I guess I'm Russian now?

Living in Israel, I don't blend in. Between the Jewish majority and the Arab minority, my status as a tourist and an outsider is readily apparent. Normally this isn't more than cat-calls and people trying to get me to buy trinkets at their shop. Or the police randomly stopping me on the street to check my papers, but I digress.

There are a huge amount of Russians in Israel. Many of them have only one Jewish parent or one Jewish grandparent, which qualifies them for citizenship, but they don't have the typical "Jewish look"; the dark hair, dark eyes and dark complexion of Mizrachi Jews or the dark hair, dark eyes and pale skin of the Ashkenazi Jews.

Considering the tiny non-Arab, non-Jewish community in Israel and depending on where I am in the country, I am easily mistaken for being a Russian Jew both because it's a reasonable assumption and because of my looks. My Russian-like accent when I speak Hebrew doesn't help to rectify the situation either.

So two days ago, I'm standing at the central bus station in Tel Aviv waiting to head to the Machon, minding my own business and listening to the BBC on my iPod. A woman taps me on the arm and says something to me in Russian. I replied to her, in Hebrew, that I don't speak Russian. To this she shrugs in a dismissive kind of way, and continues speaking to me in Russian. After a minute or so I again said to her in Hebrew: "גברת, אני לא מדבר רוסית."

At this point she started to get really cross and raise her voice. In Russian. In public. At the bus stop in Tel Aviv. She's getting more and more frustrated that I'm not...doing whatever it is she wants me to do, and finally I say to her, equally loudly and in my best American-accented English, "I don't speak Russian".

This seemed, finally, to get through to her. I guess she thought I just didn't feel like talking to her, or was being a stuck-up Russian-Israeli kid who was too good to speak Russian to her; I don't know. She looked a bit sheepish and pointed at her wrist. So I got out my mobile and showed her the time, to which she gave a heavily-accented "תודה", and we continued to waiting for the bus.


Incidentally, "I don't understand Russian" in Russian is:
Я НЕ ПОНИМАЮ ПО-РУССКИ
ya neh pahneemahyu pah-rooskee


ETA:


Not me. Looks like me? I still don't speak Russian.

Imagine if they'd asked about Islam...

A few weeks ago a study was conducted into Israeli Jews' attitudes towards Christians and Christianity. It all stemmed from the controversial rehabilitation by Pope Benedict of a bishop denied the extent of Jews killed in the Holocaust. What was fascinating was how the opinions of people fell completely along secular/religious lines on almost every issue.

I was going to make a nice table with the results, but since Blogspot apparently doesn't like the HTML coding for tables I tried using lists instead which also was a Blogspot!fail. So I'm just typing out a sample of the questions and you can go read the rest for yourself if you're interested.

All percentages are people who agreed with the statement.

- Christianity should be taught in schools.Secular: 68%
Religious: 27%

- Christians should be allowed freedom of religious exercise in Israel.Secular: 71%
Religious: 32%

- The sight of a person wearing a cross disturbs me.Secular: 9%
Religious: 60%

- All or most Christians are missionaries towards Jews.Secular: 18%
Religious: 43%

Now imagine you're the government and you have to represent the interests all of all these people at once. Go!

Lost in the shuffle...

An entry I wrote in August that got stuck in my drafts folder and forgotten about. I'm publishing it now, as is.

from 5 August, 2008:

As you've noticed, I usually don't write about things that happen to me until well after they've occurred. Part of this is procrastination, part of it is the time to write it well, and part of it is remember that I even have this blog in the first place. Well, I'm going to switch gears today and write something off the cuff because I'm having a bad day, and it's my blog, and I can pretty much do whatever I bloody well please.

About a week ago I sent out an e-mail on a listserv called Janglo, which caters primarily to the English-speaking community in Jerusalem (which is huge). I was asking about anyone who had gone through the process of applying for a work permit (Jews get an automatic 6 month work permit; the rest of us have to submit a pile of paperwork that requires most of the average lifetime to collect). One guy responded with this list of materials he had to submit for his visa:

- Four letters of recommendation and one letter from my potential Israeli employer stating the following:
1)I am a specialist in my field.
2) My skill sets are unique and required many years of training to acquire.
3) There is no person in Israel with similar skill sets, nor was there likely to be in the foreseeable future.
4) That my specialty was needed to advance the field in Israel, and that the field would suffer without them, as a result.

They also require, at a minimum:
- copies of my university degrees (not transcripts, official copies of the degrees themselves)
- a criminal background check
- photocopies of my passport and driver's license
- bank statements
- various other supporting documents which they decide on as they feel that day

After all this, it took eight months for them to decide whether or not to issue him a work permit. This in and of itself doesn't bother me; if I was applying to work in any country in which I'm not a citizen, I would probably have to submit a very similar set of materials. My issue is that, if I were Jewish, this is what I'd have to submit:

- letter from potential employer saying they're willing to hire me
- letter from my Rabbi stating that I'm Jewish

That's it. You can get it the same day you apply for it.

This isn't meant to sound anti-Israel. I think Israel is great. The more I learn about the history of the Jewish people, the stronger my convictions that Israel is a vitally important entity for Jews worldwide. I'm fucking thrilled that people I know and love have a place where they can live free of persecution and discrimination based on their religion/nationality.

