Preschool yoga is about the cutest activity that I've ever witnessed. It involves a teacher telling a story and along the way having kids act the story out through poses (ie. "And then she met a dog" - and then everyone has to go into the 'downward facing dog' pose) At the end of this week's story a boy and a girl decide to become friends, and the kids took turns holding hands in partners and skipping around the room.
As we descended from the upstairs classroom into the sandy outdoor play area, Sasha said to me, "no one wants to play with me!" so I said, "what do you mean no one wants to play with you! I want to play with you!" and we spent a half our baking sand cakes of every possible variety: honey, poppyseed, chocolate, banana chocolate chip, carrot, and cheese.
Eventually I said to her, "I have to leave soon." "Where are you going?" she asked. "I have to go to class soon - you know my Hebrew isn't very good so I have to go to class so I can learn to speak Hebrew better." And she said to me, "When I go to school I'm going to have to learn to speak English better. I already know a few words, but only a few." She proceeded to list the words she knows: 'okay' and 'no'. I asked her if she knew how to say 'yes' in Hebrew, but she had already forgotten. Now I don't feel so badly about my Hebrew language skills.
Showing posts with label Hebrew. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hebrew. Show all posts
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Thursday, April 2, 2009
The Bread of Affliction and other Yucky Pesach Things
The kids at the preschool are finally starting to understand that my Hebrew isn't so great, even as I'm feeling more confident with Hebrew (yesterday I gave a presentation in Hebrew class that I was very proud of and am still patting myself on the back for it...) Today one of the kids corrected my Hebrew several times and seemed to get a big kick out of it, while another said to me, "Jessica, my dad taught me a song for you!" and proceeded to sing "In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight" with a thick Israeli accent. He is three years old. It was adorable. Today in preschool we also played a riveting game of "do we eat it on Passover" the results: matzah -yes, because it is matzah. hard boiled egg - yes because a long time ago when the Israelis were slaves in Egypt pharaoh made them work hard - hard work is represented by hard boiled eggs because they both have the word hard. pizza - no because it has flour, honey - no because it is sweet and we are only supposed to eat yucky things, marror - yes because it tastes bad.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Dinner with the Neighbors
This evening I had dinner with our neighbors the Katzes. They are lovely kind people who welcomed me into their apartment because they knew that Daniel was away. We chatted for a very long time over soup, salads, and pasta - they told me that they cooked just about every recipe that they have for something without meat or fish! They told me stories about living in a Moshav during the Yishuv period - about the culture that existed here at that time, the way that people were trusting with one another and everyone knew everyone else. They talked about their family, about the way the Hebrew language has changed over time, about technology, and music, about Obama, and even about their pet turtle who has been living with them for over forty years. They were very patient with my Hebrew, asked me a lot of questions about myself, and I am so appreciative to have had such a lovely evening - and very proud of myself to have spent a whole evening speaking Hebrew (three hours!!)
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Language Partners Program
Today I met my language partner for the first time. We were paired up by the university to speak together in Hebrew and in English and to practice our languages together.
Dafna is in her fourth year studying computer science at Hebrew University. She is from Jerusalem and currently lives in an apartment with two roommates. She has a younger sister in the army and an older sister who is a pastry chef in Tel Aviv. Dafna's hobbies include seeing movies and juggling, and she is the president of the Hebrew University juggling club.
It is very hard to meet someone for coffee that you've been randomly matched with in order to form a friendship. We had to push hard to keep the conversation flowing. What music do you like to listen to? What movies do you watch? How do you like Jerusalem?
At the same time, we learned a lot about each other. Dafna never was in the army - she says that they told her that they didn't want her, so she spent a year working and juggling before going to school. She doesn't like school, but is a bit nervous about what comes next. She is very secular, has never been called to the Torah and isn't interested in Judaism at all. She has some cousins who were involved in a Reform community, but she seems to think that this was pretty strange. Dafna also told me that she has no friends who are religious, nor does she have any friends who are Arab. She then clarified for me, though, that she doesn't have that many friends to begin with, as she is pretty introverted. Dafna loves to travel, and after she graduates at the end of this year, she hopes to spend a few months travelling the world, couch surfing and sight seeing. She seems in some ways much more adventurous than I am, and in some ways much more conventional.
We'll meet every week, we think. We'll speak in English sometimes and in Hebrew sometimes. We are both excited at the possibility of getting to know one another - she says that it is hard to make friends outside of the world of computer science majors, and I am eager to make friends with a 'real' Israeli and leave the Anglo-bubble that is such a big part of my social life.
Nevertheless, can two people become friends just because they want to? Or does there have to be some kind of real shared interests between them? It seems to me that Dafna and I are very different, and that it might be hard to find topics to discuss for an hour every week. We'll see...
Dafna is in her fourth year studying computer science at Hebrew University. She is from Jerusalem and currently lives in an apartment with two roommates. She has a younger sister in the army and an older sister who is a pastry chef in Tel Aviv. Dafna's hobbies include seeing movies and juggling, and she is the president of the Hebrew University juggling club.
It is very hard to meet someone for coffee that you've been randomly matched with in order to form a friendship. We had to push hard to keep the conversation flowing. What music do you like to listen to? What movies do you watch? How do you like Jerusalem?
At the same time, we learned a lot about each other. Dafna never was in the army - she says that they told her that they didn't want her, so she spent a year working and juggling before going to school. She doesn't like school, but is a bit nervous about what comes next. She is very secular, has never been called to the Torah and isn't interested in Judaism at all. She has some cousins who were involved in a Reform community, but she seems to think that this was pretty strange. Dafna also told me that she has no friends who are religious, nor does she have any friends who are Arab. She then clarified for me, though, that she doesn't have that many friends to begin with, as she is pretty introverted. Dafna loves to travel, and after she graduates at the end of this year, she hopes to spend a few months travelling the world, couch surfing and sight seeing. She seems in some ways much more adventurous than I am, and in some ways much more conventional.
We'll meet every week, we think. We'll speak in English sometimes and in Hebrew sometimes. We are both excited at the possibility of getting to know one another - she says that it is hard to make friends outside of the world of computer science majors, and I am eager to make friends with a 'real' Israeli and leave the Anglo-bubble that is such a big part of my social life.
Nevertheless, can two people become friends just because they want to? Or does there have to be some kind of real shared interests between them? It seems to me that Dafna and I are very different, and that it might be hard to find topics to discuss for an hour every week. We'll see...
Monday, January 19, 2009
more on preschool
I was in the middle of writing an essay for another purpose when I composed this piece, very much a work in progress. Thought you might be interested.
The first time I entered the gan, I was greeted by a troop of three year olds chirping, "What's your name? in a language I barely knew. “Jessica,” I answered, and they repeated the unfamiliar “Dshess-ee-ca” hesitantly before encircling their tiny hands around my fingers and leading me to the toy trucks.
Just as my name is new to them, so too do I have trouble with their names, and just as sometimes I have trouble understanding the words they garble between lips new to speech, so too do they give me puzzled looks when I correct myself nervously while I speak. Still, somehow, we have a good time.
I had taught in a preschool before, and there I had used words freely and playfully to engage my students. “What is that?” I would ask them, and if they asked me the same question, I’d give a preposterous answer that would make the children shriek with gleeful laughter. At Gan Pshushim, where I volunteer for six hours every week, I am often silent.
Different types of students are drawn to me now than before, in America. When I was at an English-speaking preschool, the most outgoing students were eager to tell me a story or make-believe with me. Now, it is the quietest and smallest students who look at me through wide and trusting eyes. Like me, they don’t want to speak, they are afraid of making mistakes. I stumble over simple words as I ask them if they would like to play with me, to dance with me, to bake imaginary cakes with me in the sandbox. They nod, silently, and follow me wherever I go.
Ours is a wordless language, and as a writer, a literature enthusiast, and an avid Scrabble player, it was a language I had never used so fully until now. We put puzzles together without knowing the names of the objects we’re creating. We dance to songs with unfamiliar words. We ask for food by pointing, we read books by looking at the pictures.
The other teachers don’t speak our language. Whether they are asking in soft, soothing voices or chastising with harsh consonants and sharp tones, whenever they ask these children to speak, I can feel and understand their fear. They shake their heads, cross their arms, and shrink into themselves.
But when I don’t ask them to speak – how we have fun! Once I sat for a full half hour in the sand box, piling sand and sifting it between my fingers, two children on my lap and three by my side, in complete silence.
Sometimes we talk. I say something in Hebrew, probably incorrectly, and they process it slowly, and sometimes they answer me softly. If I had been busy with the more extroverted children, I may not even have heard their response.
And what have I learned? Is it a lesson about patience? About the ability to connect to people regardless of the divide? About perhaps the needlessness of language?
It’s even more simple than that, I think. It’s about seeing the students who are to shy to want to be seen, and about knowing that they have something to say, if only you ask the right questions, in the right way. Reaching out a hand might be just the question that they need, and even if I had all the words in the world, maybe it would still be the best question to ask.
--------------------
Incidentally, I do actually spend most of my time here not in preschool, though that might not come out in these blog posts. Today, for instance, I woke up early, went to class where I learned about the Holocaust - about more specifically the decision making process that led to the Final Solution and whether it is more a result of Hitler himself or the entire administrative and institutional apparatus. After that, I went to Hebrew class, where we read a bit of reportage by Amoz Oz. I stayed after to talk to my Hebrew teacher about the paper I had just turned in - the first paper I've ever written in Hebrew - which she offered to correct, grade, and then hand back before the deadline so that I can revise it and turn it in a second time if I would like. Over lunch I studied Yiddish, and in the afternoon I read a story by Abraham Reizen with my Yiddish class. The story, called "Feminine Fears" is about a woman who is losing her eyesight and is afraid her husband will divorce her as a result. I then went to my class on Mendele Mocher Seforim, where we compared "Fishke the Lame" and "The Travels of Benjamin the Third" - though as it turns out I'd read the wrong version of Fishke the Lame, so it was hard for me to follow the conversation. I came home very tired, cooked myself dinner and watched a little Israeli TV (OK, so it was American TV with Hebrew subtitles...) and then started writing this essay. All of this is by way of a clarification that I do, in fact, have a substantial life outside of the gan. (gan = preschool)
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Conversations at the Preschool, and a Very Painful Root Canal
There's a teacher at the preschool named Mazal who treats me as though I was a Hebrew speaker. While other teachers sometimes choose not to talk to me because they know I won't understand everything, or they practice their English with me, Mazal, who is very chatty, pretends not to notice that I don't always understand what she is saying. We've talked about her family and mine, about education, about child psychology... all in my very stammering and hesitant Hebrew and amidst the noise and interruption of the preschool classroom, in between commenting on how terrific childnrens' drawings are.
Sometimes, Mazal says things that surprise me, and I'm not sure if I just didn't understand her. She is very opinionated and often expresses ideas with which I am uncomfortable, but I am powerless to contradict her because I simply don't have the language to do so. Also, I wouldn't want to get into a conflict with her because I like her so much and I appreciate that she talks to me and is so patient with me.
She loves the kids, and when they produce things that she thinks are good, she acts as thought they are miracle-children, well beyond the scope of their years. She'll often show me a picture that a student drew and say, in front of him, "can you believe that he did this? and he's only three!" She's also much stricter than I am used to. She yells a lot at kids who are not doing what they are supposed to, like cleaning up areas that are messy, and is very hard on them. If someone talks during circle time, she pulls them out of the circle completely. She has high expectations. Craft projects have to be done the way she wants them - if someone leaves a blank space on something that is supposed to be filled with color, she does not see it as an artistic choice, but as laziness or a mistake, and she corrects it in a way that seems to me to be rather stern.
What's most striking about the conversations that I have with Mazal is the earnestness of her opinions and her desire to share them with me, and also her lack of knowledge of the US. Many of the people I speak to, even if they are Israelis, have been to the US, speak some English, etc. Mazal has done neither. She has one son who is Haredi and has studied in Brooklyn, and that is her experience of the US. She doesn't understand really how big it is and how many differences there are regionally. She'll say things like, "Do you know this singer of Jewish children's music? He's from the US" and not realize how silly that statement is.
Today we talked about three topics that each seemed rather striking to me. First, we talked about men, and love. She was joking about how after the wedding men are no longer interested in the women they are with, whereas before the wedding they are very attracted to their partners and life is good. She was talking to another teacher about it but I was nearby and she put her arm around me and said, "That's right, isn't it Jessica, it's good to be living with a boyfriend!" It was all in jest but it brought out to me the way that gender is in some ways much more strongly delineated here than in the US, even though here women are also in the front lines of the army. There's a strong masculine identity here in Israel that is complex and I don't really understand it. I only know that in Hebrew class I often find myself in arguments with the teacher when she talks about gender, I've even found myself close to yelling at her about it, and I get very frustrated because there are some women in my other class who claim to "hate feminism" even though feminism is what brought them to university in the first place....
The second topic of interest was when Mazal asked me what people in the US think of the situation here in Israel. I'm being asked all the time by friends at home what people in Israel think of the situation, but this is the first time I've been asked the question from the other side. I didn't know how to answer, and it was hard because of both the language barrier and the situation - in the middle of a group of kids, while helping them put together puzzles. I said something about how the US is a big country with many different people with many opinions. Mazal said that she was worried about Obama becoming president. She asked if there was any way for him to be taken out of office if he proved to be bad for the country or anti-Israel, and was disappointed when I told her that there's no vote of no confidence in the US governmental system. She told me that she was concerned about Obama because he is Arab, and Muslim. I told her that he was Christian, but that it didn't really matter what his religion is, just his beliefs. She said that even if he says he's a Christian, he isn't a real Christian because he is of Arabic background. I told her that perhaps in the US it is different from here insofar as peoples' political beliefs are not necessarily connected to religion. This was an inaccurate statement both in the case of the US, where religion is often very tied to politics, and in the case of Israel, where religion does not have to be the biggest factor in deciding politics, but again, it was a hard conversation to have for a number of reasons. In any case, the conversation ended soon because one kid hit another, who started to cry, and that was the end of that.
