Travel Log #29

February 17, 2010
The level of professional unreliability in this country is absolutely ridiculous. There is absolutely no inkling of a service ethic. As I think I mentioned in a previous entry, our lamp exploded a few days ago and we need an electrician as the internal wires in the ceiling got fried...or something like that. The landlord actually showed up, as promised, around 8:00am this morning, checked to see if it was actually broken (yes, there's a new bulb in there), says he'll be back "soon/fifteen minutes" and leaves. Two hours later, he still hasn't shown up! We'll see how long it takes now that's I've complained.

Anyhow, what is much more interesting than trivial (but necessary) everyday crap, is the field trip I went on last week with my fifth graders, to a nearby Arab village called סכנין (Sach'nin). A few days ago, I attended a mandatory five-day seminar with OTZMA that focused specifically on the Arab/Israel conflict. we were exposed to as many people on extreme ends of the political spectrum as is possible in five days--from Right Wing settlers invoking 3,000 year histories to bleeding heart liberals like Rabbis for Human Rights. We also met with Palestinians in the disputed territories. It was good exposure and I don't think it leaned specifically towards one end of the spectrum more than another. The one improvement that I would suggest is, perhaps some representatives of mainstream Israel--somewhere in the middle.

The effect on me was rather depressing: this is the never-ending conflict. "A good one to go into," someone told me. It will never be solved and everyone is right and everyone is wrong and the average person becomes nothing but a pawn in the power game played by those in power. We are all, inescapably , gears within the Machine. I left the seminar with more cynicism than ever, and with more hopelessness. As of now, I am not completely devoid of hope, but I know that I am powerless and that words work to poison, not to heal. "Diplomacy is a kind illusion, nothing more," I thought, "and goodwill works to stall, not to progress, when it comes to the Language of Peace and Civility".

We visited an Arab "village" called סוסיה (Susya), which is right across the street from Jewish סוסיה. Arab סוסיה would better be described as a tent encampment than a village. The people live in semi-permanent tents on land that used to be used solely for farming. This family has lived on this particular plot of land for centuries. About a decade ago, the land they used for living, directly across the street, was declared an "archaeological site" by the Israeli government, so all of the residents were evicted, with no other place to go. They were also denied building permits. Hence the semi-permanent tents. Tents are less likely to be bulldozed for illegality and are not as much of a loss as are buildings if they do happen to be destroyed.

The biggest injustice in all of this is the fact that soon after the Palestinians were kicked off their land, a Jewish outpost (illegal settlement according to the Israeli government, aka no building permits) was started on the site and remains there. The difference between an outpost and a settlement in Israel's vocabulary is "building permit or not". Outposts are unrecognized by the government, receive no services, and are privy to being torn down--and are--much like the illegal Palestinian outposts. The difference is that Jewish construction is not in as much danger as Palestinian.

Ironically, the Palestinian outpost is a mixture of absolute decrepitude and cutting-edge technology: Israeli human rights groups work hard. The outpost is equipped with windmills and solar panels and the residents have pretty cell phones. Alongside this is the outhouse. And the goats.

Our guide, and resident of Arab Susya, stood silently and answered questions. He declared that the Palestinian Authority doesn't care about the everyday people. The leaders are all corrupt and on personal power trips, he said. "So this is what we have to live with." Because neither government, Israeli nor PA, has any real concern invested in the populace.
February 18, 2010
The average Israeli (at least those to whom I have spoken) all have a common reaction if the situation of the Palestinians is brought up: "How can they live like this?" and because they are powerless to do anything--to affect any real change, they shove the thoughts to the back of their minds as much as possible. The everyday news makes this difficult. But there's always "Big Brother" as salvation.

Millions of dollars in aid, from Israeli tax dollars and funds from abroad hardly make it to their goal of the Palestinian populace. Instead, they are redirected to weaponry or to private accounts. The private accounts are often located outside of the Middle East and make people like Mrs. Arafat very comfortable in France.

March 5, 2010
After all was said and done with the seminar, after we'd seen the sites of East Jerusalem and had that situation explained in a whole new light, I was more confused and more speechless and more pessimistic than ever. If we take a look at East Jerusalem, it seems pretty much like South Main, Worcester. AKA A shit hole. But the reasons for this are different from Worcester, in general. Garbage is all over the place. Buildings are run-down and scarce. But we have to ask why. Residents of East Jerusalem, specifically Arab residents have full voting power in municipal elections but only about 5% of them vote; the other 95% do not vote as a protest against the State of Israel. This ends up with the Arab population shooting itself in the foot. With no representatives to vie for them, budgets are allocated elsewhere. So, there is minimal bussing, minimal garbage collection, minimal municipal services in general because they don't vote themselves a representative. West Jerusalem is mainly Jewish and if you ask most Israelis, they want a united Jerusalem but haven't ever stepped anywhere near East Jerusalem, unless we're talking about the all-Jewish neighborhood of Talpiot.

Needless to say, this is all a part of why I left the seminar in the state I did. But the field trip to סכנין came just in time, four days later, to give me a very small, but renewed sense of hope. All year, the fifth graders at my school in Yokneam and the fifth graders at the school in סכנין have been learning about each others' cultures, languages, human and civil rights, and citizenship. Of course, the residents of סכנין are full Israeli citizens; a minority and discriminated against, but have full rights on paper. It's the story of any minority in any country--almost. What I saw here was wonderful if not very realistic in the big picture. The children played with each other, laughed, cried, exchanged words in Hebrew and Arabic, exchanged phone numbers. Perhaps one friendship will sustain itself in face of the pressures and prejudices against it from both sides.

