...aaaaaaaaaaaand they're off!!
Life is absolutely packed.

Yesterday I went with my Arabic class to the Druze village of Mghar (pronounced more closely "Mrar;" the "Gh" transliteration signifies the Arabic letter Rgyne, which is like a combination of a G and an R) north of Afula. It was quite a trip.

On the two-hour bus trip up there, I got my first real look at the separation barrier. It's a pretty simple concrete wall in a few places, and in most other places is nothing but a wire fence (about 97% of it is like that; only 3% is the ugly concrete). The main industry of Mghar is, of all things, olives. Now, for those of you who do not know, when I lived on Kibbutz for a year in high school, I worked part-time in the Zeitia--the Olive Factory. In Mghar they make olive oil, but I was disturbed to find that I recognized a lot of the machines and their function. And the smell--the smell was close enough to the Zeitia to send me scurrying for the exit.

A Christian Arab whose family produces the olive oil spoke to us (in Arabic) and Omar, the colloquial Arabic teacher, translated. The Arab told us what makes good olive oil and talked to us about what olive oil can do for us...namely it make us healthier, happier, and better lovers. Seriously. One funny moment happened after his presentation. I have a friend in some of my classes named Karma, who is from Lebanon and is a Christian Arab herself (Maronite--these were Catholics, though most of Mghar's inhabitants are Druze, who stand straighter for the Israeli flag than Israelis). She spoke to the Arab man in Arabic for a few minutes after his presentation, and then went in to their little shop to buy some olive oil. The man quickly pulled out his cellphone and had a quick conversation, which my teacher, Yael, also heard and translated. She said to me:

"He was talking to his son. He said, 'Come here, quick! I just met your bride!'" Son was too shy (much to the relief of Karma's boyfriend, I am sure).

I'll put up pictures from the Mghrar trip when we get back from Romania, when I'll have a lot of other pictures to put up, as well. We are leaving Jerusalem tomorrow afternoon and spending the night in Ashdod before Vova drives us to the airport Thursday afternoon. I don't know if I'll have a chance to update before we go, or if I'll be able to update while there, but I will try. If I don't, however, look for me to return to my blogging duties in two weeks when we return. To you all I wish a Happy Pesach, or Happy April, or Happy Stanley Cup Playoffs or Start of Baseball Season, or, if none of those interest you, just plain old Happy Days.
- posted by @ 9:07 PM

 
Spring Break Countdown
I've added a guestbook. Feel free to sign. In fact, I'd love it if you did.

After my last update, we went to a lecture by Israel at JSS. It was on paintings that make Him cry (that was actually the title, although the the capital on "Him" was my own addition, which does not really characterize him). It was four-and-a-half hours long. I was awake for most of it, and the parts that I caught were very interesting. People came from all over to hear him, and the majority of them received him as Israel's (the country) cultural Messiah.

Much of the stuff was over my head, but what I did understand was enlightening, and helped clarify for me several questions I had on the nature of painting and the nature of art as it relates to painting. At the end he showed photographs of some of his work. They are unbelievable. It's sick what that man can do with a canvas, a brush (or a comb or a pick, or whatever strikes him) and pigment. Sick.

On Friday night we went to Shabbat dinner with Nava and Leonid at Chava's friend's house, which was very nice; we met some fun people. On Saturday morning we went to Ashdod and had our usual great visit.

Today I wrapped my dignity around me like a cloak and shuffled back into Issta, where the tickets had arrived. Nobody said anything, but the giggles were behing everyone's eyes when my friend the clerk--with the toches--handed me the envelope. I thanked them, and walked out. I like those people...they're nice and understanding, and, perhaps most importantly from a business sense, offer fantastic deals.

In the meantime, we're cleaning our apartment and getting it ready to sit without us for two weeks while we are in Romania. I have no idea how often I will get to the internet while in Romania, and I'm not taking a laptop computer there--theft is a serious problem. I will take notes and update when we get back, for sure, and I will definitely update to "say goodbye" to you all before we head out. The way the world is nowadays, we're going to be Canadian for a couple of weeks to everyone except for the nice customs officer who checks our passports (and would thus probably see through the lie...)