Later, Mazal talked to me about violence in the schools. She said that it was very hard to teach kids not to hurt other people, and then know that when they grow up they will have to hurt people when they are in the army. She also talked about how big a problem violence in the Israeli school system is, and during circle time she asked the kids to talk a bit about times when other kids hit them, and how it made them feel, and admonished them never to use their fists instead of their words.
I don't have time to analyze these three conversations as I have to run to class, but I just thought they might be interesting glimpses into the mind of one Israeli preschool teacher.
On a more fun note, let me tell you a little anecdote about preschool. I was building with blocks when a kid came up to me with a little plastic crocodile with an open mouth and a giant plastic saw with a yellow handle. "I'm cutting his mouth," he said. "Why?" I asked, "did he ask you to?" "Yes," he replied. "I'm cutting his mouth because there is a problem with his teeth." Let's reiterate the picture: tiny crocodile, giant plastic saw. Dentistry.
Sometimes, Mazal says things that surprise me, and I'm not sure if I just didn't understand her. She is very opinionated and often expresses ideas with which I am uncomfortable, but I am powerless to contradict her because I simply don't have the language to do so. Also, I wouldn't want to get into a conflict with her because I like her so much and I appreciate that she talks to me and is so patient with me.
She loves the kids, and when they produce things that she thinks are good, she acts as thought they are miracle-children, well beyond the scope of their years. She'll often show me a picture that a student drew and say, in front of him, "can you believe that he did this? and he's only three!" She's also much stricter than I am used to. She yells a lot at kids who are not doing what they are supposed to, like cleaning up areas that are messy, and is very hard on them. If someone talks during circle time, she pulls them out of the circle completely. She has high expectations. Craft projects have to be done the way she wants them - if someone leaves a blank space on something that is supposed to be filled with color, she does not see it as an artistic choice, but as laziness or a mistake, and she corrects it in a way that seems to me to be rather stern.
What's most striking about the conversations that I have with Mazal is the earnestness of her opinions and her desire to share them with me, and also her lack of knowledge of the US. Many of the people I speak to, even if they are Israelis, have been to the US, speak some English, etc. Mazal has done neither. She has one son who is Haredi and has studied in Brooklyn, and that is her experience of the US. She doesn't understand really how big it is and how many differences there are regionally. She'll say things like, "Do you know this singer of Jewish children's music? He's from the US" and not realize how silly that statement is.
Today we talked about three topics that each seemed rather striking to me. First, we talked about men, and love. She was joking about how after the wedding men are no longer interested in the women they are with, whereas before the wedding they are very attracted to their partners and life is good. She was talking to another teacher about it but I was nearby and she put her arm around me and said, "That's right, isn't it Jessica, it's good to be living with a boyfriend!" It was all in jest but it brought out to me the way that gender is in some ways much more strongly delineated here than in the US, even though here women are also in the front lines of the army. There's a strong masculine identity here in Israel that is complex and I don't really understand it. I only know that in Hebrew class I often find myself in arguments with the teacher when she talks about gender, I've even found myself close to yelling at her about it, and I get very frustrated because there are some women in my other class who claim to "hate feminism" even though feminism is what brought them to university in the first place....
The second topic of interest was when Mazal asked me what people in the US think of the situation here in Israel. I'm being asked all the time by friends at home what people in Israel think of the situation, but this is the first time I've been asked the question from the other side. I didn't know how to answer, and it was hard because of both the language barrier and the situation - in the middle of a group of kids, while helping them put together puzzles. I said something about how the US is a big country with many different people with many opinions. Mazal said that she was worried about Obama becoming president. She asked if there was any way for him to be taken out of office if he proved to be bad for the country or anti-Israel, and was disappointed when I told her that there's no vote of no confidence in the US governmental system. She told me that she was concerned about Obama because he is Arab, and Muslim. I told her that he was Christian, but that it didn't really matter what his religion is, just his beliefs. She said that even if he says he's a Christian, he isn't a real Christian because he is of Arabic background. I told her that perhaps in the US it is different from here insofar as peoples' political beliefs are not necessarily connected to religion. This was an inaccurate statement both in the case of the US, where religion is often very tied to politics, and in the case of Israel, where religion does not have to be the biggest factor in deciding politics, but again, it was a hard conversation to have for a number of reasons. In any case, the conversation ended soon because one kid hit another, who started to cry, and that was the end of that.
Later, Mazal talked to me about violence in the schools. She said that it was very hard to teach kids not to hurt other people, and then know that when they grow up they will have to hurt people when they are in the army. She also talked about how big a problem violence in the Israeli school system is, and during circle time she asked the kids to talk a bit about times when other kids hit them, and how it made them feel, and admonished them never to use their fists instead of their words.
I don't have time to analyze these three conversations as I have to run to class, but I just thought they might be interesting glimpses into the mind of one Israeli preschool teacher.
On a more fun note, let me tell you a little anecdote about preschool. I was building with blocks when a kid came up to me with a little plastic crocodile with an open mouth and a giant plastic saw with a yellow handle. "I'm cutting his mouth," he said. "Why?" I asked, "did he ask you to?" "Yes," he replied. "I'm cutting his mouth because there is a problem with his teeth." Let's reiterate the picture: tiny crocodile, giant plastic saw. Dentistry.
Saturday, December 6, 2008
A little Israeli Humor
As part of a pilot program called Tarbu-dat (Culture-Religion) at the Reform Synagogue around the corner from where we live, Har El, Daniel and I heard a presentation on the humorous side of being a tour guide in Israel. The presentation was a collection of short stories and jokes as recollected and told by a tour guide who mostly leads Indonesian, Belgian, and Dutch tourists around the country. He spoke in Hebrew, so we didn't understand everything, but I'll share with you a little of what we did understand, as it's pretty funny.
It seems that the humorous situations come out of tourists being naive and out of their element. They want to know exactly the spot where Biblical events happen, and when the tour guide tells them that there is more than one spot believed to be the place where a Biblical event happened, they ask questions like, "It happened more than one time?" At the Kinneret, one tourist saw that the shore was a bit dirty and said, "I understand why he walked on the water, I wouldn't want to walk in this mud either."
In one story, an Indonesian tour group came to a church in front of which was posted a sign that read "No Shorts Allowed" in English. Some members of the group approached the tour guide and told him that two women in the group would not enter the church. The tour guide said, "OK, that's fine, but why don't they want to enter." The tourist responded "It's not that they don't want to enter, it's just that they aren't allowed." The tour guide then realized that the tourists were reading the word "shorts" to mean short people, and that the two very small ladies were staying behind because of what they believed to be a height restriction. Another tourist who saw that sign took off his shorts and entered the church in his bathing suit.
In another story, he took a tour group to Masada, where they seemed to be very excited about the cable car leading up to the site. They got on the car, admired the view, and then at the top got right back on line to go down - as they were more interested in the car than in Masada itself.
At a church in the old city, each ot the panels of stained glass was catalogued and numbered, and one tourist thought that they were for sale, and that the numbers referred to the prices. She was very pleased that they were so inexpensive and tried to ask how she could buy one.
It was an interesting talk, and really fun to be in a group of people all laughing together - but it was also interesting to feel very much on the outside, as I probably have been a "stupid tourist" and could easily be the butt of some of these jokes. (A group of American tourists were told go go to the HaMashbir bus stop and thought they were supposed to go to a place marked "How much beer"). It was interesting that they made fun of the Dutch, Belgian, and Indonesian groups equally, that all tourists are people who don't really understand the context in which they find themselves, and for the people who know all about the place, they seem very naive and silly, and make a lot of mistakes. I think I would have been much less comfortable if he had been specifically making fun of American tourists, because I would have felt targeted as an outsider and I would have realized just how stupid American tourists seem to their tour guides. But he said that he prefers not taking American groups because they are high maintenance. Although I did feel a bit like an outsider listening to these jokes, I think the experience also made me feel like I was on the inside because I knew enough Hebrew that I could laugh along to jokes in Hebrew alongside this group of Israelis. I'm excited that Daniel and I are starting to feel like members of Har El - people recognize us there, are happy to see us, chat with us, remember things about us from the previous time, the cantor even friended me on facebook - that's a pretty big step!
Speaking of Israeli humor, a few days ago I snuck into Daniel's Israel Seminar to hear the Israeli writer Etgar Keret speak to his class (I later learned that Etgar Keret will also be visiting my Hebrew class in a few weeks!) I've read about six of Etgar Keret's stories in Hebrew now and I like them very much. He is a witty and intensely creative writer, who uses colloquial language and short vivid descriptoins. His stories often end with a kind of Joycian epiphany that turn everything on its head, or make the pieces of the story fit together in an unpredictable way. He told us that he is interested in stories and also real-life events that jar people away from their routine ways of thinking and doing and encourage them to view their lives and the world in new and different ways. Etgar Keret is also writes screenplays and graphic novels. He told us that he started writing stories when he was in the army, working long solitary shifts in front of a computer. He brought is first story to his brother, who read it and then used it to pick up his dog's excrement, and it was at that moment that Etgar Keret realized he wanted to be a writer, because the story was something that was still present and active, working in the universe - in his brother's mind and in his own, even if the physical element of the words on the page was discarded. Etgar Keret writes with an unusual sense of humor and pulls at the borders of the realistic to stretch the imagination without completely escaping to the world of fantasy, and he writes about relevant and pertinent issues in Israeli life. His writing is very popular among young people in Israel, though abroad it appeals to an older audience. His writing, incidentally, is popular among Hebrew learners (like ourselves) because it is simple and succinct. It's been translated into many languages including English, so if you have the time it's definately worth checking out. You can read about him here.
It seems that the humorous situations come out of tourists being naive and out of their element. They want to know exactly the spot where Biblical events happen, and when the tour guide tells them that there is more than one spot believed to be the place where a Biblical event happened, they ask questions like, "It happened more than one time?" At the Kinneret, one tourist saw that the shore was a bit dirty and said, "I understand why he walked on the water, I wouldn't want to walk in this mud either."
In one story, an Indonesian tour group came to a church in front of which was posted a sign that read "No Shorts Allowed" in English. Some members of the group approached the tour guide and told him that two women in the group would not enter the church. The tour guide said, "OK, that's fine, but why don't they want to enter." The tourist responded "It's not that they don't want to enter, it's just that they aren't allowed." The tour guide then realized that the tourists were reading the word "shorts" to mean short people, and that the two very small ladies were staying behind because of what they believed to be a height restriction. Another tourist who saw that sign took off his shorts and entered the church in his bathing suit.
In another story, he took a tour group to Masada, where they seemed to be very excited about the cable car leading up to the site. They got on the car, admired the view, and then at the top got right back on line to go down - as they were more interested in the car than in Masada itself.
At a church in the old city, each ot the panels of stained glass was catalogued and numbered, and one tourist thought that they were for sale, and that the numbers referred to the prices. She was very pleased that they were so inexpensive and tried to ask how she could buy one.
It was an interesting talk, and really fun to be in a group of people all laughing together - but it was also interesting to feel very much on the outside, as I probably have been a "stupid tourist" and could easily be the butt of some of these jokes. (A group of American tourists were told go go to the HaMashbir bus stop and thought they were supposed to go to a place marked "How much beer"). It was interesting that they made fun of the Dutch, Belgian, and Indonesian groups equally, that all tourists are people who don't really understand the context in which they find themselves, and for the people who know all about the place, they seem very naive and silly, and make a lot of mistakes. I think I would have been much less comfortable if he had been specifically making fun of American tourists, because I would have felt targeted as an outsider and I would have realized just how stupid American tourists seem to their tour guides. But he said that he prefers not taking American groups because they are high maintenance. Although I did feel a bit like an outsider listening to these jokes, I think the experience also made me feel like I was on the inside because I knew enough Hebrew that I could laugh along to jokes in Hebrew alongside this group of Israelis. I'm excited that Daniel and I are starting to feel like members of Har El - people recognize us there, are happy to see us, chat with us, remember things about us from the previous time, the cantor even friended me on facebook - that's a pretty big step!
