End of Kipple #14

September 5, 2011
Rumour has it that the world will end in September. That's when words written on paper either become official or not and reality marches millions on borders, so we're screwed either way. We can predict that things will get messy. Well, they're messy in general in this balagan of a country, so there's not so much unknown to prepare for there.

The people are marching in the streets, still. Up to 400,000. Chanting in unison: העם דורש צדק חברתי--The nation wants social justice. Which sounds much better in Hebrew than in English.

"The government couldn't have asked for a better time for pigu'im (terror attacks)," a friend of mine says, after the string of attacks on the road near Eilat. "It proves the security and defense budget need to be bolstered, no lessened." Not that the government wants pigu'im--this place isn't like bigger countries. You're only half a degree removed from anyone here, at most, and the political agendas are wholly intertwined with the personal.

Everything's personal here but this generally produces the opposite effect of what it would anywhere else. We let it slide. We can pick up and go. Families are tight and never too far off. If we are lone immigrants, we make friends who become family. We are wrapped in a blanket of ourselves and we'll live and die together.

I take off for America in a month-and-a-half. My first time visiting as an ex-patriot. I'm excited to visit-that it's only a visit, and that in the end, I'll be coming home. Things are looking up: My job is great, my friends are great, I live a 20-minute walk from the Mediterranean Sea. All the little things add up and make life absolutely beautiful where before, there was too much smog in the way to see it.

Recently, a friend of mine went off to find himself in America. He came back already.

"How was it?" I asked.

"Just like you remember," he said. And someone else told me "Worse than".

Aah. Just like I remember. Gilded in all its glory and decaying underneath. The greatest disappointment of my life.

Pheraps it is not all bad. Disappointment never shut me down, for all I might complain. It has been the Great Motivator to move on and change a situation for the better.

September 19, 2011
Everything looks worse looking in. Tomorrow, supposedly the world, as we know it, ends.

Plan accordingly.

Develop a good repertoire of bluegrass and old school folk.

Sing about angels and flying away. About saviours glorified in anticipation. About endless distances under endless distances under endless skies. About the end of this world and the beginning of the next.

Sing about gain and loss, about clear water and about trains steaming down the tracks.

Sip your coffee slowly. Enjoy every sip. Suck the marrow out of life. Do not, when you come to die, discover that you have not lived.

There is too much weight on shoulders, passed down and down to us. It is no one's fault--and everyone's. How do you stop the spiral spin out of control?

"Darling, hold fast to your own life."
"Easier said than done. Do you think we're all just on vacation?"
"On hiatus from Forever? Indeed."
"We all have our complaints, I suppose."
"Yes."
"Where is Uriel?"
"Where is relative, darling."
"Relatively..."
"That angel is on an errand. Patience."
"Is a virtue."
"You are blessed."
"With too much. My blessings are my curses."
"Then live with them."
"There is no other choice. Dying with them is most certainly worse and I'll hold off on that."




The angel bows. And I am alone.

End of Kipple #13

 July 29, 2011

Ask my generation of America how we feel about American Dreams. The answers reverberate with disappointment.

Clarkie Expats

We aren't dying in the trenches for the most part. But we are dying of disease, of suicide, of pointless, causeless crime. We are dying of loss. Of broken hearts.

We scatter to the four winds. We take America with us. I find the country I love more than anything else in the world bursting at the seams with passion far beyond its borders.

On the streets of my  new country, I may not agree with all the protests. But every time I pass them, shove through them, I grin from ear to ear. Tel Aviv is exploding with the fury of the people.

July 30, 2011

These days, there's a protest about everything. Walk down Rothschild and we've got a tent city for the next five months. "The Housing Protest." Because "the rent is too damn high". And damn it, we're going to impose homelessness on ourselves (sort of) until the government does something about it.

Elyaqim

Signs everywhere scream "If I were a Rothschild" and because we're all into irony and half-assed wittiness around here, the masses set up their tent city along the richest street in the city, just to piss off those who don't have to worry about the rent being too damn high in their front gardens. Because they're probably the ones raising the prices too damn high.

The protesters are adamant: "We're not leaving!" 

"This is a democracy and the people say..."

"This is capitalism, opening the market to everyone, closing the gap between rich and poor."

The tent city feels like a carnival, fully equipped with fire throwers, street musicians, magicians, food vendors.

I can point out the blatant hypocrisies of this gang: how they all seem to be clean, despite the fact that they have supposedly abandoned their roofs and plumbing for the duration of the demonstration. Over 100 days. How, despite the too damn high prices, the street musicians come equipped with state-of-the art performance equipment: speaker systems, computers with mixing programs. And the tents are relatively empty. The possessions are being stored--Mom and Dad's place? In the apartment we're not sleeping in but still pay for even though the rent is too damn high?