In a few weeks the Arab children come to visit Dalyiot, the school we teach at. If more people would work to promote such meetings, perhaps there could really be change. Children are good at picking up similarities and working through differences. But I cant ignore the fact that some of the adults working on this day were against it and only there because of an order from a superior.

I had a great time. The food was amazing and our hosts kept heaping my plate with more and more food. I ended up having my picture taken during one of these heapings without noticing and it ended up in the local newspaper. Some people were excited. Others were not: "I saw your picture in the newspaper. You were doing something with a school. With Arabs," the word spat out like poison. So, I was simultaneously impressed by humanity and disappointed. But everything swings back and forth into a grey area, particularly regarding this conflict. Hence its perpetuation. I suppose all we can do is what we've always done (if we have): just hope.

Travel Log #28

February 13, 2010
Yokneam is a quiet place. I like it. No pubs, no crowds of people screaming, shrouded in drunkenness. Excellent gelato. There are a lot of children; this is a town filled with the young. About ten years ago, the mayor (who is still the mayor) came up with an initiative that would bring young people to one of the oldest towns in Israel and that would also rejuvenate it economically. Today, Yokneam is a center for high-tech business. Those in the industry brought their young and upcoming families with them. So, like I said, there are a lot of children.

Four days a week, I, along with Max and Andi, go into work at an elementary school where we primarily teach English. Between the three of us, we work with grades 1 through 6. I, personally, work with 2 through 6, but mainly with the 4th and 5th grades. We work one-on-one with the students who need extra help and it's really amazing to see our efforts actually bearing fruit: the children are learning! The children are improving.

At first, I wanted nothing to do with them--the thought of children does not sit well with me. But I tried anyway and ended up loving them. They're so sweet and, a rarity these days, interested in learning things. When we walk into a classroom, we're bombarded with squeals of excitement and hugs and a contest over who gets to have us sit at their table.

A few weeks ago I was sick for a week and one of my fourth grade classes made me Get-Well cards, all of which were absolutely adorable.

Another surprise is that I'm also teaching math--second grade math, but still. This is me. And math.

Sometimes, as part of the English lesson, I bring in Therem and teach them a song. They absolutely love this. Edna, the English teacher I spend most of my time with, asked if I could bring her in again this week, so we'll see.

February 15, 2010
The school is the most organized of our volunteer activities. However, there still remain days like today, when there is absolutely nothing to do. Welcome to Israel, land of organization. I ended up hanging in the office with the secretary, Zohar, and we taught each other English and Hebrew. She may be one of my interviewees, for the photojournalism/conflict journalism project I'm working on for my internship during Part III. I'll explain that in more detail later--probably in a later post.

Anyhow, I don't only teach at the בית-ספר (school); I also teach at the local youth center (בית נוער) in the evenings. The students there are high school age and I teach them guitar and English penmanship, reading comprehension, and writing. They are high school seniors, preparing for their בגרות (bagroot--exit exams). My students are amazingly motivated and fantastic, and serious about learning.

Of course, there are the typical issues: how can I teach them guitar if they don't have guitars of their own to practice with? Sure, they can borrow mine during the lesson, but that's only an hour or so a week and we share the guitar between at least three people. My girl student had intolerably long nails for playing guitar, so I told her to cut them. And she did! The next week, she was incredible! I was so impressed. The boys are good, too, but their attendance is more intermittent.

The Youth Center is sometimes an enigma. Most of the kids go to have a place to hang out, play ping-pong, air-hockey, and fooze-ball, and use the computers. They come to stay off the streets. There are leadership programs, and a pre-army program called אחריי (Ach'a'raii--After Me). My favorite is the cooking program, with a great guy named Gid'on. He makes pita from scratch in a stone oven, and pizza, and is always handing out tea. Gid'on is Kurdish and taught me and Andi some words in Kurdish. Turns out Kurdish has its etymological roots in Chaldean, just like Hebrew, and where we would say things like "לחם" (lechem--bread) in Hebrew, we would say "לחמה" (lach'ma) in Kurdish.

Other than this, I'm not really sure what we're doing at the Youth Center. The administrators, or coordinators seems to have some very undefined idea of having some kind of grandiose impact n the place--but every time we suggest something, they shoot it down as "unrealistic" and "not good enough". I was personally berated for "doing a great job, but it's not good enough--what else can [I] think of?" Nothing, truthfully.

I don't really have answers to these questions. I came here to build connections with people. I came here so that those connections would bring me closer to understanding Israel. Place=people who live in that place. I told my inquisitor this. Not good enough. Think of something else.

"What do you think the children would find interesting?" he asked.
"Well, when I was their age--" I began.
"No. Don't think like this. This is bad thinking," he cut me off.

I stopped talking and very much wanted to leave and go cry in a corner, but I endured this for over half-an-hour, where he even told my student, Shira, to go away. I wonder what is considered sadism, or if this is guy even realizes what he's doing. Probably not.

The point is, other than my students, I really have no motivation to go anymore. Plus, the guy treats me (and maybe my peers--I don't know) like I'm twelve. I walk in and he's all perky, blows over with a high-five and keeps walking. I hate being patronized.

On Sunday mornings, I have been working at an elderly day care center. Unlike the old-age home in Ashkelon, these people are totally coherent and go here mainly for socialization and informative programs. Yesterday, I conducted a seminar that I've been planning for a few weeks now on the history of American folk music, beginning with the Stephen Foster song, "Hard Times, Come Again No More:, written in 1854. I brought them all the way up to John Prine's "Paradise". For each song, I prepared a 2-4 sentence summary reviewing the song's content, and a brief background of the songwriter. All of this was then translated into Hebrew and Russian. Half of the people at the center are Russian and will never learn Hebrew--we have no common language other than actions and smiles but we get the point across.

