God Bless the Chickpea

Saving women from the 'chain'

2008-03-21T06:25:00.000-07:00

Here is an article I wrote in this week’s Haaretz about the importance of halachic prenuptial agreements in the battle to help agunot.
As many of you know, I have spent a large portion of my year here trying to promote the agreement (a very painstaking and frustrating process).
Yesterday was both Taanit Esther and International Agunah Day.
The link between Queen Esther and agunot appears tenuous at first—one an example of female empowerment, the other of female victimization, yet in this holiday of nehfoch-hu (topsy-turvey), the linkage can be seen as a call to overturn the agunah status-quo. While great responsibility lies with rabbis, community leaders and lawyers to encourage signing of the document, each and everyone of us should feel compelled as Esther did, to take a stand for what is right in the society in which we live. Let us continue to fight for all possible solutions to the agunah problem in Israel and abroad, but in the meantime, let us work to reduce the number of future agunot, by promoting the signing of the prenuptial agreement.

The prenuptial Agreement for Mutual Respect can be found at
www.youngisraelrabbis.org.il

The prenuptial Binding Arbitration Agreement can be found at http://www.rabbis.org/Prenuptial_Agreement.cfm

Bissli, Falafel, and Bazooka

2008-03-15T15:42:00.000-07:00

I wrote this in response to the attack last Thursday. It may be part of a larger project.

As terror attacks increase in Jerusalem, Ehud Olmert, in an attempt to pacify his coalition government, made the unusual decision to deport all non-Zionist foreigners. In order to determine who is a Zionist an ad-hoc committee has been set-up. The committee, commonly called Ahavas Yisroel, has been going neighborhood by neighborhood and bringing non-residents in for questioning. The following is an excerpt of one interrogation.

Transcript # 108

AY: What is you relationship to Zionism?

108: My relationship? In some ways I was born a Zionist. The same way I was born with brown hair or the hairy mole underneath my nose. My whole life I have traveled at least once a year to Israel. I went to visit my grandfather, who made aliyah in the last years of his life. He gave me a gold pin for my 10th birthday that said Kulanu Yerushalmim.

AY: So do you consider yourself a Zionist?

108: I was never sure if you had to live in “Zion” to be a Zionist. After all no matter how much I support the existence of Sweden, I will never be a Swedenist. Yet there must be something different to being a Zionist. Perhaps an obsession with a country where you don’t reside, or a preoccupation with a concept of the Land of Israel that goes back 3,000 years. Or supporting a country at all costs.

AY: And do you consider yourself a supporter of Israel?

108: Yes, although I am sometimes embarrassed to be associated with the actions or inactions of the country. Spending time in Bethlehem and Hevron, I am disgusted by the actions of settlers but disappointed to the governments tacit condonement of such acts and how these things illicit hatred from another group of people. But more often, I am confused about how to deal with something like the separation wall that causes Palestinians economic pain and psychological anguish but has created a successful barrier in preventing terror attacks. It makes me begin to question by values.

AY: And these actions are not in line with your values?

108: Which values is probably the better question. I believe in a Jewish State and I also believe in a democratic one. And I am realizing this may be a contradiction in terms. When looking at the way other nationalities are treated in Israel, it is sometimes hard to be a liberal and a Zionist. But when a bomb explodes 5ft from where you are standing or when your boyfriend is fighting in Lebanon, it is harder to be a Zionist and a liberal.

AY: So you are not a Zionist?

108: Wait, I read Exodus three times! I used to dream about Paul Neumann, I mean Ari Ben-Cannan. I just get frustrated with how migrant works live or how the police turn a blind eye to prostitution. When a leading Rabbi declares that an earthquake was caused by homosexuality I cringe.

AY: Please answer the question directly:

108: and I hate the way Israelis never say please or thank you, and have no concept of lines. And why do they always need to push? I’m sorry…..what was the question again

AY: A Zionist. Are you one? Yes or no.

108: When I hear about a terror attack in Israel, I feel a deep pain in my right shoulder, and I mourn as part of a nation with the collective. The deaths in Gaza leave me profunndly saddened mainly because I fear how it will affect the moral fiber of Israel. In the moment of pigua or bomb, my universalism, my relativism, vanish and I am a raw member of the tribe of Israel, crying out to God. So what does that say about me? About the type of person I am?

AY: It says you a Zionist. Please take some complimentary Bamba on the way out.

And If a Stranger Shall Dwell Among You

2008-02-26T06:05:00.000-08:00

When I walk into 3 Har Zion all I see is chaos. Beds stuffed into every available space in the hallway. Children running around sans parents. The smell of sewage seeping into the smallest corners, and flickering lights that are more reminiscent of the brothel it once was than the African refugee shelter it is now. The shelter, 3 blocks away from the Tachana Hamerkzit (Central Bus Station) in Tel Aviv, houses over 400 refugees – mainly from Eritrea.
The coverage around the plight of the refugees has centered mainly on the issue of the crossing through Egypt and whether or not Israel should allow refugees to enter the country. But there is barely any coverage of what happens to them when they are here.
“My name is Natural, Natural Black,” one refugee from the Ivory Coast tells me. One thing I realize as I do my work is that everyone just wants to be heard. Whether it is the women who push and shove to have the first pick of donated clothing or the man who makes sure to tell me he has a BA in politics as I register him to do agricultural work. The children clamor for me to pick them up, and speak to me in Hebrew. “Eyn Baaya” “Mah Nishma?”
In the chaos I concentrate only on the tasks set before me. Organizing clothes. Counting Beds. Registering newcomers. If I think about the big picture for too long, I feel useless and impotent. As I work, slowly I see some order to the madness. The Africans who speak English are often the group leaders and the ones who have traveled together feel a brotherhood to one another.
In the past month over 1,000 refugees have crossed into Israel seeking a better life. This is not a problem that will disappear. Israel must create policies and standards if it hopes to gain control over this situation. This article in JPOST describes the shelter I work in and gives a broader background to the issue in general.