A number of people also responded with "If you're Jewish, what's the problem?" and I explained that I'm not Jewish and why I'm here and want to stay. Here's one of the responses I got:

Daniel,

you sound like a nice person, with a good set of values. I am sure there are many organizations for the deaf in non-Jewish countries that need a talented, compassionate person like yourself. Here, however, it is only the "State of Israel" because it is the "Land of Israel", as I am sure you are aware of. So, let a talented, compassionate, educated Jew help his/her own here, and go and spread the good stuff you have in surroundings that are for you. I am sure you are aware of the Noachide Laws. They are so important that they are in the Torah. If you can help yourself and other non-Jews to arrive at these values - you will have done work of the righteous, to be sure.

I wish you all the best, and may Hashem take care of you.

A number of things about these kind of responses bother me.
- if there was a "talented, compassionate, educated Jew" who had my skills, I wouldn't have been invited and funded by the Israeli government to come here with my skills.
- the Deaf community here needs my help, and this woman thinks that I should let them flounder simply because I'm not Jewish. In other words, this woman is wishing ill on her fellow Jews/Israelis because I'm not Jewish.
- the way she explains how Israel is the Jewish state and that it's for Jews, as if I haven't been hit over the head with that daily for the past twelve months.
- after telling me, essentially, to "fuck off", she has the gall to wish blessings on me. "Get out, and God bless".

What I don't get is this: I want to stay and work with Israelis. Deaf Israelis. Deaf Israelis who don't have equal rights, who don't have equal accessibility, who don't have someone to advocate for them, who need someone to fight for them when society at large ignores them and what they need. I want to help Israel and Israelis, and people want me to leave. People are willing to let their own people suffer to get me out of the country.

I mean, last time I checked Israel was surrounded by countries that hate it, expanded itself in a way that most governments' think is illegal, and is being threatened regularly by Iran with nuclear annihilation. And you're going to be choosy about who comes to your aid? To me, that's dumb.

Now, maybe this has been happening for centuries and I just haven't felt it before because I'm a white, middle-class male. Maybe this is some kind of karmic retribution for the Inquisition, or something. I don't know. But it certainly doesn't make any kind of sense to me.

Israel is certainly not the most popular country in the world, and I've been doing nothing but talking its praises while I've been here. As one of my fellow MDA volunteers said, "you're the best PR we've got". I'm a non-Jew talking about how great I think Israel is, trying to change peoples' perceptions to something that's not based on CNN's coverage of the Gaza Strip.

So tell me, people: am I right? Wrong? Missing the point of Israel? Overly sensitive?

Now if you'll excuse me, my bacon cheeseburger is ready.

Living in Other People's Trauma: Observations of an Outsider in Israel

reprinted with permission from the author (that would be me).

One of the things we forget when we’re learning is the learning process itself. When I embarked on my excursion to Israel, I knew that there was much for me to learn; I had little background knowledge about the country or its history or politics, I barely spoke the language and the culture itself was a mystery. Then there was my research project, looking at the effects of trauma on the deaf population, which would entail not only learning yet another language but also an additional culture and community.

When setting off into the unknown it’s always expected that new things will pop up and surprise you; elements of a situation or a people or a culture that you didn’t know existed suddenly present themselves and you have something new to learn. In studying trauma, not just within the deaf population but within the greater Israeli population, I learned something even more: I learned how other people learn.

The history of Israel and the Jewish people is rife with trauma: hundreds of years of persecution culminated in the Holocaust which claimed the lives of approximately 6 million Jews, the violence that came with the founding of the State of Israel, the multiple armed conflicts in the following years and the ensuing intifadas (Palestinian uprisings /lit. “shaking off”), as well as the ongoing threat from hostile countries such as Iran and Syria and the daily rocket-fire it receives from militants in the Gaza Strip. With the continual aggression shown against it diplomatically, militarily and ideologically, how is it that the population is not overwhelmed with trauma-related disorders?

One of the criteria for PTSD and ASD is experiencing an event which is or appears to be greatly threatening to one’s self or to others (American Psychiatric Association, 2000). So what happens when threatening events become more normalized? What happens if a culture incorporates trauma into it, into its holidays and religion, and into its national consciousness? Does it blunt the effects of these threats?

When I came to Israel, I knew next to nothing about Judaism and nothing about Israeli culture. I had of course heard all the warnings given to me by well-meaning and concerned friends and family members before my departure from the States. And while the major news networks seem to have a love affair of showing exploded buses or rocket attacks or Israeli military incursions, I knew there had to be more to the country than just that. However, I also knew that all those other things were also part of Israel, and should not be discounted.

My arrival was easy and relatively painless. I began learning: learning Hebrew and Israeli Sign Language, learning about Israel, learning which buses went downtown and when the grocery stores closed for Shabbat. I learned about the political situation in Israel and the history of the State (both of which changed depending on with whom I talked). I learned what the holidays were and why, I learned about the balance between secular law and Jewish holy law and how the two were intertwined.