Speaking of Israeli humor, a few days ago I snuck into Daniel's Israel Seminar to hear the Israeli writer Etgar Keret speak to his class (I later learned that Etgar Keret will also be visiting my Hebrew class in a few weeks!) I've read about six of Etgar Keret's stories in Hebrew now and I like them very much. He is a witty and intensely creative writer, who uses colloquial language and short vivid descriptoins. His stories often end with a kind of Joycian epiphany that turn everything on its head, or make the pieces of the story fit together in an unpredictable way. He told us that he is interested in stories and also real-life events that jar people away from their routine ways of thinking and doing and encourage them to view their lives and the world in new and different ways. Etgar Keret is also writes screenplays and graphic novels. He told us that he started writing stories when he was in the army, working long solitary shifts in front of a computer. He brought is first story to his brother, who read it and then used it to pick up his dog's excrement, and it was at that moment that Etgar Keret realized he wanted to be a writer, because the story was something that was still present and active, working in the universe - in his brother's mind and in his own, even if the physical element of the words on the page was discarded. Etgar Keret writes with an unusual sense of humor and pulls at the borders of the realistic to stretch the imagination without completely escaping to the world of fantasy, and he writes about relevant and pertinent issues in Israeli life. His writing is very popular among young people in Israel, though abroad it appeals to an older audience. His writing, incidentally, is popular among Hebrew learners (like ourselves) because it is simple and succinct. It's been translated into many languages including English, so if you have the time it's definately worth checking out. You can read about him here.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
A visit to the gan (preschool)
I went to visit the preschool at Har El today (Har El is a Reform Shul around the corner from our apartment) as I plan on volunteering there twice a week. Oh it was so great. I came at the beginning of circle time and stayed until its end. We did Havdalah with Cantor Evan (whose wife, incidentally, went to Lake Braddock Secondary School, like me, and was a member of Adat Reyim, the synagogue where I went to high school, and went to UVA), and all of the kids sang along. After the Cantor left, the teacher told a story about a man who prayed for rain - it's amazing how differently rain is valued here, it is a huge topic of conversation and Israelis are so joyful to see the rain when it comes and always say that it is not enough. There is a droubt in Israel, btw, which explains why Israelis look forward to rain while Americans see it is a pain in the neck. The student of the week stood up while the teacher read what her parents had written about her weekend, which had included eating popcorn, so the student passed some popcorn out to the class (there are about 20 or so 3 year olds in the class). Then, they all washed their hands, went to the bathroom, and pushed together in a throng to get out the door and go outside - a bit like grown up Israelis getting on to the bus. Lines are not really part of Israeli culture at all. It was pretty fun to experience preschool all in Hebrew, though it will be sort of embarrassing not to understand what's going on in the classroom as well as the preschool students do. The teacher is excited to have me though, and tells me that she believes that language is not essential to communicating with or playing with small children. I totally agree. I'm sure you'll be hearing much more about preschool in upcoming posts.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Church in Hebrew
A long time ago Paola invited us to join her at church, and we finally decided to take her up on the offer. Together with Corinna, a William and Mary graduate who is getting her masters at Rothberg, we went to a church service held in the former Italian embassy. From the street, you wouldn't be able to tell that a religious service was going on there at all - it is a peaceful, quiet looking building, a whitewashed, two-story establishment set back from the street with a stone driveway in front, and protected by a decorative iron gate. Inside, the room where services were held was very modest - white walls, rows of chairs, a small wooden cross hanging on the far wall. The priests walked in, clothed in white robes, and filed into rows and bowed together gracefully, like a dance. Then, the service began. It sounded uncannily like a Jewish service - because it was in Hebrew. Some of it was entirely the same as a Jewish service, except with different tunes - the psalms, the parsha. And some of it (the New Testament in Hebrew) for instance, was not. It was strange to hear liturgical Hebrew and to realize that it wasn't Jewish. I think it forced me to think about what makes a service Jewish to me. Is Hebrew really necessary to make the service Jewish? It is, after all, just a language and can be used for secular purposes (as in Modern Israel) and even for Christian liturgical purposes (as in the services we attended this evening), so why do Jews pray in Hebrew? It also highlited how similar Catholicism and Judaism really are to each other, at least in a practical if not in a theological way. The service felt very much like a Jewish one - the formality of it, the treating of holy objects like royalty, the singing, and, of course, the Hebrew. At the same time, it also pointed out that some differences between Catholicism and Judaism are so huge that even translating the Catholic ceremony into the Jewish language could not make it seem Jewish - for instance transubstantiation, which I find to be absolutely beautiful and powerful, did not feel any more Jewish for its being in Hebrew. Though I do have to say that something about the transformative power of the prayers, and the participatory way that congregants held up their hands, reminded me a little of Havdalah. We witnessed a pre-baptism ceremony, and I found myself strangely uncomfortable during it. The woman in the process of conversion seemed to be a Jewish Israeli, and there was something symbolically powerful to me to see a Jew in Israel converting to Catholicism - after hundreds of years of Jews converting in order to save their own lives, it seemed shocking and disappointing to see someone do it by choice - I can't explain why I felt that way and I know that it was wrong to feel that way, rather than to be joyful for someone who has discovered the life path that suits them, but honestly I did feel strange about the whole thing. And I felt a little stranger when I saw the tears in Paola's eyes, and knew that she found the woman's conversion to be such a cause for joy. Irrationally and uncontrollably, I felt a sense of loss. I didn't feel any more comfortable when a woman who I was talking to afterward said to me, "wouldn't it be funny if you came to Jerusalem, and converted to Catholicism after all" - no, I don't think it would be funny. I think Catholicism is rich and beautiful and I have so much respect for it, but for me, personally, it would be tragic to convert.
After services we went out to a terrific dinner and had a fun and cheerful conversation. It was good to see Paola after what feels like an eternity, and I am getting increasingly excited about going back to class. Paola taught me the Italian word for 'nerd' - "seciona," and she called me a "seciona" for my excitement about classes, but in reality I know that she shares the feeling. Just one more week!
After services we went out to a terrific dinner and had a fun and cheerful conversation. It was good to see Paola after what feels like an eternity, and I am getting increasingly excited about going back to class. Paola taught me the Italian word for 'nerd' - "seciona," and she called me a "seciona" for my excitement about classes, but in reality I know that she shares the feeling. Just one more week!
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Welcoming the new year.
.הכנסת השנה החדשה
Another long week has passed since my last post - sorry for the lack of updates.
This weekend was, as I described it in Hebrew class, שופ''ש אוחים (a weekend of guests). On Friday night, Jessica baked challah with a friend of ours from HUC, and then the same friend joined us later in the day to watch a movie and cook dinner. A second friend arrived just as our movie finished, and the four of us shared a delicious meal and pleasant conversation.
On Saturday morning, Jessica and I went to Shabbat services at the Conservative synagogue affiliated with the Conservative Yeshiva, which I always find meaningful. During the kiddush, we met Rick, who's thinking about applying to rabbinical school HUC or Hebrew College next year. He was an interesting fellow, and we invited him to join us for lunch. He agreed, and we welcomed him and three other friends to a potluck lunch filled with delicious foods.
Saturday night, we had our final guest, who came over for S&S (Snacks & Scrabble). That, too, was delightful. All in all, a wonderful weekend!
Sunday, for me, began a time of finally entering into the period of High Holy Days (after the long buildup over the month of Elul). We had special programming at HUC about Rosh Hashanah, including a walk-through of the Rosh Hashanah liturgy that I found very helpful in my own ability to appreciate and find meaningful Rosh Hashanah services.
I'm finding that the more I learn about the liturgy, the more meaningful I find it. One of my goals for this year (I forget whether I've written about it yet) is to become more familiar with Jewish liturgy and to strengthen my "prayer muscles." For so many years, I sat through services, finding certain parts engaging and others less so - but I never had an appreciation for the service as an entire unit (let alone Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur being a unit, let alone their being a unit with Sukkot, let alone their being a unit with Elul), and I want that to change. I think it's important not only for me as a rabbi but for me as a praying Jew to know what the service is, what comprises it, and how it can be meaningfully experienced. In some ways, I feel like I could have figured a lot of this stuff out already if I had taken the time in previous years, but on the other hand, at least I've decided to begin now ... and so far, I find my own expressions of faith growing with my knowledge.
For example, as I know more Hebrew now than I ever have (and I expect to be saying that every year for many years to come), I find that I can understand the prayers much better ... which is very handy here because we don't read a single word of English here in Israel even though we use the same Gates of Repentance machzor here as in the States. Knowing what the prayers are actually saying helps me follow the flow, feel comfortable where I am, and focus on what's being said in an impactful way. I can really focus in on the כוונה (intention) of the service and in turn, relate to the words.
So, what have these relations yielded? Here are some thoughts I've been having recently, inspired by Rosh Hashanah:
First of all, I want to highlight the latest progress in the development of my appreciation for Reform Judaism as normative and authentic. While theoretically, I believe that Reform Judaism is for Reform Jews as authentic as "orthodox" Judaism is for "orthodox" Jews, it can nevertheless be difficult to feel that way all the time. For example, when discussing with Jessica what do on the second day of Rosh Hashanah, I mentioned that I wanted to continue our series of HUC services or go to the Conservative synagogue that we like. She said that if we're not going to have an Israeli "experience," we should stick with HUC as it will probably be similar to Moreshet Yisrael. I agreed.
But in subsequent conversations, we've been talking about how our HUC services are just as Israeli as any other service in Israel. They're entirely in Hebrew, the sermon was given by a non-American, and the music has an international, though certainly Ashkenazi, feel. The real differences aren't Israeli/non-Israeli but rather Reform/non-Reform.
So, should one go to a non-Reform service to have an "authentic" experience? Of course not. Modern Reform Judaism is just as much a part of the continuum of Jewish practice as any of the dozens of brands of "orthodoxy" out there, and to top it all off, I find the Reform Jewish experience meaningful. Our services are intentional, not minimalist; moving, not fleeing. My teachers at HUC are extremely learned--some might say pious--women and men who have made Judaism their life's work, and I'm proud to follow in their footsteps. It's tempting, especially here in Jerusalem, to think of ourselves as doing things the easy way or finding the most basic way of praying, but I do not believe that that's what Reform Judaism is, and when I'm a professional practitioner of Reform Judaism, I look forward to carrying myself with just as much pride and authority as any other self-respecting Jew.
While in the area of organized religion, I had a thought this morning at services about one of the greatest values of religion. I was listening to Avinu Malkeinu, perhaps my favorite piece of Jewish music, and it was having its customary significant impact on me. After the petition ended, I mused about the ability of that music and the choir and the Hebrew words to have a transcendent effect on me, to remind me that the corporeal world is an illusion and that reality is much more complex than our human senses can know. Something about the music helped me realize that.
And I realized in turn that religion can have this effect on all of its participants if they're open to it. There are certainly people in this world who can have truly transcendent, spiritual experiences on their own or in smaller communities, but generally, people need help. Sometimes help comes through a parent, friend, or mentor or a group comprised of those people. Sometimes, help comes through a non-human intermediary. And sometimes, help can come through communities. In my case, my Jewish community is the beneficiary of thousands of years of trial-and-error, of intense debate, and of serious study. Hebrew has become a holy language because of the infinitely deep contexts it has collected, and my prayer in Hebrew in a community of Jews has the ability to transport me beyond myself and, through relation to other Jews, beyond this physical world.
So, religion--at least my religion--is extremely powerful. But it's also entirely dependent on community. My theology, though certainly influenced by countless external factors, is my own ... but my ability to relate to theos is almost entirely in the communal setting. I think that if I'm like a lot of people, this is probably the primary raison d'être of religion worldwide.
Thus, religion is for us. It helps us connect through one another to the spiritual realities that compose and transcend this world - and therefore, I believe, all of religion is really about us. As much as we describe God and thank God and petition God and ask God for forgiveness ... it's really all about us. We say אבינו מלכנו שמע קולנו (Avinu Malkeinu, sh'ma koleinu) - our Father, our King, hear our voice ... and yet I believe it's much more about koleinu than it is about Avinu Malkeinu. When I ask forgiveness from God, it's because I recognize that I've done something that needs forgiving. We're taught that one doesn't receive forgiveness unless one has resolved not to repeat the transgression - so, we come to God with a contrite heart and readiness to change. Therefore, the value in "being forgiven" is not simply to receive God's forgiveness but rather to have changed in response to recognizing our own wrongdoing. I confess to confess, not to be forgiven by God.
Now, does that mean that I shouldn't think about God during prayer? I don't think so. I believe that there is a God but that God isn't able to be comprehended on this level. Nevertheless, there can be no greater achievement than to relate to God, so we shouldn't just give up. On the contrary, we should try even harder to transcend "this level." If thinking about God as a King helps us to do that, that's fine. For me, I don't believe that God rules over our daily actions, but I don't mind calling God King in order to further a theology that supports and enables people's connections to God. And, by participating in that communal prayer, I also build bonds between myself and my fellow community members, and those bonds can be of infinite value to my person and my super-person.
Because active t'filah (prayer) always comes to an end, and what we have left are the pray-ers who are ready to go about their daily lives, now in a stronger relation to one another than before the prayer service. It reminds me of Avinu Malkeinu - the music soars and transforms and concludes with a congregational melody that lacks the awesomeness of the previous lines. Similarly, we can be transformed and transported during prayer, but we always have to alight back on earth and continue living our lives. And those lives are made richer -- and re-transformation is made easier --- through the lives of others.
This can also be reflected in Rosh Hashanah's placement in the calendar: 25In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall observe a day of complete rest, a holy convocation commemorated with trumpet blasts (Leviticus 23:24). According to (a) tradition, God created the world on Rosh Hashanah, on the first day of Tishrei (the seventh month). On the first day of creation, before which the world didn't exist, it was the seventh month. Thus, six months would, theoretically, have been in the history of this first day of existence. Why wouldn't the world be created on the first month?
One response I've been thinking about is that the world begins in the middle. Our acts of transcendence during prayer are timeless, and yet they are couched in history. Similarly, when we emerge from these moments, we will once again resume relating to the world in a timebound fashion, waiting for the next new beginning. Just as we can understand God to be "day by day renewing the works of Creation," so can we understand the very "first" creation to have taken place within a context of קודמות ("previousness" - both Hebrew and English made up by me).
So, those are a few of my raw thoughts that this period of holiness has inspired in me. I hope to continue to generate thoughts along these lines during the upcoming weeks, and hopefully I'll be able to share them here. And, of course, I look forward to elaborating on these ideas in a more significant fashion as I continue my path toward the rabbinate.
