Mila's Grove
This is unquestioningly the hardest thing I've ever had to write.

Elana's mother, my mother-in-law, Emelya, passed away suddenly and unexpectedly last weekend. She had been young, healthy, and active. After both we two and Elana's grandparents returned from Israel (it took us eighteen hours to get out of the country and nineteen-and-a-half to reach Los Angeles via Toronto; Elana's grandparents retraced our route on El Al 24 hours later), after all the planning with Chevrah Kadisha and the cemetary, the flowers and the Rabbi, after the funeral, and here on the first day of shiva, we are all left with the emptiness of the house, the strength we find in each other, memories of the past and the startling need to redefine our futures without her presence.

Our jet-lag has more or less worn off, but the shock remains. We find ourselves in an unexpected emotional state (so much has been unexpected...), pinballing between sadness and the opposite, an inability to be sad even if we tried. Mila, we know, was very happy recently, at the end of her life. She was independent, social, and mischievous. Yet at the same time, we must deal with the fact that a woman who would have been a wonderful grandmother for our children, a job she was eagerly awaiting, will not get to meet them in life. Nonetheless, but for the arrival of her grandchildren, her entire world was in order. We arrived back at the small mountain community a good many miles north of Los Angeles where she lived with Elana's grandparents and found a house in pristine order. She had been busy while her parents were away, visiting us. The bills were paid and catalogued, the mail was organized, the beds were made. The house is new, of course, only recently built, and many of the trees surrounding it are newly-planted saplings; the landscaping outside is still in a largely preliminary stage...or was, I should say, until she found herself spurred on to see to it. She hiked up to the mountains rising immediately behind the house and brought back a number of good-sized stones which she used to create a two-inch-high border between our property and the lot next to it, an infinitely more attractive border than anything one could buy. Flowers poked out here and there; grass which had been but seedlings when last we were here grew wildly, ankle-high. The best part of all were the seven or so baby trees which stuck out of a previously empty patch of land next to the driveway, frail but stubborn.

I mentioned she was mischievous, and this is largely what I meant. She had decided, for mother's day, to plant apricot, apple, nectarine, plum, and cherry trees...and not to tell anyone. It was to be a surprise when her parents returned home.

Elana and I have already decided on a name: Mila's Grove. The instant we saw it, we both knew without speaking that one day in the not-too-distant future, Mila's grandchildren (one of whom will likely be named for her) will eat the fruit of the trees she planted. If she somehow knew or had a sixth sense that her time was coming and that she would not get the chance to lift our babies in the air, or change their diapers, or spoil them with gifts, she would by God perform the most basic, essential and necessary duty that Jewish grandmothers are bound by honor and tradition to fulfill: she would make sure that they ate, and ate well. And more than that, she found a way to make herself real to them, and to be in death at least a hint of the grandmother she would have been in life.

Goodbye, Mila. We love you, and hope you drop in on your Grove from time to time. I promise that you will find your grandchildren there.
- posted by @ 5:30 AM

 
Thoughts on Gaza - Part 2
Yesterday I addressed the issue of responsibility for future deaths in Gaza, albeit not very in-depth. The settlers, for a relatively reasonable demand not to be uprooted from their homes, nonetheless bear a partial responsibility for forcing the country into a tenuous security position--or at the very least, forcing the country to maintain a tenuous security position when it could be much improved if they would agree to leave.

But they won't agree, and any peace agreement that uproots the settlements (ie, any peace agreement at all) or a unilateral Israeli withdrawal from Gaza will lead to some very ugly scenes of forced evacuation that no Jew in the world wants to see--especially if it's Jews physically dragging other Jews from their homes. The settlers argue that it is immoral and Nazi-esque to force them from their villages and resettle them elsewhere: haven't the Jews been through that enough? And we would now do that to each other? They're righteously, and rightly, indignant at the prospect, especially after the government offered them substantial assistance and encouragement to settle those lands in the first place.