But my curiosity extended beyond the current situation. The more I learned about the history of the Jewish people and their need for a Jewish state, the more curious I became about this culture of trauma and its manifestations. The need for me to do active research on the subject, though, was minimal. The incorporation of trauma and the Jewish people’s history of persecution is well-visible within Israeli and Jewish culture in a way that I have not experienced elsewhere.

One of the benefits and complaints I hear about being Jewish is the plethora of holidays that crowd the calendar. While some of these holidays I was familiar with due to their counterparts in Christianity (e.g. Simchat Torah and the Feast of Christ the King) and from a general knowledge of Judaism, others are entirely unique to the Jewish faith or to Israel as a country.

What was interesting to me was the connection to trauma so many of these holidays have. For instance, Tisha B’Av is a fasting holiday that not only commemorates the destruction of the First and Second Jewish Temples, but also other various tragedies that befell the Jewish people (Taanit 4:6). Purim is a celebratory holiday that involves dressing up in costumes to commemorate the almost slaughter of the Jewish people by Haman, an advisor to the then Persian King, but which was averted by Queen Esther (Esther 1-10). Even holidays like Sukkot and Passover, which don’t directly involve trauma, still have ties to the exile and persecution of the Jewish people and others (Leviticus 23:42-43; Deuteronomy 16:12; Exodus 11:1-12:36).

National holidays have similarly strong ties to this history of trauma. Memorial Day, as well as Holocaust Memorial Day, is celebrated with the closing of stores and the sounding of an air raid siren during which everyone comes to a stand-still; cars pull over, people stop in the middle of whatever they’re doing, everyone stands at attention for two minutes and remembers the people who have died. This is not the American-style holiday with parades and “50% off!!” sales; this is a day purely of solemn remembrance and memorial.

Other non-religious and non-historical factors play a central role in Jewish-Israeli society as well. Military service is required of all Jewish-Israelis beginning at age 18; three years for males and two years for females. For many men this involves service in a combat unit and, given the usage of military force in the West Bank and Gaza, active military duties. I have friends who did their military service in Hebron (a flash-point of settler/Palestinian violence) or who assisted with Israel’s withdraw from the Gaza, and their experiences are by no means rarities.

There are even high school programs that allow the students to volunteer with Magen David Adom (the Israeli Red Cross) and assist paramedics and other professionals. While these under-18s are barred from responding to mass casualty incidents, they still regularly respond to car accidents and various other types of trauma which high-schoolers in other countries may not be. There are also programs for high school students to be involved in the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) before starting their required service. While the point isn’t to purposefully expose these students to trauma, there is also less shying away from it.

And this isn’t the only exposure to violence Israelis are receiving. The First and Second Intifada’s involved suicide-bombings on public buses, in nightclubs, and in crowded public places. Continued rocket fire into Israeli towns such as Sderot and Ashkelon affects not only the population of those areas but also feature prominently in the daily news media. These, combined with threats of violence from militant groups like Hamas and Hezbollah as well as nuclear threats from Iran, create an underlying feeling of threat of which one is constantly aware.

All this is on top of the fall-out from Israel’s six armed conflicts, incidents like the killing of Israelis at the Munich Olympics in 1972, SCUD missile bombing during the Gulf War and the effects of intergenerational trauma from the Jews who came en mass to Israel during or following the Holocaust (Lev-Weisel, 2007; Kellerman, 2001). This Jewish trauma has become part of some people’s identity, an inescapable part of their past and present as Jews and as people of Israel.

So what are the effects of this trauma, both historical and on-going? In Israel the rate of PTSD is approximately 6% for the Jewish population (Hobfoll et al., 2008). However, the trauma of immigration to Israel has proven stressful for multiple groups (e.g. Ritsner, 1997; Ritsner, 1996) and presents itself differently than traditional PTSD symptoms (Grisaru, 2003; Daie, 1994; Schreiber, 1995). In a country that has seen over 3 million immigrants in the past 90 years (Central Bureau of Statistics, 2007a) this is a sizeable number of people who may have trauma-related disorders but are yet undiagnosed.

The Israeli-Arab population rate of trauma is much higher, about three-times the rate of the Jewish Israeli community (Hobfoll et al., 2008; Gelkopf, 2008). I don't discuss the Israeli-Arab community in this article not to minimize their experiences, but simply because of my own lack of knowledge about this community and their experiences of trauma. However this population is still highly relevant to any discussion of trauma in Israel, as they compose approximately 20% of the Israeli population (Central Bureau of Statistics, 2007b).

The overall response I get in regards to the volatility here is usually the same: a shrug of the shoulders and “אין מה לעשות" (ein mah lah-ah-soht/“nothing to be done”). I think it’s best summed up in the over-arching theme of Jewish holidays, as described to me by a friend: “they tried to kill us, we survived, let’s eat”. In other words: regardless of what happens, life goes on and we’ll get used to it. Whether it’s a faith in God that comforts them or simply the acceptance of the unpredictable nature of life here, it seems to be an effective strategy (Somer et al., 2005).

My learning about trauma in Israel, which I originally thought would be mostly academic, has turned out to be completely the opposite. By living here among Israelis and within the Jewish-Israeli culture, I’ve learned how people deal with trauma on a daily basis. These are obviously not the same traumas as experienced by people in places such as Baghdad or Darfur. But the daily, mini-traumas of Israeli life are constant: walking onto a public bus, passing a restaurant which had been bombed, hearing a sudden loud noise outside. These I’ve learned to deal with this in a very Israeli way, with “אין מה לעשות” and a quiet prayer.