An open letter to the rabbinate

2008-02-21T21:42:00.000-08:00

Here is an op-ed I wrote in today's Haaretz about the need for change in the Israeli rabbinate

Salam wa Aleikum (peace be upon you); wa Aleikum ah Salam (and also peace be upon you)

2008-01-28T08:18:00.000-08:00

I packed for my week in Jordan pretty carefully Socks, umbrella, baseball tee. But as soon as I crossed the border I realized that I forgot the most vital item for a Jordanian holiday–a Tankh. Who knew that Jordan is overflowing with stories from both the Torah and Neviim?
During our first taxi ride, our driver pulled over to show us Ain Musa and after a few minutes of bilingual pantomiming, I understood that this was where Moshe hit the rock that prevented him from entering Egypt. In Petra, I saw Jebel Haroun, where Aharon is buried and which is now a pilgrimage site and a mosque.
Even the secular city of Amman, more known for night clubs than holy sites, has many biblical references— most famously as one of the kingdoms with which King David was constantly at war with in the book of Samuel.
Mount Nebo was the most awe-inspiring. It is there that Moshe, after traveling 40 years in the desert, is supposed to have looked upon Israel. Moshe was buried there in an unmarked grave. The view from the mountain was breathtaking and there was an oddly tangible holiness in the air. It made no difference to me if these events actually occurred there or not, by seeing them I couldn’t help but feel more connected to tradition and history.
At the Allenby bridge it took nearly an hour to cross the border into Israel, and I couldn’t help but sympathize with the complaining Israelites, stuck in the desert for forty years.

I break tradition, sometimes my tries, are outside the lines

2008-01-27T06:45:00.000-08:00

Last night I attended a lecture by Tova Hartman based on her new book “Feminism Encounters Traditional Judaism: Resistance and Accommodation”. Hartman reminded me of my previous passion (and perhaps obsession) with issues relating to Orthodoxy and feminism. Although I am still considered by most people to be the craziest ortho-fem they know, in recent years I have lost interest, preferring to accept the status quo. This has less to do with apathy then with a feeling that because of my level of personal observance I have no right to object to decisions made in the religious world. I have always thought that real change comes from within, and that I had to be perfectly Halachic before I could “rebel”. In some ways this is true: Tamar Ross might speak heresy but she dresses like she is from Mea Shearim so she is respected. But that’s not me. As I stopped going to daily minyan, started to wear jeans and expanded my social circles, I thought I lost my right to criticize or make waves. Tova addressed this feeling as one that she encounters in many female Orthodox circles. She dismissed them as irrelevant in the struggle of advancing the status of women in Judaism; after all she said “do we ask a man who comes to say Kaddish where he was yesterday?” Her examples might have come from Kafka and Freud but for me it was a simple reminder “If I am not for myself who will be for me?”

A Change is Gonna Come

2008-01-16T12:31:00.000-08:00

When I saw this article in the Jerusalem Post this past Friday I screamed. Since then I have received dozens of emails encouraging me to join the Hartman Smicha program and become the first orthodox women rabbi (sorry how could I forget Haviva New David). Among friends there has been a lot of discussion about how this isn’t really Orthodox smicha and how no one will accept it as such. But to me all of this is irrelevant. This is an inevitable step in the progress of women’s orthodox feminism that can be linked to Nishmat’s Yoetzet program or the Drisha Scholars. Some have claimed that this will fracture the already delicate Orthodox community. But to me this split has been coming for a while and it is unclear what issue will ultimately break the Beast? Homosexuality? Shira Hadasha? Working with agunot, I have seen what happens when those who are more modern kowtow to the ultra religious in order not to rock the boat; people with real grievances get ignored, things that are halachically permissible are pushed aside for Kllal Yisrael. I’m not looking to turn the system upside down but if this is a slippery slope than I for one have been waiting a long time to slide on down.

When Bush Comes to Shove

2008-01-13T11:39:00.000-08:00

George Bush was in Jerusalem this past week Wed-Fri. Along with the rerouting of the city buses, the streets were almost deserted with Jerusalemites deciding not to risk potential traffic jams. Keren Haysod and Emek Refaim were closed to traffic but I was able to walk past the King David and see all the insanity—the tents, the secret service, the security blimp (yes, I said security blimp). Of course when an international figure such as Bush comes to town so does everyone else. On Wednesday I passed two protests on my way into town. One was outside the American Consulate and consisted of mostly Arabs chanting for Bush to go home— blaming him for the Occupation. Two blocks away there was a protest of a different sort with Jews dressed in Kafiyas and holding toy guns calling Bush the father of Hamasastine and holding posters with Bush wearing a Kafiya. Perhaps this is the way to peace; after all isn’t the enemy of my enemy, my friend?