Well, the rent is too damn high, so I'm all for doing something about it. But if I were sleeping in the tents of Rothschild Blvd., you better believe I wouldn't be handing over the rent check every month. Maybe it's working. There have been rumours floating around from Up Top about building new units and subsidizing all of us whiners for the interim.

Of course there was the "Cottage Cheese Protest," which was relatively successful. Same basic principles as the housing kaboom: "The price of dairy is too damn high, how are we supposed to feed ourselves?" Solution: stop buying dairy for a significant period of time.

Social Justice Protest, Tel Aviv, July 30, 2011

A bowl of cottage cheese was sent as a "gift" to the Prime Minister because it is so damn expensive, he should cherish that bowl forever because the people think so highly of him. And whaddya know? Prices dropped by two or more shekels. I had cottage cheese with breakfast the other day. We're still whining, but not as much.

The doctors have been protesting for months, on a rotational basis. "There aren't enough of us." "We don't get paid enough" and, as we all know, "the cost of living is too damn high". To rectify the plight of the doctors, though, will require a complete overhaul of the medical system--not the health plans, but the admission rate of doctors in this country. Perhaps open the door to Nurse Practitioners and Physician's Assistants in the country. Less of a burden on the doctors, more health care accessibility for the people. No need for an ongoing MD hunger strike.

It's going to be a long one.

The "Young Couples Protest". They bring the babies in the strollers. "Diapers are too expensive." "Day care is too expensive." "Everything is too expensive, how are we supposed to raise our children like this!?"

The Social Workers were also on strike but sadly, to hardly any avail.

My roommate says: "The country is in a balagan!"

A Housing Protester at the Social Justice Rally, TA

I love it. It's the era of America I missed, having been born too late. But for here, I was born right on time.

It disappoints me that Americans aren't doing the same thing. Just imagine if. I feel like I can be more American in Israel than I could ever have been in the States. Plus the fact that here, it might be getting bad, so we scream about it, whereas the situation has long become unsalvageable in America.

I think I'll stay. I know I'll stay. My job might be horrible, but my life is great. Here, there is so much to live for beyond mere existence. What is important in the end is what counts here. Not the ticky-tacky in between.

End of Kipple #12

July 23, 2011
There is not a day that goes by that I don't ask myself at least five times why I gave up on everything and naturalized myself into this crazy place. But there is not a night nor morning that I regret it, that I am any less than absolutely certain that it was the best decision of my life.

Sure, I feel more free here than in "The Land of--" and rail against the place I came from, for everything is has allowed itself to become and everything it hasn't. American is my greatest love affair gone awry. All promises broken, all expectations spent. I will never get over it.


Nearly one hundred years after our first Lost Generation, we are lost again, scattered globally, reifying the American Dream that found itself impossible to realize within American borders. True, I could have stayed, fought forever in vain to change what cannot be changed and sacrificed that greatest gift of existence.

Perhaps I am selfish. Perhaps I have left Uncle Sam down and although I feel completely betrayed, I still asked myself "not what my country can do for [me] but what [I] can do for [my] country". I asked and Providence answered truthfully: "Nothing. Go out and create the Dream beyond here. Represent the best possible and fight by being the opposite of expectations".

I am tired of complaints matched with complacency. I am tired of rhetoric and no action and no results. So I throw myself full-force into it where I can and I do not stop. I will be a juggernaut, if need be.

End of Kipple #11

May 30, 2011

"Yes, I made Aliyah," I can say, and I know that sentence is loaded with whatever religious, historical, imperialistic, and political weight we put on it. I have heard that word, "aliyah," used in a reverent tone, an excited one, a loathsome one, a bitter one. I can translate it: "I ascended"--to this place so full of contradictions it makes my mind reel. 

But there is a Midrash that asks: "Why is the Torah compared to water?" The answer is a simple one: "Because water flows to the lowest places. The Torah finds those who are the most humble and the most downtrodden and reaches out to them. Those at the top are left without the sustenance of life." So perhaps we have all ascended merely to to go down again. Perhaps I must follow the water down to its sources and pool there, create subterranean oceans with it, feed the land above, because not everything that exists meets the eye. Remember that beauty is rooted in something unseen. Try to find it and rest there with it.

However you feel about "aliyah," I did it. I ask myself everyday if I am insane. The answer is always, irrevocably, "Yes". But I would never live anywhere else. The thought of that scares me half to death.

Over the next week or so, I will be moving from this City on the Hill, where I can't find gold anywhere other than the cheap kind that gilds. I am very tired of holiness these days. It just doesn't turn me on. Maybe a day trip here and there. Man-manufactured holiness beats me down, stifles me. I need open spaces, freer thinking, less judgement. That is holy. But I don't want to think about it. Just let me be.

I found an apartment in Yafo, very near the sea, and very near central Tel Aviv. I found an amazing roommate and an amazing location. I get mixed reactions:

"Yafo! That's amazing! Yafo is awesome! Really suits you! Really artsy. Lots of music. Lots of art," etcetera. And "Yafo! Why would you move there? Aren't there lots of Arabs there?"