References

American Psychiatric Association. (2000). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, fourth edition, text revision. Arlington, VA: American Psychiatric Association.

Central Bureau of Statistics, (2007a). Immigrants, by period of immigration, country of birth and last country of residence. Retrieved from http://www.cbs.gov.il/shnaton58/download/st04_04.xls on 9 December 2008.

Central Bureau of Statistics, (2007b). Demographic situation in Israel. Retrieved from http://www.cbs.gov.il/reader/newhodaot/hodaa_template.html?hodaa=200801252 on 9 December 2008.

Daie, N., & Witztum, E. (1994). A case of posttraumatic stress disorder masked by pseudoseizures in a jewish iranian immigrant in israel. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 182(4), 244-245.

Gelkopf, M., Solomon, Z., Berger, R., & Bleich, A. (2008). The mental health impact of terrorism in Israel: A repeat cross-sectional study of Arabs and Jews. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 117(5), 369-380.

Grisaru, N., Irwin, M., & Kaplan, Z. (2003). Acute psychotic episodes as a reaction to severe trauma in a population of Ethiopian immigrants to Israel. Stress and Health, 19(4), 241-247.

Hobfoll, S. E., Canetti-Nisim, D., Johnson, R. J., Palmieri, P. A., Varley, J. D., & Galea, S. (2008). The association of exposure, risk, and resiliency factors with PTSD among Jews and Arabs exposed to repeated acts of terrorism in Israel. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 21(1), 9-21.

Kellermann, N. P. F. (2001). Transmission of holocaust trauma -- an integrative view. Psychiatry, 64(3), 256-267.

Lev-Wiesel, R. (2007). Intergenerational transmission of trauma across three generations: A preliminary study. Qualitative Social Work, 6(1), 75-94.

Ritsner, M., Ponizovsky, A., Chemelevsky, M., Zetser, F., Durst, R., & Ginath, Y. (1996). Effects of immigration on the mentally ill -- does it produce psychological distress? Comprehensive Psychiatry, 37(1), 17-22.

Ritsner, M., Ponizovsky, A., & Ginath, Y. (1997). Changing patterns of distress during the adjustment of recent immigrants: A 1-year follow-up study. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 95(6), 494-499.

Schreiber, S. (1995). Migration, traumatic bereavement and transcultural aspects of psychological healing: Loss and grief of a refugee woman from Begameder County in Ethiopia. British Journal of Medical Psychology, 68(2), 135-142.

Somer, E., Ruvio, A., Soref, E. & Sever, I. (2005). Terrorism, distress and coping: High versus low impact regions and direct versus indirect civilian exposure. Anxiety, Stress & Coping, 18(3), 165-182.

Teichman, E., Zafrir, H. (2003). Images Held by Jewish and Arab Children in Israel of People Representing Their Own and the Other Group. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 34(6), 658-676.

Another entry under "Things I Wasn't Expecting"

As I spent last Christmas in Nazareth, I decided that this year I could celebrate in Jerusalem. I had debated going to Bethlehem, but finally decided not to for a few reasons, namely that it would be really crazy busy there and my Israeli friends wouldn't be able to go with me (Israelis are forbidden from entering Bethlehem because it's in Area A).

Christmas in Israel is, as one can imagine, hard to spot. As 80% of the population is Jewish and most of the remaining 20% are Muslim, finding Christians can be a little tough. The other reason is that the Arab Christian community is growing smaller and smaller due to a combination of discrimination by the Israeli government for being Arabs and by the Arab population for being Christians. Their middle/upper-class mobility is also a bone of contention within the Arab community, but also allows them to afford to emigrate elsewhere. As the Arab Christian population has halved in the past 50 years, this is clearly a popular option.

That's not to say that Israeli is entirely devoid of Christmas. There are a number of shops in Arab East Jerusalem which had Christmas displays or even just a Christmas tree in the front window, and there's a lingerie store in Tel Aviv that had some very suggestive Santa outfits, if you catch my drift. Still, it's definitely a stark contrast to the United States where one is practically struck over the head by Christmas as soon as one leaves the house.

This led me to have to create my own Christmas atmosphere. The hard part, for me, was remembering to do it. Even with my Advent calendar, it was still quite easy to forget that the days of December quickly flying by and, if wasn't until Christmas was almost upon me, that I got out my Christmas playlist on iTunes and started really getting into the spirit.

For Christmas Eve, I decided to go to the Old City of Jerusalem for services. There is a Lutheran church in the Christian quarter that I was always keen on going to but never quite got around to; that and they have services on Sunday mornings, which is a business day here. So I figured a German Lutheran church would be pretty similar to what I was used to.

Suffice to say, I was mostly correct with a few slight corrections. For one, Germans have different tunes to some of the traditional Christmas songs most Americans know. Second, half the church was filled with Jewish Israelis who came for the service. Apparently, they like the atmosphere and the music. And, no, the irony of a German church full of Jewish Israelis was not lost on me.