The New Top Chef

2008-01-09T08:59:00.000-08:00

Yesterday at my first cultural cooking class, I made Moroccan fish and Mujadara an Iraqi rice and lentil dish. They were amazing. The class was in Hebrew and we listened to Moroccan and Andulsian music in the background. Cooking with Tali was an experience, we kept on asking her for exact measurements but to her it was just the “feeling” of knowing how much to put in.
Here are the two recipes —I translated them into English so everyone can enjoy!

Moroccan Fish (Charyima)

1 Filet of Princess of the Nile (I never heard of it either)
¾ cup oil
1 bunch of cilantro
1 small chili pepper
1 sweet dry red pepper
Paprika
Tumeric
Black Pepper
Chicken Soup mix
¾ cup vinegar
Seal salt
1 clove garlic

Directions

1. Cut the fish into pieces as per the number of guests you are having
2. Soak the fish for a ½ hour in vinegar and sea salt (to get rid of the fishy smell)
3. In a pot mix the oil and paprika. Let sit for 10 minutes.
4. Add the peppers, a lot of garlic, half of the chopped up cilantro
5. Mix in pepper to taste, tumeric, chicken soup mix
6. Rinse and squeeze the fish to get the garlic out
7. Lay each piece of fish in the pot and coat it with the sauce
8. Add more oil, tumeric, black pepper, chicken soup mix, and the rest of the cilantro
9. Cover and cook over a low flame for 20-30 minutes. In the middle open the pot and baste it.

Mujdara (An Iraqi dish)

2 cups rice
1 cup lentils
4 big opinions
salt, pepper
oil

Directions

1. Soak the lentil for half and hour in hot water
2. Wash the rice well and soak it in hot water
3. Chop up 3 onions and sauté them until they begin to brown
4. Drain the lentils and add the to the rice. Fry for 5 minutes.
5. Drain the rice and add it to the lentils/onions. Fry for 5 minutes.
6. Spice with black pepper, You can add some chicken soup mix.
7. Add 4 cups of boiling water
8. Cook for 20-25 minutes over a small flame or until all the water is absorbed
9. Cut the last onion into thin rings and fry them very well over the flame. (If you are a big onion fan you could add more)
10. Add the onions to the pot and enjoy
→ tip- when the rice is done cooking place a towel underneath the cover of the pot. It locks in the flavor of the rice.

Slouching Towards Bethlehem

2008-01-08T06:30:00.000-08:00

The border crossing between Bethlehem and Jerusalem is frenetic. Honking horns, soldiers joking with one another, and pedestrians waiting patiently—and not so patiently—to travel through the turnstile. The only thing that is silent is the Wall. While other parts of the Separation Wall/Fence/Barrier are covered in art or graffiti, the part around the checkpoint is grey and partially obstructed by a sign wishing peace to travelers in Hebrew, English, and Arabic.
I traveled to Bethlehem for two days with the group Encounter; we heard lectures from grassroots activists, had discussions with councilwomen in Palestinian villages, toured sites of historical import, and most meaningfully spent the night with a Palestinian family.
The first thing that struck me on my trip to Bethlehem was how close it was to Jerusalem. I have been to Israel over a dozen times, I speak Hebrew fluently and I have friends and family who live all over the state, but it was only recently, at age 23, that I decided to journey to Bethlehem and its neighboring villages. It took fifteen minutes to get from my apartment in Katamon, a neighborhood of Jerusalem, to the checkpoint separating the two cities. In some ways it was like entering another world and I couldn’t help but wonder how often my Israeli friends on Emek Refaim, Israel’s Park Avenue, ever thought about the inhabitants of Bethlehem, almost next door.
The roads surrounding Bethlehem and its adjoining villages are sleek and shiny—a testament to modern engineering. My grandfather, a fervent Zionist, always said that the roads in Israel were a harbinger of the coming Messiah—but to Leila Sansour they are accursed. Sansour, a Bethlehem tour guide, points to the Israeli-only roads that crisscross through her village, as an example of Israel’s land grab. She compares it to the Wall, which she sees as created in order to steal her birthright inch by inch. When questioned as to how she responds to the reason Israel gives for the fence—namely the security of its citizens—she brushes it off. Yet, as someone who was in Israel during the height of the intifada and experienced the palpable fear on the streets, I know that the security aspect cannot be so casually dismissed .
Leila’s anger is echoed by many Bethlehem residents I come across, including Siham. Siham, who lives in Al-Walaje, has seen her house demolished three times. The fate of the residents of Al-Walaje shakes my preconceptions. The village was divided in half when Israel was established in 1948. However in the Six-Day War, Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem included the rest of Al-Walaje. Now Al-Walaje’s residents have West Bank ID cards, but the land is considered part of Jerusalem. The legal limbo they find themselves in prevents them from building new houses or living on existing ones.
If I were Siham, I would have left a long time ago. But she will not. This is her small victory, what Palestinians call sumad or steadfastness. Unfortunately, I intuitively understand her love of the land. Diaspora Jews have been looking toward Zion for 2,000 years. The psalmist declares “If I forget thee Oh Jerusalem, it is like I have forgotten my right hand.” Unfortunately, Siham’s attachment and mine are over the same hill and bush.
It is because of this that I fear the children the most. I assume they do not understand the nuances, the years of history and to them I am akin to a green uniform and suffering. But Noor, age ten, runs in offering Bamba and chocolate. Playing with Noor, and her friends Maharam, and Rahna reminded me of my time as a Jewish Community Center camp counselor back in Washington DC. By the end of the day I was their ucht, sister.
Spending those two days in Bethlehem left me unsettled if not confused about how to view the State of Israel, how to view my years of Jewish history lessons, and how to understand my own historical narrative in light of their own. Over the course of this year, I have spent a lot of time searching for answers to these questions, and have met with leading professors, politicians, and thinkers to discuss the situation, from a variety of perspectives—cultural, religious, economic and even archeological. It is good to talk to experts but it is just as, if not more, important to understand and experience the lives of people on the receiving end of history. Reading Ha’aretz in my apartment in Jerusalem every morning, I scan for news from Bethlehem, of police raids or protests or crime, and I think of Leila and Noor 15 minutes away.