My first reaction is to ask, "Aren't there lots of Arabs in Jerusalem?" I asked that yesterday and was answered with "But Jerusalem is Jerusalem." I held my tongue but wanted to say "But Israel is Israel and the Middle East is the Middle East."

Maybe I'm pretty much on my own on this one, but I don't tend to judge people by what they are.I don't tend to condemn people because of where they come from or what they look like. I judge people by who they are and go from there. I never knew how to see what people looked like on the surface. I had to be taught that this was important in society when I was young. I learned to force myself to look at something I always thought was inconsequential. 

I still force myself to look and I still don't understand it. But I am almost 24 years old and I still struggle to see the point the crowds are screaming at me, insisting that it's important that I notice whether you're black or white, Arab or Jewish, etc. etc. Talk to me and then I'll see you. Walk up to me with your masks and I won't. 

End of Kipple #10

May 24, 2011
I have been writing, just not posting because life is hectic. I will post retroactively, obviously, but here's a slight update:
1. Ulpan is ending officially in about two weeks (June 6).
2. The Ulpan final exam is in two days from now (Thursday, May 26).
3. I have found a wonderful apartment in the city of Yafo (Jaffa) and am moving there permanently on June 1, for at least a year.
4. I love my job!
5. Life is great.
6. It's all in the music and the gigs are picking up.
7. The world is apparently simultaneously exploding and imploding around us, but if I didn't watch the news, I wouldn't have the slightest clue, even though I technically live in East Jerusalem.
8. Word has it that the s&*t has hit the fan, isn't just about to, and the world is changing in big, bad ways. We need leaders, rational thinkers, partners for peace, etc. etc. I say: Since when has any era differed when it comes to the mood, trivialities, and obscenities of the human race?

May 20, 2011
I guess we can count 64 ways in retrospect to solve an issue and say what we could've done, what we should've done. One for each year. For the times, they are a'changing. That's what the media says, at least. Life doesn't change much anyway. We keep on going just the way we have been. Illusions are reality if properly sustained.

Praying Mantis by the Jordan River

Can you see me changing? Can you feel it? It's different looking from the inside-out than it was when I was looking in. Things are necessary--states and borders, people divided. This division is comparable to Siamese twins who share a heart. Nearly unsustainable, the heart beats for both and they resent each other--it is a mutual dependence and a knowledge that one must go and the other stay. But they can't imagine a world apart or without the other or without themselves. Who can?

Surgery is always risky. Better to save one, if possible, than to definitely lose both. But saving one is still only a possibility. Both may be lost anyway. The twins are two sides of the same coin, forever joined and forever facing apart.

Israel is one face of a trick coin that will always land on "Heads". We are on the brink of something we've all tentatively imagined but couldn't quite make clear. Hope is frail. Neither side can live without the tension of the other.

I am reminded that we hate the most what we love even more but won't admit to. We know no other life. Violence is the background of society here. Perhaps it is the foundation. The threat of no tomorrow, or not today, the reality of precariousness lends itself to life here. We are the fragile prism hanging frozen in time at the pinnacle of the parabolic arch into which we've been thrown. The prism is most beautiful in the moment before it shatters.

House Garden at Kibbutz Ma'agan Micha'el

Israel would love peace but we have no idea what that means. The idea is familiar, a memory itching at the backs of our minds, unrealizable. The army forges brotherhood, turns little boys into men in a split second during an ambush just outside of Sh'chem when one little boy ends and the rest have to carry him home. What would we be without the little boy in the box? I can tell you easily: a completely different country. Our whole lives revolve around knowing that this may be the last time we ---, around knowing that we may never get to do ---, and that someone close to us won't. Period. This is my side of the coin.

Since I face in the opposite direction, I can't speak for Palestine. I can only tell you how it feels to be forged together with a face that looks through eyes I'll never possess. From here, I can't see how Palestine can sustain itself on a basic economic level. I can't see how owning merely one side of the coin will ever constitute enough. I can't see a lessening of pride. I can only feel it. Feelings are whimsical and bar the path of logic. But I know that emotion is what drives us as a race, I know that it's instinct, and not logic. So I continue to trust the feeling of the other side although I am blind to the light.

Miraculously, the heart of the twins still beats. But the twins will both die in the end, for the brink on which we stand is the edge of a forge. The coin will be melted down and remolded. What the mold will create, I can't say. I can't even imagine it.

I can say that I will be a part of it. I can say that without a doubt.

May 2, 2011

Yom HaSho'a Ceremony

It has been a year again and it is Yom HaSho'A, Holocaust Remembrance Day. The melodies are somber and so is the mood. The melodies are traditional and after awhile,  catch myself swaying in the way I used to, when I believed firmly in mimicking the flickering sway of a candle so that my body prayed in rhythm with my soul.