The service itself was simple, as are most services on high holy days. There was lots of singing (lots!), gospel readings in German and Hebrew (with some English and Arabic thrown in now-and-then), and candle-lighting. And it's in one of those old, Gothic-style churches that I love.




Afterwards, we went to a pub where a friend works for their annual Christmas party: Santa hats, Christmas lights, techno music, the works. And, as only happens in Israel, the Hasidic Jews show up. To cause trouble? No. They light a menorah (remember, it's also Hanukkah), dance for about five minutes, and then leave. You know, just to make sure no one forgets they're Jewish. Only in Israel.

Happy Christmas

Some Christmas/Christian things to clear up...

As I live in Israel, which is populated mostly by Jews and Muslims, I get a lot of questions about what exactly Christmas is. In light of this, I offer up the following information:

• Christmas is the day Jesus was born, not the day he died. The day he died is Easter.
  
• The Christian new year starts four Sundays before Christmas. The January-December year is the Julian calendar and has nothing to do with Christianity whatsoever, aside from the fact that we use it.
• New Year's Eve/Silvester has nothing to do with Christianity; Jesus didn't do anything cool on that day. The name originally came from St. Sylvester, who was a Catholic Pope. It is still celebrated as his feast day in the Catholic church, but not in the Protestant church. Either way, it's not a "holiday" per se and certainly nothing that warrants the celebrations typically seen on New Year's Eve/Silverster. New Year's Eve as we know it now is an entirely secular holiday.
• Santa Claus has nothing to do with Christianity. He's the secular mascot for Christmas, though many Christians incorporate him into their personal celebrations. Santa Claus is to Christmas what Bicycle Day is to Yom Kippur; it's the non-religious equivalent.
  
• The 12 Days of Christmas are actually the 12 days after Christmas, not the 12 leading up to it. They start on 25 December (Christmas) and end on 6 January (Epiphany).

Any other questions?

Edits from an article I'm writing...

"Anecdotally, people have told me that this trauma-identity is used to solidify the Jewish community outside of Israel, both for security reasons and to strengthen Jewish identity. Of the 1400 religion-based hate crimes in the United States which were reported to the FBI in 2007, 969 were anti-Jewish, (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2007), making an effective argument for safety concerns (though the circle-the-wagons approach may be both counter-productive and ineffective in the long-term (Somer et al., 2008)). Intermarriage and assimilation increases are also borne out in various surveys (e.g. National Jewish Population Survey 2000-01, 2001), showing greater intermarriage and fewer children being raised Jewish in these marriages when compared to families with two Jewish parents."


"There are even high school programs that allow the students to volunteer with Magen David Adom (the Israeli Red Cross) and work on ambulances. While these under-18s are barred from responding to mass casualty incidents, they still are regular witnesses to car accidents and various other types of trauma that high schoolers in other countries may not be. While the point isn’t to purposefully expose these students to trauma, there is also less shying away from it."


"However, this seems to be more a phenomena of the diaspora than of Israel. My own experiences with discrimination as a non-Jew have come solely from non-Israeli-borne Jews, all of whom were of Ashkenazi/European descent. I don’t wonder if my blatant German-Catholic heritage (I don’t appear Jewish at all) doesn’t play some part in that. This is aside from the Israeli governmental favouring of Jews over non-Jews, which not necessarily discrimination but is clearly unequal."


"Yet this feeling also becomes somewhat normalized. As a researcher who studies trauma and emergency response, I was interested in learning how Israel coped with the attacks on it. I learned that every house has a reinforced safe-room and that bomb shelters are a part of every public building; I learned that security guards check your bag at the entrance to every mall, bus station, and most restaurants; I got used to seeing soldiers with guns on public buses. The necessity of adaptation required that you adjusted your thinking to the situation."


Federal Bureau of Investigation (2007). Hate crime statistics, Table 1. Retrieved from http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/hc2007/table_01.htm on 8 December, 2008.

Somer, E., Maguen, S., Moin, V., Boehm, A., Metzler, T. J., & Litz, B. T. (2008). The effects of perceived community cohesion on stress symptoms following a terrorist attack. Journal of Psychological Trauma, 7(2), 73-90.

Success!

After much hassle, a lot of leg work, and an infinitesimal amount of worry, I finally got to the correct Ministry of Interior office Tuesday to apply for a new visa. As my student visa had run out in October (half the reason for the Berlin trip) and my tourist visa was about to expire, a new one was in order.

This is a bit of an obnoxious process for a number of reasons. One: government bureaucracy. Two: it's the Jewish motherland and I'm not Jewish. There's a whole different, much easier process for Jews to get visas, work permits, and even citizenship in about half the time it took me to get someone to answer the bloody phone to schedule an appointment (no joke; I've been battling with visa stuff for two-and-a-half months, and a friend of mine got citizenship in under five weeks). Three: no one seems to know exactly what to do, so the entire thing becomes an exercise in trial-and-error.

Point is: after all the e-mails, phone calls, office visits, faxes, letters written, bad-mouthing (by me) and ulcers, I'm legal for another six months. This is great, because now I can finally dive into all the projects I've had waiting in the wings but couldn't start because my future was uncertain.