They also argue that to evacuate the settlements at this point would be perceived in the Palestinian community as a victory for the terrorist groups and their tactics. It could also, by the way, be perceived that way around the world...I care about that, but I'm not sure they do. But more on that in a moment. For the majority of the Palestinians, this war is more about respect than land--it's humiliating for them to be under occupation. They feel they are the heirs of an ancient and proud civilization, and that Israelis are rude barbarians, and that it's a perversion of the natural order for Israel to have the upper hand. It happened in Lebanon with Hizbollah that a strategic Israeli withdrawal was perceived as a victory, and most in Israel are frightened of what a Palestinian "victory" could mean for the future of Palestinian resistance.

Never mind that it's not actually a victory for the tactics. It will be perceived that way, and especially in the Middle East, even false perception must be dealt with in a realistic way (I addressed this in a recent post). You can't stick your head in the ground and hope that the lies will all just go away. It doesn't matter that Israel has by no means been brought to its knees by terror. It doesn't matter that Israel's reasons for withdrawing from Gaza is motivated by a desire to wash their hands of the hellish strip and acknowledge the impossibility of maintaining control over a land with 7,000 Jews in a sea of more than 1 million Arabs. The Palestinians will see that they used terrorist tactics and Israel withdrew, and they will conclude a causal relationship.

This ex post facto fallacy will be shared by militants around the world, who will look at the Palestinian case and conclude that terror works. This is, and has been since the 1970s, Israel's burden: to prove that terrorism doesn't work as a political strategy. It has absorbed literally hundreds of terrorist attacks, many thousands of attempts, in the last thirty years. And when you look at the situation on the ground, the lot of the Palestinians has worsened. They were kicked out of Jordan in the 1970s because King Hussein had no desire for Jordan to be the target of Israel's reprisals. The Israelis invaded Lebanon in 1982 and booted the PLO all the way to Tunis. All the gains the PA made as a result of the Oslo process have been destroyed by the Israelis in response to the terrorism, in a dual effort to contain the attacks and to prove that terrorism is counterproductive to the Palestinian cause. If terror succeeds here, it will spread elsewhere, everywhere anyone has a political beef. I don't refer to destructive, 9/11 type terror, which is much more difficult to deter. I refer to political terror, like here in Israel, where the terror is designed to encourage a specific reaction.

What is the intended reaction? Well, that depends on the circumstances. In Spain, the Madrid train bombings were designed to influence the election and get the Spanish troops out of Iraq, and they succeeded in that (footnote to the world: political terror does work!). Here in Israel, they are designed to strengthen the occupation.

What?

That's right. Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Al-Aqsa Martyr's Brigades, they read the papers. They know how Israel responds to suicide attacks, and they persist in them regardless. It's not just that they are stubborn and think that eventually, the Israelis will waffle. It's that they want Israel to tighten the occupation, to demolish Palestinian homes, and to engender as much anger in the Palestinian community as possible. Like I said, this is a war about respect, not about ending the occupation, and Palestinian society has become so perverted by militant Islam that (I write without hyperbole) most Palestinian children, when asked what they want to be when they grow up, reply, "Shaheed": a martyr. Why do the terrorists want to perpetuate the occupation? Because the second it's over, they will find that they, like Hizbollah in Lebanon, are forced to moderate their message and adapt their mission to the new struggles they face in the territories they have accidentally "liberated:" society building. There's no more excuse to wage war, and this is a problem because they would rather be martyrs than doctors.

That's why an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza is not a victory for terror: it is not what the terror was designed to cause. And Israel has been trying to drive this point home recently, with the assassinations of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and his successor Abd'al-Aziz Rantissi, and the recent push to blow up weapons-smuggling tunnels, and the in-general offensive against Hamas in Gaza. We may be leaving, the message is to the population, but it's not because of the terror. To the terrorists, the message is, there is no place for you or your tactics in the future.

