the bus ride there, which was running late due to a crash, so a detour was taken through Beit Jallah (aka a Palestinian town)...but we made it in one piece, so alls well that ends well).
Medical school is going along: nothing special there...just the normal human dissections, biochemistry, cell biology, neuroscience, embryology, Hebrew, Introduction to Clinical Medicine, and Ethics and Law. Ugh. Gone are the lackadaisical days as a physics undergrad at MIT....
I gained a roommate. His name is Michael Sherman (yes, it has gotten a bit confusing with all the Michaels around), and he is from Boston, and a fellow student on the medical school program. You will all meet him if you visit.
And....back to work. I plan on updating this a bit more often with glimpses into my somewhat boring life. I also enjoy hearing from you....please write!
Michael
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Dealing with Racism in Israel, My Haunted Apartment, and other Updates
Ahhhh, Israel. Home of good schwarma, Ariel Sharon Park, intellectual military men, and Bar Rafaeli.
But there are bad things here, too. For example, my broken washing machine. That is an objectively terrible thing, especially since it is new, and I probably paid too much for it. Another example: the VAT, which makes everything imported here twice as expensive as it should be. But one of the strangest things I did not expect to find here was the latent, unconscious racism that pervades a lot of Israeli society.
What do I mean by this? Let me try to explain.
Israel is one of the more diverse societies I have ever lived in. Granted: the US of A probably qualifies as the most diverse place ever created, but it doesn't hold a candle to the tiny space that all these diverse people are forced to interact in; if the US is a melting pot, than Israel is a nuclear fusion reactor core. It's like the UN here, except more Jewish.
There are Ashkenazi Jews, Sephardi Jews, Persian Jews, Yeminite Jews, Ethiopian Jews, Russian Jews, Chinese Jews, American Jews, Jews for Jesus, Israeli Arabs, Druze, Israeli Arab Christians, Sudanese refugees......and so on. And we all share a country that people claim is roughly the same size of New Jersey, but that is also a mistake, because half of this "New-Jersey-sized" country is desert that no one lives in, so it's more like the same of Rhode Island, which a majority of the population living in three crazy cities, none of which is bigger than Boston. In other words, we are packed like sardines here (sometimes literally....or at least it feels like it when the big-bosomed old Russian lades are breathing down your neck at the Zul-Poh (supermarket) check out line).
Yet, for all of this highly pressurized diversity, Israelis have a special place in their heart for a sort-of soft-core racism, that manifests itself in the silliest of places: old movies, food product advertisements, etc. I first noticed this at the onset of my packaged cake addiction. That's right: I've become addicted to Osem foil packaged cakes. I know this may sound gross, but the packaged apple cakes, babka-like cakes, sponge cakes, brownies, and even cookies, and all I have to come home to after a long day at the "Pokoolta" (aka the "Faculty" of Medicine). And I love them. They are no replacement for Mookie, but they are tastier...and they don't bite my hair....
Anyway, back to the racism. As I moved from normal lemon-flavored sponge cake into the exciting territory of chocolate cakes, I noticed something interesting about the packaging: the smiling woman on the bag was....darker. To be more specific, the lady on the package approving of the delicious chocolate cake contained within it was black. I started looking at all of the cake/brownie/cookie/etc. packages produced by Osem....and noticed a pattern: darker pastry = black woman, lighter pastry = white woman.
Now, you might be thinking---this isn't exactly deep-South-1850's-slavery sort of racism, but I cannot get over how weird it is to match up the color of my food with...the color of some woman's skin on my package. Anyway, this isn't the only thing. In truth, the rather large Ethiopian Jewish community in Israel is constantly fighting on uphill battle in this country, just as Mizrachi Jews (i.e. Jews from Arab Countries) had to do 30 years ago, where their cultural norms were just not tolerated by the larger Israeli population. Example: whereas all Ethiopian Jews are suspected of not "really" being Jews, and there have been lengthy efforts to just convert them to Judaism en-masse to ensure there are no halachic problems in the future (a long, long topic of discussion in its own right...), the million or so Russians who immigrated here in the last 15 years are *known* to contain within their population not only many non-Jews, but even (I could not make this up if I wanted to) anti-Semities! (see here: Anti-Semtism in Israel).
I also watched a hilarious Israeli film from the 1950's called "Sallah Shabati," starring none other than....Topol!! Yes, Topol, the star of the amazing cinematic treatment of "Fiddler on the Roof" started his career playing an aging, Morrocan paterfamilias who drags his (huge) family to 1950's Israel. The movie follows him as he lies, cheats, tricks, and just generally does anything to keep himself from actually working---in order to buy a house for his family (they live in what they refer to as "Transitional Housing" in the movie, which is sort of like the refugee camps the Palestinians still live in today). His foil is (naturally) a lazy Ashkenazi ("Mr. Goldstein") who hasn't managed to move out of the immigration camp, despite all of the money.....he has managed to con out of various political parties...which Sallah is conning out of him by cheating at Shesh-Besh.....
Anyway...needless to say, every possible sterotype of any sort of Jews (yes...American Jews, French Jews, Kibbutzniks, Israeli bureaucrats, et al. were all very successfully mocked in this hilarious movie). But at the heart of the movie is the very real racism that existed in Israel against the newly immigrated Mizrachim, and is currently against Ethiopians and other minority groups.
Enough of this. On to my actual life:
My apartment is haunted. After finally fixing the dude, I bought a washing machine...which worked for a week. Then stopped working. The technician came....and said he had to order a few parts, and didn't come back for another few weeks, at which point he literally had to replace the MOTOR of the washing machine to get it to work. Then, a piece broke in my dryer. And so on....I am convinced that whoever lived in my apartment before me passed away....and didn't want to give up his/her/their apartment, and are trying to get me to move out, by destroying my appliances. My fellow med students have made a pool to predict which appliance is going to explode next...