In the meantime, I wish all readers a sweet and good new year, despite and because of all its contexts and aspirations.
Another long week has passed since my last post - sorry for the lack of updates.
This weekend was, as I described it in Hebrew class, שופ''ש אוחים (a weekend of guests). On Friday night, Jessica baked challah with a friend of ours from HUC, and then the same friend joined us later in the day to watch a movie and cook dinner. A second friend arrived just as our movie finished, and the four of us shared a delicious meal and pleasant conversation.
On Saturday morning, Jessica and I went to Shabbat services at the Conservative synagogue affiliated with the Conservative Yeshiva, which I always find meaningful. During the kiddush, we met Rick, who's thinking about applying to rabbinical school HUC or Hebrew College next year. He was an interesting fellow, and we invited him to join us for lunch. He agreed, and we welcomed him and three other friends to a potluck lunch filled with delicious foods.
Saturday night, we had our final guest, who came over for S&S (Snacks & Scrabble). That, too, was delightful. All in all, a wonderful weekend!
Sunday, for me, began a time of finally entering into the period of High Holy Days (after the long buildup over the month of Elul). We had special programming at HUC about Rosh Hashanah, including a walk-through of the Rosh Hashanah liturgy that I found very helpful in my own ability to appreciate and find meaningful Rosh Hashanah services.
I'm finding that the more I learn about the liturgy, the more meaningful I find it. One of my goals for this year (I forget whether I've written about it yet) is to become more familiar with Jewish liturgy and to strengthen my "prayer muscles." For so many years, I sat through services, finding certain parts engaging and others less so - but I never had an appreciation for the service as an entire unit (let alone Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur being a unit, let alone their being a unit with Sukkot, let alone their being a unit with Elul), and I want that to change. I think it's important not only for me as a rabbi but for me as a praying Jew to know what the service is, what comprises it, and how it can be meaningfully experienced. In some ways, I feel like I could have figured a lot of this stuff out already if I had taken the time in previous years, but on the other hand, at least I've decided to begin now ... and so far, I find my own expressions of faith growing with my knowledge.
For example, as I know more Hebrew now than I ever have (and I expect to be saying that every year for many years to come), I find that I can understand the prayers much better ... which is very handy here because we don't read a single word of English here in Israel even though we use the same Gates of Repentance machzor here as in the States. Knowing what the prayers are actually saying helps me follow the flow, feel comfortable where I am, and focus on what's being said in an impactful way. I can really focus in on the כוונה (intention) of the service and in turn, relate to the words.
So, what have these relations yielded? Here are some thoughts I've been having recently, inspired by Rosh Hashanah:
First of all, I want to highlight the latest progress in the development of my appreciation for Reform Judaism as normative and authentic. While theoretically, I believe that Reform Judaism is for Reform Jews as authentic as "orthodox" Judaism is for "orthodox" Jews, it can nevertheless be difficult to feel that way all the time. For example, when discussing with Jessica what do on the second day of Rosh Hashanah, I mentioned that I wanted to continue our series of HUC services or go to the Conservative synagogue that we like. She said that if we're not going to have an Israeli "experience," we should stick with HUC as it will probably be similar to Moreshet Yisrael. I agreed.
But in subsequent conversations, we've been talking about how our HUC services are just as Israeli as any other service in Israel. They're entirely in Hebrew, the sermon was given by a non-American, and the music has an international, though certainly Ashkenazi, feel. The real differences aren't Israeli/non-Israeli but rather Reform/non-Reform.
So, should one go to a non-Reform service to have an "authentic" experience? Of course not. Modern Reform Judaism is just as much a part of the continuum of Jewish practice as any of the dozens of brands of "orthodoxy" out there, and to top it all off, I find the Reform Jewish experience meaningful. Our services are intentional, not minimalist; moving, not fleeing. My teachers at HUC are extremely learned--some might say pious--women and men who have made Judaism their life's work, and I'm proud to follow in their footsteps. It's tempting, especially here in Jerusalem, to think of ourselves as doing things the easy way or finding the most basic way of praying, but I do not believe that that's what Reform Judaism is, and when I'm a professional practitioner of Reform Judaism, I look forward to carrying myself with just as much pride and authority as any other self-respecting Jew.
While in the area of organized religion, I had a thought this morning at services about one of the greatest values of religion. I was listening to Avinu Malkeinu, perhaps my favorite piece of Jewish music, and it was having its customary significant impact on me. After the petition ended, I mused about the ability of that music and the choir and the Hebrew words to have a transcendent effect on me, to remind me that the corporeal world is an illusion and that reality is much more complex than our human senses can know. Something about the music helped me realize that.
And I realized in turn that religion can have this effect on all of its participants if they're open to it. There are certainly people in this world who can have truly transcendent, spiritual experiences on their own or in smaller communities, but generally, people need help. Sometimes help comes through a parent, friend, or mentor or a group comprised of those people. Sometimes, help comes through a non-human intermediary. And sometimes, help can come through communities. In my case, my Jewish community is the beneficiary of thousands of years of trial-and-error, of intense debate, and of serious study. Hebrew has become a holy language because of the infinitely deep contexts it has collected, and my prayer in Hebrew in a community of Jews has the ability to transport me beyond myself and, through relation to other Jews, beyond this physical world.
So, religion--at least my religion--is extremely powerful. But it's also entirely dependent on community. My theology, though certainly influenced by countless external factors, is my own ... but my ability to relate to theos is almost entirely in the communal setting. I think that if I'm like a lot of people, this is probably the primary raison d'être of religion worldwide.
Thus, religion is for us. It helps us connect through one another to the spiritual realities that compose and transcend this world - and therefore, I believe, all of religion is really about us. As much as we describe God and thank God and petition God and ask God for forgiveness ... it's really all about us. We say אבינו מלכנו שמע קולנו (Avinu Malkeinu, sh'ma koleinu) - our Father, our King, hear our voice ... and yet I believe it's much more about koleinu than it is about Avinu Malkeinu. When I ask forgiveness from God, it's because I recognize that I've done something that needs forgiving. We're taught that one doesn't receive forgiveness unless one has resolved not to repeat the transgression - so, we come to God with a contrite heart and readiness to change. Therefore, the value in "being forgiven" is not simply to receive God's forgiveness but rather to have changed in response to recognizing our own wrongdoing. I confess to confess, not to be forgiven by God.
Now, does that mean that I shouldn't think about God during prayer? I don't think so. I believe that there is a God but that God isn't able to be comprehended on this level. Nevertheless, there can be no greater achievement than to relate to God, so we shouldn't just give up. On the contrary, we should try even harder to transcend "this level." If thinking about God as a King helps us to do that, that's fine. For me, I don't believe that God rules over our daily actions, but I don't mind calling God King in order to further a theology that supports and enables people's connections to God. And, by participating in that communal prayer, I also build bonds between myself and my fellow community members, and those bonds can be of infinite value to my person and my super-person.
Because active t'filah (prayer) always comes to an end, and what we have left are the pray-ers who are ready to go about their daily lives, now in a stronger relation to one another than before the prayer service. It reminds me of Avinu Malkeinu - the music soars and transforms and concludes with a congregational melody that lacks the awesomeness of the previous lines. Similarly, we can be transformed and transported during prayer, but we always have to alight back on earth and continue living our lives. And those lives are made richer -- and re-transformation is made easier --- through the lives of others.
This can also be reflected in Rosh Hashanah's placement in the calendar: 25In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall observe a day of complete rest, a holy convocation commemorated with trumpet blasts (Leviticus 23:24). According to (a) tradition, God created the world on Rosh Hashanah, on the first day of Tishrei (the seventh month). On the first day of creation, before which the world didn't exist, it was the seventh month. Thus, six months would, theoretically, have been in the history of this first day of existence. Why wouldn't the world be created on the first month?
One response I've been thinking about is that the world begins in the middle. Our acts of transcendence during prayer are timeless, and yet they are couched in history. Similarly, when we emerge from these moments, we will once again resume relating to the world in a timebound fashion, waiting for the next new beginning. Just as we can understand God to be "day by day renewing the works of Creation," so can we understand the very "first" creation to have taken place within a context of קודמות ("previousness" - both Hebrew and English made up by me).
So, those are a few of my raw thoughts that this period of holiness has inspired in me. I hope to continue to generate thoughts along these lines during the upcoming weeks, and hopefully I'll be able to share them here. And, of course, I look forward to elaborating on these ideas in a more significant fashion as I continue my path toward the rabbinate.
In the meantime, I wish all readers a sweet and good new year, despite and because of all its contexts and aspirations.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
A Few Updates
I just got back from a short, yet productive, meeting with Yehuda Stolov, the head of the Interfaith Encounter Association, an organization for which I plan on volunteering a few hours a week. We began by introducing ourselves to each other briefly, and then discussing what kinds of tasks I'd be willing to do. We came up with three possible tasks for the year: helping with fundraising, sorting and keeping track of e-mail addresses, and translating encounter groups' reports from Hebrew into English. The last of these is the most interesting to me but probably the least helpful to them as right now Yehuda does this task himself and is probably more qualified for the task. But hopefully I'll get to do some of it as it would certainly be good Hebrew practice for me! Really, I didn't expect this volunteering to be particularly interesting, but I believe in and am excited about the organization and wanted to help out in some small way that fit with what I imagine will be my busy schedule this year. In addition to volunteering, I will also be taking part in an interfaith encounter group. Yehuda told me that there are three groups that would be good for me in Jerusalem and that while each received identical training they are all quite different because of the people who are in the groups. One is located on Mt. Scopus, at Hebrew University, and is composed entirely of students. One meets around the corner from where we live and is for young professionals. The third (least convenient for me to meet with in terms of location but perhaps the most interesting?) is composed of five young Jews from Jerusalem and five young Palestinians from Hebron, a city in the West Bank. It meets in Jerusalem once a week. None of these groups is meeting during the summer, so I do have a little while to think about which group(s) I'll be a part of - any of them I think would be a great experience.
A bit about the Interfaith Encounter Association, because I think they are a truly inspiring group. Yehuda told me that the organization was founded seven years ago, when a few participants of other interfaith dialogue groups decided to form a new model because they felt that the old model wasn't working. According to Yehuda, the old model only encouraged participation by those few individuals who had already begun some work in interfaith studies. It mostly consisted of lectures or panels with passive listeners, which has its benefits as the group can control what kind of information is presented, but is ineffective if the goal is to have people get to know each other and lose their fears of one another. IEA was formed to encourage larger numbers of people from all walks of life to participate in an interactive and open form of dialogue. The group is only focused on religious issues and takes no political stances, nor does it have political conversations. They believe that religion can be a solution to conflicts and not only a cause, and that through coming together to talk about religion, members of diverse groups can lose their fear of one another and see themselves in the other. IEA's goal is to be a social movement involving thousands of groups accross the country, and to change the social fabric of Israel in a grassroots way by getting people to simply talk to one another. Seven years ago, IEA consisted of two interfaith dialogue groups, now it consists of something like 23 groups and thousands of active members. Some of its projects include weekend retreats, School Coexistance Projects that bring together Palestinian and Israeli school groups to talk about neutral issues (one group was recently educated on dental care, for instance), Womens Interfaith Encounter groups, three Youth Interfaith Encounter groups, and a Middle East Abrahamic Forum including groups from Egypt, the Palestinian Authority, Iran, Jordan, Turkey, and Israel. IEA has been recognized by UNESCO as an actor of the global movement for a culture of peace, a United Nations initiative. In 2006, IEA received the Immortal Chaplains Foundation's 2006 Prize for Humanity.
Flipping through the reports of various IEA events, I read about a Hannukah/Eid Al Adha party at a member's house, Palestinian and Israeli fifth graders doing a road clean-up together, a mother's day celebration where women from various groups came together to do programs on cooking, cosmetics, and sports, and art, a meeting of Christian, Muslim, and Druze women to discuss the issue of young marraige age, an evening of folklore and theater in a diverse community, meetings and presentations in churches, mosques, synagogues, and a Druze worship house, a meeting on the importance of dialogue led by a social worker and a psychologist, a bazaar at a community center where underprivileged people could come and get what they might need for an upcoming holiday, a conversation comparing and contrasting foods eaten by different groups, a discussion of holy day practices, a discussion of how different individuals relate to the idea of identity, what sounds like an intense discussion on predestination, conversion, sin, redemption, and asking forgiveness from G-d in Islam and Judaism, reading Hebrew and Arabic translations of Martin Luther King, Jr. together, an interfaith meeting of healthcare workers to discuss the influence of interpreters in healthcare settings, and the list goes on and on and on and on. In 2007, IEA held a total of 120 programs comprised of 96 inter-religious study sessions in the general program, 20 in the Women’s Program, and 4 in
the Young Adults program. The IEA website is quite informative, so if you want to learn more, you should definately check it out.
-------------------------
Yesterday, Daniel and I had some friends over for creme brulee french toast (made out of the challah which I've come to enjoy baking on Fridays) after Shabbat services. We played games, chatted, and had a great time. In the evening, we went to an HUC Havdalah event, a magical way to invite the week to begin again after the slow and lazy sigh of Shabbat.