Cultural Judaism

2007-12-23T07:43:00.000-08:00

On Monday I visited the newly built Beit Avi Chai on Hamelech George to see the photography exhibit “Beginning Photographs 1948-1968” by David Harris. During the founding of the State, Harris was essentially the national photographer of Israel and almost all the known pictures during that time period were by him. The photographs reflect the Zionist message and all portray Israel in a positive light. In them the “New Jew” as rugged and tough as depicted in novels such as Exodus.
For me there was something very comforting in looking at these photographs. I have been calling this year, “my year of critical thinking in Israel”, and following my weekend in Bethlehem, I have become much more cynical of Israel than ever before. Harris’s photos reminded me that Israel was once was a land of refugee and hope for Jews all over the world; his photographs of Jews from Yemen, Tripoli, and Egypt adapting to Israeli life portray that great Zionist experiment at it’s best. From Iraqi Jews being trained in the military to arrival of a ship from Genoa, Israel served as a melting pot of Jews from different countries. There is one photograph taken at the Kotel the first Shabbat after the 6 Day War—a few years ago the feelings that photo would have stirred in me would have been obvious, but now everything seems much more complex.
****

Following my new found love for Beit Avi Chai, the next day I went to a lecture on depictions of Gan Eden by artists throughout the ages. The excellent and informative lecture featured some of my favorites such as Durer’s “Adam and Eve” and Bosch’s “Garden of Eden”. One thing that struck me was how many kippot and hats were scattered throughout the audience. That is something I love about Israel. In America, if I go to a play or a concert I never see anyone overtly religious, but if I go to a Broadway performance of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolored dreamcoat it looks like Moshava on visiting day. For some reason the importance of art and culture has not been conveyed to the Orthodox community in America. Is it a money issue? Is it one of time? I don’t know. To be sure there are many exceptions—those who are experts in Bach and Shakespeare and make it to Daf Yomi and Minyan— but they are few and far between. It is something that I always find frustrating, For example on Thursday, I met a clearly intelligent Ivy-league educated American who seemed to have no interest in the outside world. Israelis are somehow comfortable intertwining their religious and cultural lives.
As a further confirmation, today I went to the Ticho house to see a lovely exhibit entitled “A Room of Her Own”. The exhibit featured portraits of women from the Israel Museum by artists such as Picasso, Modigliani, and Renoir. (Plus a personal favorite: Andy Warhol’s portrait of Sarah Bernhardt from Ten Portraits of Jews of the 20th Century.) As I was walking into the exhibit I saw a man in a Kippa Sruga davening mincha on the side. I would like to see that at the Met!

The Remembering Business

2007-12-05T00:54:00.000-08:00

“God of Our Fathers
You chose Abraham and his descendants
To bring you name to the Nations;
We are deeply saddened
By the behavior of those
Who in the course of history
Have caused these children of yours to suffer
And asking your forgiveness
We wish to commit ourselves
To genuine brotherhood
With the people of the Covenant”