P.S. Happy Birthday, Grandma.
- posted by @ 9:20 PM

 
Bucharest or Bust!
Wow, a lot has happened since I updated yesterday night!

Our plans for Pesach Break changed rapidly with Elana's grandparents' surprise announcement that they were coming out to this part of the world. It actually wasn't that much of a surprise, really, since we knew that they had been thinking about it, but didn't want to tell anybody until it was for sure. What was surprising was the fact that they are stopping off in Romania first...and we are going to join them! That's right, for two weeks in April, we will be in (sunny?) Romania! I looked online for tickets, and almost ordered them, but then remembered the travel agency, Issta, that has an office in the Forum on campus at Har Hatzofim. So I went there this morning to see if I could get a deal.

I could. By traveling a day earlier (April 1) than our original plan, we could get on a waiting list for a roundtrip flight that cost just a little more than half as much as the online tickets. The clerk (unusually helpful for an Israeli, actually) called ElAl to see if she could squeeze us onto the flight. Within an hour and a half of setting foot in the Issta office, the tickets were ours.

Now for the funny part. First I want to put this in the context of my family's history. When we were in Israel in 1986, I was in first grade. My mother was taking an Ulpan (an intensive Hebrew study course, for those of you not in-the-know), and at one point introduced her teacher, "Zot Chamorah Sheli," drawing laughter all around. She meant to say "Zot HaMorah sheli," which would have meant, "This is my teacher." What she actually said was, "This is my donkey."

Well, I think I now have that malapropism topped with one of my own.

Of course, the business at the travel agency was conducted in Hebrew. When she was putting us on the waiting list, I told her that I would have to go home at 2:30, and I asked if we did manage to get seats, if we would be able to pay by phone. She said:

"Ken, aval kodem titztarech li'gmor et hatophes hazeh she'y'asher et hatashlum b'ashrai."

I replied,

"B'seder gamur, az tni li et hatoches."

Gales of laughter from the clerk and her co-workers. Because she had said, "Yes, but first you'll need to complete this form that will authorize the payment in credit," and I had replied, "Fine, so give me your ass."
- posted by @ 6:45 PM

 
En Attendant Godot
So, while we're waiting for the other shoe to drop, we're doing our thing. Which today meant school and class for the two of us, and a comforts-of-home, non-Kraft Macaroni and Cheese dinner (mmmm!). Yassin is still on everybody's minds--you can still see it in the way Israelis are driving less aggressively in general--but nobody's hunkered in a bunker or anything. And you can't predict where the next terror attack will happen, so you do what you have to do (like school) and cut what you might do (like, for example, go see a movie, if there was anything good playing, or go to a restaurant for a change of pace), at least temporarily. Parenthetically, I do want to point out this report, which I think more or less describes the enemy Israel is dealing with, and which places Hamas' value of a Palestinian life at about $22.20.

I had my long day at school today; 9:30 to 5:00 with only two fifteen minute breaks between classes. Two and a half hours of Modern Lebanon, two hours of Hebrew, and another two and a half hours of International Relations, all lined up in a row. Wednesdays are exhausting for me, and I come home absolutely blitzed; by the end of IR, it's really hard for me to focus. Elana, by way of contrast, had a normal day cut short.

Her model today was the same one who is in this drawing: she is pregnant ("The second month" refers to how far along she was at the time, which was in December; incidentally, this drawing is the one Elana had hanging in the art show at the ASLD). Well, pregnancy, so I'm told, accompanies with it the possibility of nausea, which carries with it the possibility of, say, spontaneously vomiting on the floor of the studio in which you are modeling nude. That's what happened in December, and that's what happened again today. That's right. Yakked on the floor. Neither the model nor the artists were in much of a state to continue after that.

Someone should tell her it's dangerous to vomit in a room full of artists; someone may yell out, "Freeze! Hold that right there! Now...don't move."
- posted by @ 8:56 PM

 
Lingering
The tension in the air is palpable. Even the drivers on the way to school this morning seemed eerily quiet. People cut other people off as usual, but elicited not so much as a flashing of the brights. People stayed at the light even after it turned green, which earned a quick little wake-up "beep-beep"--not the furious, sustained Shofar blast that usually continues well after the offending car is past the intersection. There's a sense of people waiting for that other shoe to drop...