----------------------
On Friday evening, Daniel and I went to the Jerusalem Great Synagogue, an Orthodox synagogue right around the corner from our apartment. It is a huge and impressive building. The foyer is home to an exhibit of artistic mezzuzot, which Daniel and I browsed eagerly as we nervously watched other people out of the corner of our eyes to figure out where we should go for services. Eventually we made our way up a grand flight of stairs, and parted as I headed further up, to the women's balcony. On the way, I walked next to an old lady with pleasantly crinkled leathery skin and smiling eyes, whose head was covered with a brown kercheif as though she were plucked out of a film about East European Jewish life in the 1800's. She said to me in Hebrew "A lot of stairs", and I smiled at her and walked up them slowly with her, just to be sure she made it to the top safely.
At the top, I sat next to a row of women with small children who chattered and cooed throughout the service, which would have been beautiful music to listen to had not the woman on the other side of me insisted on shushing the children almost constantly and chastizing their mothers for bringing them to shul if they were going to make so much noise. Everyone was very nice to me and there was a sense of community up there in the women's balcony. Not very many people seemed to be praying, but everyone seemed to be having a good time.
I had trouble following the prayers in the prayerbook - the chazzan faced the ark and prayed ferverently in an Ashkenazi accented Hebrew - but the prayer was nevertheless beautiful. The chazzan's voice was operetic and soulful, powerful, warm, and pointed, and it carried throughout the high-ceilinged, grand sanctuary. One of the most noticable features of the synagogue was its stained glass windows, tall, large, detailed, and glimmeringly colorful in the setting sun of Shabbat evening.
---------------------
On Thursday night, we had our accross the hall neighbors over for dinner. I arrived home from ulpan a bit early and began cooking and cleaning as soon as I got home. Mom, you would have been impressed to find me on my hands and knees cleaning the floor. I even dusted! (for those of you who don't know, I am an incredibly messy person, so this was no small feat). We made vegetarian quiche stuffed with parsnips, red pepper, parsely, and squash, steamed broccolli, oven roasted potatoes, and red lentil soup. Everything smelled delicious and we were very proud of ourselves when at 6:30 we sat down on the couch and waited for our guests to arrive, any minute. Any minute turned into a half hour, and we didn't know what to do - should we knock on their door? Wait longer? Should we assume they had forgotten and eat dinner? A half hour is a long time... Finally Daniel knocked on their door... three separate times.... and we waited some more. At 7:10 our neighbors arrived, flowers in hand. We think maybe the timing was a cultural difference we weren't prepared for, and our only question is, if they invite us over would it be uncouth for us to show up on time?
Our neighbors are Hebrew speakers whose English is not as good as our Hebrew, so the conversation was entirely in Hebrew. Thank goodness that they like to talk, because we can both understand much more than we can say. It was a lovely evening full of stories and laughter. We heard about their experiences in the army, how they met, about their children and grandchildren, their family histories, and more. We talked about literature and language, about food, and quite a bit about religion. They are very interesting, intellectual, warm, and patient people and we are excited at the possibility of growing close to them - and improving our Hebrew through interacting with them!
--------------------
Otherwise, things here have been quiet. Jerusalem is cooling down a bit - today there were clouds in the sky and the air was cool and calm until the afternoon - so much so that I may need to rethink my wardrobe in the upcoming weeks. Today I walked home from IEA in the afternoon and arrived home flushed from the heat, but the sun is setting now and the cool breeze from the window is pleasant and soothing. We haven't used the window fans in a few days.
I've been working on a presentation that I have to give on Thursday to my literature class about Amos Oz, and I imagine that it will be the primary concern of my week - devising questions to ask the class about the section we will read, looking up pertinent words, and reiterating to myself that I won't compleltely embarass myself when I try to speak Hebrew in front of the class with at least some semblance of an air of authority.
--------------------------
Daniel and I have noticed that while we love our blog, as it is a way for us to record, express, and process our experiences here in Isreal, it is in some ways a false way of keeping in touch because we don't have the opportunity to hear about all of your adventures. So, in your free time and when you get a chance, please send us e-mails, facebook messages, comments, phone calls, or whatever, and let us know how you are. We miss all of you so much.
A bit about the Interfaith Encounter Association, because I think they are a truly inspiring group. Yehuda told me that the organization was founded seven years ago, when a few participants of other interfaith dialogue groups decided to form a new model because they felt that the old model wasn't working. According to Yehuda, the old model only encouraged participation by those few individuals who had already begun some work in interfaith studies. It mostly consisted of lectures or panels with passive listeners, which has its benefits as the group can control what kind of information is presented, but is ineffective if the goal is to have people get to know each other and lose their fears of one another. IEA was formed to encourage larger numbers of people from all walks of life to participate in an interactive and open form of dialogue. The group is only focused on religious issues and takes no political stances, nor does it have political conversations. They believe that religion can be a solution to conflicts and not only a cause, and that through coming together to talk about religion, members of diverse groups can lose their fear of one another and see themselves in the other. IEA's goal is to be a social movement involving thousands of groups accross the country, and to change the social fabric of Israel in a grassroots way by getting people to simply talk to one another. Seven years ago, IEA consisted of two interfaith dialogue groups, now it consists of something like 23 groups and thousands of active members. Some of its projects include weekend retreats, School Coexistance Projects that bring together Palestinian and Israeli school groups to talk about neutral issues (one group was recently educated on dental care, for instance), Womens Interfaith Encounter groups, three Youth Interfaith Encounter groups, and a Middle East Abrahamic Forum including groups from Egypt, the Palestinian Authority, Iran, Jordan, Turkey, and Israel. IEA has been recognized by UNESCO as an actor of the global movement for a culture of peace, a United Nations initiative. In 2006, IEA received the Immortal Chaplains Foundation's 2006 Prize for Humanity.
Flipping through the reports of various IEA events, I read about a Hannukah/Eid Al Adha party at a member's house, Palestinian and Israeli fifth graders doing a road clean-up together, a mother's day celebration where women from various groups came together to do programs on cooking, cosmetics, and sports, and art, a meeting of Christian, Muslim, and Druze women to discuss the issue of young marraige age, an evening of folklore and theater in a diverse community, meetings and presentations in churches, mosques, synagogues, and a Druze worship house, a meeting on the importance of dialogue led by a social worker and a psychologist, a bazaar at a community center where underprivileged people could come and get what they might need for an upcoming holiday, a conversation comparing and contrasting foods eaten by different groups, a discussion of holy day practices, a discussion of how different individuals relate to the idea of identity, what sounds like an intense discussion on predestination, conversion, sin, redemption, and asking forgiveness from G-d in Islam and Judaism, reading Hebrew and Arabic translations of Martin Luther King, Jr. together, an interfaith meeting of healthcare workers to discuss the influence of interpreters in healthcare settings, and the list goes on and on and on and on. In 2007, IEA held a total of 120 programs comprised of 96 inter-religious study sessions in the general program, 20 in the Women’s Program, and 4 in
the Young Adults program. The IEA website is quite informative, so if you want to learn more, you should definately check it out.
-------------------------
Yesterday, Daniel and I had some friends over for creme brulee french toast (made out of the challah which I've come to enjoy baking on Fridays) after Shabbat services. We played games, chatted, and had a great time. In the evening, we went to an HUC Havdalah event, a magical way to invite the week to begin again after the slow and lazy sigh of Shabbat.
----------------------
On Friday evening, Daniel and I went to the Jerusalem Great Synagogue, an Orthodox synagogue right around the corner from our apartment. It is a huge and impressive building. The foyer is home to an exhibit of artistic mezzuzot, which Daniel and I browsed eagerly as we nervously watched other people out of the corner of our eyes to figure out where we should go for services. Eventually we made our way up a grand flight of stairs, and parted as I headed further up, to the women's balcony. On the way, I walked next to an old lady with pleasantly crinkled leathery skin and smiling eyes, whose head was covered with a brown kercheif as though she were plucked out of a film about East European Jewish life in the 1800's. She said to me in Hebrew "A lot of stairs", and I smiled at her and walked up them slowly with her, just to be sure she made it to the top safely.
At the top, I sat next to a row of women with small children who chattered and cooed throughout the service, which would have been beautiful music to listen to had not the woman on the other side of me insisted on shushing the children almost constantly and chastizing their mothers for bringing them to shul if they were going to make so much noise. Everyone was very nice to me and there was a sense of community up there in the women's balcony. Not very many people seemed to be praying, but everyone seemed to be having a good time.
I had trouble following the prayers in the prayerbook - the chazzan faced the ark and prayed ferverently in an Ashkenazi accented Hebrew - but the prayer was nevertheless beautiful. The chazzan's voice was operetic and soulful, powerful, warm, and pointed, and it carried throughout the high-ceilinged, grand sanctuary. One of the most noticable features of the synagogue was its stained glass windows, tall, large, detailed, and glimmeringly colorful in the setting sun of Shabbat evening.
---------------------
On Thursday night, we had our accross the hall neighbors over for dinner. I arrived home from ulpan a bit early and began cooking and cleaning as soon as I got home. Mom, you would have been impressed to find me on my hands and knees cleaning the floor. I even dusted! (for those of you who don't know, I am an incredibly messy person, so this was no small feat). We made vegetarian quiche stuffed with parsnips, red pepper, parsely, and squash, steamed broccolli, oven roasted potatoes, and red lentil soup. Everything smelled delicious and we were very proud of ourselves when at 6:30 we sat down on the couch and waited for our guests to arrive, any minute. Any minute turned into a half hour, and we didn't know what to do - should we knock on their door? Wait longer? Should we assume they had forgotten and eat dinner? A half hour is a long time... Finally Daniel knocked on their door... three separate times.... and we waited some more. At 7:10 our neighbors arrived, flowers in hand. We think maybe the timing was a cultural difference we weren't prepared for, and our only question is, if they invite us over would it be uncouth for us to show up on time?
Our neighbors are Hebrew speakers whose English is not as good as our Hebrew, so the conversation was entirely in Hebrew. Thank goodness that they like to talk, because we can both understand much more than we can say. It was a lovely evening full of stories and laughter. We heard about their experiences in the army, how they met, about their children and grandchildren, their family histories, and more. We talked about literature and language, about food, and quite a bit about religion. They are very interesting, intellectual, warm, and patient people and we are excited at the possibility of growing close to them - and improving our Hebrew through interacting with them!
--------------------
Otherwise, things here have been quiet. Jerusalem is cooling down a bit - today there were clouds in the sky and the air was cool and calm until the afternoon - so much so that I may need to rethink my wardrobe in the upcoming weeks. Today I walked home from IEA in the afternoon and arrived home flushed from the heat, but the sun is setting now and the cool breeze from the window is pleasant and soothing. We haven't used the window fans in a few days.
I've been working on a presentation that I have to give on Thursday to my literature class about Amos Oz, and I imagine that it will be the primary concern of my week - devising questions to ask the class about the section we will read, looking up pertinent words, and reiterating to myself that I won't compleltely embarass myself when I try to speak Hebrew in front of the class with at least some semblance of an air of authority.
--------------------------
Daniel and I have noticed that while we love our blog, as it is a way for us to record, express, and process our experiences here in Isreal, it is in some ways a false way of keeping in touch because we don't have the opportunity to hear about all of your adventures. So, in your free time and when you get a chance, please send us e-mails, facebook messages, comments, phone calls, or whatever, and let us know how you are. We miss all of you so much.
Monday, September 8, 2008
Field Trip to Mt. Herzl
When we learned that we were to have a field trip today and that we were leaving from a coffee shop near to the campus, Paola and I arranged to meet before class to have breakfast at the coffee shop. It was lovely - I had tea with fresh mint and a piece of carrot cake, and Paola had a pastry with custard inside and a cup of coffee. We chatted for a bit and Francios, another student in our class, joined us as he finished his breakfast. We mostly talked about coffee shops - how they are different in America than Italy and France. In Italy, apparently, most people either sit and chat in coffee shops, or because most people drink espresso, they don't take their coffee to go but instead down it in one gulp before they continue on their way. So, there is nothing like in America where people walk around with their Starbucks cups to go. Apparently that does exist in France, but not with the same frequency as in America. Apparently in France still most people who get coffee do it in a social way to sit and linger, but in France it costs money to sit at an ice cream shop or a coffee shop, and the prices vary depending on where you want to sit. Francios says his favorite coffee shop in the whole world is in Venice. Incidentally the most interesting thing about the conversation, I think, was that it was all in Hebrew. I never cease to be proud that I can understand and participate in conversations in Hebrew.
The class piled onto a bus that took us to Mt. Herzl, a national cemetary on top of a hill where Theodore Herzl is buried, as well as several prime ministers, Zionist leaders and hundreds of soldiers who fell in the line of duty. Our first stop was to the Herzl museum (http://www.herzl.org/), which is a relatively new museum (I think built in 2007??). It is an interactive multimedia production that explains Theodore Herzl's life and Zionist vision. The exhibit is almost entirely in videos, and the videos were in Hebrew for us, so I'm not sure that I caught everything. The exhibit began in a room that is meant to look like Paris in the late 19th century. On one screen is a reenactment of the Dreyfus trial. When it concludes, another scene plays on the screen on the opposite side of the room. Here, a student acts out the role of Herzl, but his director (or stage manager?) doesn't think he is doing a good job and decides to tell him about Herzl's life and work in order that he can better act out the role. This conceit continues throughout the museum as it shifts between an actor trying to connect to Herzl and information about Herzl himself. In one room, we sat in between large plastic people in an audience in front of a grandiose stage at what was supposed to be the Basil Conference. In another room, we were in the auditorium for this actor's final performance. Also housed at the museum are Herzl's writing desk and a recreated version of his parlor room, as well as many of his personal affects. Although I didn't understand everything that was said, it seemed that the museum went through a sort of basic outline of Herzl's life in an aggrandizing way, using the words "dream" and "vision" quite often. It ended with a bit about Israel today and how Herzl's vision has come to pass, that despite all of the hardships that Israel has faced its existance is a triumph. So it wasn't exactly a neutral and non-ideological museum, but I thought for what it was it was quite well done.
