Travel Log #17

September 22, 2009

It has been a long time since I have written. Lack of internet has played a large factor in this. Hopefully, I will soon be back in the technological realm of existence. Meanwhile, I have been sharing one computer kiosk with over one-hundred people.

Two-and-a-half weeks ago, I moved to Ashkelon, a city on the sea, seven miles north of the Gaza border, along with thirty-seven other OTZMAnikim. We live in an immigrant absorption center: Mercaz Klita Kalanit. Kalanit= a kind of flower. In the front yard, there are etrog trees. The fruit will be ripe in time for sukkot, a week-and-a-half from now. Baby etrogim fall from the trees. We sit in circles and throw them at each other. I scratch the skin and smell like citrus. The oil does not bother me, so perhaps it is only oranges and grapefruits that dislike me.

Kalanit is empty, other than us, a few dozen college students, and three families. During its golden age, it had hundreds, so many you couldn't find a seat on the lawn or benches. Now, it is nearly empty. We have been placed here with high hopes. We are expected to save it from extinction. Money dries up here, very much like everywhere else. Money dries up here like water but our time is still spent.

In the mornings, we got to Ulpan. I am placed in the "advanced" class, meaning intermediate. There are only two levels: those who spend their time learning the aleph-bet, starting from absolutely nothing, and those of us who speak just a little. Today, I went out and bought a dictionary. My problem is not a lack of understanding. It is a fear of speaking, a lack of confidence.

We are here to volunteer. I have found what I was looking for: a dance floor. Ballroom dancers in this country number merely seven hundred. Ninety percent of these dancers are Russian. The method of teaching is as foreign to me as the Russian language. The instructors do not promote teams, only couples. Couples do interact with one another. They are enemies. "We would all benefit it we dance together," I say, knowing this from experience. "No. We are Russian. It's not going to happen," is all I am told. And that is supposedly the end of that. I will see what three months of American influence can do. Social dancing does not exist here. The dance floor is full of animosity and competition. I begin dancing three days a week: Sunday, Monday, Wednesday. On Thursdays, I tutor Russians in English. I help beginners dance and I am allowed to take the overly-priced classes for free. It is good to be an OTZMAnik. Ashkelon has been made a volunteer city and we are volunteers. We are highly revered. Last Wednesday, the mayor came to us. Kalanit threw him a party for us.

On Thursday night, we were taken to Jerusalem for slichot, a spiritual all-nighter before Rosh Hashana. We got a walking tour of Jerusalem and were then let free on our own with maps that could hardly be made sense of, so that we could go and observe the crack-of-down services. Tallit and tefilin on men dressed in white are nothing new to me. I got lost, ran into others of the group and followed them to our destination, where we were given breakfast. Then, I got on a bus to Tel Aviv and got a train up to Binyamina and Zichron. I have gone there every weekend to be with my adoptive family. It is a always a relief to get away after the long (and hot) weeks in Ashkelon.

This weekend was the New Year. I went to shul on Shabbat, which was nice, and refrained from Quaker Meetings on the second day. Not that there are Quaker Meetings to be had in Zichron. On Sunday, I took a walk in the nature reserve and the botanical gardens with with my friend. The views are gorgeous and the walking is good. I ignore my flat feet.

The wind is good at the those heights, and the view is far and wide. As usual, I am not alone and my celestial companions stand guard everywhere. They remind me constantly:

"You are close to the place where we were born, Little Girl," and all Orders populate the landscape . There are the Orders without names. They are voices only, arrows in suggestive directions. They remind me of my purposes for being here.

I look around at faces, physically young and actually old. Where I come from, young faces accompnay people into adulthood. The world does not press down on us so heavily, so noticeably. There is no need to escape from reality. For most. Here, I look into young faces and see the kind of expression I have always worn looking back. They understand--the world is not easy, it must be carried. Happiness is not free. Here, we know the price.

In high school we were always preached at for being privileged. They showed us pictures of starving children in India or Africa. "Oh, yes," we'd nod our head. "We are privileged," and then go home to our nintendos 64s, reach into our pockets and dole our our money and not our time. We tuck the notion of disadvantage and despair away in a file labeled with a number and not faces. Here, each individual face counts, each individual face counts, each individual life. This is why we come upon dilemmas where we debate trading one soldier for hundreds of prisoners with the pressing knowledge that those released prisoners will mean more lives later, and usually, lives out of uniform. Maybe even our own lives. But this is the way the game is played. We continue. There is nowhere for us to go. It comes down to (once again) the notion of Heimat: "I don't necessarily enjoy living here," someone said, "but I couldn't live anywhere else".