The swaying is comforting even though I don't believe in it anymore. Still, I miss being religious. I miss believing in that way even though
I know that I can never believe again. God is somewhere out there, but not to answer prayers. God is only as much as I make It and as much as you make It. God is our own collective and the unfortunate truth is that we are human and incapable of substantial change as a race, despite our ability to understand what is needed on a theoretical level.

It is nice to see people who can cry. I've trained myself not to because I know if I start, I'll never be able to stop. I let the sorrow pass through me as far as it will go. But it is incapable of passing through completely. It merely collects at the bottom of a well that I have dug deep inside myself. Part of me wishes that one day it will overflow and I'll know how to be human again. Part of me needs to keep it buried. I know I'm human already. There are just so many ways a person can survive this world without breaking down when there are too many faces you used to know who can never be seen again.

Because of those faces, I know that the God I used to believe in isn't there. I know it doesn't care and never did and never will. I know that miracles are not divine, merely lucky coincidence, and I know that hell is here, all around us, created by us and by the simplicity of the universe that merely exists. I know, too, that if there is a heaven, I have seen it.

I am driven to create. I am mad to create. Creation is the only salvation, although we all know that everything comes to an end. Ignore that fact of ending and create anyway. Create until you can't anymore so that the creation lives beyond you.

End of Kipple #9

March 23, 2011
Phones are ringing off the hook today, calling, being called. Mine goes dead from all the traffic. But before it does, my friend calls me to make sure I'm all right.

Sculpture of Sampson on Mamilla

"Unfortunately, you get used to this," he says. "Life keeps going but it's sad because now, you'll feel the change. People will stop going out." And indeed, the streets are rather empty tonight, but I can pretend it's because of the cold.

"Welcome to Israel," another friend tells me. "Now you're really a part of it."

Yes. But fortunately, today, I took a detour before heading to Har Nof to return my borrowed cell phone and I was not on the 74 or at my bus stop waiting. I was not a part of shattered glass and the ended life or of the lives immediately interrupted by shrapnel.

"Unfortunately, you get used to this." In response I say, "In a way, I already am."

I know how life holds us all precariously, like unweighted feathers resting lightly on her palm in the wind. I know how death waits patiently with his fingers wrapped around our throats so that we get used to him. So that we hardly notice him anymore. So that that he almost always catches us by surprise.

We talk about life-as-usual. We go on our dates. We enjoy starlight above the Old City.

Let me come clean on this one: I am over the Green Line. Way over. But I couldn't tell you where I cross it. I let the bus route take me.

Outside the Old City

From up on my hill, the land sprawls out beautifully. There are no borders. Borders are made my man, built, imagined, razed. All I see from up on the hill is beauty--and it's impossible to imagine the workings of the human race that build and destroy so whimsically.

It feels different as an Israeli. This is my city, my bus stop, my bus, my friends, my family. And I wonder how we have sustained this madness for so long, how we can perpetuate it merely by being incapable of imagining another way.

March 30, 2011
A week later and we're back to normal. One bomb can't stop the party. Or maybe we're over it. The glitch was just a gentle reminder: be vigilant. Keep an eye out. Keep both eyes open. Don't ever sleep deeply.
There's no rush, just an urgency. We don't discuss it. Why discuss the obvious?

So? We could die in a minute? We always can.

God twitches a little. It's involuntary. What to do? And we're in the way. Insignificant little fleas.

We go ahead with vacation, as planned. Eilat. Maximum south.

In truth, we can walk to Jordan or Egypt. We've walked farther before. We can swim there, in the chilly water.

The Egypt-Israel Int'l Border

I swear, the Red Sea is the bluest water I've ever seen in my life. It's too vibrant to be real and in the water, the borders are really imaginary. The water is too clear for borders, but the proud flags flying remind us when we come up above the surface that we're human. We have to choose.

One of my roommates and another immigrant have the same birthday. They've spent months planning this weekend in Eilat. It begins with a טיול (tiyyul-trip, hike, outing). We're freezing in the pitch black, like the ninth plague. But we can move.

To escape the strongest wind, we decide to camp in a crater. Sleeping bags are laid out, food is prepared by flashlight. We huddle together, body-to-body, warmth begets warmth. We make tea, but only for our hands.

At 5:30, we pretend to wake up and by 7:00, we're off. We are hiking to Eilat from the mountains. It takes 12 hours, including a total of 2 hours of rest. Strenuous, raw, beautiful. Beautiful beyond description. Silent, divine.

Israel from the Eilat Mts, the Red Sea and Jordan

Divine.

Seven years ago, Uriel told me that it and its brethren were born here, in the desert. All of them left me alone this time, gave me space, let me connect with the earth in a Human way for once, instead of saturating me with holy commentary. Except when I needed them.

"Help me," I say, "to climb down the ladder." So they help me because I've never overcome my fear of heights.