Still, the Palestinians, and especially the militants, will see it as they want to see it, and that is that they have succeeded (false) in their goal for which they have been fighting all along (also false, but everyone except the planners doesn't realize it). And the settlers will share this view and are eager to point it out, and assert that the line must be drawn somewhere, and that is in Gush Katif, the Gaza Settlements; in other words, don't give terror the impression that it wrested an inch of Aretz Yisrael from Am Yisrael.

It's a difficult situation. Will the Gaza withdrawal make things worse by encouraging terrorist tactics? Or will it force Hamas to moderate, increase the security of our troops and our cities, and be a positive step in the peace process? The discussion of Sharon's intentions are for another time. On this topic, I conclude that the Gaza settlements are not maintainable, especially given the near-certainty of a complete withdrawal from Gaza in any future peace accord. I don't like the idea of uprooting these people after the government paid them to move there (although I assume they would pay them to resettle elsewhere), but I also don't like these people selfishly putting the troops at unnecessary risk for an extremist-Zionist ideal that threatens the whole of the Zionist enterprise. Israel must do its utmost to send the message that a withdrawal from Gaza is not a victory for terror, both for its own future and the future of the world, which sees Israel as terrorism's petri dish. The current offensive against Hamas is a good start.
- posted by @ 10:38 AM

 
Thoughts on Gaza - Part I
I've been trying to keep this blog upbeat, but I would be remiss if I didn't mention that the mood in Israel right now can best be described as devastated.

For those of you who don't know, 11 soldiers total were killed in two separate but almost identical attacks in the Gaza strip; they had been on a mission to destroy weapons smuggling tunnels. Imagine a country whose population is smaller than the city of New York: 6 million people. Take eleven soldiers, and then think of all their families, friends, and so on...and it becomes really difficult to imagine anyone who does not at least know somebody personally touched by this.

As terrible as the behavior of the Palestinians was--again, for your information, they stole the bodies of the soldiers, and Israel has not gotten all of them back for burial yet--this was not a terrorist attack. These were soldiers on a mission in occupied territory, and as such are war deaths, but that makes them no less painful or traumatic. Ari Shavit has a really interesting article in Haaretz that puts the blame for the deaths not on the Palestinians, but on the Israeli settlers in Gaza. The article misses the point somewhat, but is worth reading. Lately I've been disgusted by the lack of world outrage at some Palestinian acts, most especially the killing of the pregnant woman and her four daughters two weeks ago and the subsequent attack at their memorial service. Then again, the world turns around and criticizes Israel for sneezing. This article has the same problem: it simply expects no better from the Palestinians, much in the same way a parent doesn't really get righteously angry when their child tosses their plate of food off the table--the kid just doesn't know any better. Then, it puts the blame entirely on the older sibling, who was supposed to be watching the kid. Still, though, he raises a question that is important to consider: What amount of blame for the deaths of these soldiers falls on the settlers? For these particular soldiers, I argue not very much: even if Sharon's plan had passed, Israel would still be in Gaza right now and it's possible that the same events would have taken place. But in the near future, that excuse will become moot. More Israelis will die in Gaza, and the settlers and their short-sighted supporters will share a large degree of responsibility.

The main argument for getting out of Gaza is that a disproportionate part of the army is defending a small portion of the Israeli population in such a way that their lives are at unnecessary risk--and, in this case, were forfeit. Those who say the same number will still be required on the Gaza border need only look to the past few days to see that it is not a question of number of troops, but rather a question of the comparative safety of those troops. It makes me indignant that the settlers think they have a right to more protection than the average Israeli, and doubly indignant by the fact that many of them do not send their own children to the army based on religious exemption. I can't criticize too loudly--I don't want to enlist, after all, and I wouldn't want my kids in the army either. But I'm not demanding special protection like they are. The article goes too far, and draws a distinction between "Israelis" and "Settlers"--of course the settlers are Israelis, and such a proviso is divisive. But the dream of "Greater Israel" as a Jewish Democracy is a false one (at least, a Greater Israel which does not resort to population transfers is false) and the majority of Israelis, despite the 60,000 settlers, realize that. The referendum to exit Gaza was defeated by a majority of the right, not by a majority of the population. Sharon is going to go ahead with it in some form, anyway.