The people here are warm and kind. It is like one big family and for the first time in my life, I feel truly welcomed everywhere. At least outside the typical drama of the living situation. I don't feel unwelcome here, but it's just the typical story with me and my age group. I stay out of the loop. I am through with trivialities. So I branch out to the locals. I get phone numbers and Shabbat dinner invitations. I accept. As usual, I am most popular and most impressed with those a generation older than I am. Still, I have not caught up with myself. It is like waiting for rain in a drought.

But, as the weather proves, be careful what you wish for. The opposite of drought is a flood. Casualties result from both. It has rained non-stop at home. The city is drowning. It has begun to rain here, too, a little bit early. The climate is changing. Nature is angry and in the face of it, our work on the ground is inconsequential. I work anyway. All things in moderation. For an individual, a little can mean a lot. And to save one life is to save an entire world.

The world around me is full of music, fresh fruit, the screams of military airplanes flying low at night, Amharek, Russian, Hebrew, birdsong, laughter, arguments. It is full of the sounds of life. It is Israel. This may be a little hard to paint in words, especially for those who have never been here, and particularly because o the media's portrayal of it.

Israel is just as multicultural as New York City, London, or Berlin. The difference lies in the fact that in all those cities, we're Jewish, and in Israel we are American, British, or German, Ethiopian, Russian, Iranian, French, Argentinian...You get the picture. Like I spoke about in Germany, Jews have the uncanny capability of assimilation/acculturation almost too perfectly into any culture world wide. Except for the fact that we are viewed as Jews in those countries by the host population, we are more French than the French, more German than the Germans, more American than the Americans, and on and on. In Israel, we are all Jews, so that label disappears and we are left with the host cultures we have become and carried with us; we are left with what we are: the embodiment of cultures with a Jewish twist that we held in such great esteem but which slighted us more often than not.

But pooled together, we are only Iraqi and French and German and Moroccan and American, and all the rest. Left to our own devices, we become like all the others. We have our feuds and prejudices, our racism, our alliances, our assumptions, and our own ardent display of Octavia Butler's "Human Contradiction" of intelligence and hierarchy. More on that later. I will be working with a lot of Ethiopian children in the coming weeks, teaching them English, improving their skills in whatever they need improving in. It's a class struggle like in every other country. This is why I refuse to grant any group of people greater respect than another--we are all quite Human in the end. I just feel the right to hold my own to a higher standard. I live my life attempting to embody it. Let us see how it goes.

Travel Log #16

September 3, 2009

Another city and another country. I have traveled again. This time, to the country of my final destination, at least for a while. Admittedly, it feels rather like a dream. I had nearly given up, after all. But here I am in the capital, Jerusalem, Israel, and all my nerves have been quieted.

I landed right on time, at 2:21 in the morning on September 1 in Tel Aviv. I sat next to two Norwegian women, a mother and daughter, visiting another daughter/sister who has lived in Israel for thirty years. Also, on the plane, I met a girl named Stephanye, who has moved to Israel for the year to be with her boyfriend. She's a graduate student in English. I run into these everywhere and remind myself that in my mind I am not switching disciplines although on paper, I am.

Luggage took about 45 minutes to arrive and Therem, who they took away at the gate, for supposed lack of space, was missing. I found her abandoned on an oversized luggage belt across the airport. I think I almost had a heart attack over her going missing, but no worries.

After the luggage was picked up, I sat around and waited for Sue for about an hour in the public part of the terminal. I read some more of the fantastic Amir Hamza and bought some water, after I traded my Euros for shekels. After a while, I wondered how we would find each other, since I don't think either of us knew what the other looked like. Somehow, she walked right up to me, recognizing me by Therem (who was luckily found), and then we were off!

It took almost two hours to get to Zichron, and I had a really good time and a good conversation in the car. When we got to the house, I opted to stay up and go on a walk with the two very aweesome dogs. The cat bit me and ran away. No worries, I understand. I'm a cat person. Anyhow, the "hike" was awesome and gorgeous, through a nature reserve kept up by the Rothschild foundation. I didn't get to go in because dogs aren't allowed and it was too early, but in the middle of the reserve is an amazing botanical garden. I saw the edge of it. In the distance, the Mediterranean.