Usually, I work with one woman, M., who was a professor of English Literature in Moscow. Her English is amazing but she has no confidence and claims that confidence and happiness have both eluded her at this, the end of her life. "I have no future. But my past was wonderful. I just cannot think of it always," she says. Everyone has a future, no matter how brief and I believe in making the best of it. For all she knows, she can outlive me.

"But I can't create happiness out of nothing," she says. It is unfortunate then, how she can create grief.

For the duration of my concert, everyone was happy, but M., I think was able to appreciate it the most. I saw on her face that while the music played, her grief was forgotten, at least for a little while. This is what makes the music worth it.

When it was over, I got bombarded by an enthused audience. Next week, I have another presentation for a different crowd. I have also possibly been hired for a real concert outside of Yokneam by one of the younger audience members.

"You should stay in Israel," a lot of them tell me, because they want my music. "You need to have a disc. I want to buy it." Discs would bring in money, but that's the Catch-22: I need money to record and produce and אין לי--so no money from albums. Maybe I'll find a rich person who wants to produce me (fat chance). Maybe I should move to Nashville.

Another volunteer activity that we at least attempt to do is package food once a week. This has not been working out as envisioned. We always get picked up way too late--so we only have half-an-hour or so--or not at all. It's very frustrating. I'm the contact person for us and I speak to the guy in Hebrew. It's hard and I think there is a large rift in the communication, but I don't think it is solely because of the language.

For instance: last Wednesday, he called at around 4:15, told me he was coming in 20 minutes. 20 minutes go by, I call him. He doesn't answer. We wait around for an hour. He never calls back and never shows up. Not to mention that we requested that he show up earlier, at something like 3:30 so that we can actually have a good amount of time to work with the packaging. But time is different here: take a time and multiply it by at least three. Apparently, after an hour, we're supposed to give up.

We have this problem with our landlord, too: "I come Friday," he says. I call him to confirm. "No. I not come Friday. I have party. I come Sunday at 7:00am." He shows up at 8:15. He rips up the apartment but does the job, closes the hole in the wall, and asks me if I'll still be in the apartment in fifteen minutes. I tell him, "Yes. I'll be here in fifteen minutes." I wait an hour. I get on with my day. I get back at 6:00 and he still hasn't shown up! He finally gets here at 7:00-ish, after Max called and yelled at him about it. He says, "Sorry. I had to go to Tel Aviv." TEL AVIV?!?! So much for fifteen minutes!. At least he wasn't "go to party in my truck with Mommy at four" again. Really, the whole thing is beyond hilarious. But none of us ever want to deal with him again. And, of course, when we think we're home-free, the light in our room explodes and we need an electrician! But c'est la vie.

I have spent the day working and studying Hebrew. My vocabulary is improving and I'm getting much more comfortable with speaking. There aren't too many words I have to ask for now in everyday conversation. It's a good feeling.

What isn't a good feeling are my dry, cracked hands, which haven't completely healed--still! My hands look like sick rotten meat. Ok. I'm exaggerating. I do not have gangrene, just dry skin. But I"m used to naturally soft and healthy hands. Not the case in this climate, apparently.

Travel Log #27

January 22, 2010
After vacation, I traveled back to Jerusalem to rendezvous with the thirty-seven OTZMAnikim for Part II Orientation, after which all of us separated into our current locations for the next three months. I headed to Yokneam with Andi and Max of St. Louis. I'll get to Yokneam later.

January 23, 2010

At orientation, we got yet another debriefing on the current security situation (I remind some of you that this may be verbatim familiar--sorry):

"It's been the quietest year in decades; we have no reason to assume the situation will change...but it's Israel. So they're apt to change. If something does happen, if you start exhibiting symptoms of traumatic stress--wetting your bed, lack of sleep, let us know. It's human. Be prepared for mass text messages warning you of danger.

"Be inside a building.

"Be thirty seconds from a bomb shelter."

There are two kinds of sirens: The warning siren goes up and down; the Shabbat siren is flat.

So much for tornado drills, right?

There's a slightly different procedure for every place we are: inside, outside, this position, that position. But we all know that hiding under a desk won't do shit if the bomb drops on top of you.

When Part II Orientation was over, all of us got on different buses, going three different directions: South, West/North, and Very North. I got on the "Very North" bus and headed to the city of Yokneam. "City", of course, is a relative term. A "city" in Israel is any area with a population exceeding twenty-thousand. That hardly goes for a town in the United States, most of the time, but like I said, everything's relative. In Yokneam, a city named after the biblical king who once ruled this area, we are surrounded by history. Half of this history has been unearthed by dedicated archaeologists and half has been left as-is because, I suppose, history is made by the men who live it and piling our own time upon the old sediment is just as well. We are history, too.

Yokneam lies in the geographic region, Megiddo, the region "Armageddon" gets its name from and the place from which the earth, according to the Christians, will initially open up and start eat all of us bewildered, unyielding sinners. It is also home to the birth of the Carmelite Order of the Catholic Church, so on nearly every mountain peak, you can find a Carmelite monastery.

Like I said, history runs deep here. This is the place where the Prophet Elijah hung out in biblical times, and where he proved the omnipotence of the Israelites' deity over the god, Ba'al, before being whisked away to Heaven, body and all. The contest was, of course, a bloody one, where the four-hundred-and-fifty priests of Ba'al over which he won were routinely slaughtered for their inferior faith in the inferior god. Elijah also happened to win back the faith of the ancient Israelites who had, as per usual, fallen into the practice of worshiping the more tangible deity, because that seemed more practical than worshiping the incorporeal "All-Mighty" God of whatever it is they were--and we are--supposed to believe in.