The killing of Yassin was approved after the Ashdod bombing, in my opinion because the target appears to have been chemical (which, also in my opinion, was the original escalation, although Israel certainly chose a much less subtle escalation).

As I drove around the University's peripheral road this morning, there was heavy security, heavier than I have ever seen. There were two guards every hundred feet or so (usually they just guard the entrances); many parking spots were blocked off. When I got around to my gate, which is little used because it requires a climb of 134 steps (yes, I have counted--Mt. Rabb, meet Mt. Scopus), I asked the security guard I have come to know what was going on. "Rosh Hememshalah po hayom," he replied, as he checked my computer case, taking extra special care: "The Prime Minister is here today."

Oh, really?

Under ordinary circumstances, I would go and hear him speak. Not today, however. I hate to give in to terror in any way. This appearance was scheduled before the assassination of Yassin, and Ariel Sharon, as a further message to the terrorists, is going ahead with it--to show that he will not hide. I, however, am not in his position--my sending a message to the terrorists is unlikely to have any sort of effect. There's a difference between continuing to live one's life and taking unnecessary risks, and to attend Sharon's first scheduled appearance since Hamas vowed to kill him would be, in my opinion, an unnecessary risk. Besides, I already know what he is going to say, practically word for word. Under ordinary circumstances, I would go, and today I won't, which is, I admit, an alteration based on security concerns. But it's not an alteration to my routine--if anything, it's maintaining my routine, and not going out of my way to go to a dangerous place. That's something we've followed religiously here, by buying the Shtinker (which, if you think about, is trading the busses for the Israeli drivers, and I'm not sure which is truly safer), not going to obvious targets, and focusing on our work. I won't alter that to prove that I'm not afraid, but I won't let fear dictate my life, either. You have to go to school and to the market. From time to time, you have to go out.

Even so, for now, we're laying low and being extra-cautious. And if that means missing an opportunity to hear a politician and historical figure, even a famous and important one, whose ideas I largely disagree with, it's an easy decision to make.
- posted by @ 9:49 AM

 
World Affairs that Happen Around Us
The background for today was the killing of Ahmed Yassin this morning, which created a lot of tension in the air. For us, it was just a normal day. I went to school and came back, and at 3:30 went to JSS to pick up Elana. We went with our friend Chava to the Promenade, which she had not seen (we're making a habit of this!), and walked and talked. It was quiet and peaceful, perhaps in opposition to the general mood over the country.

We are in tonight, and are going to be taking extra precautions over the next week or so, and at least until we get a feel for the new dynamic this may have created. I wish I didn't have to talk about politics in this blog, but they affect daily life here, much moreso than in the US. I guess in a country a little smaller than New Jersey, where the distance between Jerusalem and Hebron is the distance between downtown and uptown Manhattan, everything is intensified.
- posted by @ 6:41 PM

 
L'tayel b'tayelet*
Our sickness and general fatigue made us stay in town this weekend; we had planned on possibly going to the Beit Guvrin caves (a truly worthwhile experience, which we shall do sometime soon), but instead we decided to stay in and take it easy. Last night, when we were feeling pretty much better, Elana suggested that today we should walk to the promenade (the series of gardens with the fantastic view of Jerusalem), have a picnic and read for a while. So we did. We packed some sandwiches and some books and set off. It was relaxing; the weather was cool, the air clean, and the gardens uncrowded. It felt very healthy.

We saw perhaps the most spastic dog I've ever seen in my life. An older black dog had been wandering and sat down to watch us finish our sandwiches. Suddenly, from behind, a pale-colored golden retriever spotted him and charged. After the dogs said their hellos to each other, the golden started running (more hopping) around in viciously fast circles, hoping to engage the black dog in a game of...well, running around, I guess. The black dog was not interested, and after a couple of half-hearted attempts to draw us into his game, the golden loped off, as enthusiastic and speedy as ever. It was weird.

Anyway, the weather got cold so we made our way back to the apartment. First we walked to the end of the promenade, which is near Givat Hananiya, and then circled back on the streets. Since then we've just been taking it easy; I've been doing homework and Elana reading some of the books that just arrived from Amazon. After taking care of some day-to-day stuff that I've been putting off (or has been putting me off), I have that all-clothes-and-dishes-are-clean, homework-is-all-done, fresh-start feeling. It's good. It's very good.

