Day 7 (cont'd) to Day 12: All That's Left, Ben Yehuda Waking Up After Shabbas, and The Diaspora Museum

Hey again.

I'm gonna just power through.

There's a distinct part of me that thinks I'm writing too much...

But, at the same time, this is only a SHRED of what I've done since I've been here.

So maybe it evens out.

Aval, im zeh lo ha'emet... Well, hopefully you like reading the epic form.

Digest:

I. Tel Aviv Beach and All That's Left
II. Yaffo Street Waking Up After Shabbas, The Case of the Dry Rugelach, and I Found My Heart in Marzipan
III. Ein Kerem: Jerusalem's Only Secular Yeshiva (Steve Sager will want to read this)
IV. David, The Old City, and The Guitar
V. The Jewish Diaspora Museum


I. Tel Aviv Beach and All That's Left

After Emily introduced us to the labyrinth that is human rights law in Israel, our group took a stroll down the the Tel Aviv Beach, the same one upon which I almost stepped on a giant beached jellyfish in 2001.

It's funny how strong memories can influence your future life. I definitely kept my eyes fixed on the sand before me.

After some group check-ins about the week we had while passively creating sand-art, we headed down the road to an "All That's Left" Party. All That's Left is an organization of folks who is interested in building the diaspora angle of resistance to the occupation. The organization is not geared toward BDS (which I'll talk about more in a post later-- being here now makes me actual see and hear the ramifications more personally). Most of the actions are geared towards nonviolent protest against any continuation of military actions that are inhibiting the rights of Arabs in the West Bank (including checkpoints, the security fence/wall, etc.).

I have gone into why these are important issues to understand when you talk about pro or against Israel's actions in the West Bank (which is currently the "occupied territories"). I can go into more detail about this point of view.

But I'm feeling lazy tonight. I think I'll do this in a later post.

If you really have any questions or concerns regarding this position, leave a comment or email me. I'm always game to discuss all of it.

Anyway, the party was filled with Jews from Israel and the diaspora with no real political intention in particular except to eat pizza and drink beer. It was on a rooftop which made the sunset quite glorious. I also kind of captured a nice moment  I found connections to my past: a girl from Colby who was good friends with the one and only Kevin Baier, and the sister of a good friend of mine from AVODAH.

This past paragraph seems pretty trivial in the grand scheme of everything I'm doing here.

Wrong.

This paragraph was to emphasize that human geography is not a lie people. It exists in real time, everywhere you go. Advice: ask questions. You'll find yourself spinning in connections.

II. Yaffo Street Waking Up After Shabbas, Weekends in Jerusalem, The Case of the Dry Rugelach, and I Found My Heart in Marzipan

The first real free Shabbat I spent recuperating. I was still midway through a fist fight with jetlag and I hadn't slept much due to the amount of grad school applications I turned in.

My program-mate (and roommate) David had the same idea. So we both stayed in together, doing small odds and ends around the house so that the maximum amount of time spent walking at any one time was approximately 20 seconds (which was approximately, in turn, .001% of how much walking we did per day over the previous week. Not to mention my Insanity workouts).

After we had sufficiently odded and ended for a bit, we looked into our empty fridge later that evening for some grub and we found that we both would rather eat something than starve.

So, at 6:00 PM, we went down to Ha'rechov Yaffo.

For those of you that don't know, Jerusalem almost completely shuts down from Friday evening to Saturday evening because of Shabbat, the weekly Jewish holiday, that commands us as Jews to take a full day of rest. This is not to say that everyone in Israeli society does this (in fact, almost every Israeli city except Jerusalem continues business as usual), but most stores, bars, and restaurants in Jerusalem generally shut down from sunset on Friday to an hour or so after sunset on Saturday.

Another quick piece of culture shock: weekends in Israel are Friday and Saturday.

Sunday is literally the new Monday.

So at 6:00 PM when we started our stroll, the city proverbially was just starting to wake up following a full day of Shabbat rest. As we continued to walk, we began to see more people start to show up on the nightlight scene. Yaffo calmly spouted 7 or 8 people toward us every half a minute, and the rate grew with time.

We stopped at a felafel joint for some cheap fuel and continued on in the semi-ghost town.

And then I made a bad decision.

On the corner of King George and Yaffo, a pastry shop sat coyly with all its various delicacies displayed visibly in the 40 foot long 10 foot high window. For the first week, I indiscriminately decided I would also find the best rugelach in Jerusalem. With the ornate and impressive displace, I thought I had found my place. So I went in, paid a shekhel for a rugelach and bit in.

Oh was I so so wrong.

It had no moisture. I literally was eating chocolate on paper towels.

Granted, I finished it. I needed to prove to myself that, well, I had to deal with my own mistakes. And remember that I should probably not judge a book by its cover.

And so the search carried on until...

MARZIPAN.

The pastry shop lurks unsuspectedly in Machaneh Yehuda like a skinny kid in sumo wrestling ring.