A bit about Herzl in case you don't know - but as usual I am no expert and am not sure I understood everything that was told to me in Hebrew, so it's best to check with a book or some other more reliable resource if you really want to know something about him. The following is a summary of what I remember with some aid of the website of the Herzl museum: Herzl was born in 1860 in Budapest, Hungary to well-to-do parents who took part in the Enlightenment that was sweeping Europe at the time. His parents did not maintain traditional Jewish practice in the home, but Herzl and his father attended synagogue on Shabbat and the festivals, and Herzl had a bar mitzvah. In 1878 Herzl and his family moved to Vienna where Herzl attended the University of Vienna and became a doctor of law. There he experienced anti-Semitism in his fraternity and noted an atmosphere of increasing adherence to German nationalism and an increasing exclision of Jewish students from opportunities and student life. He practiced law for a short while before deciding instead to pursue a career in writing. He became a newspaper correspondant in Paris for a Vienna-based newspaper and in 1894 Herzl attended the trial of Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish officer in the French army who was unjustly accused of treason. The anti-Semitic atmosphere that Herzl experienced in France, in which the Jew was increasingly becoming a symbol of corruption, immorality, and greed, strongly influenced him in the writing of his first book, Der Judenstaat (the Jewish State), which was published in 1896. In the book, which was in it's time quite controversial, Herzl wrote that the only way to solve the problem of anti-Semitism toward the Jews was for the Jew to have their own state. He had come to believe that Jews could not simply dispel anti-Semitism by becoming like their non-Jewish neighbors and that Emancipation had not succeeded in ending hatred of the Jews. Herzl also asserted that despite their scatterdness throughout the world, the Jews constituted one nation (language that mirrored the nationalistic sentiments of other 'nations' at the time). In contrast with other Zionists, Herzl believed it was important to gain legal recognition of the rights of the Jewish people in Israel before settling there. He contacted world leaders and philanthropists and worked to gain diplomatic ties and to receive a charter, which was granted by the Turkish Sultan. In 1897 Herzl convened the first Zionist Congress in Basel and in the same year he began the first Zionist newspaper, Die Welt, in Vienna. At the sixth Zionist Congress in 1903, Herzl proposed that the Jews settle and build a Jewish state in Uganda, but as this proposal threatened to split the Zionist community in two, he declared that this would merely be a temporary solution. Herzl passed away in 1904. In 1949 his body was reinterred on Mt. Herzl in Jerusalem, as he had requested that when a Jewish state existed in Israel, he wished to be buried there.
When we left the museum, our to
ur guide led us to Herzl's grave, which is a black square tombstone at the highest point on Mt. Herzl where the four letter's of Herzl's name in Hebrew are engraved starkly in gold against the black gravestone. We talked about the simplicity of the grave and how it is more important to remember the person, in Jewish tradition, than to memorialize with an elaborate grave.
ur guide led us to Herzl's grave, which is a black square tombstone at the highest point on Mt. Herzl where the four letter's of Herzl's name in Hebrew are engraved starkly in gold against the black gravestone. We talked about the simplicity of the grave and how it is more important to remember the person, in Jewish tradition, than to memorialize with an elaborate grave.From there, we visited the graves of a number of important people, including Jabotinsky, a right wing revisionist Zionist leader, Golda Meir, the fourth prime minister of Israel, and Levi Eshkol, the third prime minister of Israel. Each of these tombstones is simple, a black tombstone much smaller than that of Herzl that has the name of the dignitary, and other important information, but nothing ostentatious.
The grave of Yitzhak Rabin is somewhat different. Because Yitzhak Rabin was the only prime minister ever ass
asinated, and his assasination was such a powerful moment in Israeli history, his grave is marked by a larger and more dramatic monument. It is a semicircle of two parts - a black and a white. The semicircle symbolizes that Rabin did not live the length of his natural life, and the black and white in opposition to one another, with a space in between them, show the controversy and the atmosphere of disagreement in Israeli society that led to and followed his death.
asinated, and his assasination was such a powerful moment in Israeli history, his grave is marked by a larger and more dramatic monument. It is a semicircle of two parts - a black and a white. The semicircle symbolizes that Rabin did not live the length of his natural life, and the black and white in opposition to one another, with a space in between them, show the controversy and the atmosphere of disagreement in Israeli society that led to and followed his death.We also visited the grave of Hannah Senesh, a Hungarian born Jew living in Palestine during the Second World War who was trained by the British military to parachute into Yugoslavia to help save the Jews of Hungary. She was arrested at the Hungarian border, imprisoned and tortured, and was executed by a firing squad. At her grave we sang a poem of hers, Halika l'Caesaria (Eli Eli), which his a very well know and oft-sung song.
We visited the graves of many soldiers, including those who perished in the Second Lebanon war. There was a group of soldiers also visiting the graves, and this struck me as very powerful - what must it be like as a soldier to visit the graves of soldiers, knowing that you might be buried in one yourself? We asked our teacher about it - what the soldiers were told and why they went, and she told us that soldiers in the Israeli army, especially in the past and less so now, consider it an honor to die fighting for their country, and that really these visits to grave sights were at least once considered motivational - that soldiers would want to fight and to be a part of the community of heroes, both living and dead, who fought for their country. Nevertheless, it felt deeply tragic to look from the photos that were placed on the graves of falen soldiers to the faces of living soliders with bowed heads mourning for the fallen and perhaps thinking of what might befall them as well.
We visited a memorial to the soldiers who faught in the War for Independance who were Holocaust survivors, many of them without surviving families. The tour guide told us that many of the bodies went unrecognized and are in graves without names because there was no one left who knew the names of these soliders. The monument looks like a deep hole, but the inside is shaped so that it also looks like an upside down house, because these soldiers' homes had been destroyed. It also looks like it could be a tunnel to Yad VaShem, the Holocaust Memorial that is closely connected to Mt. Herzl, and it demonstrates that these soldiers (and the establishment of Israel) are deeply connected to the events of the Holocaust.
We also visited a memorial to victims of terror, which included the names of all of the victims of terror since the establishment of the State of Israel.
Incidentally, as we walked from site to site, I overheard a Jewish student speaking to a Palestinian student about all of this - the Palestinian student had never heard of most of the figures whose graves we were visiting and did not know the history of Zionism at all, or really why Jews had come to Israel in the first place. I appreciated the mutually respectful conversation I overheard and was very proud that our class had created a safe space for such a conversation to occur, but I also think that this lack of knowledge (which I'm sure is absolutely reciprocated by Israeli lack of knowledge of Palestinian history/perspectives) illustrates the deep and tragic divides in Israeli society.
In sum it was definately an educational trip and it was nice to get out of the classroom and go somewhere. And, wonder of wonders, we returned in time to practice prepositions for an hour before ulpan let out!
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Lecture in Ulpan
It's been a while since you've heard from me, for which I apologize. Largely, I've been busy with ulpan, especially since I had to get a lot of work done in advance of the weekend to accomodate our travel plans. I am very much looking forward to exploring Tel Aviv with Daniel, and we have sworn to take pictures to share with you - we can't believe we haven't taken any yet!
Today in ulpan we had an amazing opportunity to hear Israeli author Eli Amir speak (In Hebrew!!). Eli Amir has published four novels, three of which have been translated to English, and the fourth of which should appear in English translation in the upcoming year. The titles, in case you want to add them to your own reading lists (as I certainly do!) are: Scapegoat, Farewell Baghdad, Saul's Love, and Jasmine.
We read several sections, some in Hebrew-made-easy formats for children and new immigrants, and some from the book itself which were, needless to say, somewhat challenging, from Scapegoat (in Hebrew Tarnegol Kaparot, which refers to the tradition of slaughtering a chicken and swinging it over one's head to symbolically transfer one's sins to the chicken). Tarnegol Kaparot is the story of a boy from an Iraqi family who is sent to a kibbutz, and tells of his adjustment and absorbtion into Israeli society. The sections that we read involved the conflicts between his traditionally observant upbringing and the adamently secular nature of the kibbutz. In one section his parents come to visit and the main character, Nuri, brings them a chicken, a delicacy on the kibbutz, so that they can perform the tradition of tarnegol kaparot. The mother inspects the chicken and realizes that it was not slaughtered in a kosher way. The father throws the chicken away - not only does he not want to eat it or use it for his traditional practice, he does not want to give it to the members of the kibbutz as he does not want to aid in other Jews' non-kosher eating practices. In another scene that we read, all of the boys from Iraq are given new, Israeli names. Nuri, who is assigned the name Nimrod, refuses to rebell against his roots (Mered, the root of Nimrod, means rebellion) and insists upon keeping his own name. The boys have to adjust to the communal situations of living together, sleeping in the same room, showering together, etc., and also have to adjust to the secular nature of the kibbutz, where women wear clothing that is not traditionally modest, where men and women sleep in the same dorms, and where there is no synagogue to be found.
Eli Amir was born in Baghdad in 1937. He told us that when he was a child, he did not want to be a writer - in fact, he aspired to be a king. At the time, the king of Baghdad was in fact a child, and Amir described that every now and again the king would have a procession, where crowds would clap and cheer as he rode by with his beautiful crown and waved his hand slowly from side to side. One day, Amir decided that he was very good looking and would make a good king. To try it out he put on his father's hat, sat in a regal pose and waved his hand back and forth slowly. When his father came home he said, "Dad, I've decided what I want to be when I grow up!" and told his father of his decision to become the king of Iraq (which was at the time under the British mandate). His father agreed that this would be a very good idea, but not a likely one because in order to be king one had to be a Muslim. Amir replied that he would become a Muslim. His father said that this would not be good enough, as one had to be a member of the Hashemite Dynasty of Iraq (1921-1959). As this was not a possibility for Amir, he abdicated his potential throne.
Eli Amir told us a bit about the Iraqi Jewish community. I'll relate what I can to you, but you should know that this is not an area of history that I am very familliar with, so please don't take my word for it, and please correct me if I make any mistakes here. The Jewish community of Iraq was one of the oldest documented Jewish communities outside of Israel, dating back to the time of the Babylonian captivity. In the 1940's, the Jewish community of Iraq was one of the most prosporous Jewish communities of the Middle East, and was heavily intertwined with the non-Jewish population both through economic ties and through cultural and social interactions. Baghdad was the home of highly regarded yeshivot and was a center of Jewish learning, and Jews were also members of a secular intellectual class in growing numbers. Jewish writers composed in Arabic for the general public, and were involved in music, theater, and the arts.
After the establishment of the state of Israel, life became harder for the Jews of Iraq. As restrictions against Jewish and Zionist activity in Iraq increased, Israel organized Operations Ezra and Nehemiah, which were responsible for clandestinely bringing over about 120,000 people from Iraq.
Amir related that once they were in Israel, Iraqi Jews had a hard time fitting in. The once prosperous community arrived in Israel with only the clothes on their backs. They were settled into small temporary homes made of aluminum and asbestos and given jobs involving manual labor. Amir was separated from his family to live on a kibbutz with other Iraqi young people, where he would be educated to become a paradigmatic Israeli according to the ideology of the day. His novels are semi-autobiographical and reflect this history.
Amir told us that when he decided to write the story, he didn't really know what it meant to write a whole novel, and it took him fifteen years and seventeen drafts (hand written with a fountain pen) to complete his first work. He told us that one of the central themes of Tarnegol Kaparot as he sees it is that while in various points in time various groups of Jews have been seen or have seen themselves as the group that made the most sacrifices in order to be a part of Israel, but in the end everyone gave something up and made sacrifices to live in the land - Jews from the Middle East, Russians, even Americans, and so in a sense everyone is a Tarnegol Kaparot. He told us that he does not write in Arabic as he came to Israel when he was 13 and is more at home with the Hebrew language. However he maintains close connections to Arab culture, listens to Arab musicians, and reads in Arabic.
Amir was a very pleasant-seeming man and a fabulous speaker. He spoke in stories and anecdotes, slowly, evenly, and patiently, so that if we didn't understand all of the words we would still be able to follow what he was saying. It was a very interesting lecture and I'm so excited to have been able to understand it!
Today in ulpan we had an amazing opportunity to hear Israeli author Eli Amir speak (In Hebrew!!). Eli Amir has published four novels, three of which have been translated to English, and the fourth of which should appear in English translation in the upcoming year. The titles, in case you want to add them to your own reading lists (as I certainly do!) are: Scapegoat, Farewell Baghdad, Saul's Love, and Jasmine.
We read several sections, some in Hebrew-made-easy formats for children and new immigrants, and some from the book itself which were, needless to say, somewhat challenging, from Scapegoat (in Hebrew Tarnegol Kaparot, which refers to the tradition of slaughtering a chicken and swinging it over one's head to symbolically transfer one's sins to the chicken). Tarnegol Kaparot is the story of a boy from an Iraqi family who is sent to a kibbutz, and tells of his adjustment and absorbtion into Israeli society. The sections that we read involved the conflicts between his traditionally observant upbringing and the adamently secular nature of the kibbutz. In one section his parents come to visit and the main character, Nuri, brings them a chicken, a delicacy on the kibbutz, so that they can perform the tradition of tarnegol kaparot. The mother inspects the chicken and realizes that it was not slaughtered in a kosher way. The father throws the chicken away - not only does he not want to eat it or use it for his traditional practice, he does not want to give it to the members of the kibbutz as he does not want to aid in other Jews' non-kosher eating practices. In another scene that we read, all of the boys from Iraq are given new, Israeli names. Nuri, who is assigned the name Nimrod, refuses to rebell against his roots (Mered, the root of Nimrod, means rebellion) and insists upon keeping his own name. The boys have to adjust to the communal situations of living together, sleeping in the same room, showering together, etc., and also have to adjust to the secular nature of the kibbutz, where women wear clothing that is not traditionally modest, where men and women sleep in the same dorms, and where there is no synagogue to be found.