So far, I may be teaching psychology and ASL in the spring; I'm teacher-aiding (which I just decided can be made a verb) an ASL class; I'm helping in a research lab at Hebrew University; I may get back into מד"א if I have the time. The point is: now that I know I have the time, now that I'm out of limbo, I can start planning things again and feeling like I'm really here.

It's supposed to rain today...

Remembering and forgetting

There are so many holidays in Israel, between the government ones and the religious ones, that I have problems keeping track of them. I'm not kidding. More than once I've walked out the door with the intent of catching a bus, only to find it's one holiday or another and everything is shut for the day. I think I could make a nice sum of money developing a Goy Alert service, in which all of us unfamiliar with Jewish and Isareli holidays would be notified a week in advance so as not to have our plans completely derailed by a surprise holiday. But I digress...

Aside from the religious holidays, the two main holidays people always talk about experiencing are Memorial Day (יום הזיכרון) and Independence Day (יום העצמות). Given the history of Israel, you can imagine the significance of these two days to the Jewish and Israeli communities. They are also, thankfully and purposefully, placed one after the other; Memorial Day is immediately followed by Independence Day, a day of solemness and reflection followed by a day of celebration and partying.


As with all other Jewish holidays, the day begins as sundown. Memorial Day in Israel is nothing like that in the US. Instead of sales and picnics and parades, most shops and stores are shut and no one works in the evening. At 8pm, the air raid sirens blow and the entire country comes to a halt: people stop walking, cars pull over to the side of the road and people get out and stand. No one moves, no one talks. For a full minute, you do nothing but remember the people who have died for Israel to be where it is now. You remember the current conflict in which people are dying. You remember the surrounding countries which constantly threaten the people and statehood of Israel. You remember that no one here can take anything for granted, not even daily life.

A large ceremony was held in Kikar Rabin in downtown Tel Aviv. With performances by many famous artists and speeches by, among others, the Mayor of Tel Aviv and various military personnel, the night still has a very somber feel. Between the songs and speeches are video interviews with parents or spouses or children who have lost someone in one of Israel's wars. No one claps for the performers. No one cheers. 10,000 standing there, all focusing on the people who aren't there.

The following day is still in the same somber tone. Again, at 11am, the sirens sound and the country comes to a stand-still. Though the rest of the day carries on as normal, there is a constant cloud over the collective head of Israel. Even as someone who isn't Israeli and isn't Jewish, this morose feeling was inescapable. It probably didn't help that I watched "Beaufort", which is a fantastic movie about the experiences of Israeli soldiers but isn't the most uplifting piece of cinema. I still highly recommend it, though.

At sundown, which is the end of one day and the start of the next in the Jewish calendar, Independence Day begins. In an effort to throw off the melancholy of the previous day, Independence Day is celebrated much like in the United States: with parties, gatherings of friends and family, and revelry in all that is good about Israel. Israeli pride is out in full force, and the streets are filled with people out to have a good time.

The next day, which is still a holiday and on which no one goes to work, is celebrated with street fairs and ice cream and time at the beach. After such a melancholy day, the celebrations and parties are as much for Israel as they are for her people. The focus changes from what has been lost to what has been gained and, while the cost is never entirely forgotten, the sadness of the preceding day is put aside to focus on the achievements of Israel and her perpetuation into the future.

It's an odd feeling celebrating national holidays in a country of which one isn't a citizen. You celebrate a day which has no direct connection to your own up bringing or background. As a non-Israeli and a non-Jew, this is especially felt in Israel. My non-Israeli Jewish friends still have a connection to Israel and its existence; what happens to Israel, what happens to the Jews here, indirectly (and directly) happens to Jews throughout the world. National holidays here aren't just for Israelis, but for Jews everywhere.

And then there's me, standing amidst 10,000 people at a Memorial Day ceremony for a country and a struggle that isn't mine. It wasn't until the middle of that evening that I realized something: this is about me. It's about me because it's about people I care for. It's not about my connection to Israel or the Jewish people as a whole, it's about my connection to the individuals who matter to me. Without realizing it, I had become a kind of de facto Israeli. Politics and principles aside, Israeli matters to me because it matters to them.

Suddenly I had an idea of what they must feel and what their ties to this country are. The day was no longer about identity or religion or citizenship, it was about what my friends had lost to gain what they have. Through them, Israel had become a part of me and these holidays, their holidays, were also mine.

And after these highs and lows, everyday life, such as it is, resumed for another year.

"We wish you a happy Arab/Christian/Jewish Christmas..."

This Christmas was the first Christmas I've spent away from my family. Though it was inevitable, it didn't make things any easier. Topped off with the fact that I'm in a non-Christian city which is practically devoid of any Christmas-related paraphernalia, this was slated to be a very different holiday than any I'd experienced thus far. It gave me a taste of what I would expect is the experience of non-Christians/Christmas-celebrators in the United States: an environment that is without any reminder of my childhood or religious traditions. I was, therefore, looking forward to a more Christmas-y atmosphere once I arrived in Nazareth.