Pope John Paul II placed this prayer in the Western Wall on a trip to Israel in January 2000. The Catholic Church has come along way since the Spanish Inquisition and ever since 1965, when the Nostre Aetate was issued, the Catholic Church has rejected communal Jewish responsibilities for the crucifixion and condemned all persecution and displays of anti-Semitism towards Jews. However, for many this statement came to late and the Catholic Church has been grappling with its silent— and not so silent role— in the Holocaust. On Sunday I attended a ceremony where a Menorah was given to the Cardinal of Jerusalem to place in his church. The 6 branches of the Menorah represent the 6 million Jews who died in the Holocaust, and is a replication of one that was given to Pope John Paul II and now in the Vatican. In my blog I have often been skeptical and derisive of past interfaith events but there was something very genuine in the giving and the receiving of the Menorah.
I could not help but be reminded of the ceremony later that night when I saw the film Along Came Tourist. The German film, follows the narrative of Sven, a German twenty-something, who comes to Auschwitz to do his National Service. While the story focuses on his relationships with a Survivor, a Camp Tour guide and ultimately himself, an underlying motif of the film is the commodification of the Holocaust. Which is a topic I think every modern Jew must think about—wanting to preserve the memory of the Holocaust but doing so with integrity. While watching the film I remembered how shocked I was when at Auschwitz I saw residential houses a few feet from the Camp. That normal life can exist where as Sven said “the greatest tragedy of human existence occurred” chilled me to the core.
Today I saw a documentary entitled Fate Did Not Let Me Go. The movie, narrated by Martin Sheen, tells the life story of one woman who was killed in Terezenstadt. Mere days before she died she wrote what is essentially an Ethical Will to her son in America. Her son received the letter in the mail forty years afterwards at the age of 79. The letter is incredibly moving, speaking of simple love in the face of such horrible circumstances. Watching the film, I realized that in some ways I (and perhaps my generation) have become numb to the Holocaust. I have been saturated with so many stories and so many images that in some ways it is easier to turn off. Among my friends Holocaust jokes abound. I wonder what it is like for those ten years younger then me…

Off the Wall

2007-12-02T04:41:00.000-08:00

Ramot. Gilo. Neve Yaakov.
To me all of these neighborhoods are part of established Jerusalem. It was then very jarring to see them on a map in East Jerusalem—something that I childishly have never really thought about. Recently I went on a tour with Ir Amim around the Separation wall/barrier/fence/____. Ir Amim is a non-profit association dedicated to an equitable, stable and sustainable Jerusalem. While my feelings on the barrier are extremely mixed it was hurtful to see the wall covered in anti-Zionist, anti-Israel slogans including “From the Warsaw ghetto to the Abu Dis Ghetto” and “Balls to Walls”. We visited Har Homa, a settlement recently built in East Jerusalem where I have cousins and saw how both Israelis and Palestinians are racing to establish “facts on the ground.” Seeing how a man is separated from his olive grove and thus his livelihood, by a cement wall is tragic, but it seems to be obvious that the wall has let me go to restaurants, cafes, and malls without giving security a second thought. Perhaps the only way to accept the wall is through the lens of the absurd which I think this performance artist does well here in promoting the next World Cup over the Separation Barrier.

Week in Review

2007-11-23T02:55:00.001-08:00

In typical me fashion here is Top Five from this week.

1. Ode to the Oud
The Oud festival came to a close this week in Jerusalem. The Oud “a pear-shaped, stringed instrument” reminds me of a chubby guitar. A throaty sensual rhythm emanates from its base, drawing me in every time. I was lucky enough to attend two remarkable events during the festival. One was entitled 'Sufi Song and Dance,” a tragic love story between the Oud player and his dancer. The other was a night with David Broza and Yair Dalal. Yair Dalal is the best Oud player in the world, and David Broza was in all his middle-age rocker glory, singing many old favorites. I can’t wait for Oud 2008!

2. I Felt the Earth Move from Under My Feet
There was an earthquake in Jerusalem this week! I was diligently learning in Pardes when I felt something shake under me. I thought I was imagining it but it turned out everyone else felt it too. I discovered later that it was a minor earthquake.

3. Jazz Hands
I saw a documentary this week on Arnie Lawrence, a legendary jazz musician who played with some of the greats. While watching I realized that even though I enjoy jazz, I don’t know enough about it. Perhaps some of the Barnard jazz fans will help me out?

4. Mezonot Rolls
Yesterday I went to the wedding of a guy I went to nursery, middle and high school with. The bride wore four veils. Enough said.

5. Where’s the Cranberry Sauce?
Imagine what happens when a resident from Alun Shvut attempts to make a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. Who said canned fruit isn’t delicious?

Because I Heart Jonathan Safran Foer....

2007-11-19T06:09:00.000-08:00

Rav Avrahm Kook was one.
Franz Kafka was one.
Isaac Bashevis Singer wrote that after the Holocaust he had no choice but to become one.
Jewish Vegetarianism. In the circles I travel in this concept is all the rage. There are constantly lectures and shiurim linking Biblical commandments, verses, and stories to global warming, healthy eating, and abstaining from meat. And while I really do see the myriad of problems in the meat industry, and am truly upset by them (I even gave vegetarianism a try a while back) I object to those who read 21st century values back into the text.
Yesterday I went to a movie entitled A Sacred Duty: Applying Jewish Values to Help Heal the World. The movie started and finished with the injunction in the Torah ”VChay B’hem” (and you shall live by them)—this is a verse usually interpreted to mean the commandments and not the eco-system. The whole movie was an attack on those who choose to eat meat. Which is fine. But not when it’s couched in Jewish terms. Yes in the Garden of Eden, according to most commentaries, no meat was eaten, but Judaism and Jewish history is replete with examples of meat being at the center of worship (Korbanot anyone?). I found the statement of one of the rabbis featured that “Today's reality should lead any honest religious Jew to see that vegetarianism is a religious imperative," offensive to say the least. I feel very strongly that the treatment of animals today is a problem of tzaar baali chayim (cruelty to animals) and that is something I must grapple with as an observant Jew and a meat eater. However the movie, which relied on graphic pictures to pull on viewers’ heartstrings, did not prove to me that the Writer of the Torah would haven chosen a tofu burger over a beef patty.