Don't be fooled. This skinny kid makes the most delicious chocolate rugelach I've ever tasted.

Our Hebrew teacher Itamar came in with a huge box of them to share. They looked pretty soggy from the get go, so I was a little bit worried. But then after that first bite..................

I'm drooling. This is gloriously gross.

Oh. AND it's vegan. So vegans can enjoy too!

III. The Ein Kerem Bina: Jerusalem's Only Secular Yeshiva

The next day, Hebrew Itamar took us on a walk through the Jerusalem Forest that led to the pleasant little town of Ein Karem. This town is most known for being the birthplace of John the Baptist and the spring where Mary and Elizabeth met, and thus most of the people we saw came in search of these monuments.

Again, as most of you know, Jerusalem is holy to all three Abrahamic faiths.

Just as emphasis, a block down from there, we stopped at a place called the Bina. The Bina is a secular Jewish Yeshiva that gives folks the opportunity to learn from ancient Jewish texts without express religious intent. Lessons here root from the same general inquiry: how can we bring ethics, values, and traditions within Judaism into use in the modern day setting?

To be honest, this was a nice refreshment from what I perceived to be a very religion-heavy yeshiva crowd in Jerusalem. To see this existed brought me back to text studies with Rabbi Sager, and I was happy to see that yet another important piece of my life had followed me here. Hopefully I can sit in on a class or two and channel my inner Sager!

IV. David, The Old City, and The "Guitar"

The Old City might be one of the more beautiful walks in this entire city. To see this walk (featuring my own story about the Muslim Quarter and the beautiful fabrics/gifts from all the shop owners around the old city, see my videos here, here, and here.

And then. A story. I'll start it in the middle:

*I will demarcate my thoughts in the present moment in normal font, and my thoughts thirty minutes after in italics*

"Your dad is Muslim?"

David and I had stumbled into a very-hard-to-get-out-of situation. Most of it was my fault. I should have been more guarded against merchants in the Old City as I had been back in 2005.

But I guess I lost some of my willpower since then, cause there we were being handled by an expert haggler.

"Your dad is Muslim?"

"Yes. He's Muslim. Why?"

"Ok. You swear he's Muslim?"

"Yes. I swear."

"Ok. Ok. Listen. I never give this deal to anyone but because you are Muslim, I'll make this deal. 150 shekels and you take it home."

At this point, I'm feeling quite happy about the fact that my father is Muslim. A deal because of my identity? Well that's mighty nice of you, after I had already felt the limit of my identity.

Damn. This guy was good.

But I didn't have any money to pay him; I didn't plan on getting this far into a haggle, and I was already kind of hesitant about this guitar we might buy. But I felt bad! We were wasting this man's time if we said no!

Yup. All part of his plan.

David offered to pay because we were both going to contribute this to the house.

David looks at me and says to me, "You sure you want to do this? I mean, we should maybe think about this before we do it."

Voice of reason.

Melek, our merchant, was not amused. In fact, he felt completely affronted, turning on David and unleashing the following sermon:

"Why are you cut my business? I give you a good deal and you repay me by cutting my business? That's not nice man. I'm here trying to be a good Muslim and helping another Muslim and you're not going to be happy about that? You cut my business and I don't appreciate anyone who cut my business. These people are bad people and I don't like them. I can tell you're not a bad person so why are you cutting my business?"

Damned good actor.

At that point I was feeling like I had to buy this thing.

He played on my Western guilt and man, did he succeed. You didn't even get to test it out first! You thought that it was good from the get go

What was most astonishing about this situation was how little I thought about anything going wrong.

But I did. Somehow in that moment, I did think that nothing about this was wrong.

"Ok. I'll take it."

Oops.

"Tamem."

As he put the guitar into two plastic bags I had a moment where I could say no.

You probably should have.

But I thought, no. This will be fine. And if not, I know how to fix guitars.

Errr, no you know how to fix strings and change the action. Frets? Body? That's kind of out of your skill set.

So we walk away from the store

Dumbass.

and continued our journey up to Sha'ar Shchem/Bab al a7mood (Damascus Gate).

Thirty minutes later

I take the guitar out of the plastic bag and begin to play it.

First fret, good.

Second fret, good.

Third fret.......

uh oh.

Third fret doesn't exist. In fact if you put your finger there, you play the fourth fret.

*CUE ALL ITALICIZED THOUGHTS*

Hopefully I can find a way to fix this problem on the guitar.... we'll see what I'm capable of.

At the very least, even though I am not myself a Muslim by religion, I know enough about the religion to carry on a conversation with Melek about what it means to be a "good Muslim."

V. The Jewish Diaspora Museum at Tel Aviv University

This was a weird trip. My group and I are all Diasporic Jews... so we were going there, essentially, to learn about ourselves.