Finally, we got back to the house, I took a shower and went to sleep, got up, and went to sleep again. When I really got up, we went to the grocery store, which didn't have fresh mozzarella, to my utmost dismay. But they did have good bread and Boursin.

At home, I met Keren over dinner, who will be eighteen on Monday. I also met Mike, the dad, and ended up having a thought provoking political conversation with him. It is very werid but very good how I feel like I fit in so well. Hopefully, I'll go back next weekend. Everyone will be home and there's a birthday celebration for Keren.

After dinner, some really good fish, etc, I took Therem out and sang for a while. In the morning, I rearranged my things, left a bunch of stuff here and repacked. Sue and Mike were at work, so a friend's daughter, Ayelet, picked me up and took me to the train station. The security guard had a little too much fun with all of my crap and ended up giving up. "I'm going to trust you," he said to me. "Don't blow up the train, ok?" Like I would have explosives.

The train ride to the airport was pleasant. Once I arrived, I waited twenty minutes for the Nesher shuttle, which took me right where I wanted, which ended up being JAFI, the Jewish Agency for Israel. Everyone was waiting there. I went to sign in and found myself face-to-face with Ya'el, who was my madricha from Seminar! "I knew you were coming. I told Benny [Levi!] to tell you." "He didn't but..." and both of us said "He was too busy getting married!" All is forgiven.

We had a very low energy pre-orientation. Almost everyone was jet-lagged. We piled onto the bus with all of our stuff and unloaded at the Yitzchak Rabin Youth Hostel where we will be staying until Sunday morning. The food here is amazing. Especially for a hostel.

Today, we had orientation, rules, regulations, scheduling, security issues, etc. I love having a phone again, but the plans here are ridiculous. I can change it at any time but I'll test it out for the first month. After lunch and more orientation, we went on a scavenger hunt through Jersualem (not the Old City). When it was over, we met at the windmill, then had dinner with representatives from our partnership communities. Mine is Yokneam-Meggido, which is twenty minutes from Haifa to the Southeast. In the hostel, I'm rooming with Andi from St. Louis, Rachel from North Carolina, and Stephanie from Pittsburg. I'll be living with Andi and Max (also from St. Louis) during Part II.

August 4, 2009
After all that was done with, Rachel and I desperately searched for a bathroom because we were about to experience spontaneously combusting bladder syndrome. The rest of the group walked of toward Ben Yehuda. We walked into the cafe, asked where the WC was located and ran off. Its amazing what a difference thirty seconds can make. By the time we were through, everyone else was long gone, so we walked and decided to wait for bus 17. We waited for forty-five minute! IT wasn't even 21:00 yet. What the hell kind of "good" public transportation system is that? Anyway, once we were on the bus, we realized that the driver should be in a padded cell. Tearing up the road, cutting people off, screaming at them at traffic lights, screaming at us to sit down when asking him a question. WTF. We actually arrived alive and unharmed at the hostel. Miraculously.

I forgot to mention the OTZMA opening ceremony, which took place at the windmill at Heinrich Heine Street. (Heinrich Heine seems to follow me around, right?) We did a ceremony in the manner of Havdalah, in order to separate ourselves from our "past lives" and to get on with the new. We were overlooking the Old City and the New.

August 5, 2009
For Shabbat, we stayed together at the Rabin Hostel and hung out on the porch with a unit of army boys who are being trained to be commanders. We sang and danced and chatted. Lots of people drank, etc, and I went back to my room around 1:30 and had some great bonding time with roommates. I forgot to mention that we went into the Old City and to the Kotel for Kabbalat Shabbat--before we went to the Wall Annie, Ariel, and I led a mini service for everyone.

During the day on Shabbat, we got to sleep in and then we had an educational program on some Halacha in the morning before lunch. Then, we had the OTZMA cafe, where we got together in groups of six and had more group bonding time with food. After that, chofesh, dinner, more chofesh.

Tomorrow, we hike perpendicular cliffs and end up in a Bedouin tent...until next time.

Travel Log #15

August 31, 2009

I have three-and-a-half hours to spare in Schipol before I board my long-awaited flight to Tel Aviv. But I promised you Turks. You'll get them this time. I promise.