Eli Amir was born in Baghdad in 1937. He told us that when he was a child, he did not want to be a writer - in fact, he aspired to be a king. At the time, the king of Baghdad was in fact a child, and Amir described that every now and again the king would have a procession, where crowds would clap and cheer as he rode by with his beautiful crown and waved his hand slowly from side to side. One day, Amir decided that he was very good looking and would make a good king. To try it out he put on his father's hat, sat in a regal pose and waved his hand back and forth slowly. When his father came home he said, "Dad, I've decided what I want to be when I grow up!" and told his father of his decision to become the king of Iraq (which was at the time under the British mandate). His father agreed that this would be a very good idea, but not a likely one because in order to be king one had to be a Muslim. Amir replied that he would become a Muslim. His father said that this would not be good enough, as one had to be a member of the Hashemite Dynasty of Iraq (1921-1959). As this was not a possibility for Amir, he abdicated his potential throne.
Eli Amir told us a bit about the Iraqi Jewish community. I'll relate what I can to you, but you should know that this is not an area of history that I am very familliar with, so please don't take my word for it, and please correct me if I make any mistakes here. The Jewish community of Iraq was one of the oldest documented Jewish communities outside of Israel, dating back to the time of the Babylonian captivity. In the 1940's, the Jewish community of Iraq was one of the most prosporous Jewish communities of the Middle East, and was heavily intertwined with the non-Jewish population both through economic ties and through cultural and social interactions. Baghdad was the home of highly regarded yeshivot and was a center of Jewish learning, and Jews were also members of a secular intellectual class in growing numbers. Jewish writers composed in Arabic for the general public, and were involved in music, theater, and the arts.
After the establishment of the state of Israel, life became harder for the Jews of Iraq. As restrictions against Jewish and Zionist activity in Iraq increased, Israel organized Operations Ezra and Nehemiah, which were responsible for clandestinely bringing over about 120,000 people from Iraq.
Amir related that once they were in Israel, Iraqi Jews had a hard time fitting in. The once prosperous community arrived in Israel with only the clothes on their backs. They were settled into small temporary homes made of aluminum and asbestos and given jobs involving manual labor. Amir was separated from his family to live on a kibbutz with other Iraqi young people, where he would be educated to become a paradigmatic Israeli according to the ideology of the day. His novels are semi-autobiographical and reflect this history.
Amir told us that when he decided to write the story, he didn't really know what it meant to write a whole novel, and it took him fifteen years and seventeen drafts (hand written with a fountain pen) to complete his first work. He told us that one of the central themes of Tarnegol Kaparot as he sees it is that while in various points in time various groups of Jews have been seen or have seen themselves as the group that made the most sacrifices in order to be a part of Israel, but in the end everyone gave something up and made sacrifices to live in the land - Jews from the Middle East, Russians, even Americans, and so in a sense everyone is a Tarnegol Kaparot. He told us that he does not write in Arabic as he came to Israel when he was 13 and is more at home with the Hebrew language. However he maintains close connections to Arab culture, listens to Arab musicians, and reads in Arabic.
Amir was a very pleasant-seeming man and a fabulous speaker. He spoke in stories and anecdotes, slowly, evenly, and patiently, so that if we didn't understand all of the words we would still be able to follow what he was saying. It was a very interesting lecture and I'm so excited to have been able to understand it!
Monday, August 25, 2008
A bit about my ulpan
At my ulpan they try very hard to vary the activities so that we will be able to pay attention for the whole of class. We've watched movies, gone on a tour of campus, played games, gone to a computer lab, etc. Yesterday, we went to a language lab, where each of us sat in front of tape players and listened through headsets to exercises. We had to speak in response to the exercises and our responses were recorded. The teacher sat in the front and she was able to listen in on any of our recording sessions in real time, as we were stumbling through our answers. If we were having problems, all we had to do was press the "call teacher" button and the teacher could have a conversation with us from her headset to ours. The exercises were pretty boring, but it was good to get up and do something new. Today, we learned some songs. A teacher from some music institute in Jerusalem - I didn't catch the name of it as she was speaking Hebrew pretty fast - came in to teach us a few songs, and will apparently do this other times throughout the ulpan. We learned a song called "Dreaming in Spanish" about an immigrant who loves Hebrew and does everything in Hebrew but still dreams in Spanish, two Arik Einstein songs(one, two), a short ballad/love song about flying away like birds to build a new life together, Yo-Ya a very well known Israeli song, and others. It was not easy to learn the songs because I don't read as fast as the tempo of the songs - but I was excited to be singing such pretty songs anyway - and again it was nice to have a change of pace in the middle of a day full of conjugating verbs.
Yesterday one of our teachers left the room for a moment and the other teacher came in unexpectedly (she usually teaches another class on Sundays). She came in and without saying anything to any of us she ate part of the other teacher's apple, broke her pencil, wrote on the board, closed the window, tore a piece of paper and used a cigarette lighter to burn it. Then, without a word of explanation, she left the room. We were all sort of giggly and surprised, and didn't know what to make of it. The other teacher came in and said, "Who broke the pencil? The pencil is broken. Who closed the window? The window is closed." etc. And that's how we learned how to change verbs into adjectives: closed, broken, eaten, burnt, torn, etc. It certainly got our attention!
This afternoon as I was waiting for the bus to go home I ran into Alex, the friend I met on Birthright, who is right now taking his final exams at Hebrew University. He introduced me to his friends and we spoke in Hebrew - though I didn't understand most of the conversation and whenever anyone addressed me I had to ask them to repeat themselves, only slower. Alex showed me his dorm room, which is about the size of my room in the IRC at UVA. It was hard to talk to him and his friend because the friend doesn't know very much English and frankly I don't know very much Hebrew. I spoke to her in Hebrew, only not very well - and when I made mistakes they corrected me, and when I didn't know how to say a word I asked Alex. She spoke to me in Hebrew, but mostly Alex had to translate what she said into English for me. When he spoke, Alex spoke first in English and then translated it into Hebrew for his friend. It was all very muddled and talking took a long time, but it was lovely of both of them to be so patient.
It's been an exciting week for us, as we've been receiving packages left and right. Thanks to everyone for fabulous birthday gifts and for a very exciting care package.
Daniel's ulpan ends tomorrow and in a few days he'll be on vacation! Unfortunately as I won't be on vacation, he isn't going anywhere for long, but we're thinking about taking a weekend vacation to Tel Aviv. If anyone has recommendations of things to do in Tel Aviv, let us know.
Yesterday one of our teachers left the room for a moment and the other teacher came in unexpectedly (she usually teaches another class on Sundays). She came in and without saying anything to any of us she ate part of the other teacher's apple, broke her pencil, wrote on the board, closed the window, tore a piece of paper and used a cigarette lighter to burn it. Then, without a word of explanation, she left the room. We were all sort of giggly and surprised, and didn't know what to make of it. The other teacher came in and said, "Who broke the pencil? The pencil is broken. Who closed the window? The window is closed." etc. And that's how we learned how to change verbs into adjectives: closed, broken, eaten, burnt, torn, etc. It certainly got our attention!
This afternoon as I was waiting for the bus to go home I ran into Alex, the friend I met on Birthright, who is right now taking his final exams at Hebrew University. He introduced me to his friends and we spoke in Hebrew - though I didn't understand most of the conversation and whenever anyone addressed me I had to ask them to repeat themselves, only slower. Alex showed me his dorm room, which is about the size of my room in the IRC at UVA. It was hard to talk to him and his friend because the friend doesn't know very much English and frankly I don't know very much Hebrew. I spoke to her in Hebrew, only not very well - and when I made mistakes they corrected me, and when I didn't know how to say a word I asked Alex. She spoke to me in Hebrew, but mostly Alex had to translate what she said into English for me. When he spoke, Alex spoke first in English and then translated it into Hebrew for his friend. It was all very muddled and talking took a long time, but it was lovely of both of them to be so patient.
It's been an exciting week for us, as we've been receiving packages left and right. Thanks to everyone for fabulous birthday gifts and for a very exciting care package.
Daniel's ulpan ends tomorrow and in a few days he'll be on vacation! Unfortunately as I won't be on vacation, he isn't going anywhere for long, but we're thinking about taking a weekend vacation to Tel Aviv. If anyone has recommendations of things to do in Tel Aviv, let us know.
Friday, August 22, 2008
my first visit to Yung Yiddish
Yesterday's was an afternoon of language learning. I came home, and decided I'd had enough of Hebrew and I was going to work a little bit on Yiddish. I'd printed out a story in Yiddish that had been published in Pakn Treger (the National Yiddish Book Center's magazine) a few months ago - the stories are published in the magazine with the Yiddish on one page and the translation on the opposing page. I printed out both, but have decided to write my own translation and not to look at the published one, and to compare notes when I'm finished. It is a long story and at the rate I'm going it will take me something like two weeks if I do a little every day. We'll see how it goes.
When I got sick of doing Yiddish, I switched to Hebrew. I decided to write the essay that's due Sunday, so I could free up my time over the weekend to work on my homework for literature class, which includes writing a short childhood memoir (Yes!!!) and a literary critique (Double Yes!!). In the meantime, I wrote my essay on - and I did not choose the topic myself - Is it possible/acceptable to create art about the Holocaust? I answered the question by telling a few anecdotes about art that I felt either successfully or unsuccessfully honored the Holocaust. I then went on to discuss the ideas of Theodore Adorno, who famously declared that to write a poem after the Holocaust is simply barbaric. He later went on to revisit this quotation and to note that in our era of incomprehensible suffering, art is necessary. I discussed how I agree with Adorno's sense of the tension between wanting to honor the unspeakable by not trying to describe it - in describing it perhaps you lessen or soften it, and in creating something beautiful or aesthetically pleasing in some way, you make suffering more palatable - and wanting to remember and acknowledge the unspeakable by speaking (and creating) of it. This was not an easy essay to write in Hebrew, and I hope that what I wrote in Hebrew at least makes grammatical sense, if nothing else.
At 7:00 I left the apartment to go to Yung Yiddish, the organization with whom I've been in contact with for quite a while in anticipation of interning/volunteering while I am in Jerusalem. I had told the director of Yung Yiddish that I would meet him there at 8:00, a half hour before this evening's program, to introduce myself. I got on the bus and asked the driver to make sure I was on the right bus. I told him I'd never been to Rehov Yerimiyhu before and asked if he could let me know when we were there. After a while I pulled out my map and checked some street signs. I noticed that we were on Yerimiyhu, only in an area where it has a different name. "Great!" I thought, "we must be almost there!" It was 7:50. The bus driver didn't say anything to me, and after a while I noticed that we were on bigger roads with bigger stores and things were getting farther apart. More and more the signs said things like "To Tel Aviv" rather than "To City Center." I was getting a bit nervous, but was willing to trust the bus driver a bit longer. We were off my map, but I thought maybe we were going only a little out of the way and then would be going back toward Yerimiyhu. It was 8:00 and I didn't bring the Yung Yiddish phone number with me. We drove into a suburb. We were going pretty slow because it seemed there were bus stops every few seconds. I said to the bus driver, "Excuse me, but I don;t know where we are. I wanted to go to Yerimiyhu and you told me..." He hit his forehead with the palm of his hand. "I forgot," He said, "And I have to keep going this way." "What should I do?" I asked him. He said, "Stay here and return with me." When we had reached the end of the route and he was turning around, he stopped the bus and had me point to where I wanted to go on a map. He told me we would be there soon. We picked up lots of people along the way and made a lot of stops, but when we got to Yerimiyhu he didn't forget this time. So, I got off the bus at Yerimiyhu. It was 9:00. That is not a type-o. So, I get off the bus and realize that I am alone in the dark in an ultra-Orthodox neighborhood. I am wearing a longsleeved shirt and a skirt that just barely covers my knees. Not very modest for this area, but not disrespectfully immodest either, I think.