My money is on the kum-kum (electric tea-kettle).
Otherwise, I just got back from "Sufersol Deel" (aka "Supersol Deal"), where I went shopping with Shmuel aka "Sam, aka "Shmuel" Korb and his wonderful mother, Lynn. I got some much needed food, cleaning products, pots, appliances, a thermos, and a doormat. Supersol deal is the flagship store of the Supersol line of stores: Supersol "Sheli" (or "My Supersol") is the neighborhood grocery store, Supersol "Beeg" (or "Big Supersol") is the larger grocery store version, and Supersol Deal is the Costco of Israel...That's right, I said it. Costco. So you can imagine that any place where they have deals on...anything...is going to be busy. A place where there are deals on almost everything...well, it's a madhouse! I was bumped into over 10 times, got into about five different shopping cart "traffic jams", fought a woman for my electric tea urn (which was only ~$35! A steal!), and even had the woman giving out free hotdogs tell me that I was a saint for wanting to live in this country, that she wanted to move to Canada herself, and that she had a beautiful daughter just about my age...if I wanted to meet her. (I declined). Anyway....I made it out of there having only spent 780 shekels (note: I never used to talk about money this much...but you get used to it living here), which roughly translates to $200. Which---again---was a deal.
Anyway, that was my adventure today. Other adventures I've had lately:
-Going to a Yale Alumni Musical Event (mostly full of 80-year-olds) in Tel Aviv. (Long Story).
-Being President of a medical school class full of Jewish kids.
-Trying to find a roommate
-Being in medical school.
Right. I guess med school has been taking up most of my time. Well...Shabbat shalom to everyone. And, as always, feel free to call/write/etc.
Michael
-
But there are bad things here, too. For example, my broken washing machine. That is an objectively terrible thing, especially since it is new, and I probably paid too much for it. Another example: the VAT, which makes everything imported here twice as expensive as it should be. But one of the strangest things I did not expect to find here was the latent, unconscious racism that pervades a lot of Israeli society.
What do I mean by this? Let me try to explain.
Israel is one of the more diverse societies I have ever lived in. Granted: the US of A probably qualifies as the most diverse place ever created, but it doesn't hold a candle to the tiny space that all these diverse people are forced to interact in; if the US is a melting pot, than Israel is a nuclear fusion reactor core. It's like the UN here, except more Jewish.
There are Ashkenazi Jews, Sephardi Jews, Persian Jews, Yeminite Jews, Ethiopian Jews, Russian Jews, Chinese Jews, American Jews, Jews for Jesus, Israeli Arabs, Druze, Israeli Arab Christians, Sudanese refugees......and so on. And we all share a country that people claim is roughly the same size of New Jersey, but that is also a mistake, because half of this "New-Jersey-sized" country is desert that no one lives in, so it's more like the same of Rhode Island, which a majority of the population living in three crazy cities, none of which is bigger than Boston. In other words, we are packed like sardines here (sometimes literally....or at least it feels like it when the big-bosomed old Russian lades are breathing down your neck at the Zul-Poh (supermarket) check out line).
Yet, for all of this highly pressurized diversity, Israelis have a special place in their heart for a sort-of soft-core racism, that manifests itself in the silliest of places: old movies, food product advertisements, etc. I first noticed this at the onset of my packaged cake addiction. That's right: I've become addicted to Osem foil packaged cakes. I know this may sound gross, but the packaged apple cakes, babka-like cakes, sponge cakes, brownies, and even cookies, and all I have to come home to after a long day at the "Pokoolta" (aka the "Faculty" of Medicine). And I love them. They are no replacement for Mookie, but they are tastier...and they don't bite my hair....
Anyway, back to the racism. As I moved from normal lemon-flavored sponge cake into the exciting territory of chocolate cakes, I noticed something interesting about the packaging: the smiling woman on the bag was....darker. To be more specific, the lady on the package approving of the delicious chocolate cake contained within it was black. I started looking at all of the cake/brownie/cookie/etc. packages produced by Osem....and noticed a pattern: darker pastry = black woman, lighter pastry = white woman.
Now, you might be thinking---this isn't exactly deep-South-1850's-slavery sort of racism, but I cannot get over how weird it is to match up the color of my food with...the color of some woman's skin on my package. Anyway, this isn't the only thing. In truth, the rather large Ethiopian Jewish community in Israel is constantly fighting on uphill battle in this country, just as Mizrachi Jews (i.e. Jews from Arab Countries) had to do 30 years ago, where their cultural norms were just not tolerated by the larger Israeli population. Example: whereas all Ethiopian Jews are suspected of not "really" being Jews, and there have been lengthy efforts to just convert them to Judaism en-masse to ensure there are no halachic problems in the future (a long, long topic of discussion in its own right...), the million or so Russians who immigrated here in the last 15 years are *known* to contain within their population not only many non-Jews, but even (I could not make this up if I wanted to) anti-Semities! (see here: Anti-Semtism in Israel).
I also watched a hilarious Israeli film from the 1950's called "Sallah Shabati," starring none other than....Topol!! Yes, Topol, the star of the amazing cinematic treatment of "Fiddler on the Roof" started his career playing an aging, Morrocan paterfamilias who drags his (huge) family to 1950's Israel. The movie follows him as he lies, cheats, tricks, and just generally does anything to keep himself from actually working---in order to buy a house for his family (they live in what they refer to as "Transitional Housing" in the movie, which is sort of like the refugee camps the Palestinians still live in today). His foil is (naturally) a lazy Ashkenazi ("Mr. Goldstein") who hasn't managed to move out of the immigration camp, despite all of the money.....he has managed to con out of various political parties...which Sallah is conning out of him by cheating at Shesh-Besh.....