They help me climb up and down but the help is minimal. They have learned to listen after all this time, or perhaps seeing all this for myself was the message this time around.

Either way, I made it.

Once in Eilat, we check into the hotel, take showers and quick naps before going to dinner and to sleep. At least I went to sleep. I have no idea what everyone else did.

Eilat Mountains

In the morning we fight with boat captains about enough space and the price of a cruise. After much ado and more ado, we get off our reserved boat and end up taking another. Great sun, air, food, and company. There is a large group of Estonian tourists with us. Apparently, Estonia has opened itself up to massive amounts of tourism to and from "the Holy Land". I wonder how we look to them.

When vacation is over and we return to Jerusalem, I return to the fact that my absorption is nearly complete, according to the Absorption Check-List. I'm employed, I have friends, and my Hebrew is steadily improving.

Now I'm looking for an apartment and prospective roommates. Furniture or a furnished room. I'm figuring out Pesach plans. Life is good. Life is so good.



Because I have a job, I don't have to worry about paying my National Insurance, and the door has opened up to going home for a visit and possibly even going to Turkey to meet the best person in the world for one day in July. So, I have to go back to the Misradim (offices) and get a travel document or passport. I can also afford to transfer my driver's license to Israel. Wish me luck. And come visit after June.

End of Kipple #8

March 7, 2011

I feel the need to clarify: these entries obviously convey frustration. Many readers seem to be interpreting frustration as "misery" which is absolutely not the case! 

Almond Flowers!

Maybe it would make you miserable. I can't say I wouldn't blame you. But: It is all in good humor and the average Israeli complains more than he smokes, which is really saying something, in case you didn't know. 

Ok, so it's lonely and irrational, chaotic, downright insane. But I love it and I've never been happier or more sure of any decision I've made in my life. Yes. I'm crazy. But aren't we all? So, I don't love Jerusalem? I have the Galilee, Tel Aviv, the Negev.

I hope that helps to calm some of your worries or doubts regarding my state of mind and how wonderful it is to live here. I encourage you to visit--once I'm settled in an apartment situation.

'Nough said.

March 2, 2011

Slowly but surely, things fall together. In many ways, Aliyah is like being born all over again. You get spat out, full of scum. This time, no one will wipe you off or unclog your nostrils. No one will hold you when you cry, so you have to clean yourself, hold yourself.

Tu Bishvat at Beit Canada 

Being cradled in the arms of air is all right. I can't fall anywhere because I'm already as far down as we can go without digging. But pens run out and Truth changes. This gift for this moment, then a loss--and another gift for that moment.

Jerusalem opens up for me. I meet a friend. Someone is waiting for me behind a counter, on the street. I get a tour of the Old City. It's quiet there, full of ghosts, history, many orders of angels. The present meets the past and together we make the future. I am in love with this place and I don't know why.

I am in love with the way fathers here can show affection. The children know they're loved.

I am in love with the streets, with the people on them--the way they don't know how free they are while I grew up free on paper.

Everything's a matter of perspective here and I am entitled to mine. Here I feel really free and not just rhetorically free. They can yell at me and I can yell right back.

Bunnies in Yokneam

In America we yell all the time. even with hundreds of millions, there is still so much empty space. I think that space got into me and never filled me up. I mourn for America now. There is nothing I can do to fix her other than speak softly for her, halfway around the world. The American Dream went East. If we will it, Eden is within us.

February 28, 2011

There are a million ways to hold your breath if you're waiting for something that won't ever come. I swear, I've tried almost all of them but I'm over it. There's a whole planet of air to breathe and, dammit, I'm gonna breathe it until we've burned it all out.

I'm a magnet for absurdity. No question. Keep it coming. I must have a sign in Invisible Neon flashing brightly on my forehead calling desperately for every weirdo to break into the territory. Unbeknownst to me, of course. I just mind my own business and they flock.

There be madness on the streets here, but we haven't imploded-exploded like everyone else around us. Count it as a blessing. Count it as a curse.

Me!

Paint me any which way you want--now I'm a part of it and I'm glad. Something about the dust rolling off the streets here makes people glow. I've been told I'm one of them. But if everyone glows, it's nothing special.

One week has brought its usual healthy supply of marriage proposals by old men that could be my grandfather. Let's put it this way: if I said yes, they'd be doing pretty well in life and I wouldn't, until they kicked the bucket and I inherited his "fortune". It would be a case of "Lyin' Eyes" and driving towards the other side of town. What are these idiots thinking? I will never be that desperate. But I suppose they will...they are. And have been for years, most likely.

End of Kipple #7

February 19, 2011
Let me begin with the way it is.

I am on a bus. A boy sits next to me. Yedidiah. He is fifteen years old. We exchange a few sentences and he helps me with my Hebrew homework. He does what all of us of the digital generation do: stuffs his ears with headphones and sinks into the music.