In the meantime, my European adventures are at a close. The most advanced German I have ended up with is most unuseful unless I find myself in some sex fantasy theatre shop, but I have no idea why I would spend my money on a schamhaar toupe. Look it up yourself. Don't ask. Kate Winslet apparently had a need.

In Luxembourg, I avoided French, as usual, and learned a tiny bit more of Italian. Also, it was just as wonderful as I remembered. I met more extremely nice people, from Portugal, to Italy, to Israel, to France, to Belgium. The fairy dust hung in the air. My visits with old friends and colleagues were spectacular and I wish I could stay forever just so that I can see them as often as I want.

As for my promise, my last days in Berlin have left me with continued speculation, even twelve days out. I suppose what I mean by "giving you Turks" is not necessarily "Turks" per say, but minorities--anywhere--and the notion of Diaspora.

In Germany, as I have mentioned, the largest minority (and growing) is that of the Muslim Turks. They began entering the country around thirty years ago as "guest workers"--people invited in to help boost the country's economy as cheap labor, and later, encouraged to stay, in the early 2000s, with the opening up of Germany's borders in order to make it appear and actually be, on paper, an "immigrant country", also known as "accepting of minorities". I view this as yet another aspect of vergangenheitsgewaltigung, the untranslateable word for German "reconciliation", "making better again", or "coming to terms with" Germany's history as a society and as individuals. Gewalt--it can never be better again. This is an eternal, ongoing process of the prevention of hatred and genocide that can only be overcome by the individual in his constant vigilance against a past that repeats itself constantly under different names.

Of course, Germany is composed of human beings. So, the immigrants come in and are ghettoed off into their own neighborhoods. It is both a self-imposed isolation as well as one passively sanctioned by the host society. As for the Turks, many third-generation Germans already, have a loose handle of the Turkish and German languages, and sometimes a very great command of both. Yet "assimilation" is not happening easily. Like Jewish identity, are they Muslim Turks in Germany, German Turks of the Islamic religion, German Turks, Turkish Germans, etcetera, etcetera, you get the point.

It is a question of home, of homeland, of Heimat. Wherever they go, they will not be entirely welcome, nor entirely dismissed as "Other". To make themselves feel more acculturated or assimilated, many "official organizations" spring up that claim to represent the Turks in Germany. But, like any other minority, there are various groups and factions. Who can claim to represent anyone at this rate? We have anit-assimilationists, raidcal zealots, assimilationists, secularists. The list goes on.

The big question asked is: "Why can't the Turkish minority in Germany assimilate smoothly in one generation or less like the Jews? For the more liberal Turks, a partnership has been formed with the "Jewish Community" of Germany (whatever that means--we've already been through Jews in Germany). Human rights groups batter the ball back and forth across the net with the German government and the populace.

Minorities band together, if we can, under many labels. The truest label is not given, though--it is hard to label vagabonds who feel themselves permanently settled but not quite at home. It is the "packed suitcase" mentality.

When I applied to LBSU I had a notion of "home" that lacked concrete definition, and a notion of being a "Diaspora Jew" that has now been upset at the least. Most likely, it has been overturned. "Diaspora"--those dispursed from a homeland--"diasporic"--those who (literally translated) are monsters in a strange land. Eventually, that strange land becomes home, perhaps even Heimat, to those monsters, but they remain different, Other, monsters to the majority. Masked beneath their assimilation, they speak the local language flawlessly, perhaps they speak no other language, perhaps they speak it more correctly than their assumed "mother tongue"; their dress is like the majority's; their skin, hair, mannerisms, all match those of the populace. Assimilation is good camouflage but minorities, though masked beneath assimilation, remain cloaked in their alterity. It is an assumed and, inevitably, an inherent difference. It is most often a difference imposed upon them. Nonetheless, there is a separation.

Before I left the United States, I wrote an essay that railed against the American Jewish Community for being particularly hypocritical. I said that we have forgotten the meaning of being Jewish, that their preaching of charity is too often merely empty rhetoric because what is preached is all too often not practiced. Of course this is an anthropomorphic phenomenon, but I like to hold my own to a higher standard, as I do myself. I finished by caustically reminding us that true assimilation is impossible (look what happened in Germany, after all) and that we must, above all, cling to our roots.