Anyway...needless to say, every possible sterotype of any sort of Jews (yes...American Jews, French Jews, Kibbutzniks, Israeli bureaucrats, et al. were all very successfully mocked in this hilarious movie). But at the heart of the movie is the very real racism that existed in Israel against the newly immigrated Mizrachim, and is currently against Ethiopians and other minority groups.
Enough of this. On to my actual life:
My apartment is haunted. After finally fixing the dude, I bought a washing machine...which worked for a week. Then stopped working. The technician came....and said he had to order a few parts, and didn't come back for another few weeks, at which point he literally had to replace the MOTOR of the washing machine to get it to work. Then, a piece broke in my dryer. And so on....I am convinced that whoever lived in my apartment before me passed away....and didn't want to give up his/her/their apartment, and are trying to get me to move out, by destroying my appliances. My fellow med students have made a pool to predict which appliance is going to explode next...
My money is on the kum-kum (electric tea-kettle).
Otherwise, I just got back from "Sufersol Deel" (aka "Supersol Deal"), where I went shopping with Shmuel aka "Sam, aka "Shmuel" Korb and his wonderful mother, Lynn. I got some much needed food, cleaning products, pots, appliances, a thermos, and a doormat. Supersol deal is the flagship store of the Supersol line of stores: Supersol "Sheli" (or "My Supersol") is the neighborhood grocery store, Supersol "Beeg" (or "Big Supersol") is the larger grocery store version, and Supersol Deal is the Costco of Israel...That's right, I said it. Costco. So you can imagine that any place where they have deals on...anything...is going to be busy. A place where there are deals on almost everything...well, it's a madhouse! I was bumped into over 10 times, got into about five different shopping cart "traffic jams", fought a woman for my electric tea urn (which was only ~$35! A steal!), and even had the woman giving out free hotdogs tell me that I was a saint for wanting to live in this country, that she wanted to move to Canada herself, and that she had a beautiful daughter just about my age...if I wanted to meet her. (I declined). Anyway....I made it out of there having only spent 780 shekels (note: I never used to talk about money this much...but you get used to it living here), which roughly translates to $200. Which---again---was a deal.
Anyway, that was my adventure today. Other adventures I've had lately:
-Going to a Yale Alumni Musical Event (mostly full of 80-year-olds) in Tel Aviv. (Long Story).
-Being President of a medical school class full of Jewish kids.
-Trying to find a roommate
-Being in medical school.
Right. I guess med school has been taking up most of my time. Well...Shabbat shalom to everyone. And, as always, feel free to call/write/etc.
Michael
-
Friday, October 05, 2007
My Dude Abides...
....well, sort of.
For all of those not acquainted with strange Israeli words for household appliances, a "dude" is the Hebrew word for "water heater." (Other funny ones are "kumkum" for electric kettles and "mahgav" for squeegee, which is also the word for the Border Police).
Anyway, the dude in my apartment has been displaying "very un-dude" behavior lately. First, the dude broke, as in it stopped supplying me with hot water. My landlady took care of this problem.
However, the next time I used the dude to take a shower, the water was beyond scalding, and at one point was even emitting steam from the shower head. I left my apartment to go grab some pizza, and came back to find the dude still on (whoops), a pipe burst, and water gushing all over my apartment. I flipped out, called my landlord's grandmother who lives across the street, who got very angry at me since it was 12:30 at night, who ran out in her evening gown to show me where the water meter was to cut off the water to my apartment. I spent a while mopping up the mess in my apartment (which consisted of using the mahgav to push the water out of my apartment through a small whole in the wall meant for this very purpose), and then went to sleep.
I awoke early the next morning to the smell of burning plastic, as the dude had caught fire. It wasn't an open flame, but the fumes of burning plastic convinced me to take refuge at my friend Shmuel's for the Sukkot holiday, as soon as I informed my landlord of this aggression against my apartment would not stand.
Anyway, the dude has been repaired by someone who I really hope was very thorough, and actually fixed all the problems, so that I will not have to deal with these problems again in the future. "If you will it, it is no dream"....Theodore Herzl. And, thus, the title of this post: "The Dude Abides".
Ah. Anyway, life here is pretty good. In between dealing with the above problems, I am trying to make my apartment look decent, have celebrated a few holidays, spent some time in Jerusalem with various friends from the States, made a few new friends, done some laundry, and been elected "Chief Representative of TeAMS Program Class of 2011." Or, as I like to call myself, President. This basically means I have the wonderful job of putting the Technion administration in its place when it steps out of line. For example, my first job is determining why, exactly, the Technion intercepted mail addressed to the students in the program for their loans, opened the letters, and cashed checks made out to these various students. In America, I could point out that they had violated numerous federal laws, and inform the appropriate authorities. But here in Israel....well...even if there are laws against this, I cannot imagine that fact will really mean much to them. We will see.
I start Medical School on Sunday, so that is also exciting.
Anyway. I hope everyone has not been too disappointed with my lack of posting, and that you have all had very happy and meaningful holidays. Please keep in touch.
Yallah,
Michael
For all of those not acquainted with strange Israeli words for household appliances, a "dude" is the Hebrew word for "water heater." (Other funny ones are "kumkum" for electric kettles and "mahgav" for squeegee, which is also the word for the Border Police).
Anyway, the dude in my apartment has been displaying "very un-dude" behavior lately. First, the dude broke, as in it stopped supplying me with hot water. My landlady took care of this problem.