Also the Oxford American Dictionary has chosen a new word (from the New York Times):

The 2007 Word of the Year is (drum-roll please) locavore.

The past year saw the popularization of a trend in using locally grown ingredients, taking advantage of seasonally available foodstuffs that can be bought and prepared without the need for extra preservatives.

Don’t Go Chasing Waterfalls

2007-11-13T14:08:00.000-08:00

The Hebrew word for flood is Ha-tz-phah.
I know that because my apartment had one today—big time.
I came home from a morning of intense Talmud study to find my roommate in a towel trying to stem the tide. Unfortunately it didn’t work and soon one half of the apartment was covered in water. We tried to spongee it out the best we could but it kept spreading and spreading. Finally the water ebbed and we managed to get it all out onto the porch. The emergency plumber came and saved the day. But I now know that my usual storage method of the floor has dangers that I never anticipated.

Be All that You can Be

2007-11-12T05:24:00.000-08:00

A group of soldiers sleep on a bus.
Dressed in full uniform, their heads roll back in their seats lost in slumber.
In this one instance we see their youth and vulnerability.
The photograph taken by the Israeli artist Adi Ness is featured in an exhibit entitled Bare Life at the Museum on the Seam in Jerusalem. The exhibit is made up of political pieces focusing on human rights and the divide between the State and its citizens.
Ness uses his photograph to depict “tired men in a tired country led like sheep to the slaughter”, wearing uniforms that symbolize strength and authority but also mark them as targets.
This piece caught my eye because I have been spending a lot of this past month thinking about the IDF and its role in Israeli society. Two weeks ago I visited an army base near Ramallah and Beit El. The soldiers I met spent most of their days conducting house searches and arrests in the Palestinian territories. The just-barely eighteen year-old men described their house to house searches and immediately I visions of human rights violations swam in my head. After the base I listened to a speaker who refused to serve in the West Bank. For some reason I assumed I would agree with him and respect him, but it turned out I could not sympathize with him at all. All I could think about were those man-boys who were serving in his stead. I grew up thinking those in the Israeli army were superheroes, who did the good and the right for the sake of the Jewish people. As I grew older I realized that it was a bit more complicated and that even Israelis are human and fallible. But even though I have read the articles and seen the news footage of actions conducted by the IDF that I vehemently disagree with, there is something drawing me back to their green— albeit slightly tarnished— uniforms.

The Road Home

2007-11-10T08:19:00.000-08:00

I spend so much time thinking about the Arab-Israeli conflict and the unbridgeable gap between the two sides that I often get discouraged—but tonight I realized that true cross-cultural understanding, merely involves sky-blue uniforms, a clarinet, and a roller rink.
The lighthearted and wickedly funny film, ‘The Band’s Visit’ is a clever twist on the classic tale of seemingly opposite peoples forced to spend a significant portion of time together.
The movie is a bit like ‘Little Miss Sunshine’ on crack. A police orchestra from Alexandria Egypt arrives in Israel to play at the opening of an Arab cultural center. Stranded at the airport the group tries to navigate on their own and through various bureaucratic mishaps and misunderstandings the band ends up in Beit HaTikvah, instead of Petach Tikvah, a small sleepy town in the middle of nowhere. Forced to spend the night, the stiff and proper group interacts with varying degrees of success with the local inhabitants.
Tewfiq, the strict authoritarian conductor whose mournful eyes hint at hidden secrets, is befriended (and propositioned) by Dina, the effusive resturanteer. Khalid, the ladies man of the group, plays Cyrano for one local Israeli boy – in one hilarious scene explicitly showing him what to do with a woman. Band members staying in the home of an unemployed man and his family manage to add tension to an already fragile marriage.
The band is also fearful it may soon be dismantled due to budgetary concerns. When asked why the police would need an orchestra, Tewfiq showing the camera his utter despair responds “Its like asking why a man needs a soul.”
Politics is not overtly mentioned in the film but it bubbles beneath the surface – we see it in the way many of the Israeli characters interact with the Egyptians, the obvious discomfort of one orchestra member who is forced to eat next to enlarged photographs of the victorious Six-Day war. Although the film, written and directed by Eran Kolirin, focuses on the tensions between Egyptians and Israelis the film is more about what happens to strangers coming into a foreign land. The movie is so captivating because of its universal nature. Who isn’t familiar with that feeling of panic upon realizing you are stranded in a strange lace and unsure how to proceed.
Like with most travel at the end the band learns much about their hosts but even more about themselves While there are enough self-discovery moments for the movie to risk veering into maudlin territory the hilarity of the situations brings it back to sharp comedy.
This movie has met with great commercial and critical success in Israel and abroad but was disqualified from the American Oscars in the foreign film category because there is too much English. It will be interesting to see if it meets the same big box office sales in America.

The Place Where We are Right

2007-11-04T13:25:00.001-08:00

Today I went to an exhibit at the Museum on the Seam, reminding me of my last visit there 8 years ago. It was there that I was introduced to my favorite poet—Yehuda Amichai. Amichai uses his poetry to critique Israel and Israeli society, yet he always does it gently and his love for his country comes across in every word he writes. Amichai has a special love for the city of Jerusalem and it is featured in much of his work. As I straddle the line between visitor and resident, I remember a line from his poem ‘Love of Jerusalem’: “he who loves Jerusalem / by the tourist book or the prayer book/ is like one who loves a woman / by a manual of sex positions.”

