As Promised, Our Trip to Tel Aviv

Our trip to Tel Aviv began on Thursday afternoon when we packed up and made our way, via Egged bus, to the Jerusalem Central Bus Station - which is a madhouse on Thursday afternoons. After waiting on what seemed like an endless line, we finally got into the bus station, which is sort of part shopping mall and part bus station, bought tickets, and waited on line for our bus. We were pushed and shoved onto the bus in polite Israeli fashion, and sat down to enjoy the 45 minute ride, which went much faster than expected because of crazy Israeli driving.

We disembarked at the Tel Aviv Central Bus Station. Which is CRAZY. The Tel Aviv Central Bus Station is supposedly one of the biggest in the world. It contains floors and floors of shops, office, buildings, etc. and an entire Shuk. There were more shoe stores in the Tel Aviv Central Bus Station than I think I've ever seen in my whole life. Wikipedia tells me that it has more than 1000 shops and restaurants. We had a lot of trouble finding our way out - the building is seven stories tall and our exit was on the fourth floor, but we couldn't find any signs to indicate that it was there. We had to ask a few times, and eventually we found ourselves on the Tel Aviv streets.

We walked, backpacks on our backs like regular hostel-hoppers, to our hostel, Sub kuk Malega, where we dropped off our belongings before going out into the city for the evening. The hostel is located in a sort of less-nice area of Tel Aviv, but not far from the nicer areas and quite close to Jaffa. On the bottom floor it is an Indian restaurant. The front room has a few tables, and a buffet, and in the back patrons recline on sheet-covered couches while they eat their lentils and rice. The second floor is a guest-house lounge - one computer with comlementary internet, live music every night, couches, a pool table. The third floor is the guest house, featuring two bathrooms, a refrigerator/sink area, two private rooms, and a dorm room (where we stayed) full of bunk beds. The shower, we were surprised to find, was no more than a shower head with a drain underneath, in the bathroom - no stall or tub - and there was a squeegee-like mop to use to push the water toward the drain when you have finished your shower. Not exactly the Ritz, but it was a place to sleep. On the fourth floor, the roof, rows of couches were set up facing a large screen where they projected movies, and you could order food and drinks from the bar on the roof as well. It was a pretty hip alternative kind of place, and we were quite excited about it, despite the showering conditions.

We dropped off our bags and headed for the city, not going anywhere in particular, but hoping to buy a map and then decide. It took us a while to find the map but in the meantime we browsed through a series of stores with colorful skirts, a few bookstores, etc. We walked through Nachalat Binyamin Market, and had dinner at a fabulous hummus restaurant there - we shared hummos and salad, and it was definately excellent. After walking around a bit more, we made our way back to the hostel, where we watched James and the Giant Peach and The Nightmare Before Christmas on the roof, and then went to bed.

The next morning we were up bright and early - too early for the free breakfast offered by the hostel. We bought breakfast from a bakery on Allenby and then caught a cab to the Museum of the Jewish Diaspora. The museum presents the history of Jews from the Destruction of the Second Temple until today, in a thematic (non-chronological) fashion). It begins with sort of the basics of Jewish life - family and community, and describes community organizations as they existed in various communities, as well as the celebration of holidays and the life cycle. Next, it moves on to the idea of faith, and contains 18 models of synagogues around the world - we spent a lot of time there, gazing at synagoges of all shapes, sizes and colors. We learned about Jewish art, architecture, and literature around the world, and we went to the 'return to Zion' area which included a model set of two family trees - one sephardic and one ashkenazic - that demonstrated how some of these extended family members might have ended up in Israel. There was a memorial area to all of the destructive events of Judaism's past, and we spent a lot of time reading the "Scroll of Fire" which had 365 pages in memorium to tragedies of Jewish history. We also walked through a bit of ancient history, where Daniel tried to decipher some ancient Greek (it was all Greek to me). We didn't get to see all of the museum because we had to get going to our next adventure, but we did get to see nearly all of it, and what we did see we of course saw in great detail.