However, the next time I used the dude to take a shower, the water was beyond scalding, and at one point was even emitting steam from the shower head. I left my apartment to go grab some pizza, and came back to find the dude still on (whoops), a pipe burst, and water gushing all over my apartment. I flipped out, called my landlord's grandmother who lives across the street, who got very angry at me since it was 12:30 at night, who ran out in her evening gown to show me where the water meter was to cut off the water to my apartment. I spent a while mopping up the mess in my apartment (which consisted of using the mahgav to push the water out of my apartment through a small whole in the wall meant for this very purpose), and then went to sleep.
I awoke early the next morning to the smell of burning plastic, as the dude had caught fire. It wasn't an open flame, but the fumes of burning plastic convinced me to take refuge at my friend Shmuel's for the Sukkot holiday, as soon as I informed my landlord of this aggression against my apartment would not stand.
Anyway, the dude has been repaired by someone who I really hope was very thorough, and actually fixed all the problems, so that I will not have to deal with these problems again in the future. "If you will it, it is no dream"....Theodore Herzl. And, thus, the title of this post: "The Dude Abides".
Ah. Anyway, life here is pretty good. In between dealing with the above problems, I am trying to make my apartment look decent, have celebrated a few holidays, spent some time in Jerusalem with various friends from the States, made a few new friends, done some laundry, and been elected "Chief Representative of TeAMS Program Class of 2011." Or, as I like to call myself, President. This basically means I have the wonderful job of putting the Technion administration in its place when it steps out of line. For example, my first job is determining why, exactly, the Technion intercepted mail addressed to the students in the program for their loans, opened the letters, and cashed checks made out to these various students. In America, I could point out that they had violated numerous federal laws, and inform the appropriate authorities. But here in Israel....well...even if there are laws against this, I cannot imagine that fact will really mean much to them. We will see.
I start Medical School on Sunday, so that is also exciting.
Anyway. I hope everyone has not been too disappointed with my lack of posting, and that you have all had very happy and meaningful holidays. Please keep in touch.
Yallah,
Michael
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
Of Israeli Rap-groups, Rooftop Tents, Beautiful Slums, and Neon-Arked Synagogues. [Part 2]
I am going to try to keep this short and sweet. Especially since this happened two weeks ago, and the smells, tastes, and neon lights are all fading into the depths of my poor long-term memory.
I spent Shabbat with the venerable Chaim Kutnicki. Chaim is a friend from MIT who made Aliyah this summer, works at an amazing software company outside of Jerusalem, and...lives in a small, one-room apartment in Nachlaot.
Shabbat services Friday night were spent at Kol Rina, described as a "Carlebach Shul" that is set in a bomb shelter, and is packed, standing room only, with possibly the most diverse crowd of religious (word chosen carefully!) Jews I've ever seen: there were different kinds of Chassidic sects, Da'ati Leumi (Religious Zionists), Hill-Top Youth, Na-Na-Nach's, probably a smattering of vaguely-Reconstructionist/Searching Jews, and some hippies who got lost in Jerusalem and, when they asked for directions, were promptly pointed in the direction of Kol Rina. Services lasted at least 1.5 hours, and included some of the most intensely beautiful and loud praying I have ever taken part in (though the loudness may have had something to do with the fact that there were about 200 people packed into a room the size of a basketball court). Dinner was some Persian food bought from the Shuk, and then some much needed sleep.
The next day was the same place for morning services (though these were considerably less raucous), and lunch was spent at a newly-married couple in the neighborhood (and friends), none of whom spoke English. I mostly sat and tried to figure out what they were talking about while eating the delicious (vegetarian) lunch. I should mention that before lunch, we visited a retirement home, where we sang Shabbat songs for the residents---these visits always a mix of the depressing reminder of our either our mortality (or the depressing realities of old age) along with a few happy moments when a sweet old lady or man seems to be made somewhat happier by our presence (or at least pretends to be). After lunch, the rest of Shabbat was spent napping, reading, and then a short exploration of the neighborhood.
Since then, I have (in no particular order):
-Lost my apartment
-Regained my apartment (+ a stove....long, long story which you can call me to talk about/email me if you are at all interested)
-Studied in Ulpan
-Played Paintball w/ fellow Med Students
-Spent Shabbat in Netanya at Colin Berkeley's (Cambridge Student who studied at MIT for the year) beach front home, along with four other MIT students (and an American in the Israeli Army)
-Spent Shabbat in Petah Tiqwa (aka Petach Tikvah) with the Friedman's (Betzalel Friedman is an old friend from Inianapolis)
-Ate tons and tons of unhealthy food (including, but not limited to, Pizza Hut, Burger Ranch, shwarma, shwarma, shwarma, Israeli-mall-chinese-food, shwarma, pizza bourekas, Bulgarian cheese bourekas, potato bourekas, regular cheese bourekas, mushroom bourekas, and shwarma).
-Read the following books in whole: Saul Bellow's "Herzog"
-Read parts of the following books: S.Y. Agnon's "Days of Awe", Saul Bellow's "To Jerusalem and Back: A Personal Memoir", Kafka's "The Castle" [Too difficult to read...]
-And other things...
Today it rained in Haifa, which was strange. Not just for me....I hear that raining in September is very, very rare. I have many things to write about, but not so much time. Please send me emails if you want to pick my brain. And to all of you who I owe emails...have patience.
I'm going to also try to post a video tour of my new (unfurnished) apartment. In case you wanted to see it.
Yallah Bye,
Michael
I spent Shabbat with the venerable Chaim Kutnicki. Chaim is a friend from MIT who made Aliyah this summer, works at an amazing software company outside of Jerusalem, and...lives in a small, one-room apartment in Nachlaot.