The point of all this is, of course, that I live in Yokneam now, which apparently lies right on the biblical fault of Armageddon. Max, Andi, and I live on a street called HaRimmon, which alternately means "pomegranate" or "hand grenade". Take your pick. A pomegranate is the officially designated Jewish fruit--six-hundred-and-thirteen seeds for six-hundred-and-thirteen mitzvot. It's pretty incredible if you think about it. About five minutes away and down a hill and by foot is the entrance to the city, at a shopping center. This is a highly convenient location not only because of the grocery store but because its parking lot serves as the city's central bus station.

Our apartment is in a neighborhood called Wadi, after the Arabic word for "dry riverbed" (don't ask, because we're in the north and there's no desert anywhere). This is considered a "bad" neighborhood in town, just like Shimshon, where we lived in Ashkelon during Part I, was considered a "bad" neighborhood. "Bad neighborhood" in Israel tends to mean "lots of Ethiopians" and/or "lots of elderly Russians. "Bad neighborhood" means "not as well-off" as the more established people (often) of paler complexion, five minutes down the street. Sounds familiar, right? But crime in Israel is much rarer than in the States (although it is on the drastic rise); people still find themselves appalled and surprised by random acts of violence; when there's a murder, or an accident, the whole country mourns. There is not the flipping of the page or changing of the channel, no "so, what else is new? Next!" that I'm accustomed to at home.

So, in Wadi, on Rechov HaRimmon, I'll hear some more Russian and Amharic. I'll live next door to an (oh my god) black person. I'm ok with that. More people may wield weapons per capita here than in the US but they don't tend to use them unless there's an actual security situation. And everyone's trained to use the weapons. Everyone goes through military and military ethics training (at least that's what I've heard), but the guns, outside of a military context, are hardly ever fired, although the guns are everywhere. They're everywhere and it doesn't phase me at all. In the US, I'd spazz over them.

Our apartment, of course, doesn't have any guns, unless you count the explosive door making gunshot noises every time it opens. In any case, the light in this apartment is amazing. We can go through the entire day, until nightfall, without turning on a single light anywhere. (If it's sunny out.)

When we got here, the landlord was painting. Apparently, the previous tenants had only left the night before. They left behind six tropical sippy cups in the dish rack.

We have an oven but it's not really calibrated properly--apparently we need to turn the fan on "TURBO" whenever we use it...and the cookies and cakes still don't come out very well; we have a gas stove; a full-sized fridge; an occasional ant infestation; and some good kitchen storage space; and of course, we have a דוד (dude)--will explain later; and the apartment came fully furnished! I even got a full-zed bed. I seriously almost died of joy. Andi and I share a room and Max has a single on the other side of one of our walls. The only problem with the apartment is the acoustics--you can literally hear everything, everywhere. Between our wall and Max's room, there's an open window extending from the ceiling and down about a foot and a quarter. The landlord is supposed to come fix it, along with the washing machine (I ended up doing my laundry by hand in the sink and was reminded of my domesticity in Germany).

The apartment is also freezing! And we can't use the heat because it either spews out fumes that make me sick for a week or it blows the fuse. So, we wear a lot of layers. And at least the shower is amazing, as long as the sun is shining...which brings me to the דוד (dude).

Now, I probably should have mentioned the דוד a lot earlier, because we had them in Ashkelon, too. Axctually, they are common all over Israel. So, that brings me to what the דוד is. Basically, a דוד is a water boiler. In order for us to have hot water, we have to turn it on for fifteen to thirty minutes before using the shower (but no longer than an hour-and-fifteen minutes or else it will explode and then it's bye-bye hot water for the remainder of our stay wherever). The only problem with the דוד here in Yokneam, is that it is dependent on solar panels. This generally isn't an issue in Israel, unless we're in the rainy season, which we are right now.

And also, since it's Israel, I haven't had a proper shower since I got here in September. SO even though the water's steaming and the pressure is amazing, I can't forget that I'm in Israel. The lack of water here is so severe that we have to turn the water on, get wet, turn it off, lather, turn it on, rinse, turn it of. For a seven minute "shower" which is really a "bathing period", the water is on for a total of maybe forty-five seconds. Like I said a few months back, according to the Jerusalem Post, the country is supposed to be out of water by late spring or early summer of this year--despite the rain! Another thing about m y shower before I talk about the rain: although the water pressure is good, the hose has an issue, so when we turn the water off (which you've learned is often), we have to be prepared for the shower head to fall and smash on the ground when the pressure goes from great to zero.

But, like I said, its the rainy season. Last week, it rained non-stop for at least three days. I lost count. We shouldn't complain. We prayed for rain, right? Even so, as people die in flash floods and as water from the north overwhelms the south, it won't be enough, most likely. The Kinneret is that thirsty. So even as we suffer a deluge, we pray for the miracle of water so that its price won't have to double as desalination plants kick into high gear. We pray for the miracle of water. I'm used to that one, aren't I? I'm also aware that miracles work in both directions, so I am very careful about what I wish for. I grew up in a drought, after all. And the drought has recently ended. With a price.

Well, when I say I grew up in a drought, I mean half. For the first half, I grew up in a swamp. No need to worry about water except too much of it. Then, I moved and the water stopped coming, so everyone prayed for rain and they got it, but people paid the price--flooding, property damaged, ruined, lives lost. So, like I said, be careful what you wish for because you just might get the miracle but know that it works in both directions. You might get too much.

