I Have My Days and Nights Mixed Up...

...except that in Israel, people are out late into the night, and we have gotten used to that schedule already, so I'm perfectly average. Folks eat dinner late and walk around a lot or get drinks or coffee. And Thursday nights, like tonight, are the equivalent to Saturday nights in cities stateside, so people are definitely out late. I have always had the tendency to be a night owl, and that tendency is thriving here. Either I'll try and change my pattern or just go with it, be productive with it and be happy that for this year, at least, I can for the most part be up late and sleep a little late if that is what my body wants. My in-laws, Rachel's parents Sam and Dori, arrived from Berlin this evening. They are staying for 10 days. We haven't planned much except for Shabbat. They are very low key and flexible, so I know we will do fun things and eat good food, but we'll just figure it out as we go. A trip to Ikea is definitely going to happen! I went out today alone for the first time and did well. I have a really, really, really bad sense of direction, and it is frustrating both Rachel and I immensely. I walked to Ben Yehuda because I needed to go to a bookstore to buy a book for Rachel's classmate whose daughter turned 1 today. I was very drawn to the cover of a particular book and asked a woman what it means in English. She showed me the inside of the front cover where the title was written in English. I of course have forgotten what it said, but working with the title and great illustrations I was able to see that it is an adorable story about a baby mole who tries to capture the moon. When I paid for the book, I told the woman that I would come back in a few months and be able to read some of the titles myself. She just looked at me and obviously could have cared less, but I realized as soon as I said it that I had created a good challenge for myself. I need to start ulpan before the end of the summer, and I need to apply for grant money and start taking classes at the Conservative yeshiva. I want to go to Hebrew University and inquire about taking a social work class, and I really want someone from Crossroads to respond to my emails because I really want to volunteer there regularly. Who says no to or ignores someone offering to work for free?!?!? My new thing, thanks to Rachel, is to tell people when they ask what I will be doing this year that I plan to surf a lot. The question has already gotten quite old and annoying. We plan to go to services tomorrow evening and then have Shabbat dinner at our apartment, just the 4 of us. It will be so nice to have access to a car for 10 days. We plan to run lots of errands that involve buying big things that we can't typically carry. Sam and Dori brought me my favorite Haribo gummies from Berlin. Now people who visit us will really know if I like them or not based on whether or not I share gummies with them. We are really looking forward to the sunrise concert at Masada this weekend. We're none sure how we will stay awake, but we are all excited nonetheless. The fact that it is now past 2am is definitely ridiculous, but I hadn't posted anything today and I promised myself I would try to do it at least daily. This was random, but that is how my brain often works, so this is what I give you this early morning.

Our 1st Shabbat in Jerusalem

We arrived in Jerusalem late in the day on Tuesday June 19th. After settling in that evening and the following day and evening, we realized that Shabbat was upon us. Luckily, the Wexner Fellowship, that Rachel is a part of has fostered in its fellows the need to take care of one another. One of Rachel's colleagues who has been living in Jerusalem for 8 years but is leaving at the end of the summer to begin seminary invited us to his house for Shabbat dinner. We planned to go to Kol Haneshama (the progressive synagogue) with another student, but we were under the impression that services begin 20 minutes after candle lighting, so we were planning on 7:30. Greg called at 5:45 and said that he checked the website and it starts at 6:15. None of us had showered so we scrambled to get ready and arrived at services towards the end of the t'fillah. It is a very nice shull, and there were a lot of people there. Apparently once a month Open House, the GLBT group in Jerusalem, holds services after the main service. We did not go because we had plans but we would like to see what it's like next month. A friend of ours from DC happened to be there so we got to spend a little time with him. We were under the impression that Friday night services are long at this shull and started later so we told our friend we would be at his apartment at 9:30. Well, we were finished by 7:30 but could not call because our friend is Orthodox and observant, so we hung out with our DC friend until we left to walk to dinner. There were 8 other people crammed in a small room, and the table was an old door. We said blessings and shared a very nice meal together. The company was great! Everyone there except for us consider themselves "Flexadox" meaning they are socially progressive Modern Orthodox folks. We had great conversations and Rachel and I felt very comfortable there. We didn't leave until after 1am and a group of us walked together. It is amazing how quiet and peaceful Jerusalem is on Shabbat. There is usually a lot of traffic, honking and construction noise, but on Shabbat that is mostly gone. Peace and quiet on Shabbat is definitely something we can get used to. We exchanged numbers with some people, and we actually just got a phone call today from a couple who want to hang out with us tonight, so hopefully that will happen. I feel like our first Shabbat in Jerusalem felt so normal and comforting that it was as if we have been here for a very long time. We look forward to this experience growing and changing as the weeks progress.