Shabbat services Friday night were spent at Kol Rina, described as a "Carlebach Shul" that is set in a bomb shelter, and is packed, standing room only, with possibly the most diverse crowd of religious (word chosen carefully!) Jews I've ever seen: there were different kinds of Chassidic sects, Da'ati Leumi (Religious Zionists), Hill-Top Youth, Na-Na-Nach's, probably a smattering of vaguely-Reconstructionist/Searching Jews, and some hippies who got lost in Jerusalem and, when they asked for directions, were promptly pointed in the direction of Kol Rina. Services lasted at least 1.5 hours, and included some of the most intensely beautiful and loud praying I have ever taken part in (though the loudness may have had something to do with the fact that there were about 200 people packed into a room the size of a basketball court). Dinner was some Persian food bought from the Shuk, and then some much needed sleep.
The next day was the same place for morning services (though these were considerably less raucous), and lunch was spent at a newly-married couple in the neighborhood (and friends), none of whom spoke English. I mostly sat and tried to figure out what they were talking about while eating the delicious (vegetarian) lunch. I should mention that before lunch, we visited a retirement home, where we sang Shabbat songs for the residents---these visits always a mix of the depressing reminder of our either our mortality (or the depressing realities of old age) along with a few happy moments when a sweet old lady or man seems to be made somewhat happier by our presence (or at least pretends to be). After lunch, the rest of Shabbat was spent napping, reading, and then a short exploration of the neighborhood.
Since then, I have (in no particular order):
-Lost my apartment
-Regained my apartment (+ a stove....long, long story which you can call me to talk about/email me if you are at all interested)
-Studied in Ulpan
-Played Paintball w/ fellow Med Students
-Spent Shabbat in Netanya at Colin Berkeley's (Cambridge Student who studied at MIT for the year) beach front home, along with four other MIT students (and an American in the Israeli Army)
-Spent Shabbat in Petah Tiqwa (aka Petach Tikvah) with the Friedman's (Betzalel Friedman is an old friend from Inianapolis)
-Ate tons and tons of unhealthy food (including, but not limited to, Pizza Hut, Burger Ranch, shwarma, shwarma, shwarma, Israeli-mall-chinese-food, shwarma, pizza bourekas, Bulgarian cheese bourekas, potato bourekas, regular cheese bourekas, mushroom bourekas, and shwarma).
-Read the following books in whole: Saul Bellow's "Herzog"
-Read parts of the following books: S.Y. Agnon's "Days of Awe", Saul Bellow's "To Jerusalem and Back: A Personal Memoir", Kafka's "The Castle" [Too difficult to read...]
-And other things...
Today it rained in Haifa, which was strange. Not just for me....I hear that raining in September is very, very rare. I have many things to write about, but not so much time. Please send me emails if you want to pick my brain. And to all of you who I owe emails...have patience.
I'm going to also try to post a video tour of my new (unfurnished) apartment. In case you wanted to see it.
Yallah Bye,
Michael
Monday, August 27, 2007
Of Israeli Rap-groups, Rooftop Tents, Beautiful Slums, and Neon-Arked Synagogues. [Part 1]
(Or how I learned to stop pretending and accept my status as a foreigner in a foreign Land.)
I realize that I am leaving about a week and a half of my life unaccounted for by telling you about this past weekend, that is a small amount of time in the long run, my past weekend is still fresh in my mind, and I can sum up the past two weeks in the following sentence: “Every morning from 8:30 to 12, I sit in Ulpan half asleep; otherwise, I have played some soccer, spent Shabbat in Netanya, signed for an apartment, and went out drinking with my fellow med students.”
On Thursday, I met with my landlord, her fiancée, and her realtor, and had the silliest negotiation over an apartment that has ever happened in the history of real estate. The Hebrew speaking realtor negotiated between me and the landlord, both of whom are Americans. I was prepped by Sam, and had a laundry list of demands that I should make regarding the contract---and not take no for an answer. Sort of like that scene in the movie Tommy Boy, I not only did a terrible job, but I somehow managed to make the contract even worse for me than when I began. But---in the end---I’m getting a huge, beautiful, airy, second-floor apartment right next to the Mediterranean Sea for $600 a month. So, I’m not really sweating it. Also, the landlord’s grandmother (who is actually my de-facto landlord, since my landlord lives in L.A.) is a very sweet lady, and seems genuinely interested in taking care of me. She has already fed me…twice. So I think I came out on top, and also got a good chance to remind myself why I could never, ever go into business because I am the world’s worst negotiator.
Right after signing the contract and shaking hands, I got on a bus to Jerusalem. Once there, I walked over to the center of town/Kikar Tzion/America-in-Israel and decided to take charge of my situation (that being a guy without a bed to sleep in). Something in me---I’m not sure from where---inspired me to walk into a hostel, ask about rooms, and when told there were no rooms, took up an offer to sleep in a tent on the roof of the hostel. Which really wasn’t that bad of an idea, except at 8 AM the next morning…
When I finally got to where I (thought) I wanted to be, I was very confused, since the concert was being held on an outdoor stage, and I found it strange that a bar would also have an outdoor venue. I shrugged this paradox off, and asked the ticket-taker where I could buy a ticket. He shrugged, and then suggested a booth about 100 yards away, but added that he thought the concert was sold out. Indeed, the concert was sold out, which I really found interesting, considering that this rap group is not that popular. I probably muttered something like, “Ehhh….mah lah’ahsot?” which is Hebrew for “C’est la vie,” bought a beer, walked around this outdoor area surrounding the concert, and plotted my next move. Since I was meeting Sam at the bar, who was coming from a wedding in Abu Ghoush (which I thought was an Arab town, but is in fact not only Jewish, but also famous for their good hummous, which ended up delaying Sam even more than he was already delayed), I called him up to tell him that the concert was sold out, and that I was nursing my troubles with a beer. He warned me not to drink too much, as he wanted me to behave in front of his friends who he was bringing along for the night’s festivities.