I know how it feels.

He smiles at me and then turn into himself. The world disappears and the bus keeps driving. It carries all of us forward, each in our own private universe with the volume turned up. He falls asleep on my shoulder.

This doesn't bother me like it would where I come from. We are already friends. Distant cousins. The bond is strong. Soul is thicker than water, not blood. We have had too much of that and know there will be more, so we thicken the substance of ourselves, layer upon layer. Breath mingles in the air and we are sure to keep ourselves aware of deeper connections than those of red rivers running through our veins.

Yedidiah wakes up and asks me for my contact information. We exchange. Now we check up on each other every once in a while. It is nice to know that strangers aren't strangers here, that no one ascends alone.

At home in Jerusalem, life is difficult. I feel like I am five years old again because I'm learning the basics. Hebrew is different from English in so many ways. The grammatical structure, the letters, the conjugation of verbs. I am frustrated because language is my specialty and Hebrew is never going to be a language that I own. It will always own me. I will never be able to mold it like clay with my eyes closed. It will always be ever-so-slightly just beyond my reach.

At home, in Jerusalem, life is lonely. In order to make friends, I listen to people talk. But in general, I don't talk about anything that is really important to me. In order to make friends, I sacrifice being known. I've got to get out more. This is my situation amongst the other Olim. We all have at least one thing in common: being insane enough to move here and become citizens. This is where the commonalities end. I am getting out more. I am making some Israeli friends. Developing older ones.

I wonder how it's possible to have more in common with people who grew up half a world away from me than my own compatriots. I wonder how's possible to be born so out of place.

At home, in Jerusalem, I tell my teacher that she has a horrible teaching style and what to do to change it. She listens for a little while and then she forgets. I decide to move down a level. I need the review and better teachers. It is not worth the frustration.

I deal with the medical system. I start early with scheduling appointments because I know it's going to take forever. How wrong I was. It doesn't take forever. It takes a million forevers. Eight days out of ten I'm in some office or other. It drives me insane. But if you live here, you have to learn to just go-with-the-flow. You have to learn to be assertive.

When the nurse refuses to do your blood test three days in a row for no apparent reason, you yell back. When she tells you to take home a cup for a urinalysis and cart your pee across a city twice when you're standing in the lab: you don't comply. You scream and throw the (empty) cup in her face until she gets the point. You don't try to conceive of logic. There is no logic to anything here. Chaos is the natural order of things.


So you don't ask why the window doesn't quite fit the window frame. And you don't ask why the lights in the bathroom vanity don't turn on. You don't ask why they're not even wired to an electrical outlet. But they sure do look pretty.

You also don't ask why the city has shut down a main traffic artery to motor vehicles for a train that never opens to the public for whom it was built. You don't ask why you can see this train running back and forth constantly filled with workers in yellow vests taking naps with their feet up on the plastic-covered seats. You don't ask why the bridge built for the train can't support the train's weight and why it thus serves no purpose whatsoever. You don't bring up the point that this causes the whole line to lead nowhere.

You just don't ask.

You come up with theories: they're running it back-and-forth to convince us that they're "working on it". No problem. There's no problem. We fix later.

Jerusalem crawls with the mundane commingled with the Holy. Holiness is a practicality here, like the rule to let everything slide. Holiness drips off people like rain and floods the streets.

Jerusalem is slippery when it rains because Jerusalem stone has no traction. Thankfully, it has rained a lot this year. May it rain, may it rain, may it rain.

Jerusalem is not my city--but for now, it'll have to do.

End of Kipple #6

January 13, 2011

Manneqipples

Very noticeable upon Israeli streets are the extremely true-to-life storefront displays. Mannequins here have nipples. With color differentiation. Impressive, no? Life is all about the details and when the details make you smile and you can have a conversation on a crazy sherut ride for twenty minutes about "mannequipples," it's not so bad.

On the bureaucratic front, it remains as hellishly annoying as always but still delightfully entertaining:

In order to fix my תעודת זהות (Teudat Zehut--Identity Card), I had to return to our friendly משרד הפנים (Misrad HaPnim--Ministry of the Interior). The first time I went (in Netanya), they looked at me, looked at the תעודה (Teudah--card), and told me they couldn't me. I had to go to Jerusalem.

I called Nefesh. They call me back-and-forth twice.

"Go back. It's all ready. You can go anywhere in the country to get it."

I went with Jake and he wisely advised me to take two tickets: one for the right side of the office and one for the left of the crazy line. We passed the time playing Bust-A-Marble on the iPad. I think we--maybe just I--got a little too into it.

Pretty sure this is a scarab.

Before too long (but only because of the marbles) my number on the right came up. We sat down but got up about five seconds later because, no, she doesn't print the card (even though she's friggin' sitting with the printer) because she only processes "families, children, and babies". She tells us to go to the left and take a number. Luckily, we already had one.