Our trip to Jesus' childhood home started in Tel Aviv with Emily, Deborah, and I taking a sherut to Nazareth. After a two hour drive and another half-hour on foot, we arrived in the old city of Nazareth. We had made arrangements with Emily's former landlord to stay in Emily's old apartment for the night, located right in the center of the old city. It is also located next to the Fauzi Azar Inn, a wonderful hostel and old haunt of Emily's from when she lived in Nazareth. We dropped our things off at the apartment, had some tea at the hostel, and then headed out.

The old city of Nazareth is very small. It consists mainly of the souq/market and the Basilica, with some other churches, synagogues, and restaurants in the immediate surrounding area. We walked through the souq (there is nothing on the planet like a good, Arab souq), did a little shopping for souvenirs and gifts, and then headed down to the main square for the parade.

Now, the problem with going to the parade is that no one seemed to know what time it started. We were given numerous times ranging from 1:30p to 4:00p, but the consensus was that it would start somewhere in the 3:00-3:30p time frame. We decided to stake our spots at the City Square, which was the end-point of the parade. The atmosphere of the parade and the city in general was very festive and celebratory: lots of music; people dressed as Santa driving around the city, honking their horns and throwing candy; crowds of people in restaurants and cafés, hanging out and enjoying each other's company.

For those of you reading this through a feed (and anyone else), the picture gallery is here.

The parade consisted of floats, marching bands, bagpipe groups, a number of Scout troops, and some capoeira dancers. The capoeira dancers even broke into a spontaneous performance after they were done marching, which was very cool to see up close.



After the parade, we watched the fireworks and then went out for baklawa before heading back to the apartment and getting ready for church. We were hoping to go to mass at the Basilica of the Annunciation, but the tickets were already exhausted by that afternoon. So we took a chance and went down to the basilica to see if we could get in somehow. After standing around for a bit they started letting those of us without tickets in, little by little.

By the time we made our entrance, the service had already begun. We took our seats quietly, and joined in as best we could. The service was done primarily in Arabic, though the opening introduction was done in Arabic, Hebrew, English, French and Italian. The sermon, which was really more of a "Christmas is about peace between people" kind of message, was in all those languages plus German. With me being a non-Catholic and Julia and Deb being Jewish, the best I could do was explain what I could about Christianity while trying my best to remember the order of a Catholic mass.

After church we went out for a light dinner of various Middle Eastern salads, hummus, falafel, and pita and polished it off when some tea (and more baklawa). We then headed back to the apartment, curled up in bed to fight off the cold, and talked. After Julia and Deb fell asleep I went out and threw reindeer food on the street outside, then curled up in bed and went to sleep.

The next morning (which was almost afternoon, cause we all slept in) we headed back down to the square for lunch then walked around more, stopping by the Church of the Annunciation (not to be confused with the similarly named Basilica). The Church of the Annunciation is built on top of the spring that fed the well, the same well where Mary was when the Angel Gabriel told her she would be the mother of Jesus.

After leaving the church we then walked through the surrounding neighborhood a bit, including checking out the Moskubiyeh. The Moskubiyeh was an old Russian compound for Russian pilgrims which slept 1,000 people and included a school, hospital, and...something else. Nowadays, it's a police station, post office, and municipal building for the city of Nazareth.

We headed back to Fauzi Azar for some tea and company, then packed up the apartment. We then went out for sahlab (which is amazing) and headed back to Fauzi Azar as the owner was kind enough to give us a ride to Binyamina, where we could catch a quick train into Tel Aviv. I was the first to depart the train, so I said my goodbyes and headed back to the dorm for Christmas with my family via the magic of Skype.

So my first Christmas without my family was in Nazareth with Jewish friends surrounded by Arabs, and then opening presents with my family via webcam. I guess if you're going to break tradition, go big.

"Living in a mysterious world"

Things here have been well. I'm staying very busy, and keeping my days quite full. Still getting settled in for the year, and have already finished my second week of ulpan classes. I was talking with my roommate, Paul, about how I feel I've been here for a long time when really it's always been two weeks. He agreed. Though it's only been two weeks, they've been two very busy weeks which makes them seem longer.

Last week we, the Overseas students, went to southern Tel Aviv to an area called Old Jaffa/Yafo. Jaffa is the oldest part of Tel Aviv, being approximately 3,000 years old to Tel Aviv's 58. It served as a port for many civilizations through out that period, from the Egyptians to the Turks to the French to the Arabs and now the Jews. It still has a large Israeli Arab population, compared to other parts of the city.

Old Jaffa sits on a hill, overlooking the Mediterranean. It has a Catholic church and monestary, which is run my a formerly-Jewish priest (though the Jews still consider him a Jew because once a Jew, always a Jew). There are also gardens on top of the hill, and a smattering of restaurants and shops. Many of the shops in Old Jaffa are artisans, creating everything from paintings to metal sculptures.

The photo gallery of Old Jaffa can be viewed by clicking here.

Sunday was another group trip, this time to Jerusalem. This trip was a little surreal. The only things I really knew about Jerusalem going into the trip was what I had learned from the Bible, and this is clearly not the most up-to-date Frommer's Guide of modern Jerusalem. Therefore I didn't know what to expect, exactly, upon my arrival.