Nevertheless, I definately felt uncomfortable and a bit worried, particularly as I didn't know where I was going. The bus dropped me off at number 14 or so and Yung Yiddish is 52. I walked for a while and then asked a nice-looking older woman for directions. She said I was only at 38 and should just keep going straight. Eventually, I came to a small building with a sign out in front that read "Yung Yiddish"
Yung Yiddish is housed in the basement of a small building. The walls were lined with old friendly-looking Yiddish books crowded into bookshelves that encroached into the performance space. In one nook there was technical/sound equipment hidden by curtains and sheets that made it look like a colorful circus tent. Staff kept poppin their heads in and out of the tent to speak to the performer and ask if the music was loud enough. There were rows of seats on two sides - maybe enough to seat fifty. Most of the seats were filled and some people were standing in the back, near the door. I found myself a seat near the back. The room was unbearably hot - no fans or air conditioners. The audience was composed of a mish mosh of characters - an elderly woman sat next to me and it seemed that she only speaks Yiddish. At first she ignored me but after a while of my singing along to some of the music, she started to smile at me, and then she said to me in Yiddish, "You are so young to know Yiddish!" There were a few ultra-orthodox men, a fifty-something couple with the woman wearing pants and a t-shirt, a secular family with Yiddish speaking kids, there was a man with a T-shirt that said "Toronto" on it, a gap-toothed man who sang and danced vivaciously, and many others - I would venture to say that few of the people at Yung Yiddish seemed like people I would have been likely to encounter anywhere else. The performer, Tommy Schwartz, has this incredible deep, warm, voice, and speaks slowly with an enchanting lilt when he tells stories. He sang popular Yiddish cabaret songs like "Di Grine Kuzine," "By Mir Bistu Sheyn," "Vus Dergeisti Mir Di Lorn" and "Der Rebbe Elimelich," and in between them interspersed anecdotes and jokes in Yiddish. Occasionally he would translate what he was saying to English (Though I was proud and surprised to realize that not only did I understand most of the Yiddish, but I also already knew most of the songs) - I'm not sure if he knows Hebrew, and I think from what I understood of his speaking, he is from Hungary. After his many fabulous songs, Mendy, the director of Yung Yiddish, stood up to sing. He sang a piece I was not familiar with - it was very theatrical and evocative, and eerily heartbreaking. Mendy has a sweet tenor voice and the performance was done with genuine feeling, as though he were a well trained stage actor, which for all I know may be the case. He was followed by another woman who sang Edith Piaf's "Le Vie en Rose" translated into Yiddish - it was exquisite. The whole evening was fun, people sang along, commented to each other, mostly in Yiddish but some in Hebrew, about the performances, and at the back a woman translated the Yiddish into Hebrew for some people who didn't know the Yiddish. It was rare that there was silence in the room during a performance- people were drinking, greeting friends, etc. After a little singing and a few speeches, wine and vodka was passed around so we could make a toast to Tommy, in whose honor all of this was happening. The toast was followed by more songs for the audience to sing to. At one point I had a chance to introduce myself to Mendy when he went outside for some fresh, cool air. He was very excited to meet me and told me to stay until the end so he could have a chance to talk to me. I was a bit worried about catching the bus but stayed anyway. At the end of the concert someone asked me in Yiddish, and then when it took me a minute to understand what he was saying asked again in Hebrew, where I had learned the songs from - did I learn Yiddish from my parents? I told him that I studied some Yiddish in university. He asked if I speak it, and I said, "yes, but not well" - he asked if I speak Hebrew and I said, "I also speak Hebrew, but not well." He said, "Great, then we will speak a cocktail of languages" and we proceeded to have a conversation that was a mishmosh of Hebrew and Yiddish, which was absolutely perfect. Yiddish was his first language, he learned it from his parents. It seems that most of the people at YY learned Yiddish from their parents, whether in Orthodox homes or because their parents were immigrants to Israel whose native language was Yiddish. He lives in Tel Aviv but is very fond of YY (whose headquarters are in Tel Aviv) and comes when he can to the Jerusalem programs. It seemed that a lot of the people at YY knew each other and were regular attendees. It's a strange, quirkly, little community that I am excited to be a part of. As everyone was starting to leave, Tommy Schwartz approached me and asked me in Yiddish, "where are you from pretty young woman?" I responded "I'm from the US" and he responded, "Well, we can't all be perfect." Then he pinched my cheek, and left. Mendy sat down to speak to me for a bit - first we had to decide what language to speak in. We settled on English. He told me that he is very excited that I am interested in helping out, and that I can basically do whatever I want or think is needed. The headquarters are in Tel Aviv, but if for instance I wanted to work at YY twice a week in the afternoons, he would start advertising that the Jerusalem YY library would be open those hours, and that there would also be someone there to answer the phone. He said the books are in some semblace of order but could use a better system of organization, so that might be a good place to start. He also said that the biggest problem YY faces is with regard to funding. He's having problems holding on to the Tel Aviv location, and in general is concerned about fundraising. I told him I don't have much experience with that, and he asked me if I am a good writer. I said that in English, yes, I like to write. He was very excited about this. He suggested that I could write articles about Yung Yiddish events and that once a month I could produce an English language newsletter about YY that he could send to current or potential supporters. I told him that this is something that I could definately do. We parted, both expressing our excitement to be working with one another. He will be in New York for a few weeks, and then there's the holdiays and all that, so we're not sure when I would start, but at least we've met and that will get the ball rolling a bit.
I am really excited to be getting involved in this unique organization, and it is fun that Mendy is so excited for me to help out and so willing to have me do basically whatever I want if I think it will help. I think this will be a great learning opportunity for me - a chance to speak Yiddish, to experience Yiddish culture through music, lectures, and books, and a way to become a part of something in Jerusalem that involves no Americans and no people my age - a chance to get a little bit outside the 'bubble' and outside my comfort zone, and to explore. I'm sure that you will be hearing much more about YY on this blog in the future.
When I got sick of doing Yiddish, I switched to Hebrew. I decided to write the essay that's due Sunday, so I could free up my time over the weekend to work on my homework for literature class, which includes writing a short childhood memoir (Yes!!!) and a literary critique (Double Yes!!). In the meantime, I wrote my essay on - and I did not choose the topic myself - Is it possible/acceptable to create art about the Holocaust? I answered the question by telling a few anecdotes about art that I felt either successfully or unsuccessfully honored the Holocaust. I then went on to discuss the ideas of Theodore Adorno, who famously declared that to write a poem after the Holocaust is simply barbaric. He later went on to revisit this quotation and to note that in our era of incomprehensible suffering, art is necessary. I discussed how I agree with Adorno's sense of the tension between wanting to honor the unspeakable by not trying to describe it - in describing it perhaps you lessen or soften it, and in creating something beautiful or aesthetically pleasing in some way, you make suffering more palatable - and wanting to remember and acknowledge the unspeakable by speaking (and creating) of it. This was not an easy essay to write in Hebrew, and I hope that what I wrote in Hebrew at least makes grammatical sense, if nothing else.
At 7:00 I left the apartment to go to Yung Yiddish, the organization with whom I've been in contact with for quite a while in anticipation of interning/volunteering while I am in Jerusalem. I had told the director of Yung Yiddish that I would meet him there at 8:00, a half hour before this evening's program, to introduce myself. I got on the bus and asked the driver to make sure I was on the right bus. I told him I'd never been to Rehov Yerimiyhu before and asked if he could let me know when we were there. After a while I pulled out my map and checked some street signs. I noticed that we were on Yerimiyhu, only in an area where it has a different name. "Great!" I thought, "we must be almost there!" It was 7:50. The bus driver didn't say anything to me, and after a while I noticed that we were on bigger roads with bigger stores and things were getting farther apart. More and more the signs said things like "To Tel Aviv" rather than "To City Center." I was getting a bit nervous, but was willing to trust the bus driver a bit longer. We were off my map, but I thought maybe we were going only a little out of the way and then would be going back toward Yerimiyhu. It was 8:00 and I didn't bring the Yung Yiddish phone number with me. We drove into a suburb. We were going pretty slow because it seemed there were bus stops every few seconds. I said to the bus driver, "Excuse me, but I don;t know where we are. I wanted to go to Yerimiyhu and you told me..." He hit his forehead with the palm of his hand. "I forgot," He said, "And I have to keep going this way." "What should I do?" I asked him. He said, "Stay here and return with me." When we had reached the end of the route and he was turning around, he stopped the bus and had me point to where I wanted to go on a map. He told me we would be there soon. We picked up lots of people along the way and made a lot of stops, but when we got to Yerimiyhu he didn't forget this time. So, I got off the bus at Yerimiyhu. It was 9:00. That is not a type-o. So, I get off the bus and realize that I am alone in the dark in an ultra-Orthodox neighborhood. I am wearing a longsleeved shirt and a skirt that just barely covers my knees. Not very modest for this area, but not disrespectfully immodest either, I think.
Nevertheless, I definately felt uncomfortable and a bit worried, particularly as I didn't know where I was going. The bus dropped me off at number 14 or so and Yung Yiddish is 52. I walked for a while and then asked a nice-looking older woman for directions. She said I was only at 38 and should just keep going straight. Eventually, I came to a small building with a sign out in front that read "Yung Yiddish"
Yung Yiddish is housed in the basement of a small building. The walls were lined with old friendly-looking Yiddish books crowded into bookshelves that encroached into the performance space. In one nook there was technical/sound equipment hidden by curtains and sheets that made it look like a colorful circus tent. Staff kept poppin their heads in and out of the tent to speak to the performer and ask if the music was loud enough. There were rows of seats on two sides - maybe enough to seat fifty. Most of the seats were filled and some people were standing in the back, near the door. I found myself a seat near the back. The room was unbearably hot - no fans or air conditioners. The audience was composed of a mish mosh of characters - an elderly woman sat next to me and it seemed that she only speaks Yiddish. At first she ignored me but after a while of my singing along to some of the music, she started to smile at me, and then she said to me in Yiddish, "You are so young to know Yiddish!" There were a few ultra-orthodox men, a fifty-something couple with the woman wearing pants and a t-shirt, a secular family with Yiddish speaking kids, there was a man with a T-shirt that said "Toronto" on it, a gap-toothed man who sang and danced vivaciously, and many others - I would venture to say that few of the people at Yung Yiddish seemed like people I would have been likely to encounter anywhere else. The performer, Tommy Schwartz, has this incredible deep, warm, voice, and speaks slowly with an enchanting lilt when he tells stories. He sang popular Yiddish cabaret songs like "Di Grine Kuzine," "By Mir Bistu Sheyn," "Vus Dergeisti Mir Di Lorn" and "Der Rebbe Elimelich," and in between them interspersed anecdotes and jokes in Yiddish. Occasionally he would translate what he was saying to English (Though I was proud and surprised to realize that not only did I understand most of the Yiddish, but I also already knew most of the songs) - I'm not sure if he knows Hebrew, and I think from what I understood of his speaking, he is from Hungary. After his many fabulous songs, Mendy, the director of Yung Yiddish, stood up to sing. He sang a piece I was not familiar with - it was very theatrical and evocative, and eerily heartbreaking. Mendy has a sweet tenor voice and the performance was done with genuine feeling, as though he were a well trained stage actor, which for all I know may be the case. He was followed by another woman who sang Edith Piaf's "Le Vie en Rose" translated into Yiddish - it was exquisite. The whole evening was fun, people sang along, commented to each other, mostly in Yiddish but some in Hebrew, about the performances, and at the back a woman translated the Yiddish into Hebrew for some people who didn't know the Yiddish. It was rare that there was silence in the room during a performance- people were drinking, greeting friends, etc. After a little singing and a few speeches, wine and vodka was passed around so we could make a toast to Tommy, in whose honor all of this was happening. The toast was followed by more songs for the audience to sing to. At one point I had a chance to introduce myself to Mendy when he went outside for some fresh, cool air. He was very excited to meet me and told me to stay until the end so he could have a chance to talk to me. I was a bit worried about catching the bus but stayed anyway. At the end of the concert someone asked me in Yiddish, and then when it took me a minute to understand what he was saying asked again in Hebrew, where I had learned the songs from - did I learn Yiddish from my parents? I told him that I studied some Yiddish in university. He asked if I speak it, and I said, "yes, but not well" - he asked if I speak Hebrew and I said, "I also speak Hebrew, but not well." He said, "Great, then we will speak a cocktail of languages" and we proceeded to have a conversation that was a mishmosh of Hebrew and Yiddish, which was absolutely perfect. Yiddish was his first language, he learned it from his parents. It seems that most of the people at YY learned Yiddish from their parents, whether in Orthodox homes or because their parents were immigrants to Israel whose native language was Yiddish. He lives in Tel Aviv but is very fond of YY (whose headquarters are in Tel Aviv) and comes when he can to the Jerusalem programs. It seemed that a lot of the people at YY knew each other and were regular attendees. It's a strange, quirkly, little community that I am excited to be a part of. As everyone was starting to leave, Tommy Schwartz approached me and asked me in Yiddish, "where are you from pretty young woman?" I responded "I'm from the US" and he responded, "Well, we can't all be perfect." Then he pinched my cheek, and left. Mendy sat down to speak to me for a bit - first we had to decide what language to speak in. We settled on English. He told me that he is very excited that I am interested in helping out, and that I can basically do whatever I want or think is needed. The headquarters are in Tel Aviv, but if for instance I wanted to work at YY twice a week in the afternoons, he would start advertising that the Jerusalem YY library would be open those hours, and that there would also be someone there to answer the phone. He said the books are in some semblace of order but could use a better system of organization, so that might be a good place to start. He also said that the biggest problem YY faces is with regard to funding. He's having problems holding on to the Tel Aviv location, and in general is concerned about fundraising. I told him I don't have much experience with that, and he asked me if I am a good writer. I said that in English, yes, I like to write. He was very excited about this. He suggested that I could write articles about Yung Yiddish events and that once a month I could produce an English language newsletter about YY that he could send to current or potential supporters. I told him that this is something that I could definately do. We parted, both expressing our excitement to be working with one another. He will be in New York for a few weeks, and then there's the holdiays and all that, so we're not sure when I would start, but at least we've met and that will get the ball rolling a bit.
I am really excited to be getting involved in this unique organization, and it is fun that Mendy is so excited for me to help out and so willing to have me do basically whatever I want if I think it will help. I think this will be a great learning opportunity for me - a chance to speak Yiddish, to experience Yiddish culture through music, lectures, and books, and a way to become a part of something in Jerusalem that involves no Americans and no people my age - a chance to get a little bit outside the 'bubble' and outside my comfort zone, and to explore. I'm sure that you will be hearing much more about YY on this blog in the future.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