Yet Germany has swallowed me and spat me back out again. In the process of digestion, it dawned on me that I did not have it quite right in regard to American Jews. I said that they act as such precisely because they--we--are allowed to in America. My flaw was in assuming that the people I come from knowingly practice their hypocrisy--again, precisely because we are allowed to. This is the blessing and the curse, and the unfortunate nature of Jews and probably many other minorities in the United States: we are allowed to assimilate, acculturate, so well that we forget the fact that assimilation and/or acculturation has occurred. It has occurred so thoroughly that mainstream American accepts us, becomes us, allows us to become it. My criticism has changed now. Do not take this fact for granted: We are all too often American Jews.

I will explain. In Germany, I realized that because of the United States' natural order of acceptance of most (not all, because doctrine only goes so far), that I can be an American Jew and fully accepted. This is why I must not be one. I am, and proudly, a Jewish American. If it is a matter of Heimat, I was born in mine. Ethnically, I have another and I am en route, but I cast my votes primarily in the interest of the former.

I am anti-Diaspora, another notion introduced to me in Germany. I bring my home with me and it is not attached necessarily to a physical place, but a spiritual one. I long for nowhere as home, except for America, because it is only there where "in the beginning all the world was...". And I take it with me--American is everywhere, and I don't just mean commercially. The Dream is everywhere. American is made of everyone and in so, I can find it everywhere and take the brunt of the diatribe against me for knowing only one language, although that is soon to change. I can go home and be home anywhere because that is the nature of America and "all come to look for" whether for good or for bad, whether for dreams of creation or destruction. I am aware that since America is composed of populations representing everyone from everywhere, it carries within it both the best and worst of all worlds. In turn, it creates a new one everyday.

It is potential, realized and growing. The world is big and full of people. We all have the same potential, the same virtues and flaws. But the more I travel, the more I realize that there is only one place (at least in my experience) that carries out that potential kinetically so well. And so I am proud to be a Jewish American--an American, because that carries more weight than most things.

It will be a year until I see her again. It is boarding time.

23:15
This plane flies forward, accelerating time. This kind of travel underlines the arbitrary nature of the clock. We continue to move against the grain. The moon is bright and waxing. It reminds me of my last flight involving Israel. It was flying west, back home, and the moon was low and orange-pink against the sky of Tel Aviv. I whispered goodbye. I was seventeen. The rest of that flight has completely flown from my memory.

In the Luxembourg airport, I had to pay over $200 for my excess baggage or throw it out. Guess which one I chose? I'm not that cheap. United States baggage policies are so much better than Europe's. Only 20kg period. And 15 Euros for every ADDITIONAL kilo. I was twenty over. The man was nice. He told them it was only 10. Still an FML moment. I'm throwing my life out over the course of this year, or shipping everything by snail mail.

On the City Hopper flight from Luxembourg to Amsterdam, I had the pleasure of sitting next to this very large, smelly guy from Denver who was either reading his paper, sticking his elbow into me, or complaining to the flight attendants. I had to go through passport control again to switch gates in Schipol. A three-and-a-half hour layover ensued.

During the layover, I got the last bit of writing done. In the middle, I decided to eat the food I packed and in my normal clod fashion, ended up with water all over me, the notebook, and the seats around me. After I dried that up, I resumed writing. I have also finally started reading The Adventures of Amir Hamza. (Thank you, my wonderful friend--you know who you are--you know me and my tastes far too well.) For those of you who don't know of this tale, it is the Indo-Persian Islamic epic of the Medieval Period. Adventure, magic, mythology at its greatest. It excellent, particularly for learning of what it is that people dream and how.

The flight to Tel Aviv is rather pleasant. My iPod layers over the screaming babies. KLM by far has the best airplane food I have ever encountered. Good seatmates, too--this time from Norway. However, the flight is completely full, so they took Therem away at the gate and put her in cabin baggage. She will hopefully be returned unharmed at the gate in Tel Aviv. My Weimar vase will hopefully be unharmed, too. It is very padded, but you can never tell with how airport luggage people throws things around. And let us hope my luggage actually makes it.

Right now, a million stories are buzzing through my head but none of them are solid. They are gestating and will come out when they are ready. At the same time, I am thinking of what I am missing: the first day off classes at Clark University. I have left my life behind and am going forward into the absolute unknown. I know that I am crazy. My views are not deluded.

The plane continues forward--through turbulence.