Yeowling Street Gang Kitties (I didn't come up with this title)

There are so many wonderful sights and sounds in Jerusalem. However, when it comes to the out of control feral cat population, the sights and sounds one experiences daily is nothing short of disturbing. To make an enormous generalization, back in the early part of the 20th century, the British decided that the best way to rid the country of large amounts of rats was to import large amounts of cats to kill them and drive them away. Well, it worked, except no one ever bothered to do anything with all of the cats. One would think that large amounts of cats are far better than large amounts of rats, but in reality, the gangs of cats today are as much a nuisance as the rats were, and in my opinion these cats are more rodent than feline. They prowl around day and night, eating out of garbage cans and dumpsters, making us nervous by how tense they all are. They are skinny and a lot more than one would hope look sickly. For some reason the last few days the entrance to our building from the courtyard smells like a few too many cats pooped in the bushes. It ordinarily doesn't smell like urine or feces. By far the worst part of it all is nighttime. We lay in bed with the windows open and listen to the cats yeowling and screaming at each other. It is part feral territory disputes as well as cats in heat screaming for a mate. It sounds like a baby crying and screaming, literally. We find this to be disturbing in its entirety coming from the states where cats are beloved and spoiled and are spayed and neutered most of the time. There is no way our pampered kitties could have made it here. The worst thing to happen so far is that when we left our apartment Monday evening there was a dead cat off the sidewalk with a look on its face I will never forget and another cat was standing over it screaming. We're not sure if it had just killed the cat and was doing a warrior cry thing or what. I was deeply disturbed by this, as was Rachel, and I struggled to get the image out of my mind the rest of the evening. I am terribly sensitive when it comes to pain and suffering, both mental and physical, so it bothered me knowing that this cat had a shitty life on the streets and then died a horrible death. I love watching nature shows, but my heart is torn as I watch survival of the fittest in action. I know all animals need to eat, I just wish no one had to feel pain as they were being killed. Anyway.... When we got home that night the cat was still there (Rachel peeked for us -- thank you Rachel!), and I walked by it with my eyes closed following Rachel's voice. I had remembered reading in the bible for living in Jerusalem that HUC gave us that one of the many municipal services was removal of dead animals. So I called them (it was late so they must be open 24 hours) and told them there was a dead cat. I exaggerated a bit by telling them it smelled and was in the way of pedestrians. When Rachel got home from ulpan the following morning she said the cat had been removed. As I'm writing this I am trying to imagine what you as readers are thinking. It isn't as bad as it sounds, but it is bad nonetheless. That is the only dead cat we have seen, and more appear healthy than not. Some are not feral and enjoy a little scratch, although most are still at least a little skittish. And the noises at night are not constant. We are outraged that Israeli citizens and the government do not care at all about the cats. I don't know, maybe there is something we don't know. Maybe they have tried controlling the population and rats have reemerged. I need to do some research on this. As bad as it sounds, they need to euthanize all of the sick cats and do trap-spay/neuter-release with all of the others like is done in DC and I'm sure many other cities. Again, this warrants some more research, so I'll report back to you on this issue at a later date. In the meantime, treat your cats like royalty and when you see a stray cat with no collar, please call the Humane Society and/or Animal Control for information on how to take the cat to a shelter yourself or how to assist Animal Control in locating the cat and taking it in for medical care, spaying/neutering and hopefully a new loving home.