We wait again and let my other friend know what's going on because she's coming in from Jerusalem to help me move into my absorption center.

Finally, the number is called and we go to a desk. The woman is on her cellphone with her grandkid or something, all "Ok, Motek"-this and "Motek"-that. She says very loudly to me to give me the number, which is not unlike yelling in America and wouldn't fly, but here it's not considered yelling--all while she's still on the phone "motek-ing". She's still on the cellphone, the Misrad phone rings and she asnwers that, too, and meanwhile, we're still sitting there.

Somehow, she figures out what I need, clucks and tisks at all the errors, and disappears for a few minutes while I throw passport photos and my botched Teudah on the desk.

She comes back and isn't on the phone for once, although this only lasts for about sixty seconds. During that sixty seconds, she takes a look at my Teudah, give me the equivalent of a "WTFF Niyald?" in response to what they did to the name "Daniel" and whisks everything away.

Disappeared. Again.

She comes back and has the new one. Yay. My  name means "truth" again instead of garbled gibberish. And she's back on the phone.

January 14, 2011

View of Jericho from the settlement, Mitzpeh Yericho

On Tuesday, after the Misrad Hapnim's success story, I moved into my Merkaz Klitah (Immigrant Absorption Center). I have three roommates, all within a year of my age, and all from the United States. Our chemistry seems to be good. We all lucked out, too, as we got the only renovated room in the entire Merkaz.

Like anything else in Israel, moving in and beginning the Ulpan involves even more bureaucracy. Before we can do anything at all, we have to sit down and sign a contract that pledges us to attending every class, every day sans "special circumstances," to not having visitors past 23:00, and to not have those visitors eat in the dining hall with us.

It sounds like college again.

Although I read the contract in its entirety, I apparently missed the clause forbidding us from employment for at least two months. This may have just been tacked on arbitrarily after-the-fact of signing as things often are. Anyhow, I signed--not that I had a choice int he matter--and then received my Ulpan/Absorption Center ID.

After this, I waited around for another thirty minutes for the מנהלת (Minahelet--supervisor/principal/etc.) to usher me and three other new immigrants into her office for another debriefing and room key reception. With me were two other Americans, including another Tali, and a Parisian guy.

We were told the terms of the contract again (no no-work-for-two-months clause, though) and instructed to go to the bank to set up our payments and to go to the post office to submit our initial deposit. I still have yet to arrive at a post office during open hours. Sunday, hopefully.

"High Stress! Danger of Death!" sign:
Where we all reside in the midst of bureaucracy

I went trekking across town with my roommate to get to the bank. This took three hours, but we set everything up, put in for a branch transfer which will take a month, so we can go to a branch in a central location. We deposited money and set up the Ulpan crediting system. So no more worries.

Let's go into another difference between the Israeli and American systems: banking, this time.

In general (and I think this holds true for not only American banks, but nearly--if not all--other bank in the world), you open an account with a bank and you can deal with any branch of that bank for anything, no matter where it is. If it's a U.S. bank, the most you might have to do for a normal transaction is fill out an out-of-state deposit slip if your account has an address (as in your home) in Georgia instead of Oklahoma and you're depositing money from an Oklahoma location into your account in Georgia. No biggie.

First of all, Israel is, tops, the size of New Jersey. If I want to deposit money into a branch down the street from my registered branch, I can't do it. (Hence our put-in for a branch transfer as it took us over an hour to get to it).

Also: if I have an account with Some-Bank-In-America and I go to a Some-Bank-In-America ATM to withdraw money, it's free. If I go to a teller inside the bank for the same withdrawal, it's free.

Here: if I have an account with Some-Bank-In-Israel and I go to a Some-Bank-In-Israel ATM to withdraw money, I get charged 1.65 shekels. If I go to a teller inside the bank for the same withdrawal, I get charged over 5 shekels.

There is no difference between credit and debit. It's all "credit" and you either owe the bank, which only reduces the money for all withdrawals/purchases/etc. in your account once a month (so you better be keeping track), or you owe the bank. You either have money left in your account afterwards or you're screwed because you owe the bank.

Oh, the joys.

So I figure all of this nonsense out and return to the מרכז קליטה (Merkaz Klitah--Absorption Center) where, of course, they can't find my name on the Ulpan enrollment list because (guess what!?) it's spelled wrong!

Apparently, this is the story of my life.

But other than that, the place is amazing. There are, roughly, 230 of us in the Ulpan course. We range from ages 22-37 and hail from over 50 countries.

Street musician on Ben Yehuda St., Jerusalem City Center

I've met Indians, Georgians, Colombians, Australians, Brits, New Zealanders, South Africans, Russians, Venezualans, French, Iraqis, Persians, and even one half-Israeli-via-Iraq-half-Japanese American guy who was born and raised in Orange County, CA. He was brought up by his immigrant Israeli and Japanese parents and speaks neither Hebrew nor Japanese and only English. Of course, there are also Ethiopians, some Romanians, and I had dinner with a bunch of Brazilians and Turks.