*"A walk on the promenade"
- posted by @ 5:32 PM

 
How Eggplant Threatened My Marriage
We've both been bitten by the sick bug. It's fun. We took turns taking care of each other. Tonight I'm trying my hand at chicken soup again. The directions are not "mix powder with hot water." This is actual chicken soup, with twice-boiled chicken and vegetables and stuff; it's Elana's family's recipe (I imagine it's an old recipe) that I feel really good eating because it not only gives five or six servings of soup, but also boiled chicken.

I've found my food tastes expanding, really since I met Elana. First I found vegetables acceptable; then Middle Eastern food, followed by Indian and Chinese food. Mexican food was slower but I came around, and Japanese and Russian food are slowly making their way into my palate. You have to understand that at 18, I considered pizza my ethnic food. Burgers and fries were the meal of choice. Now I'd much prefer a piece of black bread with humus and eggplant, chicken soup, vegetable salad...Elana mentioned to me that if she'd told me when we first started dating that I would choose this kind of food, I'd probably laugh at her. I responded that I would have dumped her then and there if I thought staying together would mean I'd have to eat eggplant salad. Lucky neither of us can tell the future.
- posted by @ 9:16 PM

 
"...He Who Does Not Drink the Whole Shall Not Even Drink the Half..."
Thanks to all who made contact with me regarding the recent bombings in Ashdod. Everyone we know is fine, thank God, and reading the reports after the incident--which suggest that the target of the bombers was actually chemical stockpiles that could have made this a lot worse than it even was--is enough to scare anyone. The recent victory of the Social Democrats in Spain is also quite troubling (who would have thought I would ever say that?)

But this blog and the world have been heavy lately, and I really want to lighten the mood. And what better way to do that than a description of Swedes drinking?

See? I can't think of a better way, either. About an hour and a half after the last post, Elana and I went to a birthday party of a friend of mine from school, Matilda, a lawyer from Sweden. She somehow managed to arrange for an extended stay at the Swedish Theological Institute in the Tabor house (which houses Swedes for week- or two week-long stays; she's staying there for the year) on HaNevi'im street. It's a beautiful building, with a private garden and large kitchen and astonishing architecture. She's currently the only resident (the Institute itself is in the midst of a quiet time, as are most foreign missions in Israel these days). A lot of her friends are from Sweden, although at the party there was a mix of Americans, Columbians, Israelis, and others. They taught us some drinking songs which I promptly forgot, but part of the song-culture is that if you don't sing the song right, you don't get to drink. I get the sense that they made allowances for the non-Swedish speakers among us (although my "drinking" that night consisted of a glass of wine which I nursed to last the entire evening). We also ran into a guy there, another friend of Matilda's, who is close friends with Elana's classmate and our friend Nathalie. When Elana and Nathalie were drawing in the Old City a few weeks back, they ran into him and he hung out with them for the afternoon. When Elana saw him come into the party, she knew he looked familiar, and when she got a better look at him she remembered him. All of this serving to emphasize my point a few posts ago about the smallness of the world, which is doubly or triply (is that a word?) true here in Jerusalem. Despite its prominent global and historical stature, only 600,000 people live here, and it's very small. A drive from our apartment to the University--or from southern Jerusalem to northern Jerusalem, at least three-quarters of the north-south run of the city--is about a fifteen minute, eight kilometer drive. Zeh hakol.

To lighten the mood even further, as I was making that very drive today, I had a pretty funny experience. I was driving right along the wall of the Old City (on Defenders of Jerusalem, for those of you who know the layout) coming up on Rehavia, and I found myself behind a charter bus with a bunch of kids in the back. One kid was forelonely waving at all the passing cars and was disappointed when they didn't respond. So, when he turned his attention to me, I waved back and smiled. Excited, he waved again and said something to the kid next to him. A couple of more sets of wavers joined in, some of them adding to the interaction with funny faces that, apparently, nobody told them would stick that way if they did it for too long. By the time the bus and I parted ways and we went on about our different routes--where Sheikh Jarrah exits up to Mount Scopus--I saw at least ten pairs of hands waving goodbye. It was only then, as the bus drove on, that I noticed the Arabic script on its side: "Al-Quds/Sur-Bahr," it said. Al-Quds is, of course, Jerusalem, and Sur-Bahr is a neighborhood of East Jerusalem. It made my morning, and reinspired me to update--something I had not had too much of an impetus to do since Ashdod.