Travel Log #26

January 21, 2010

It has been nearly a month since I wrote a proper update. That being said, this might take awhile. Also, because I have written in abundance just not in Blog abundance, about the relevant topics, I will warn some of you now that some passages may seem quite familiar in this entry and in the next one.

I will begin with the present moment: I am home recovering from an illness caused by heater fumes which left me pretty much incapacitated for the entire week. Today is a big turning point; I made it all the way down the hill to the grocery store and back up again (with the groceries) all by myself. On Monday, I literally couldn't move. Now, I'm making chicken soup solo for the first time in my life and I've made it too salty. Good thing I learn from my mistakes.

Now, I'll back up a little bit because I never really told you about what I learned in the army. (This is one of those parts someone will find familiar.) For one thing, I learned that this part of the world really does get cold; cold and dry. The combination of the cold, dry climate with my endless parachute unknotting, hauling, etc. led to the near total destruction of my hands. No joke. I'm talking cracked skin like desert clay with blood oozing in the cracks. All that good stuff. Hand creams gets absorbed so quickly in these conditions by skin and canvas, you might as well not even have applied it. Then, there was the kitchen duty, which basically entails getting screamed at to do something you're already doing (like squeegying the floor) and spending four hours up to your elbows in a garbage bin filled with dirty dishes in dirty water--which I don't mind so much, except for what it does to my hands. Let's just mention that my army stint has been quite over for a month now, and my hands are still not completely healed.

In any case, I have learned that army food can be eaten in every kind of abundance and everyone will still be hungry because stale bread and rotten fish just don't cut it, that most of what you do in the army is wait around and waste time. Of course, here, it's all a joke in the realm of dark humor because while we're sitting around wasting time, training for 10% of it, the waiting around is waiting for the next war to start, which could be at any moment. But the night guards still get drunk on duty because "hopefully that won't be tonight" and for the other 5% of the time that is neither training nor waiting around, there's a war going on and it shows the nineteen-year-old soldiers too much of what horror is, so they drink it away. Not that it helps. Like I keep saying, if you want to compare a nineteen-year-old American to an Israeli one, you'd think that Israeli one is at least a decade older, so 5% really become 200% when it comes to working memory and what goes on just beneath the surface of their minds. It's combated with the dark humor.

Of course, I wasn't really a soldier, but I and the others on the Sar-El program looked like soldiers when we wore our uniforms, and we seemed like soldiers when we lived in bunkers, on metal cots that poked their wires into us through sheet-thin mattresses so we can hardly sleep. I don't know about anyone else, but I know that despite not really being a a soldier or an Israeli, I've noticed that I've bgun to feel like one a little bit. The reality of it is reflected back at me when I look in the mirror. There's just this look that I can't quite describe, something in the eyes...maybe disillusionment to the utmost extreme, so much that it's taken for granted. It's a societal expression here and the way you can tell a tourist from a resident (in most cases). I know I must have it down pretty solidly because when people figure out that I'm not Israeli, they're surprised.

But, because I'm not Israeli, and because I wasn't really a soldier, although I was in soldier garb, I had more time on my hands than even the wait-around-doing-nothing-time. So, in the army, I read seven books in ten days, and had more than ample time to ponder why the only edible food there are jello, packaged cheese, tea (sometimes), and grits. Don't ask me why there are grits, which clearly only belong south of Mason-Dixon, in the Israeli army.

After the army, I went on vacation and traveled around meeting people for awhile. I went to Jerusalem and met a girl I'll be working with during Part III of OTZMA for the internship, named Mollie, met up with another friend, there, too, then spent the night roaming around the Ben Yehuda Street area until around four in the morning and ran into a girl from camp I haven't seen since the last time I was in Israel. I was beyond exhausted by the end, but happy. It was fun and I met many good, new people. I also spent a day in Haifa checking out the University's English program (explained last time), and Acco with another friend.

I then went on to spend the weekend in צפת (Tzfat) with my חב"ד (Chabad) friend from Worcester. It was great! And beautiful. Since I live in the north now, צפת isn't that far away anymore. There's something very special about the blue, mystical city, the city filled with beautiful views of mountains and purple mist, clear night skies, and golden sunsets. And no angelic voices, but thousands of stars. On ערב שבת (Erev Shabbat), a four-year-old child was lost. Helicopters flew overhead, search parties of black-garbed חסידים (Chasidim) roamed the streets, and cars zoomed by, all searching for the child. Eventually, after about five hours of searching, he was found. In the cemetery.

When I tell people I spent the weekend with חב"ד, I get mainly mixed reactions: "How can you stand it?" and "Oh, honey, good luck". It's true, I can't live like that; I can't believe with such intensity, I need to know; I can't disregard my own personal truths or the feeling deeply rooted in me that tells me that there is so much missing from their lives--God didn't just create the world, He created the whole world. They create an isolated community and that isolation breeds a fear of anyone who is different: Jews who live secular lives; non-Jews hardly exist beyond the idea of the Monster. But, undeniably, these people are happy, despite (and perhaps because of) their ignorance of the wider world. And I can't help admiring them for their faith and envying them their happiness. But I see it as a brainwashed happiness borne on the wings of a blind faith that relies too much on a man-made rendition of God.

I can't disregard Darwinian Theory because it makes sense and there is ample proof supporting it. Might I remind you that, like anything scientific, it's still a theory. But I don't see why it can't go hand-in-hand with the story of Genesis. Every day sees the creation of new worlds, after all. Genesis is an ongoing phenomenon. And carbon dating is no hoax (and neither are the dinosaurs!). But I was told (again, like I was told in the fourth grade) that I need "proof" of these phenomena's legitimacy! They're not in the TORAH!