As I walked home from the museum I passed Agron Street where there was about to be a demonstration against giving up any part of Jerusalem in the upcoming “peace talks”. I couldn’t help but remember one of my favorite Amichai poems and wonder whether there will ever be a chance for genuine dialogue.

The Place Where We Are Right

From the place where we are right
Flowers will never grow
In the spring.

The place where we are right
Is hard and trampled
Like a yard.

But doubts and loves
Dig up the world
Like a mole, a plow.
And a whisper will be heard in the place
Where the ruined
House once stood.

HaMatmid (The Talmud Student)

2007-10-31T14:44:00.000-07:00

There were a lot of things that I worried about before coming to Israel but returning to the Beit Midrash was not one of them. Over the course of my year at Midreshet Lindenbaum (or the Brov) the Beit Midrash became a safe space for me. I went there to learn, pray, hangout, or just to collect my thoughts. At the beginning of Penn the Beit Midrash served the same function. However over time as I learned (and prayed) less and less, my Beit Midrash attendance slowed as well. Yet I always assumed that it would be there if I needed it. So when I started at Pardes I looked forward to Chevruta time and spending some time in the Beis. But immediately I noticed something was off- I didn’t know where anything was, I had no “makom” (regular spot), and it was so crowded I couldn’t hear myself think. But all of those things would be fine if I felt comfortable there. I guess before I knew why I was in the Beit Midrash—to learn and grow as a religious Jew. Now I have no idea. I enjoy learning but that is pretty much it. So instead of comfort the Beit Midrash only creates insecurities. Will that change over time? I hope so. But I guess I’ll see.

Something else interesting is how committed and serious everyone is at Pardes. At Brovendors, Chevruta time was when you caught up with friends, ate breakfast/lunch/dinner, and had those intensely personal conversations that somehow only come out over a page of Talmud. If we had 3 hours of Chevruta, at least 50% was not spent on task. At Pardes it’s different. During Chevruta people chat a little but mostly focus on learning. I think it is because at Brovendors people are there for different reasons: parental pressure, high school norms, wanting to push off college. At Pardes, everyone is a college graduate and could be working or in graduate school, but instead chose to come to Israel to engage in Torah study. It’s a completely different atmosphere from Brov. The other day, I was speaking to a former Brovendors teacher who now teaches a class at Pardes. While he seemed a bit suspicious of Pardes as an institution, he admitted he had never had students who were so interested in what he had to say. Another friend who is taking a class at Brovendors was amazed when she came the first day and all the girls were talking, text messaging etc. while the teacher was speaking. Something like that would never happen at Pardes, just like it would never happen in a college seminar. But don’t think I’m knocking Brovendors. Remember the girls there learn from 8:30-10pm every day and are just 18 years old! Kudos to them.

You Say You Want a Revolution....

2007-10-29T05:39:00.001-07:00

Finally! This article describes how one agunah is suing the Justice Ministry for the mismanagement of her divorce case. Nothing frustrates me more than the agunah issue in Jewish law- which is probably why I spend so much of my life working on it. I’m so happy someone, at long last, is forcing the Israeli courts to deal with it.

Smooth Move

2007-10-28T08:56:00.000-07:00

On Wed. night I sprained my foot running down the stairs. I brushed it off, telling the person I was with I was fine even though I was not. Only towards at the end of the night when walking caused tears to roll down my face did I admit I might be in pain. I spent the night not able to move from my bed. Being immobile and unable to leave my room reminded me of my illness this summer. My cancer is something I hate to talk about and try to forget ever happened, but at certain points something or someone will remind me and the thoughts cut into me like sharp knives, leaving me shaken. I hate to talk about it because the one thing I cannot stand is being pitied. I hate asking people for help and I hate being perceived as weak. Which is why if someone asks if they can hold something for me, my immediate response is no, and if someone asks me if I’m ok my automatic response is that I’m fine. But the one thing I learned this summer is that sometimes I’m not Ok. And sometimes I do need help. Maybe that’s the lesson from this summer-sometimes asking doesn’t make you less of a person but more of one.
So when I woke up after my fall without being able to move my foot, I summoned up my courage and texted my friends to see what they were up to. I needed help not sympathy and they readily supplied it—taking me to the doctor, buying what I needed for Shabbat. And to them it was obvious that they would help because I would do the same for them. And for me I learned to let myself lean (both figuratively and literally) on someone else.

Welcome to Nahariya (bienvenido a Nahariya)

2007-10-23T06:34:00.000-07:00

I spent this past Shabbat with two friends in Nahariya. Guide books call it the “crown jewels” of Israel’s beaches but to be honest I was reminded more of Cubit Zirconia. Nahariya is a beach town in the North of Israel that has been in the news in recent years due to Katyusha rocket attacks from Lebanon. I’m not sure if this has changed the character of the city but Nahariya reminds me of an Atlantic City beach town. Rundown hotels, small bars, and seedy kiosks litter the sidewalks. Although the city was founded by Yekke Jews in 1934, now it is more common to hear Russian on the streets than German. Nahariya is a popular destination for tourists in the Summer or Spring. But I love going to places off season (see sarah; summer; part one; asia): it’s cheaper, you get individual attention, the second time you visit you are a regular. The nightlife may not have been as poppin’ as one might like, but the weather was perfect, the water was blue, and the days were relaxing. It was a Gutten Shabbos.