Withdrawal from Gaza raises an uncomfortable question: does it reward terrorists? I'll address that more tomorrow. For now, I hope that the families of those soldiers can be allowed to bury their sons so that their healing can begin.
- posted by @ 8:41 AM

 
Jerusalem of Gold
We had really strange weather today. It always looked like it was going to storm, but it didn't; it was cold all day, in stark contrast to the unbearable heat of two days ago. That was what is called, in both Hebrew and Arabic, a Hamsin: hot, dry and muggy weather caused by winds from the Maghreb (so when I mentioned the Sahara I was more right than I knew).

The sunset was extremely dramatic. Here is a shot I took this evening, meant to be contrasted with the one of the threatening clouds early. There is a famous song, "Yerushalayim Shel Zahav," which means, "Jerusalem of Gold." It refers to the way the white Jerusalem stone reflects the sun in the morning, but I think it must have something to do with these sunsets, as well.

- posted by @ 9:08 PM

 
Lights out
Last night there was a power outage in Jerusalem. Around 11, when we were making our final preparations for bed and I was doing my last-minute surfing, my laptop's screen suddenly dimmed. The lights shut off.

My first thought was that they had disconnected our electricity. But that didn't make sense, since we have been religious about paying our bills on time. I looked outside and all the buildings of the street were dark (though the streetlights were still on). From our view I could see that downtown was still powered, but that much of the city leading up to it was black. I can't find any news on the extent or cause of the power outage.

I like power outages. Between lectures at school and the internet and television at home, we're constantly bombarded with input. It was nice to have that shut off for a little while; no internet, no tv, no light by which to do homework even if I felt like it at 11 o'clock at night save the candles we lit to keep ourselves from tripping over the tiles. The lights came back on after an hour or two.

This morning, everything seems fine, except the sky is really weird: dark gray, cloudy and thick against sunlit shining walls of the city. Off to the day, such as it is.

- posted by @ 7:40 AM

 
Good Morning, Jerusalem!
Welcome to the new, more aerodynamic incarnation of "Adventures in Jerusalem!" (Notice how now there is less wind resistance!). The impetus to add some zip to the blog came from me, but the design came from (who else) Elana.

It has been a good morning already. I finished my homework early on and spent much of the early part of the day working a bit ahead. I then helped Micha by taking some pictures of another of his flats. When we switched furniture, he put the couches we had in flat downstairs, and needed updated images to send to people. I was, of course, happy to help.

My big news just came in the mail, and that is that I have been accepted into the Masters' program at Hebrew University.

("Grumble, grumble, I thought he was already in the Masters' program, grumble, grumble.")

Well, yes and no, my grumbling friend. I was accepted for the Visiting Students' program--one year, with no degree attached to it--with the intention of applying for a second year and transfering into the Masters' program. And I did. And my acceptance came today. I wasn't worried; my grades were good--at least those that have been reported from last semester. Some are still out, which, in the US, would be unthinkable midway through the next semester. On the other hand, it's also unthinkable that in the States, some people would still have unfinished papers from the previous semester--or the one before that. Life moves at a different pace here.

Still, it's a nice load off of my mind that I'm officially a full-fledged graduate student now. I sort of feel like I earned my Wolf Badge.
- posted by @ 2:06 PM

 
Hot and Cold
Last Saturday was my birthday. Elana took care of all the celebration-type stuff, first arranging a dinner with our friends on Thursday night at Yoja, and then on Saturday afternoon a lunch with the Ashdod clan. I had a very happy birthday thanks to all that, of course.

Here is one of Elana's latest paintings. Other news? Not too much. I had my Hebrew midterm, which went fine; I have tomorrow off for a "student's day," whatever that means.