The "I Have No Clue Who These Kids Are" Israir Flight, June 18-19, 2007

We are very lucky to know a guy that Rachel worked with at the RAC who now works for the URJ in New York and organizes NFTY (National Federation of Temple Youth) trips to Israel. We were able to chaperone a flight of 80 kids from JFK to Ben Gurion in exchange for a free plane ticket. Yeah, awesome! We flew from Columbus to Laguardia on Sunday 6/17 and stayed in a total dump of a hotel in Queens but it had a free shuttle to both NYC airports and super nice staff, and we then went to JFK Monday afternoon around 3pm to begin earning our free tickets. This was a big group of kids, and we knew immediately that they were typical high schoolers and a bit good-behavior challenged. They spread out, clogging all of the walkways and completely ignoring us when we asked them to move. And they were so loud! When the time finally came to go through security, I led the pack (literally) while Rachel stayed towards the back. A security woman asked me where I was going and for how long. When I answered that I was going for one year, she yelled in excited disbelief "with all of them!" basically saying that I must be crazy. I assured her that I don't have a strong desire to lose my mind, and she seemed to feel better after that. When we were boarding the plane I was again at the front of the pack. The kids thought it would be fun to turn out the lights in the jetway, and it was pitch black. Thank God Israelis have no trouble being assertive, so they got yelled at in unison by fellow travelers and flight staff. And they were singing annoying songs at the top of their lungs. They refused to keep their seats, they would cram 5 people in a row of 3 seats, block the aisles, yell and scream, kick seats in front of them and grab the seat back of the seat in front of them to get up and down, regardless of the fact that there were a lot of children sleeping. The girl behind me kicked the back of my seat incessantly, and after Rachel yelled at her, she continued kicking it but blurted out "sorry, I'm sorry" every time. Apparently that makes it okay to do annoying things. It took them a good hour at the end of the flight to gather their belongings that were scattered all around the back of the plane. Several times during the flight we worked to diffuse the situation and calm them down to no avail -- it accomplished nothing. Our duties pretty much ended once all of the kids made it through passport control and found their luggage. A fellow HUC 1st year student was on our flight, so we all took a sherut together from the airport to Jerusalem. In typical Israeli style, once we had loaded all 8 bags in the back of the van and found our seats, we were told to unload it all and load it in a new van. I was feeling totally fine until the van ride. The driver drove kind of crazy and I was in the back. I immediately starting feeling nauseous and was so glad that the ride isn't very long. It took me a while to recover, and thankfully a Joseph family friend's son carried our ridiculously heavy duffels up to our 5th floor apartment. It was so worth the money. We were very pleasantly surprised by how much we instantly loved our apartment. Our landlord is wonderful, a welcome breath of fresh air from our recent US landlords. We get a really good cross breeze, there is tons of storage, it is clean and modern and pretty much every thing we need is already here, although we do have a list of things we want/need to buy. We had unpacked and decorated by Wednesday night. It already feels like home.

Jerusalem Pride -- June 21, 2007

When we were in line at JFK to board the plane, I was talking to a guy who, after learning that I was traveling to Israel with my wife, told me that Jerusalem Pride was that Thursday. We arrived at Ben Gurion late afternoon on Tuesday 6/19, and the following day we went to HUC to pick up our cell phones. The administrators were telling the few of us who had arrived early that the parade was the following day. We were told that due to intense protests and death threats made by the ultra-religious community the parade was canceled the previous year and that the parade could be a bit on the dangerous side this year. We of course became curious. On the day of the parade Rachel noticed a lot of police in our neighborhood, and the folks at her ulpan noticed this as well, but no one really knew why they were there. The parade participants were gathered on King David, right in front of HUC, which is a 10-15 walk from our apartment, so we were surprised when we were walking to King David and realized the police all the way by our apartment were there because of the parade. There were police everywhere, as well as all of the buses that brought them in to Jerusalem and all of their vehicles. We walked like we new what we were doing and belonged there and never got stopped. The very sad and unfortunate thing is that if a person looked religious (man or woman), they were stopped, questioned, sometimes strip searched and almost always turned away, and threatened to be arrested if they did not leave immediately. So we knew some Orthodox people our age who are very progressive who had to dress differently, wear a baseball hat instead of a kippah and tuck their tzit tzit in to their pants. What the gathering needs more than anything is for their to be obvious religious people among everyone else to show that just because one is Orthodox does not mean they are not progressive. One of Rachel's Wexner colleagues is "Flexadox" and has lived in Jerusalem for 8 years and will be attending the Modern Orthodox seminary in New York this fall. As he put it, often it's simply about being a human being. This was no New York, San Francisco or even WDC pride parade. We only walked about 4 blocks and then police quickly ordered the streets to be cleared. We were told that the gathering would start at 3:30 and the parade would begin at 5:00. We were not actually able to get there until 5:30, and the parade had not started yet. There was a lot of negotiation with police apparently taking place for several hours. There was some rainbow balloon things, lots of posters and a lot of rainbow stickers with "love" written in English, Hebrew and Arabic. Everyone looked very average, and only a few people were dressed slightly eccentric or flamboyant. There were no leather clad men with whips or go-go boys or dykes on bikes. It was quite simply modest and humble, brave and proud and undoubtedly the pride parade that I am most proud to have been a part of. The newspaper the following day said there were approximately 2000 parade participants and 6000 police. I find that to be mind boggling. I will say that there was no violence or threats and the protestors, mostly black hats, were kept far away from King David so they could not be seen or heard by the parade participants. Last year was canceled, this year was small and hopefully "next year in Jerusalem" the bravery and pride from this year's parade will elicit more participants and less protestors as people come together to celebrate humanity. Be sure to check out the photos. http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=uhv86xw.z592hok&x=0&y=g8jvkg