These people ask for scientific proof and refuse to believe it when it's presented but expect blind faith to be taken as absolutely logical, reasonable, no proof needed. For me, science doesn't disporve God, but rather reinforces the probability of Its existence. Then gain, my conception of "God" varies greatly from the general institutionalized kind and I don't try to understand Its nature. I accept my Humanity and therefore, my inability to comprehend such things. Some things just are, simply or otherwise; and I am content to leave them at that. It is the one instance in which I can separate myself from the need for logical "proof" -- I'm just not going to try and convince anybody.

As you've probably figured out, I buy more into angels than deities anyway, even tough all three of us are indelibly linked across the chasm of Creation. The angels suggest a direction and we discover the way, after all. No need for faith in anything but the Self. In צפת, they were silent but the city was full of them. The air in צפת was so full of angels, of high orders, of lesser orders, that we couldn't help but breathe them in. It is a city where communion with the divine is not considered crazy, but commonplace.

"And when are we not?" Uriel asks.
"Never. But you know Humanity."
The angels laugh. Micha'el answers:
"We know Humanity, yes, with all of its gifts, with all of its blessings and curses, we know you. But as you have the ability to change, you evolve to doubt not only your guides but yourself. There are so precious few of you left who can hear us and trust the counsel. But we are creative and the language of Heaven can be translated into the shade of a tree or the path of a friend, or a stranger. The grand design is not altered although you believe yourselves to be so powerful."

In the end, I know, the crust of the earth will bend and crack and shift, but Humanity will not be a factor. Nature doesn't care about us. But what a world we've made! It is truly extraordinary. I still can't decide whether I love it or hate it but either way, I am a part of it, and I live with it. I suppose life is a love-hate relationship anyway; it all depends on the day and on the way we wish to view it.

Travel Log #25

December 23, 2009

Tel-Aviv almost flooded me out yesterday, every street inundated past my ankles within two minutes of the start of the rain. Everything, including my shoes, went straight into the dryer when I got home, and bed has never felt better.

Today, I'm in a place I've never been but that feels comfortable: a university. I have searched a lot of places all over the world for a combination of professors who might be able to collaborate with each other and me to aid me in my research and my work. Of course, my standard is ridiculously high (Clark, which no one can beat). And of course, the only place I have found mythopoetics is the Clark. But I can carry Wallace Stevens around and perhaps enlighten others. Or, I can at least explain to them my focal lens and hope they can find it within themselves to help me study the language of conflict through a mythopoetic lens so that I can demonstrate the power of fiction as a most real reflection of reality. Monsters jump off the pages and they mean something--I attempt to decipher the meaning--and I bear in mind that monsters jump off the pages because they jumped out of people's minds first, and they began as a story that turned into a myth, which in turn became the Supreme Fiction.

We shall see if this department amounts to anything. Toronto also seemed good, but I have yet to make it there in person. The search for the perfect graduate school proves more difficult than I thought; and while part of me itches to return to school, most of me wants to work. In the best of all worlds, I will be able to to do both. Schools costs money, after all, and I hate being in debt. Once I get a job, I might suck it up and live in another crap hole for awhile and pay off as much of the loans as possible. I don't like the fifteen year plan. I want to get it down to five. Fat chance, but here's to hoping. Thus far, my hand has proven correct, if we want to believe in palmistry: I have gotten everything I have really wanted ambition-wise; the right schools, the right programs, the right internships and scholarships and jobs. It wasn't easy--isn't easy--I've kicked and screamed and worked my ass off the whole way.

But, like I said, the hand is right, if we want to believe in palmistry (which I don't), because alongside all that good luck is anothe rline that no one else anyone has encountered has seen. It parallels the first line and it counters it. Perhaps it is bad luck, or perhaps it is nothing at all since palmistry is a load of crap. But if it isn't, perhaps it isn't any of those things; perhaps it is representative of choice. We all have a choice, I know I have mine, and we must keep life in balance.

Over all, I have had a plan for myself within the monolinear labyrinth of life. I pretend so well that it is all under control that most of the time, I almost really believe it. I get other people to believe it. Really, though, I'm just like everyone else. I have no clue. My tactic to survive the raging ocean? Go under the wave when it's about to break and come up for air in between. really, I have nothing to complain about. After all, I have Seraphim all over me and they are always on my side even when the days are as dark as night. They remind me not to get too bogged down by human society's trivial bureaucracies. In the end, it will all pass and what seemed important in one moment will be revealed as wholly insignificant in another, particularly if we pull back just a little bit.

I am happy with my life. I have done well for myself so far. I have accepted that some things will never come for me, that I won't ever share a lot of my joy or any of my sorrow with anyone tangible. I'll share it theoretically, like this, as a character speaking from a page. People are more privy to connection with those who aren't real than with those who are, anyway. At least I have this medium. Some have none at all.

Travel Log #24

December 20, 2009

These days I feel like we drink up war like water; we pass it through--in and out. I tell my own story for once and a nineteen-year-old soldier looks at me and says, "I'm sorry. This story isn't jarring to me." That's the point. It isn't and that's the reason my friends here are Israeli. I don't hve anythingon them. They get the point without it being made.

I'm still upset. "I love my country," I tell her and she says, "Which one?"

"The United States," I reply. But then: "I love both, but the United States is..." I can't finish the sentence. "I can write this better than I can say it," I say. The United States is where my roots are, firmly planted. It's where my dreams are, it's where there's at least a dichotomy, at least an illusion of being free, and absolutely all the potential of so many American Dreams. "It's an easy life. No worries," she says. I raise my eyebrows. No, not so easy, I think. I list some reasons why.