Our next stop was to Habima, the national theater of Israel, to see Joseph and the Amazing Technicolored Dreamcoat in Hebrew. We asked the taxi driver to take us to Habima, and he dropped us off by the Habima Quarter, where Habima used to be located, but, as we learned, is no longer found. We asked a number of different people including those inside the office of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, but they couldn't help us. We were getting pretty nervous about the whole thing when Daniel called Habima (he'd conveniently written down the phone number before we left, just in case) and the person who picked up directed us on somewhat of a long walk - off of the small maps given to us by the hostel - to a new building where Habima now performs. We arrived just in time to pick up the tickets and sit down before the show began.

Habima was one of the first Hebrew language theater groups, founded in 1918 under the Moscow Art Theater. It left the USSR in 1926 and came to Tel Aviv for good in 1928. Since 1958 Habima has officially been considered the national theater of Israel.

The show we saw was excellent. It was so much fun because we knew all of the words in English already so it wasn't a problem that we didn't understand all of the Hebrew. In the Elvis scene the actors made fun of Americans quite a bit, mispronouncing Hebrew in American accents, etc. The production was colorful and energetic, the dancing and singing were fabulous, and we had terrific seats right near the front. We were very pleased with the whole event, and were only disappointed that they weren't selling CD's.

After the show, we walked to Beit Daniel - the center for progressive Judaism in Tel Aviv. We got there quite early, so we went to a restaurant and had some dinner beforehand. Beit Daniel is very large and the congregation was quite full with people of all ages in attendance. The cantor was for sure American and had a lovely voice, and sang familiar (American) tunes. A guitarist accompanied her, and the rabbi had a melodic, sympathetic, deep alto voice. The service on a whole was really quite lovely.

We walked back from Beit Daniel to the hostel by way of the beach - meaning that we basically walked the entire length of the city. The beach at night was a bustling place full of big fancy hotels and folks out and about enjoying the cool(er) weather (Tel Aviv is very humid and felt much hotter than Jerusalem). We arrived at our hostel quite late, and went to bed.

In the morning we decided to wait for the hostel's breakfast, which was to be served at 9:00. We sat at the tables in the front, I did a little homework, and we read together from my book of Israeli short stories. 9:30, and still no breakfast. Apparently the cook hadn't arrived yet - it seems that most people who stay in the hostel don't wake up as early as we do. At 10:00 we were served a delicious breakfast of fresh Israeli salad, cream cheese, laffa, cheese, apples, honey, and granola. Full and happy, we went on a walk to Jaffa.

We passed many many many closed stores, it being Shabbat, and were a bit discouraged. When we finally arrived at Jaffa, we realized it was definately worth it, as the view of the Tel Aviv beach was absolutely astounding. Jaffa is an ancient port city, inhabited by 7500 BCE, and is mentioned a number of times in the Bible, for instance it is the site where Jonah took a ship to Tarshish because he was fleeing G-d's command to go to Nineveh and tell the wicked people there to change their ways. King David and King Solomon conquered Jaffa and used it to import cedars for the construction of the First Temple. The Maccabees captured Jaffa from the Selucids, and the Romans burned it during the Jewish Revolt, killing thousands of inhabitants. It was in Christian hands until it was conquered by Arabs in 636 CE and served as the port of Ramla. Jaffa was captured by the Christians during the Crusades, and there was a lot of fighting there during that time. In 1268 it was captured by the Egyptian Mamluks, and in the 14th century the city was completely destroyed for fear of new Crusades. In 1799 Napolean captured and ransacked Jaffa. In the 19th century Jaffa was an industrial area known for its soap factories, and was also the center of book printing in Palestine. Jaffa also became a center for citrus growing. In the late-1800's and early 1900's the population swelled considerably and suburbs were built that in 1909 were reorganized into the city of Tel Aviv. In the early 1900's there were many Jewish residents in Jaffa, but in 1920 and 1921 Arab anti-Jewish violence caused many to resettle in Tel Aviv. In 1936 the Arab leadership of Palestine declared a general strike which paralyzed the economy of Jaffa, and as the uprising continued many Arabs hid in the narrow hiding places of Jaffa. As a consequence the British Royal Engineers blew up homes and buildings in Jaffa. During the Israeli War of Independance, Israeli forces took over the largely Arab city. Today, Jaffa is home to a heterogeneous population and the old city area of Jaffa has become a tourist attraction full of souvenir shops and art galleries.