Now, as a Swede would say, "Skol!"
- posted by @ 9:40 AM

 
Bombs in Ashdod
There was just (within the last half hour) a bombing in the harbor in Ashdod. Details are sketchy, but at least eight are dead and twenty wounded. I just talked to Tova and Elana talked to Liat, and everybody we know--all of our relatives and friends--are unhurt.

This is the first time that Ashdod has experienced a bombing. It seems like such a quiet place, and the feeling there, like I said in my last entry, was that "it doesn't happen here." Ashdod has been our escape; there is no safe haven. What's most important for us is that our family and friends are all okay.
- posted by @ 6:32 PM

 
Explain This to Me
I'm sure you've all heard by now about the terrible attacks in Madrid, Spain. Almost 200 people were killed and about 1,400 wounded in a coordinated bombing attack on Madrid's commuter trains exactly two-and-a-half years after 9/11. Nothing justifies targeting civilians, and the western world is once again, rightly, standing up and standing together in condemnation of terror.

The primary duty of any human at a time like this is to remember the victims who were murdered. But this raises a sad question for people in Israel. Where is the world's condemnation of Palestinian terror? Why is it presented in the media as more legitimate, and placed into "political context?" When is the world going to realize that civilians should never be targets of resistance?

I can hear the answers right now, and they ring absolutely hollow. The ETA (assuming this was the Basques) has no political right for this because Spain is a democracy. Israel holds the Palestinians under occupation. I'm sure the Basque extremists would be the first to argue that they, like the Palestinians, are under foreign rule, and would question the true freedom of Spanish democracy. They would point to Quebec, where a separatist movement flirted with violence in 1970 (one mailbox bomb, two kidnappings and one murder before they realized that they had a better chance of achieving independence from Canada via the democratic process--they came within half a percentage point of success in 1995 or 1996), and deny that they have any such recourse (despite their semi-autonomy). Spanish civilians, American civilians, Iraqi civilians, Northern Irish civilians, Kashmiri civilians and Israeli civilians all have in common that they are ordinary people living their lives, and any claim that they are legitimate targets is despicable.

So where is the western world's outrage? Calls to Sharon's office expressing condolences do not qualify. Statements like, "We condemn the killing of all civilians, Palestinian or Israeli," are politically motivated, and, to anyone who can read between the lines, are actually an attempt at justification. When there is an attack in Israel, the French response is essentially a sniff, a roll of the eyes, and a shrug that sends the message that "Well, you know you had it coming. Besides, bombings just happen in that part of the world." Even the Spanish media, in the past several years, have leaned towards "understanding" Palestinian acts of terror, and has even justified the attacks with a similar shrug. As if it's part of the culture here.

Well, perhaps it is. Maybe it's become part of the culture. Maybe that's why, when I first read about the bombings in Madrid, I was unmoved. "So what?" I thought. "Madrid, Jerusalem, it's another bombing." Many Israelis have come to share this coldness. It's borne out of the fact that it has happened so much here that Israelis are just numb to it. When I was here in 1996, when there was a terrorist attack, there was silence. There was sad music on the radio. People cried. Now, after the initial flurry--the news reports, calling loved ones to let them know you are okay (or, for those unlucky few, not being able to)--there is a short grieving period and then, people move on. They go about their day, they go out for lunch. Three Doors Down begins to play again on the radio.