The mutliculturalism is absolutely fantastic. Hebrew must be the common language because, for once, English is not ubiquitous.

End of Kipple #5

January 2, 2011

In perfect fashion, the first cab driver who took me anywhere was another "Shlomi". Like 1/3 of all other Israeli cabbies. That is where the order stops, though. And he didn't even hit on me. Miracle.

Well, I suppose the order does not actually stop. Israeli routine is chaotic and ridden with countless seemingly unnecessary steps. And so plans most often do not go as planned for their usual ETAx3.

My plan was to land, gather my תעודת עולה (Teudat Oleh-Immigrant ID), initial payment, and arrival information, etc. and go get a cell phone. Of course, being without a cell phone in this day and age is difficult in general. Being without a cell phone in Israel upon arrival while technically homeless for another two weeks borders on torturous. But it is already Sunday and i have as yet been unable to obtain this small but necessary device.

Why? The system is not like the American one. And I refuse to blow $300 on a temp phone for one week. In order to get a phone, I must have an Israeli bank account so the corrupt bond between bank and cellphone company can flourish heartily. But in order to open a bank account, I must possess my תעודת זהות (Teudat Zehut-ID Card--this is different from the Immigrant ID). 

On top of that, it is impossible to even research cellphone plan option because 

A. they change daily and

B. the people won't even talk to me without a תעודת זהות (Teudat Zehut) in hand.

"You come beck," they nod, reassuringly. "We will be here."

Great.

I then discover that all the banks are closed today. And that after I open the bank account, I have to request a document granting permission from the bank to the cell phone company to credit my account. Or, I have to request a document from the cellphone company requesting permission from the bank to credit the account. Or both. 

January 3, 2011

At the Nefesh B'Nefesh office, I was able to open the bank account (finally), which enabled me to get a phone, so now I don't feel lost and disconnected anymore. 

Of course, I was only able to open the bank account because I got my תעודת זהות (Teudat Zehut-ID Card). And of course, there are massive problems with it. They spelled my name incorrectly even though I told them verbally and on paper no less than five times how to spell it. 

They also decided that all of the information on the card would be one line too far down on the card, so I was born in "Female" and my sex is the "United States of America" or something like that. They also can't type and changed my father's named from "Daniel" to "Nield". So now I have to go get more passport photos, resubmit everything to the משרד הפנים (Misrad HaPnim-Ministry of the Interior) and wait at least a week for them to hopefully correct their mistakes.

Well. Welcome to Israel. Where the bureaucracy can't get no higher.

The good news is that my number stays the same, so I don't have to worry about my payments getting delayed. I just have to submit my bank account and other information to the משרד הקליטה (Misrad HaKlita-Ministry of Absorption) and they start dumping cash. Which means I can pay my cell phone bill and my other bills, like health insurance in the meantime. 

Speaking of which:

I got off the plane, was immediately signed up for basic coverage (as stated), which is free for the first year and automatically covers all pre-existing conditions forevermore. In the airport, I was talking to a woman who is also a Type I Diabetic who made Aliyah three years ago and has the same health plan as I do. She told me that for all of her insulin and supplies, she pays maybe 180 shekels a month. That is approximately $50.75!

I elected to upgrade my health coverage from basic to Gold, which includes exciting things like Accupuncture, eye, and dental for 45 shekels/month--$12.69. I love this. Very cheap, amazing health care. But socialized medicine is evil. I suppose on this one, I'll traffic with the devil because I elect to live. 

On another practical note, and a return to the cellphone issue, I've been discovering even more differences between the Israeli and American systems. 

Actually infuriating: a cellphone catalog provided by the store with all kinds of models, etc:

1. does not list features of models, the pros and cons against other and

2. does not list any prices.

I ask the prices repeatedly to the salesman and get "It's no problem. Which one you want?"

"How. Much. Do. They. COST?"

"No problem. Which one? I give you deal."

Great answer. Really informative.

Because Israel is such a small, closed market, all the companies are relatively the same. So there is really no difference. Each one is just as horrible or all right as the next. The lines are just longer or shorter. I went with the short line. Up the hill. Harder to get to. 

The weird thing is that if you buy a plan and talk over your minutes, you can get your phone for free. Don't ask me to explain this. I took me about two hours to figure out how the companies make it appear that they're helping you, the consumer, out and losing profit but really, they're just screwing us even more. Still, it's the cheapest way to go if I don't want to pay 45 Agurot (shekel cents) per minute or per SMS. 

Meanwhile, I've been staying with my friend Jake, in Netanya, as mentioned earlier, along with his roommates. One of them has a spare phone and has offered to sell it to me so I don't have to deal with the rip-off through the company and the phone plan. I think I may go with that. After I trial it for a week. 

As I continue the job hunt.