Also, summer is here.

It's not that bad yet...it's extremely hot and dry, but cloudy, and there is a nice cool breeze every now and then that keeps it bearable. Inside our building at the University, they finally turned on the air conditioning after we all baked for most of the morning. At least they turned it on at all today; when we complained we were freezing in December we were informed (rather archly, in my opinion) that it doesn't get cold enough to turn on the heater until January. Stingy.

Yesterday we went to an art show in Tel Aviv, exhibiting paintings by one of the graduates of JSS. The paintings were amazingly good, and we (that is I, Elana, and several of her classmates who tagged along--although really I tagged along with them) poked around the gallery for a while, finding our way into an office where there were lots of art books. The painters in the room (ie, everybody except me) looked at the books on the wall much like an Israeli-in-exile looks at a plate of humus. They read the books with relish until the secretary (who was already on our bad side because she had refused to tell us the prices of the paintings--I guess she correctly assumed that we wouldn't buy, but still) came in and, in a tone similar to the condescending building administrators at Hebrew U., snipped that "this isn't a library," and that "the books aren't part of the exhibit." Then Elana's classmate Adam asked, in his British English, "Well, how much do the books cost?" She gave him a look that would have frozen the Sahara.

And based on the weather today, we could use some of that cold. So we're going back to Tel Aviv to the exhibit again. It may be the only way to cool off this summer.
- posted by @ 2:52 PM

 
All You Utha' Slim Israelis are Just Imatatin'
Admit it. You don’t think much about Hebrew rap music. It seems out of place that the language of the Bible would be used in such a way, doesn’t it?

At first, I just didn’t listen when rap music started playing on the radio. I have trouble enough understanding rap music in English; understanding Hebrew at that speed seemed impossible. But, gradually, my Hebrew improved, and the songs started to sound familiar. Then, one day, I understood it. It struck me then that the difference in English and Hebrew rap music illustrates one of the largest, and, as far as this blog is concerned, most salient differences between American and Israeli culture: the lack of a visible "angry young man" counter-culture.

Ever since MC Hammer told us, in no uncertain terms, that we “Can’t Touch This,” and up until the time 2Pac gave us “Cop Killer,” and Eminem introduced us to “The Real Slim Shady,” American rap music has been the music of defiance. It defies musical convention, it defies language, and most of all, it defies the establishment. Melody and harmony are recommended elements of rap music, but by no means compulsory; use proper English in a rap and, to paraphrase a man who knows much and has strong feelings on the subject, you are regarded as a freak. Finally, it’s hard to imagine what Dr. Dre’s version of “America the Beautiful” would sound like, isn’t it?

Well, Israeli rap is quite different. First of all, all of the raps I have heard (and I grant there are many I haven’t, but these are the ones the radio stations choose to play—as good an indication as any of what’s popular and speaks to the Israeli masses) have at least a refrain which sounds just like any other song, with instruments and melody and all that jazz. Sure, it leans a bit in tone towards R&B, but the more conventional music is there nonetheless. There is, furthermore, no Hebrew equivalent of Ebonics. It is true that spoken Hebrew and written Hebrew are different (not as different as colloquial and literary Arabic, to be sure, but Hebrew Academia still breaks down weeping when it visits the Marketplace), but—get this—the rappers rap in LITERARY Hebrew. That’s right, every single rap sounds like a very properly written article or a lecture by an esteemed professor.

But at least it stands up to the man, right?

Right?

(Silence.)

Actually, um…no. Quite the opposite.

Israeli rap, far from challenging the authority of the powers that be, still complains--it complains about how bad Israeli drivers are (“At least six hundred killed on the highways every year…It’s time we looked ahead of us to the future…and ahead of us to the road!”) or how terrible it is that Israelis nowadays aren’t patriotic enough to stay. It solemnly remembers the war dead. Hardly what I would call defiant, at all.