The phone call ended with me agreeing to not get too drunk, though still confused as to when, exactly, Sam would leave the abundant, tasty, and, most importantly, free hummous long enough to get on bus to Jerusalem. I sat down to try to organize my thoughts and enjoy the music coming from the concert long enough to realize that it was decidedly not rap music…or anything even close. Confused, I walked back over to the same ticket-taker who informed me that the concert was sold out and asked him, literally, “Who is that over there making that music?” He looked at me like I was from Mars (though, judging by his accent, I would say he was from Russia, which isn’t that great, either), and informed me that it was Jethro Tull.
“Ze lowh ha’Mah’ahbadah?” [This is not The Laboratory?]. He reported that this was, indeed, not the place I was looking for after all, and that my bar and concert were a few blocks away. I was very appreciative to find out that my concert was not sold out, but I was very, very confused to have nearly stumbled into a Jethro Tull concert. I cannot honestly say that I even thought Jethro Tull was still alive, let alone touring the Middle East. I thanked the ticket-taker, made the 2 block journey to the actual Laboratory, and found a much more “Laboratory” looking venue---a very stylish, local bar that was much more Israeli than any other bar I had ever seen in Jerusalem before---probably because of its distance from major American hangouts. Instead of document all of the silly things that happened to me at this concert, I will just say that going to any concert alone, and especially a concert which is not sung in your native language, is a disorienting experience. But, I made some friends (the bartender claimed that she has known the band since before they were big, and that they are nice guys), had a few drinks, and even managed to get someone to drive me to my next destination (Mom and Dad take note: I saved $5 with this move. So when I call to ask you for more money, please don’t act like I am not pulling my weight).
I met up with Sam and two of his friends, Ross and (I forgot….?). Ross was a friend of Sam’s from high school, I believe, and the girl was connected to Sam through some Zionist conspiracy trying to subvert American foreign policy. Fortunately for everyone present, I managed to keep my promise to Sam to be presentable for his friends, and only managed to shout down one of them throughout the course of the night (Sam’s Zionist friend complained that Jewish organizations are spending money in all of the wrong places…..since Judaism should not be living in the past, and should start to conform to our (i.e. our generation’s) needs. For some thoughts on this, see my previous post, and probably future posts as well). At around 4 in the morning, the kosher pizza place and the kosher bagel place were still open, and when I went with the bagel and lox, which sounded pretty good at that moment, I was immediately accused of harboring ghetto-tendencies, but I think I came out the winner in this one, since the word “ghetto” originated in Italy, the same as their pizza.
Sam and I parted ways with Ross and the AIPAC girl, and went over to our tent on the roof of the hostel. It was quite comfortable there, but just as Sam was about to lay down, he asked me, “Wait---it’s going to get very hot in here in the morning, won’t it?” To which I answered, with the sort of logic you can expect from someone half-asleep who generally doesn’t like to be proven wrong at anytime of the day: “Oh. Don’t worry. It’s dry heat here in Jerusalem.” I’m aware that this is a mystifying comment on many levels, not the least because dry heat is how I would describe the inside of an oven, which was exactly what our tent felt like at 8 in the morning. I must say that, in case you’ve never tried it, trying to sleep in an oven is not really possible. So, ever the troopers, we got up, tried to go back to sleep in the shade, failed, then collected our stuff, mumbled something to the hotel manager about not mentioning that sleeping past 7:30 AM on the roof was nearly impossible, paid our bill, and went to purchase a breakfast of fruit, bureakas, and orange juice---all purchased in the shuk (Machane Yehudah).
I should add a small side note about orange juice in Israel. Actually---any justice I could possibly do to the difference between what Israelis think is orange juice, and what Americans think is orange juice, has already been done by Dave Chappelle, when illustrating the differences between what white people think is “grape juice” and black people drink, referred to as “grape drink.” Actually, the term “orange drink” is written on the sides of bottles of the fake orange drink that Israelis seem to love, though they call it “Meetz Tapuzim,” which translates to orange juice. Which, in the end, just makes it even more difficult to get Israelis to give you ACTUAL orange juice when you are looking for it. Either way, this is all important because Sam and I actually managed to get our hands on a bottle of real orange juice (at the cost of 25 Shekels/$6.00, which is no small expense over here, especially for food).
We ended up taking all of this food over to Sam’s friends house in Nachalot, a neighborhood in Jerusalem. Well, to call it a neighborhood in Jerusalem is to do about as much justice to this neighborhood as calling The Village a neighborhood in NYC. Nachalot is the neighborhood that is located directly behind Mahane Yehudah Shuk, and goes as far as Kadamon (near the German Colony and Emek Refaim). It is apparently the neighborhood to live in Jerusalem. It is all gorgeous, old Jerusalem-stone houses with red roofs. However, some of these houses look like beautiful new mansions, and some of them look decidedly like some sort of holy slums. Walking near my friend Chaim’s apartment (more on that later…), I noted to him that the neighborhood was maybe the most pleasant slums in the world. Basically, I’ve begun to realize that Israelis really do not care what the outside of their houses look like. They put stupid looking “dudes” (the silly choice of a word for a water heater) on their roofs, they don’t ever paint the outsides of the houses, and they often have lots of different, strange things hanging off the outside walls of their house. This is all to say that, whereas they do not care about the outsides of their houses, the insides of their houses are almost uniformly warm, inviting, comfortable, and all-around wonderful to sit around in.