"And you think we don't have that here? We do. We have it on top of everything else. War, politics, settlements, illegal settlements, drought."

I can't compete with her but I know it isn't a competition and I also know that if it were, we'd be tied. Why? Because life might be easier in America, easy as a life in a doll's house, easy as a life where people get by on credit and designer love. Knock on the door and it's empty. Raise a crucial question and the answer is apathy. Look for yourself in the mirror and the reflection is fragile as wet papier-mâché, melting and soggy, with a form undetermined. On the surface it's all smiles, sweet tea,and air conditioning. Physical comfort. We are the experts at the material world, so spoiled we don't even know what we have. So spoiled we don't even know what we're missing.

Turn around and step foot in a different land; there are no smiles, there's no water, and we have to deal with the smothering heat. Annihilation is a real threat. More responsibility and blame are borne on this country's shoulders than any other. But when the questions are asked, the answer isn't apathy, it's as many arguments as there are people in the room, or more. There is no doll's house; there's a bomb shelter and its smell still lingers fresh on the people's scents. Knock on the door and history answers you. Look for yourself in the mirror and try to find the person you lost the first time you put on that uniform, the first time you fired a gun, the first time you fired blindly because if it's a decision between me and everyone else, the trigger finger goes all giddy and chooses everyone else. Not me. Look for yourself in the mirror and and try to find the person you lost when your best friend didn't come back instead of you, when you had a vision plastered so permanently onto your brain, it's all you can see and you remembered so much you forgot.

In America, we no longer have the draft, but we still have an army, and coming from Georgia, sometimes it feels like we do. Boys come back different if they come back at all. They look in the mirror and "home" doesn't exist anymore. Then the press wonders why the percentage of suicides rises. High schoolers get inundated with cherry blossom propaganda: "Support our troops. They give us our freedom". The problem is, those high schoolers grow up and they still haven't looked one inch beyond their noses; they have no inkling of what their freedom really means, no idea of what it really is. "Freedom" has become an empty word, slandered by rhetoric. We have squandered it for pictures of places far away and never take the time to understand them.

It upset me because we've become so free we have no idea what it is from which we are free. Our liberty has made us arrogant, careless, gluttonous. It upset me because I love my freedom and I understand the price; I want to share the meaning of it with those, who like myself, were born in America. I don't fit, so I look elsewhere, but I don't fit there, either. I want to reverse the image of "American"="Stupid" and "loud" and "rich" and "apathetic". I want to represent the American Dream. And then I look at those around me and most of the time, I cannot answer for them. They are the reality and I am the elusive figment of my own imagination--and I go up in smoke. The smoke is ephemeral and then it's completely gone. I can't represent because that representation would be a lie--I am outside of the mainstream. On the other hand, though, it wouldn't be a lie at all, because I am, unquestioningly, a product of America, "Made in Brooklyn".

I am an American chameleon: I can fit the mould of anywhere, but I know who I am underneath. I am patient; I can wait forever to find what I'm looking for as long as I never stop searching.

In the meantime, there are orange trees that line the streets of Rehovot and I've picked my share from the grove at the Weisman Institute. The juice is delicious and runs down my hands. I endure the itching. Leaves come off in my hand with the fruit. If I don't get anything else out of this, I'll have gotten Jaffa oranges, and taste is one sense I can never wholly share with anyone else.

"Let it pass," the soldier says. Let all the burdens pass.
"But others come to replace them," I counter. "So what's the difference?"
"Let those pass, too. Then, your heart will be light. At least for a little while."
"I can't. I can't stop caring."
"Don't stop caring, just let it pass."

It's different from apathy. It's a talent acquired from living without unheeded freedom.
I can't let it pass. Caring is holding on for me. I understand the difference but I like it my way.

"There's a prize at the end of the tunnel, Little Girl," says Uriel.
"Good. I'll keep my eye on it."
"Share the delight of the orange with me," begs the angel.
"Some things, my dear, you have to let pass. Not like water, in and out, but like burdens. One nature cannot become another. Right?"
The angel smiles and for a moment, I feel weightless. The angel carries my history for a little while and then the play goes on.

Travel Log #23

November 21, 2009
There is a silence between the lines that screams. This is a tangible silence, tangible like the thick air of the Plague of Darkness. I advise: do not turn away. Grasp it. Draw the story out and put it on repeat on the highest volume possible until it broaches comprehension.

In Germany it was the void that made itself most apparent; it was silence that constituted the loudest sound. When I stood in the Void of the Voice at the Jewish Museum, I turned to the wall when it was bet on that I'd turned toward the light. I wondered then what that said about me. perhaps that the light reveals too much of history to me--and the fact that we never learn from it--we repeat it without a thought.

In Germany, the silence was loud and in Berlin, it was loudest, with its streets lined with scaffolding, with its population mingling East with West, where Hansel and Grettle met the ifrits of Arabia and the spices of Istanbul. Despite the hybrid nature of the world I describe, each of us bears human history in common and our propensity to not only repeat it, but turn a blind eye as it happens, condemn it after the fact, and to condone it as it happens again, so long as the arbitrary label of the "Other" suits our tastes of hate.