This reflects the lack of a visible counter-culture similar to that in America. In America, you can’t avoid it. In Israel, it exists, but in a State whose existence is threatened, nobody (well, nobody among the Israelis, anyway) has any desire to bring down the government, or defy the cops, based on a kind of young, angry hooliganism. Rather, the defiance comes from much more serious quarters. Yigal Amir, Yitzhak Rabin’s assassin, comes from a Haredi counter-culture of sorts: the murder was motivated by religious fanaticism. Then there are the refuseniks, the extreme left-wing elements of the army who defy orders and refuse to serve in the West Bank and Gaza based on a conscientious objection to the occupation. The counter-culture in Israel isn’t as loud or visible as in the US, and the reason for this is that here, everything—from your choice of grocer to your choice of Prime Minister—is political. Nothing is apolitical, you cannot be apathetic to politics and still live here, and even counter-culture is not immune. It's been a few years, but there have been cases of religious Jews throwing rocks at cars for driving on Saturdays (which is in itself a violation of Shabbat, no?). Of course, to the religious, Israeli secular culture is the counter-culture that has simply become dominant, and Israel's "observant" identity is or should be the true one. In America, by contrast, the counter-culture is decidedly apolitical and, in my view, would not exist without a sort of apathy (at best!) or hostility (at worst) towards convention. It's just hostility or apathy, though; the American counter-culture screams out "Fuck the System!" (I admit, they try this in Israel, too, but when they do it's just too funny to really catch on) but it does not offer any alternatives.

With all this in mind, it is easy to see why rap music does not exactly work as the Israeli counter-culture's means of expression: counter-cultural elements of society tell you not only what's wrong, but what needs to be done to make it right. And the fact that it does not represent the counter-culture (and the songs back this up) leads to the conclusion that here, rap is an expression of the established norms of Israeli society. If someone wrote a rap in the U.S. encouraging young people to go out and vote, or just addressing social problems in general in any sort of positive way, it would be received as an artistically-devoid and cynical expression of an un-hip bureaucrat who was trying and failing to reach young people on a level they understand. Here, the young people actually understand it.

I know this is all meaningless if you don’t hear what I’m talking about. For those of you who speak Hebrew, the effect will be increased; for those of you don’t, here’s the translation to the first two verses of the Subliminal song “HaTikva” (incidentally, “HaTikva,” or “the Hope,” is the title of Israel’s national anthem as well). Click here to hear the song (it will take a minute or two, depending on your connection, and don't worry if it says "Done" and nothing is happening...just be patient).

“I have seen a few of them who have left
Too many of them did not return
Friends will be lost
Houses will be broken
Tears of families will fall
Buds of people, flowers that will not bloom
The hope is in our heads, the love is in our soul,
The dream has blessed us
So forever let’s continue on our way

The silence left her, the voices of war returned
Another soldier returns, wrapped in what? In the flag of the State (of Israel)
Blood and tears sink into the earth
And another bereaved mother, only a picture is left to her
Hope is closed in her heart, but still the strength doesn’t fade
Because the son of a whore who can stop Israel has yet to be born

Give me the hope to accept what is not,
And the strength to change what is

Come, let us continue
Our lives are before us
We shall not be late
Because tomorrow is a new day
The dream will die if we lose the hope
So extend a hand in love”

See what I mean?

- posted by @ 11:05 AM

 
Our Landlord Rocks
Based on conversations we've had with friends and classmates, we know it can be a tremendous stress to have to deal with a crummy landlord. This is not exactly a revelation, I realize, but it makes me appreciate Micha, our landlord, all the more.