That said, Sam’s friend’s apartment was one of the most comfortable apartments I have ever had the pleasure of sitting in. There’s really no way to explain it; maybe it was the cool breeze, maybe it was the beautifully tiled floors, maybe it was the comfortable chairs, maybe it was the orange juice, maybe it was all the flowers, or maybe it was the great company---either way, it was just great sitting around in that apartment. Maybe it is Jerusalem. I’ll stop speculating here. Either way, the sisters to whom the apartment belongs (Maya and Hadas…well, it is Maya’s, but Hadas seems to be staying there) were wonderfully welcoming, and let us (Sam, Chaim, and I) smell up their apartment for a good part of the morning. For the sake of all involved, I will refrain from going into too much detail of the extent of their warmness, but, needless to say, I was made to feel at home. I have posted a picture of the apartment (along with Sam and Maya) below.
Actually, I’ve posted a few pictures below. And, with that, I am going to end this post, with a promise to continue it at a later date (including the parts where I discover the popularity of neon-framed synagogue arks among the Charedim, and maybe even admit how truly foreign I often feel in a place that also often feels like home (i.e. The Paradox).
I realize this is way too long and way too detailed an account of my weekend….and it has taken way too long to write as well. I am working on finding a happy medium with writing this blog. Perhaps it is all for the best, and I will become a faster writer as the months go on.
Or I may just stop writing when med school starts. We will see. Enjoy the pictures:
Picture of Kikar Tzion (Zion Square) from my Hostel Roof-top.
Jethro Tull Concert.
Israeli Rap Concert (HaDag Nachash).
Beautiful Apartment (w/ Sam and Maya).
A view of my apartment from the outside (with Mt. Carmel in the background).
I realize that I am leaving about a week and a half of my life unaccounted for by telling you about this past weekend, that is a small amount of time in the long run, my past weekend is still fresh in my mind, and I can sum up the past two weeks in the following sentence: “Every morning from 8:30 to 12, I sit in Ulpan half asleep; otherwise, I have played some soccer, spent Shabbat in Netanya, signed for an apartment, and went out drinking with my fellow med students.”
On Thursday, I met with my landlord, her fiancée, and her realtor, and had the silliest negotiation over an apartment that has ever happened in the history of real estate. The Hebrew speaking realtor negotiated between me and the landlord, both of whom are Americans. I was prepped by Sam, and had a laundry list of demands that I should make regarding the contract---and not take no for an answer. Sort of like that scene in the movie Tommy Boy, I not only did a terrible job, but I somehow managed to make the contract even worse for me than when I began. But---in the end---I’m getting a huge, beautiful, airy, second-floor apartment right next to the Mediterranean Sea for $600 a month. So, I’m not really sweating it. Also, the landlord’s grandmother (who is actually my de-facto landlord, since my landlord lives in L.A.) is a very sweet lady, and seems genuinely interested in taking care of me. She has already fed me…twice. So I think I came out on top, and also got a good chance to remind myself why I could never, ever go into business because I am the world’s worst negotiator.
Right after signing the contract and shaking hands, I got on a bus to Jerusalem. Once there, I walked over to the center of town/Kikar Tzion/America-in-Israel and decided to take charge of my situation (that being a guy without a bed to sleep in). Something in me---I’m not sure from where---inspired me to walk into a hostel, ask about rooms, and when told there were no rooms, took up an offer to sleep in a tent on the roof of the hostel. Which really wasn’t that bad of an idea, except at 8 AM the next morning…
When I finally got to where I (thought) I wanted to be, I was very confused, since the concert was being held on an outdoor stage, and I found it strange that a bar would also have an outdoor venue. I shrugged this paradox off, and asked the ticket-taker where I could buy a ticket. He shrugged, and then suggested a booth about 100 yards away, but added that he thought the concert was sold out. Indeed, the concert was sold out, which I really found interesting, considering that this rap group is not that popular. I probably muttered something like, “Ehhh….mah lah’ahsot?” which is Hebrew for “C’est la vie,” bought a beer, walked around this outdoor area surrounding the concert, and plotted my next move. Since I was meeting Sam at the bar, who was coming from a wedding in Abu Ghoush (which I thought was an Arab town, but is in fact not only Jewish, but also famous for their good hummous, which ended up delaying Sam even more than he was already delayed), I called him up to tell him that the concert was sold out, and that I was nursing my troubles with a beer. He warned me not to drink too much, as he wanted me to behave in front of his friends who he was bringing along for the night’s festivities.
The phone call ended with me agreeing to not get too drunk, though still confused as to when, exactly, Sam would leave the abundant, tasty, and, most importantly, free hummous long enough to get on bus to Jerusalem. I sat down to try to organize my thoughts and enjoy the music coming from the concert long enough to realize that it was decidedly not rap music…or anything even close. Confused, I walked back over to the same ticket-taker who informed me that the concert was sold out and asked him, literally, “Who is that over there making that music?” He looked at me like I was from Mars (though, judging by his accent, I would say he was from Russia, which isn’t that great, either), and informed me that it was Jethro Tull.
“Ze lowh ha’Mah’ahbadah?” [This is not The Laboratory?]. He reported that this was, indeed, not the place I was looking for after all, and that my bar and concert were a few blocks away. I was very appreciative to find out that my concert was not sold out, but I was very, very confused to have nearly stumbled into a Jethro Tull concert. I cannot honestly say that I even thought Jethro Tull was still alive, let alone touring the Middle East. I thanked the ticket-taker, made the 2 block journey to the actual Laboratory, and found a much more “Laboratory” looking venue---a very stylish, local bar that was much more Israeli than any other bar I had ever seen in Jerusalem before---probably because of its distance from major American hangouts. Instead of document all of the silly things that happened to me at this concert, I will just say that going to any concert alone, and especially a concert which is not sung in your native language, is a disorienting experience. But, I made some friends (the bartender claimed that she has known the band since before they were big, and that they are nice guys), had a few drinks, and even managed to get someone to drive me to my next destination (Mom and Dad take note: I saved $5 with this move. So when I call to ask you for more money, please don’t act like I am not pulling my weight).