"Because of My Brother, My Friend"

2007-10-21T05:47:00.000-07:00

45 people are squeezed into a living room on Harlap Street in Jerusalem singing the old camp favorite L’man Achai Vreya. Normally associated with Seudat Shilishit, tonight Palestinians, Sheiks, and nun are all singing as well. On Wed night I went to an evening of poetry, prayer and music sponsored by Jerusalem Peacemakers. The event centered around “tulip” meditation, Hawaiian Jewish folk songs, and holy scents.
Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves but it reminded me of my issue with interfaith dialogue to begin with. Interfaith dialogue—in theory I’m all for it—I believe the way for people to destroy their prejudices is to communicate with one another. But what happens when those communicating have already eliminated these prejudices? In most interfaith groups this seems to be the case.
The most interesting part of the evening was a conversation before the event when I spoke to a group of Palestinians who had come from a village near Hebron. It had taken them four days to get clearance to come to Jerusalem, and as one showed me he had a permit to be in Israel for only 23 hours which he was violating by sitting in the room. He was an owner of a minimart, another was a taxi driver, and another studied at the Open University. We got by on a mixture of English and Hebrew but communication was very difficult. Odded explained that he came to this event to change people’s minds and to change the perception of Palestinians among Americans and Israelis. When we asked if there was violence in his village- he was quick to say that resistance is not violence. And he explained that peace would come if Israel gave back all the West Bank and Gaza.
So this is what always bothers me about these things… there is an assumption that Israel is guilty and must atone in order for things to normalize. And clearly Israel is not innocent and has done many atrocious things. But no side is innocent in this conflict And it seems to me that all of these interfaith programs start with the assumption that Israel is in the wrong and all the Israelis/Jews there are attempting to assuage their guilt. And I do not know if I always feel comfortable being put in the criminal position.
I guess my face betrayed some of my discomfort because Odded changed topics to his home life. When I asked about his children he quickly whipped out a cell phone to display pictures of his one year old daughter. The man next to him pushed him aside to show me pictures of his two-week old daughter on his cell phone. At least that was something we all could agree on.

The Giving Tree

2007-10-15T15:13:00.000-07:00

There is a beggar lying on the street of Ben Yehuda across from the Frozen yogurt stand. The old man sleeps on a styrofoam mattress with a disposable plastic cup in his hand, while I eat my raspberry-chocolate-pecan fro-yo a few feet away. People step over him in between jewellery/ clothes/ souvenir shopping. Chabad has set up a Tefillin booth in front of him that receives a lot of traffic. Some stop to put some change in his cup but he is mostly ignored.
This is a pretty common sight in Jerusalem, where you can’t walk anywhere without someone asking you for some Tzedaka. But what is our obligation to give those in need? Not the monthly donations to reputable charitable organizations but to the man on the street asking if you could spare a quarter. I always grew up surrounded by two opposing schools of thought. One (mostly from my parents) was that if someone is in the situation that they have to demean themselves to ask you for money then you should give— what they do with it is their business. The other (mostly from friends) was not to give and to look at everyone as a potential drug dealer or miscreant. I never know what to do or who to believe.
Then of course there are always the good souls who think giving food is the key- as one kind woman bent over and offered the old man a pomegranate. A POMEGRANATE? It seems a rather impractical choice; will he use it as an accent to a salad later on in the day? I’m not sure the thought counts for this one.
Suddenly competition on Ben Yehuda develops. A group of MMY girls have set up a lemonade stand for Tzedakah. Their youth, perkiness, and charmingly broken Hebrew make them the most successful game in town.
For the record I gave the old man 5 shekel (compare to my daily 18 shekel ice coffee light) and a cup of MMY infused lemonade.

Hipster Chic

2007-10-14T08:43:00.000-07:00

I have a secret. I'm a fraud. I pretend to be a highbrow intellectual
but in reality, I'd rather watch the newest episode of Weeds then go
to the grand opening of a MET opera. What always reveals my poser
status is when I attend something in the "modern art" genre. Tonight I
went to a night of performance art and video at Beit Ticho. The
exhibitions included a woman painting her wrist over and over again
with gold paint, 3 blindfolded women groping each other, and two
schoolgirls playing a game while a zebra danced between them. Sigh.
Isn't art supposed to enlighten and bring you to a higher place—these
just made me want to go to another place. It would have been fun if
there were more people to laugh at the men in metal cages with but
everyone else took these performances so seriously. Is it me? Can I be
a hipster without appreciating a man wearing a Zebra head and not much
else? To be fair some of the videos were excellent—there was one that
showed a grandmother cooking gefilte fish and another that set Primo
Levi speeches to German folk tunes. One day I'll learn to appreciate
this art—but until then I'll be enjoying my culture in its lowest
form—the gift of TV on DVD.