One of the things that you must remember when in the Middle East is that Europe doesn't have anything on the Middle East. Through excavation, they've determined settlements in Jerusalem as far back as 3000 BCE; over 5000 years ago. There's a line from a poem that says: "No one has ever seen Jerusalem naked". What it means, essentially, is that they've never gotten to the bottom. Everytime they think they've reached the last layer, they find more archeological evidence.

Case in point: Jerusalem has been trying to build a badly needed lightrail for years. The problem, though, is that every time they bulldoze to lay the track they end up unearthing something and there has to be an archeological dig. They can't help but find history.

Our tour consisted of one of the oldest neighborhoods in Jerusalem, houses built in the early 20th century for poor Jews to live in for free in order to save money and get on their feet. The entire area is pedestrian, as the streets were build before cars were invented and none of the streets are wide enough for cars, which is fine as no cars could get through the gates anyway.

Most of the day was spent in the Old City*, the oldest part of Jerusalem. The Old City is divided into four quarters: the Jewish quarter, Muslim quarter, Christian quarter, and Armenian quarter. We toured the Jewish and Christian quarters, but the Muslim quarter is only open to non-Muslims at certain times and the Armenian quarter is always closed to outsiders.

Pictures of the neighborhoods and the Old City are in this gallery.

The Old City contains some of the holiest sites of the worlds three main religions: the Western Wall and Temple Mount for Jews; the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa mosque for Muslims; and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre for Christians. As all these are in a 0.9 square mile area, you can imagine the tension that exists. It could, literally, trigger World War III if someone did something stupid.

Though the Jews and Muslims are at odds over the Temple Mount, the Christians don't get off easy either, though. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is run by six different Christian sects, and is the holiest site in the world for Christians. It is also the most dilapitated church I've ever seen, the reasons for which are explained in the Wikipedia article (I saw that ladder!). We did see the Armenians in action, though, and their monophonic singing was amazing! For what the church didn't have in style, it made up for in acoustics.

We started the day in the Jewish quarter, going through the museum about the Temple Mount and seeing the ruins around it. The city was filled with soldiers, as Sundays are the days in which the soldier receive Jewish/religious instruction and some of them were at the Old City. The city is also filled with shops, synagogues/temples/churches, and homes. While many people come to tour it, there are a sizable number of people who live in the Old City.

Following the museum, we headed through security and to the Western Wall. The wall itself actually has no significance to Judiaism but it is as close as Jews can safely come to the Temple Mount and has become a holy place to the Jews.

If you had told me a year ago that I would be standing at the Western Wall in Jerusalem wearing a kippah, I would have asked you what you were on and why you weren't sharing. Yet there I was, head covered and surrounded by a religious practice I knew nothing about. People were praying feverently, stuffing written prayers into cracks, and kissing the wall. As a non-Jew, it seemed terribly voyeuristic. While most everyone else was there for a religious experience, I was there purely as an observer and tourist. I took my look-see, then headed back to my friends to guard out backpacks while they did their thing.

It was the first time in my two weeks that I truely felt disconnected from things. In Tel Aviv, which is mostly secular, I always felt a bit like an outsider: I don't speak the language, I don't know the customs, I get lost easily, and I'm not Jewish. That never bothered me that much though, any more than it did being a Protestant in predominantly-Catholic France and not speaking the language. The Western Wall, though, really drove the point home: I was not, in any way, a part of what was going on. This was a culture, a religion, and a history that wasn't mine.

This brought two things to mind: what was my culture and history? While individual Jews likely can't trace their ancestors back to the First Temple's construction in the 10 century BC, the history of the Jewish people as a whole is something they can connect to. My ancestors came from all over Europe, and we're still not even sure from where; my last name is British, my family is predominantly German with some Irish thrown in as far as we can tell, and the records are non-existant after my great-great-grandparents.

Are my ancestors Jews who converted to Christianity, Romans who worshipped the pantheon gods, or barbaric nomads who were wondering through unconquered lands? I have no idea. It was something that I had never thought about but yet couldn't ignore as I stared thousands of years of Jewish history in the face. These people know who they were, and where they came from.

While I couldn't connect with the people or things around me, it did give me a greater sense of history. I was staring at a wall that is 3000 years old. Really think about 3000 years worth of time. Think about everything that's happened for us to be where we are, and to be who we are. It really gives the world and civilization a frame and drives home how long we, as humans, have been on Earth. Now think about the fact the Earth is 4.5 billion years old. Bizarre, isn't it?

The day ended with a quick walk through the market in the Christian quarter, then back to the Jewish quarter for dinner. We had a Roman style dinner, which meant the same food we'd been eating for two weeks (hummus, kebabs, pita, diced veggies, etc.) but served to us by people wearing togas. Very filling, and needed after walking in the heat all day.

So that was Jerusalem, quick and dirty. We're already trying to plan a trip to go back. British Dan studied at Hebrew University last year for a semester, so he's very familiar with the ins and outs of the city. Hopefully we can make it back and get a feel for the modern city that is Jerusalem.

*I'm using Wikipedia as a quick reference for everything I'm talking about, as going into detail of everything there would take hours. I highly, highly recommend finding a good documentary about Jerusalem and it's history if you're interested in the subject as Wikipedia is by no means an authoritative source. Just the Old City itself is fascinating, and steeped in ancient and modern history.