But, so we did. And some significant lightbulb moments and "so true" situations did happen about what it means to be a Jew in the diaspora. (Special question addressed to Rabbi Steve Sager and Rabbi Daniel Greyber here, and a pretty wonderful truth about Jews here).

Also the amount of history and famous figures throughout history that they compiled was IMMENSE. I definitely could have lived in the history of culture section for like, a decade, and still have not made my way through all of it.

But, in the same right, there were two moments that left me VERY conflicted.

1) There were several moments where history was completely glossed over or oversimplified. One example was in the plaque within the remembrance section, which itself was a very beautiful and well thought out portion of the museum. Though I was unable to get a picture of it, what it said, in its essential terms, was that 6 million Jews perished at the hands of the Nazis (which is true) and that we must always remember this fact as Jews.

• Yes. I obviously agree with this statement. But I would go one step further. There were 6 million other people that died as well, and that this is somehow not important to Jewish identity and remembrance is a little peculiar to me. The souls of our ancestors are important to remember and honor (z"l), but... I think it a little careless to present our people as bent on preserving memory and not really thinking much about those who died alongside us, especially when such a thought is a very distinct characteristic of being a diaspora Jew.
• The answer is yes, I think this way because I am a multi-cultural Jew, think of myself beyond just as a Jew, and thus think of others in the world who have different identities like mine who have been called out or persecuted because of their identity. I honestly think it wrong for Judaism to be branded as a religion that thinks of its people more than others, when the reality is that I, as a Jew, does not along with many other Jews who work tirelessly to make the world a better place for everyone.

2) A second moment I felt a little uneasy was near the end where it talked about "where to next," and it then showed "the thing that unites all of Judaism around the world is Israel."

• Listen, I agree that this is something that can unite all Jews in the world. Everyone around the world has some connection to Israel. 
• At the same time, I think this is a completely misleading line. Some people who are Jewish do not connect to Israel as a way to show that they are Jewish. Their lineage, values, and traditions may be Jewish in how they live their life on the ground, and their political or emotional allegiance to the state has no bearing on this fact.
• Ok. Israel is the place that was promised to us and, by tradition, we must have a connection. Say this is the case. Well, there are some that say, "No I don't want to go back-- my tradition has changed to the modern era. Israel contains my Jewish brothers. But the state does not reflect my genuine identity as a Jew. So I'm sorry. I can't sign onto this.
• I myself am in the midst of this struggle: trying to contend with the actions of a state I should probably love according to my tradition, yet also trying to maintain my values of justice, peace-making, and love for those in our community regardless of background. I'm also trying to contend with Palestinians in the same realm. Why? Everyone in this land loves it, and so do I, and thus we have at least some connection, a community, that needs to be formed, taken care of, and honored. Is this not the root of all Jewish narrative--to start to see the situation from all the difference perspectives, establish a community based on the exchange and argument of ideas, and work together to help everyone in the same place? That we must work for the betterment of ourselves in the context of our neighbor and be able to use power not as a way to ensure our own goals, but for the goal of people who are similar to us? 
• People ask how should you do this. How how how. How it will do so is very hard, but after several conversations with both sides on the ground here, I have found that a significant number of people here want, at the root, to be part of a community of people living peacefully. Yes, conflict will happen as it happens in every society. But many are tired of fighting. Many are tired of dying. Many are tired of being afraid. Many are tired of oppressing one another and being repressing by one another. The systems are old and they're in need of a tune up, and with it the state here in Israel is going to have to change in order for any of the ideals in "HaTikvah" for the land of Zion, and if the government or people on the ground on either side doesn't want this, then they will have to put up with the number of people worldwide that are growing tired and more passionate about making this land a place that people can live without a violent conflict to worry about.
• Many of which are going to be Jews who have found their soul in the values, culture, and traditions of justice, peace, and love within your community.
• But again, these are the people I've talked to. I've also talked to people who are evicting Palestinians from their homes in East Jerusalem, who hate Jews because of what the IDF does to them and they wish that the land of Israel would be wiped away, who hate secular Jews because they are not close enough to God, who launch rockets aimlessly or vandalize property all the while telling their God that it is good and to guide them in their quest, who think all of Judea and Samaria need to be a part of Israel in order to fulfill the true message of the promised land.... and so on.
• There is a lot of work to be done to make this a reality. I want to be a part of this in any way that I can. I hope that security, justice, opportunity, and peace can be held by the majority of people here, instead of with those that are currently left with them because of how history has transpired and because of how they interpret needs of their respective state/people.
• And... this is again all my perspective up until this time. Who knows what will change in the next couple of months. But this is why I take issue with the conclusion of the museum, which placed Israel as a centerpiece to the Diaspora Jewish identity.

I can only hope, along with many other people here, that the talks occurring right now are working. Cause they need to, and they need to desperately.

If not... I actually legitimately fear that things will start to brim over here.

But Tel Aviv University was nice. I even found some of Julie Finkel and Hilary Neher's footprints.