Of course, human atrocity knows no limit. This week I attended Israel's first international conference on genocide and it got me thinking and has perhaps set me on a path I will travel for a long time to come. It may very well be that it is the same path I have already been walking, but its form is slightly different from the one I imagined. Either way, I am on it. As to what I am thinking:

Germany dwells on the genocide it perpetrated and fails to find absolution as its repeated silence sees to the genesis, continuation, and perpetuation of others. The United States dwells on the sho'a, as well, and also ignores its own, that of the American Indian. That doesn't even begin to mention those it finances by proxy, but I will get to that later. Here, in Israel, the situation proves even more complicated than anywhere else I have encountered due to a combination of Jewish history and morality and the amount of African refugees pouring in through the borders.

Where Germany suffers the survivor's guilt of the perpetrator, Israel suffers the survivor's guilt of the victim and oftentimes misconstrues the meaning of life with the meaning of survival--it cannot decide whether "Never Again" means "Never again to us and only us" or "never again to anybody". I associate myself with the latter, although this leaves me in small company, albeit steadfast. I am not one to sacrifice my dignity to peer pressure, for when Paine declared "Give me liberty or give me death!" he got death and when I say that I would rather be condemned by Man as naive and disloyal than by Providence as immoral and hypocritical, it means that I can withstand enemies and the pressure of opposition. And so, I do not turn a blind eye and I do not try to justify the means of hate, no matter its object.

December 8, 2009
The way to tell to tell that we aren't real soldiers at first glance is the shoes. We have been issues everything army standard except for the shoes. If someone fails to notice this detail, though, and decides to speak with us, they are confronted with the usual phrase of ?אתה מדבר ענגלית (Do you speak English?) along with the occasional deer-in-the-headlights expression of the naive, monolingual American. The result? Either a proud show-offy switch into Anglo, a torrent of exasperation fueled by perplexion (why hell does the damn soldier not speak Hebrew), or orders in clipped English. This is Sar-El and we are civilians in soldier-garb; semi-soldiers for two-and-a-half weeks.

December 9, 2009
Our main task is parachutes. We are on a paratrooper base (location confidential) and untie knots from hell that have been worked into the chutes somehow right after a jump. Today we folded packs and prepared them for stuffing, hauled huge chutes from cleaning hooks and brought packs that were fully prepared downstairs.

Last night we were made to do a drill at one in the morning with M-16s in our faces, yelling "Get out. Up. Now." I, of course, couldn't do anything because my lungs are dead due to the inordinate amount of smoke everywhere.

Tonight, we wake up at 3:00am to watch the paratroopers jump. I will describe that once it happens.

December 13, 2009
We waited for hours, until after the sun was high. We wated with the command on the ground, sipped tea and שוקו (shoko) and downed white bread spread with "white cheese" which is this product in Israel that people call cheese, but it's really more like weird sour cream. I topped mine with tomatoes. I talked to a really high-powered commander about the high-altitude jumpers. Then, at around 9:00 in the morning, the plane started circling. After a few rounds, the paratroopers started jumping, one, two, three, four, slithering out of the plane like little squirming beans at first and then in a blink of an eye, expanding. We could hear them shouting up in the sky, sounds of glee, as they floated down.

"We packed those," a madricha said, meaning the parachutes. So we helped make sure they all landed safely, as far as our job was concerned.

There was something extremely peaceful about watching them glide down like fairies sprinkling the world awake at dawn. I imagined myself up there, too. I imagined myself up there, too. I imagined the rush. The closest I'll get to it is an airplane.

After the jump, we hung out for awhile. Hanging out is what people do most in the army--waiting around, doing nothing. We get a lot of reading done: five books in five days, which means I'm officially back to my old drink-up-a-book-like-water pace.

Finally, we were on our way--dropped off at a junction and split for the weekend. I took off with Allie and Max for Ashkelon, then had a good lunch at Hanassi without the music. After that I spent the weekend with the Gluecks.

Today, we all met in Tel Aviv and went north to Chaifa for a טייול (field trip, in this case). We visited Eliyahu's Cave and went to a Druze village for an amazing lunch and a bit of schmoozing around town. Now, we're back at the base and just chilling. I'm half writing and half reading yet another book, A Thousand Splendid Suns.

On the way back, we got stuck in a huge traffic jam, so the usual one-and-a-half hour bus ride took over three. I, unlucky me, needed to go to the bathroom desperately and I guess desperation is what causes true and actual transformation. I waited for an hour-and-a-half, until I was literally about to explode, before I approached the מדריכות (guides/counselors) and asked them if they could possibly get the driver to make a pit stop at the nearest friendly exit. For the record, there were exits every two minutes (traffic jam included). The driver says "There's no way to stop. There are no exits." I promptly point. We pass four.

"I don't understand," i say. "We just passed FOUR exits. There are more coming up. Just pull off and get back on. It's that simple. It'll take three seconds."

"No. It will take us off the route."
Obviously...
So I plead some more. He's yelling in Hebrew about how he can't do anything and I say to Noa, I'm about to explode. She says "I don't know what to do. I'm sorry." I say it's simple.

So the normally calm, passive me decides to look at the driver. I lean over and stare him in the eye in the mirror and say "Ok. You don't want to 'divert your route', I'll give you an alternative: How about I pee on your bus and you clean up the nice pee cushion in your brand new Mercedes bus?"

Well, Lo and behold! He says "Fine, I'll pull over somewhere and you go."

So he pulls over next to this construction area full of big sand dunes marked with tractor tracks and one little old, beat-up, white Mitsubishi. I run, bounding through the dark like a deer on steroids, plant myself behind the car and relieve myself. I got dirty looks from the driver, concerned questions of "Are you ok?" from the group and silent eye-rolling from the מדריכות when they thought I couldn't see. But when you gotta go, you gotta go, נכון?

Just picture me: marking my territory.
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