A couple of months ago, he knocked on our door and asked us if we'd like to upgrade our microwave stand/cupboard, since he had a nicer one in the apartment that was sitting empty. We happily accepted and are still enjoying the extra storage space. It struck me that he was possibly losing money on this exchange (after all, he already has our rent, but the larger cabinet can make the rent for the other apartment that much more). Well, he has now one-upped that. After we mentioned that our couches sank low and were sometimes uncomfortable, he helped us switch couches to something more comfortable...and then, for kicks, he mentioned that he had a new bed and dresser set, and asked us if we'd like it. So in the last three days we've gotten a whole new set of furniture. Good business builds good relationships, and good relationships, in this case, mean that we can truly relax in an apartment in which we feel truly welcome.
- posted by @ 9:25 AM

 
I am Jack's Complete Lack of Surprise
The big news here, now that everybody has calmed a bit from Maccabi Tel Aviv's championship in Euroleague basketball, is yesterday's failure of the Likud party referendum on Ariel Sharon's disengagement plan. It's really early to know what exactly will happen, but it's likely that all the prognostications of political catastrophe are overblown. Sharon thought his Likud-only vote would be a slam dunk, but he didn't count on how visible the opponents and the Gush Katif (the settlement bloc in Gaza) lobbyists would be. At every street corner in Jerusalem, there were people handing out "Evacuation of Settlements is a Victory for Terror" and "We Can't Abandon Our Roots: Gush Katif" bumper stickers and pamphlets. Large posters with the same and similar slogans were everywhere. So, in the end, Sharon ended up politically scoring the own-goal. Even support from the Governator himself was not enough to turn to the tide of the vote. But Sharon isn't planning on resigning, so all the proponents' cries that a defeat would swing the Prime Ministership to Binyamin Netanyahu, and the opponents' wails that the passage of the referendum would swing the Prime Ministership to Shimon Peres, were naught but scare tactics.

At the same time as Arnold was giving his speech on tolerance, an Israeli family--a woman and her four young daughters--were shot to death in Gaza. Since the attack was on settlers, no Palestinian sources condemned it; most consider it legitimate to kill a pregnant woman and four girls, all of whom were under eleven, as long as they are settlers and thus an integral part of the occupation. The PA, meanwhile, was satisfied with the vote result because it weakened Sharon and prevented Israel from acting unilaterally.

It's enough to make you want to just kick over the whole chessboard, isn't it? The Likud doesn't want to withdraw (incidentally, had Sharon been adroit enough to put the referendum to the entire population rather than just his own party, it would have passed easily), the PA doesn't want Israel to withdraw, at least not in any way that leaves Israel with any sort of control or security--it's absolutely maddening. But there's no surprise at the result--the extreme right in Israel and the extreme left in the Palestinian territories have always had too much power, the former because it is always needed in any Likud-led coalition in the Knesset and the latter because they are loud, angry and appeal to the disenfranchised. So the failure of the vote is no surprise. What's maddening is that Sharon, while putting forward what I consider a courageous plan and an important first step, handed the reactionaries even more power than they already had by making this vote Likud (right-wing) only. Elana pointed out--and the more I think about it, the more I agree--that it's possible that Sharon intended this result to make him look moderate (he's done this several times, though his earlier tactic of choice was to get into a cat-fight with Bibi Netanyahu) while not evacuating any of the settlements.

The only good news I have to impart on this matter is that the next election will not be Likud only--and despite Sharon's current stance that he will not resign, it could happen sooner than you think. Like I said, it's too early to tell anything this morning.
- posted by @ 10:00 AM

 
It's the End of the World As We Know It (I'm Not Impressed...)
We took another tiyul this weekend, meeting friends of my family at their Kibbutz near Qiryat Ata yesterday. They took us all over the place, and we had a great time with them. I took lots of pictures, and have duly updated the website.

We drove Elana's grandparents to Ashdod on Thursday evening after their time in Jerusalem came to an end; it was wonderful to have them here. The next morning we got up early and started driving towards our friends' Kibbutz. We were given instructions to turn at Megiddo Junction. Megiddo is a rather famous place to those in the know; it is called Mount Megiddo, or, in Hebrew, Har Megiddo--when bastardized into English, "Har Megiddo" becomes "Armageddon." Elana pointed out, and I have to agree, that for the site of the End of Days, Har Megiddo ain't much of a Har. It's a weak little hill with some ruins on it (and underneath it); it would probably take about five minutes to walk up, and that takes into account the two-minute rest you would take because it's kind of steep. Kind of anticlimactic...