So what was it that made me take note of this one? I suppose the size of it. And that's one point that is really elemental. Has terror begun to lose its political effects? It certainly has in Israel. It does not assist the Palestinian cause, that's for sure, as Israel responds by tightening the occupation. There are no demands for a loosening of the occupation and easing of the hardships that "create the atmosphere for terror," as the PA loves to say. Quite frankly, it doesn't shock anyone anymore. It's become passe. When the mafia hit-bombing in Tel Aviv happened, before I knew it wasn't Palestinian, I was in Hebrew class. I got a text message from Elana telling me about the blast, and asked me if I knew anything else. I finished my quiz and hurried down to the computer, where the details pointed to Palestinian terrorism. I walked back up to my class and whispered to my teacher that there had been a "pigu'a," a word which doesn't exist in English (it translates to "terrorist attack," but it comes from the root "P.G.'A," which means "injure or hurt seriously"). Her response was not one of shock, but of a sort of resigned sadness that "it happened again." Even Hebrew class went on with a minimal interruption. If you treat it like the catastrophe it truly is every time it happened, if it got even a quarter of the international press that Todd Bertuzzi has gotten over the past week, then the country would exist in a constant state of absolute hysteria. So Israel has become numb to it out of necessity, and the rest of the world more or less ignores it. Ten, twenty, thirty people killed will get the headlines for about a day. Then we're all shocked and absolutely horrified that a hockey player punched another one from behind. When you get up into the 100-150-200 dead range, the media actually takes notice. When it happens in a western country like Spain, it's an absolute disaster; however, when it happens in Baghdad, when it happens in Istanbul, when it happens in Indonesia, the relative response from the western media is subdued because it happened in the East. I guess the Arabs and the Jews are just like that. How many Americans actually remember what happened in Istanbul at the British Embassy? That was only a few months ago. In a few months, how many Americans will remember Madrid? I would bet many more. Luckily, an attack of that scope has not happened in Israel because Israel is a security-minded country.

But if it does happen? If Hamas manages to blow up a building during work hours? I would bet that the world would condemn it at the same level they condemn the bus bombings. They'd decry the murder of civilians, the media would give a wink-and-a-nod "political climate" justification and would just ignore it after a week. Then, when Israel made moves to arrest those responsible, they'd scream, "Didn't you learn anything? Don't you see what you're creating? You bear the ultimate responsibility for the terror! Not the people who blew up the building! You!" El Pais, the Madrid daily, compared this attack to an attack that was perpetrated by the Irgun, an Israeli terrorist group, in 1946, at the King David Hotel, where 91 died. 1946! They went back to 1946 to find a precedent where the Jews did it! And lest we forget, the Irgun publicized the bombing three hours before it happened so that the building could be evacuated. The British stuffily chose not to. And I do not condone the Irgun either, but let's not draw any moral comparisons between these two attacks. El Pais more rightly points to the attacks in Najaf last week as a precedent (123 dead), which likely flew in under the radar of the western masses because it was in Iraq. But why the comparison to the Irgun? Well, I think I know the answer. I think it's plain old-fashioned anti-Semitism. Say what you want about the whole crucifixation (Stewart, Jon; The Daily Show) surrounding the anti-Semitism in "The Passion," which I haven't seen because it hasn't opened here yet (and when it does, it will only open at one theatre in Tel Aviv). It's comments like that which truly fuel the fire of anti-Semitism by misrepresenting what actually happened in order to alleviate European guilt for the holocaust: "See!" they cry in glee, as they trot out examples from the 40s and condemn current Jewish and Israeli attempts to defend themselves against an attacker that (in another form of prejudice) the West simply expects no better from. "See! We weren't so bad! The Jews do it too!"

The Jews do it, too. All Arabs are terrorists. Maybe what the world needs is another bout of European colonialism, right? It's the white man's burden to bring civilization to these savages and keep the Jews in their place (did someone mention creating an atmosphere that encourages terrorism? How about a disorderly decolonialization and the dirtiest international politics in world history?). After the mass murder yesterday, there is no place for those sentiments. It is a time to grieve, to bring the perpetrators to justice, and for Spain, quite probably a period of adjustment to the new dangers of the world, which require more security. Secondarily, I hold out hope that this will bring the west closer to understanding what it means to live under the threat of terrorism in places like Jerusalem and Baghdad. But not too much hope. The instinct to assume that "it could never happen here, to people like us, or to me personally" is just too powerful, and what cannot be called anything but an anti-Semitic reflex is much too ingrained in Europe to acknowledge, and thus progress against, what's actually happening. They won't acknowledge that terrorism is truly systemic. They'll go after their own terrorists and condemn Israel (and Israel alone in the world) for going after those that attack it.
- posted by @ 1:48 PM

 
An Ever-Shrinking Planet
The last two hours have been startlingly interesting.