I met up with Sam and two of his friends, Ross and (I forgot….?). Ross was a friend of Sam’s from high school, I believe, and the girl was connected to Sam through some Zionist conspiracy trying to subvert American foreign policy. Fortunately for everyone present, I managed to keep my promise to Sam to be presentable for his friends, and only managed to shout down one of them throughout the course of the night (Sam’s Zionist friend complained that Jewish organizations are spending money in all of the wrong places…..since Judaism should not be living in the past, and should start to conform to our (i.e. our generation’s) needs. For some thoughts on this, see my previous post, and probably future posts as well). At around 4 in the morning, the kosher pizza place and the kosher bagel place were still open, and when I went with the bagel and lox, which sounded pretty good at that moment, I was immediately accused of harboring ghetto-tendencies, but I think I came out the winner in this one, since the word “ghetto” originated in Italy, the same as their pizza.
Sam and I parted ways with Ross and the AIPAC girl, and went over to our tent on the roof of the hostel. It was quite comfortable there, but just as Sam was about to lay down, he asked me, “Wait---it’s going to get very hot in here in the morning, won’t it?” To which I answered, with the sort of logic you can expect from someone half-asleep who generally doesn’t like to be proven wrong at anytime of the day: “Oh. Don’t worry. It’s dry heat here in Jerusalem.” I’m aware that this is a mystifying comment on many levels, not the least because dry heat is how I would describe the inside of an oven, which was exactly what our tent felt like at 8 in the morning. I must say that, in case you’ve never tried it, trying to sleep in an oven is not really possible. So, ever the troopers, we got up, tried to go back to sleep in the shade, failed, then collected our stuff, mumbled something to the hotel manager about not mentioning that sleeping past 7:30 AM on the roof was nearly impossible, paid our bill, and went to purchase a breakfast of fruit, bureakas, and orange juice---all purchased in the shuk (Machane Yehudah).
I should add a small side note about orange juice in Israel. Actually---any justice I could possibly do to the difference between what Israelis think is orange juice, and what Americans think is orange juice, has already been done by Dave Chappelle, when illustrating the differences between what white people think is “grape juice” and black people drink, referred to as “grape drink.” Actually, the term “orange drink” is written on the sides of bottles of the fake orange drink that Israelis seem to love, though they call it “Meetz Tapuzim,” which translates to orange juice. Which, in the end, just makes it even more difficult to get Israelis to give you ACTUAL orange juice when you are looking for it. Either way, this is all important because Sam and I actually managed to get our hands on a bottle of real orange juice (at the cost of 25 Shekels/$6.00, which is no small expense over here, especially for food).
We ended up taking all of this food over to Sam’s friends house in Nachalot, a neighborhood in Jerusalem. Well, to call it a neighborhood in Jerusalem is to do about as much justice to this neighborhood as calling The Village a neighborhood in NYC. Nachalot is the neighborhood that is located directly behind Mahane Yehudah Shuk, and goes as far as Kadamon (near the German Colony and Emek Refaim). It is apparently the neighborhood to live in Jerusalem. It is all gorgeous, old Jerusalem-stone houses with red roofs. However, some of these houses look like beautiful new mansions, and some of them look decidedly like some sort of holy slums. Walking near my friend Chaim’s apartment (more on that later…), I noted to him that the neighborhood was maybe the most pleasant slums in the world. Basically, I’ve begun to realize that Israelis really do not care what the outside of their houses look like. They put stupid looking “dudes” (the silly choice of a word for a water heater) on their roofs, they don’t ever paint the outsides of the houses, and they often have lots of different, strange things hanging off the outside walls of their house. This is all to say that, whereas they do not care about the outsides of their houses, the insides of their houses are almost uniformly warm, inviting, comfortable, and all-around wonderful to sit around in.
That said, Sam’s friend’s apartment was one of the most comfortable apartments I have ever had the pleasure of sitting in. There’s really no way to explain it; maybe it was the cool breeze, maybe it was the beautifully tiled floors, maybe it was the comfortable chairs, maybe it was the orange juice, maybe it was all the flowers, or maybe it was the great company---either way, it was just great sitting around in that apartment. Maybe it is Jerusalem. I’ll stop speculating here. Either way, the sisters to whom the apartment belongs (Maya and Hadas…well, it is Maya’s, but Hadas seems to be staying there) were wonderfully welcoming, and let us (Sam, Chaim, and I) smell up their apartment for a good part of the morning. For the sake of all involved, I will refrain from going into too much detail of the extent of their warmness, but, needless to say, I was made to feel at home. I have posted a picture of the apartment (along with Sam and Maya) below.
Actually, I’ve posted a few pictures below. And, with that, I am going to end this post, with a promise to continue it at a later date (including the parts where I discover the popularity of neon-framed synagogue arks among the Charedim, and maybe even admit how truly foreign I often feel in a place that also often feels like home (i.e. The Paradox).
I realize this is way too long and way too detailed an account of my weekend….and it has taken way too long to write as well. I am working on finding a happy medium with writing this blog. Perhaps it is all for the best, and I will become a faster writer as the months go on.
Or I may just stop writing when med school starts. We will see. Enjoy the pictures:
Picture of Kikar Tzion (Zion Square) from my Hostel Roof-top.
Jethro Tull Concert.
Israeli Rap Concert (HaDag Nachash).
Beautiful Apartment (w/ Sam and Maya).
A view of my apartment from the outside (with Mt. Carmel in the background).
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