We arrived at the Kibbutz, which is absolutely beautiful and puts Beit Hashita to shame. It's almost cartoonish how idyllic it is; there are multi-colored flower gardens in every direction. The main industry of the Kibbutz is plastic, and I'm proud to report that it received the contract, and is currently preparing, the roof for the Olympiada in Athens. Way to go!

Shlomo and Avital, our friends and hosts, were great about showing us a good time. After a good breakfast, we loaded into their car (really the Kibbutz car--communal property and all that) and headed towards Pki'in, a Druze/Christian/Jewish village not too far away.

Pki'in is an old village that goes back at least to the time of the Second Temple. The Rashb"i (Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai) wrote the Zohar, also known as the Kabbalah, while hiding from the Romans in this cave (incidentally, I have a picture from this very cave from first grade, where I am standing in just this position...it's fun to recreate the past when the opportunity presents itself). We wandered through the town until we found the synagogue. The Jewish community in Pki'in has been continuously around for as long as the town, but the numbers dwindled until there was only one Jewish family left, and today there is only one member of that family living in the town. She is an elderly woman named Margalit, who holds the key to the synagogue. We knocked on her door (as tourists are instructed to do) and asked her to open the door so that we could see the synagogue. She refused, saying that it was almost Shabbat and that she had to prepare food. She continued to refuse as she got the keys, walked down the stairs, and unlocked the door. Meanwhile, a man who had previously given directions joined our party for no reason we could fathom. After we looked around the inside of the synagogue, the man, without being pushy or rude, somehow convinced us to come eat as his restaurant, which he claimed had the "best humus in the country." We agreed, and when we sat down the hostess showed us the article in the major newspaper "Ma'ariv" that did indeed confirm the claim. I cannot really speak to the humus being the best in Israel, but I do have to say that I have found no humus yet that can come close to competing for that title. It, and the falafel, were wonderful. For dessert, they brought us a little slushy; it turned out it was made from rose petals. I was curious, and tried it...it was quite strange...It tasted like roses, predictably enough, but nothing quite prepares you for that.

We climbed our way back up the hill of the town and loaded back into the car and headed for Mount Meron, which was the highest mountain in Israel (1,100 meters in elevation) before the 1967 Six-Day War brought the Golan Heights, and the 2,000-meter Mount Hermon, under Israeli control. The Mountain is across the valley from Tzfat, and you can see it in this picture from our trip to the Galil--it's on the far right. Actually, an Israeli author wrote a story in which a man from Tzfat looked across at Mount Meron and was excited by the shape, which, to him, resembled breasts. But I digress. From Mount Meron one can see the Sea of Galilee, the Golan Heights (almost all the way to Damascus on a clear day), Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea. We walked around the mountain almost, but not quite, at the summit (the local maximum is, of course, too strategic a point for the army not to appropriate it into a base and fence it off. Too bad, but the views are still fantastic).

After a brief picnic at Meron, we headed out towards Akko. We were about at Ma'alot when we were delayed by this, which you must admit is pretty unusual.

We did not stay long in Akko; it was, as it turned out, the Prophet Muhammad's birthday, and as much as I would like to be able to say the contrary, we didn't feel comfortable. My blond hair stuck out like a sore thumb. Still, on a less crowded day, Akko looks like it will be a great day trip.

We returned that night.

Right now, there is one more item of interest to report: Maccabi Tel Aviv, the best basketball team in Israel, is about one quarter away from winning the Euro-League Championship (I feel safe saying that with a 29 point lead over Bologna with ten minutes to go). It's a great day for Israeli sports. Congratulations to the whole country. MAC-CA-BI! MAC-CA-BI!
- posted by @ 11:13 PM