We are leaving in about fifteen minutes for Tel Aviv, where there is going to be an art show of a graduate of Elana's program, but we decided to take a stroll through our shortcut to Emek Refa'im. As we were locking our apartment door, we heard English from above us. Our apartment building is three stories, with four apartments on each of the first two floors and a single door on the top floor. It always seemed kind of mysterious, and we jokingly referred to it as the Penthouse.

We waited by the stairs to introduce ourselves. There were two of them, a man and a woman, who looked to be in their late twenties-early thirties (an age group we have recently begun to think of as peer, which is strange for us...). Anyway, we introduced ourselves and they did likewise, and, sure enough...well, you know what a small Jewish world it is out there.

They are in Jerusalem until April; he is on a break from work at Tufts, and she is doing her Doctoral dissertation...in the Near Eastern and Judaic Studies department at Brandeis University. For those of you who don't know, Elana and I met in a NEJS USem our freshman year with an aggressive but brilliant Rabbi we called Groovin' Reuven. Ol' Groove was the first person to grill this woman at her proposal defense. She also knew Professor Nakash, of course; Professors Burg and Art were also familiar to her, making her three for three on my thesis readers. She knew some of my TAs, as well as one of my current classmates at Hebrew U. To top things off, she hails from the LA area. We parted company at Emek Refa'im in the center of the German Colony, but we had a nice walk-and-talk, and hey, we know where they live. Above us.

Our conversation turned pretty serious at that point, and especially as we turned and headed back. We were talking about society, people within society, and different ways people overcome innate personal obstacles in order to function. As if to illustrate the point, as we rounded the corner from Bethlehem Street onto Rivka, a dwarf woman with a walker asked us to help her get a taxi. We were more than happy to, and we stayed to make sure she got in before we went away. She has clearly found a way to function despite a disability.

So, two pretty large coincidences in a very short time: the first in the six-degrees-of-separation sense, and the second in the speak-of-the-devil sense. It's always strange when life seems cinematic in its coincidences.
- posted by @ 7:00 PM

 
Siba L'Mesiba
There's a saying in Hebrew..."She'yihiyeh lanu siba l'mesiba," which means, "may we have a reason to party." Last night, we did, and the reason was Purim.

Although this was the end of Purim vacation and Purim was technically over, we threw our party last night at our apartment. Pictures were taken, and are up on the website. It was a great time; we had a fairly large group of people over. It being Purim, this was of course a costume party; I went as a pirate because a pirate costume is basically rolled up black pants, a mostly unbuttoned white shirt, sandals, and a head scarf (all of which I had) and a gold hoop earring (which I lucked into later on in the night). Elana went as a baby in a costume that she got from Tova in Ashdod. The best costume of the night had to be Ruth's gypsy (that's where I got the earring, by the way), although Nava's elf and Nathalie and El'ad's Wednesday and Fester Addams garner special mention. It lasted until about midnight, and although it is actually a commandment to get incredibly drunk at Purim (the Halacha says so that you can't tell the difference between Mordecai and Haman, the hero and villain of the Purim story, respectively), the six-pack of Heineken we bought for the party was only half finished. So it wasn't exactly wild, but that did not detract from the fun at all. I can feel our circle of friends expanding. It's great.
- posted by @ 4:28 PM

 
Happy Purim!
OK, I know Purim was yesterday. But we're having the party tonight, so there it is.

I've had a nice two day break, and I start school again tomorrow. I finished my paper for my stupid class (I assume you know to what I refer) today in about three hours. It feels good to be done with last semester, only a week into this one.

For now, we're going to start preparing for the party. The apartment is clean, and now we have to get it together and transform it to party mode. Kind of like Voltron. Ooh! Costume idea...
- posted by @ 4:33 PM

 
Sof Sof
I finally got around to updating the website. Enjoy.
- posted by @ 11:17 AM

 
A Small World After All
The week's been coming fast and furious. That's why the last update was a few days ago.

Classes started this week. On a whim, I decided to take the Origins of the Bahai class on Tuesday afternoon and drop the Origins of Palestinian Nationalism. It may seem that I was sacrificing something very relevant for something as close to irrelevant as possible, but I looked at the syllabi: Bahai, as a religion, is very young, and the class starts at the beginning of Islam. So that means we go through the Sunni/Shi'i split in detail, and continue to follow the schisms through history. The Origins of Palestinian Nationalism, on the other hand, would be more aptly titled Arabs of Palestine under Ottoman Rule, which is by no means the same thing. The other two classes--Modern Lebanon and International Relations Theory of the Middle East--seem like they will be interesting, although the former seems a little dull, and the latter is very heavy on the theory vis-a-vis the actual cases. But I'm looking forward to it. Then, of course, there's the second semester of Arabic, and level D Hebrew--one of my Hebrew teachers has Hobbit blood, I swear.

I won't spend time singing the praises of Elana's recent work; I plan to post some pictures on the website tomorrow, and you can all see for yourselves.

Tonight was a very interesting night. I found out a few weeks ago that a girl who I acted with in middle school (who was Marian to my Harold Hill in the Music Man in eighth grade) was living in Jerusalem with her fiance, studying to be a rabbi. So I wrote her an email, and we corresponded for a while, and planned to get together (the four of us) tonight. So we did; we met on Emek Refa'im and walked to a place called Kafe Bagan (Cafe in the Garden) which is on a quiet, secluded street and, best of all, was not crowded. After the meal, we walked back to our apartment and chatted for a while, then I drove them home.

It was interesting in the sense that here was a person I knew in a completely different context, who was familiar from childhood, but of course we've both changed a lot since then--so in a sense, it was getting to know somebody new. If we were both living in the same city somewhere in the US (not Denver, for example), I don't think we would have gotten in touch or met up. There's something about being halfway around the world that makes you at the same time feel very independent, yet eager to grab at any semblance of home, however far removed it may be from your actual home experience. This is motivated, I feel, not necessarily by a longing for home or a desire not to be where you are. Simply put, the more people you know here, on the other side of the dominion of humanity, who think like you do (in this case, coming from my hometown)...the easier it is to stay sane and laugh off whatever cultural differences you experience, especially those that get on your nerves.

Regardless, it was a very nice visit; we liked her and her fiance very much, and we hope to see them again before they head back to the US. One of the topics that came up was how small a world it is, and how the older you get, the smaller it becomes. It didn't take us long to figure out some people we know in common here. Meeting someone like this makes the world even smaller, makes the hometown not so far away, and, in a small way, helps make here more like home.
- posted by @ 10:47 PM

 
It's Done
It's done! It's done! It's done. It's done, it's done, it's done it'sdone itsdoneitsdoneitsdoneitsdoneitsdone!

My seminar paper is written, edited, and printed, complete with works cited and a bibliography and even a cool title page. It's 42 pages all told.

If any of you are interested in a comparison between the 8th century Turkish anarchy at Samarra and the founding of and succession crises within the Turkish Mamluk dynasty of 13th century Egypt, and feel you can tell the difference between al-Mu'tasim, al-Mutawakkil, al-Musta'in, al-Muhtadi, al-Muwaffaq, al-Mustasim, al-Muntasir, and al-Mu'tazz, not to mention the Mu'izziyya, the Bahriyya, and the Khurasaniyya, AND are BORED OUT OF YOUR FREAKIN' MINDS, I can send you a link. Yes, I was showing off just a little bit in that last sentence. But I feel I'm entitled; after all, it's DONE.

Besides, it's really quite sad that this is what my "showing off" has been reduced to, now, isn't it?

My reward for finishing the paper is Arabic homework, since the second semester has begun. But now that this paper is done (I still have one more to go, but it should be very easy to write) my workload is light. I feel like a great Turkish weight has been lifted off my shoulders. It's so satisfying to hold a paper like this in your hands after its written. It's especially gratifying, and a tribute to the class and Professor Amitai, that I actually had 42 pages worth of thoughts on a narrow piece of a subject I knew nothing about half a year ago.

Did I mention, it's done?

I promise that I will update the website soon: Elana has some paintings which, once they are photographed in daylight, need to be displayed.
- posted by @ 8:57 PM