Daniel and I gazed at the terrific view of Tel Aviv from Jaffa, and then, like the tourists that we are, we walked through art galleries, and gardens, and took lots of pictures. We particularly liked the Art Nova Gallery, which is full of soft art paintings - pictures made out of colored fabrics and fibres.

It was hot, and we were tired, so we made our way back to the hotel around noon, grabbed our belongings, and took a shared taxi home. We arrived in time for me to take my take-home mid-term before bed.

I had trouble putting pictures in this post, so they are in the next one. Enjoy!

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.

Beginnings

This morning I took the bus from the stop around the corner from our apartment (which of course I nevertheless had trouble finding and had to ask for directions) to Hebrew University, and made my way to the international building. Groups of young people swarmed around the building, speaking in French, Arabic, Spanish, German, Italian, and English - and probably some other languages as well. After some mulling about, we were led to the building where our summer language classes will be held, and assigned to our classrooms.
There ar 15 students (roughly - I may have missed someone) in my class. Two are from Italy, one from Canada, one from England, five from France, two are Arabic speakers from Jerusalem, two are from Russia, and two (including myself) are from the US. This means that we can't cheat at all and translate words into English because not everyone speaks English.
We have two teachers - one in the morning and one in the early afternoon (class went until 3:30 today but will ordinarily go until only 1:30). Both of them speak pretty fast and class was pretty intimidating - but I do feel that it is basically at the right level for me, which is good. The bookstore is currently on strike so we couldn't buy the books for the class, but otherwise there seemed to be no kinks at all - and we covered a lot of ground! We reviewed verb groups, masculine and feminine nouns, we read a passage about choosing a name for the state of Israel, and we learned a song.
During one of the breaks, I made friends with a girl from Germany who is studying here for a year. At home she studies Christianity, but she is here to study Judaism. She is in the same level of Hebrew as me, but she never has taken a class in it - she's learned it all from books and tapes. We had a whole conversation in Hebrew - she speaks English but would prefer to practice her Hebrew. Most people seem to be living in dorms, but this girl (whose name I already forget) is living near me and taking the same bus as I am to school. We were about to exchange cell phone numbers but then had to go back to class - I hope I find her again tomorrow so I can invite her over for dinner or something and get to know her better!
Otherwise, I've been meeting other folks left and right. Daniel brought me to HUC yesterday where they had a variety show and silent auction/live auction to benefit the Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism. It was great to get a chance to meet all of the people Daniel is going to school with - they really welcomed me with open arms and I look forward to getting to know all of them better. Daniel performed The Raven and it was, of course, astonishingly good. Daniel is impressing me left and right with his ability to speak Hebrew, navigate Jerusalem, etc. He is practically a native already.
It's hard to believe this is only my third day here - I feel like it's just been a whirlwind of activity and new experiences. It's been fun but I'm also looking forward to a time when all of this has settled down and feels a little less new and a little more comfortable and sort of ordinary.

A wedding in Haifa.

.חתונה בחיפה

Well, orientation is officially over. Thursday was a somewhat detail-oriented day where we received an academic preview and a look at the year's calendar. Orientation ran a bit late, so I was already about a half-hour behind schedule for the evening's festivities.

There's an Israeli congregant of Temple Emanuel in Roanoke named Chen, and Thursday was Chen's daughter's wedding in Haifa. Chen had invited Amanda Winter and myself to the wedding, and not wanting to turn down an opportunity to explore Israel (and celebrate with bride and groom), we accepted. The night was certainly an interesting one and definitely worth the logistics. The previous Friday night at the HUC dinner, I sat next to a woman who had recently made the exact trip Amanda and I were planning to Haifa, so she told us exactly how to get there. And, more or less, everything went according to plan...

After running home and changing, I met Amanda at a bus stop on King George St, planning to get on the first bus that was heading to the Central Bus Station. We boarded the 74 at 4:45 pm and arrived at the Central Bus Station at 5:00. We were hoping to catch the 5:15 bus to Haifa, so we hurried inside, bought our ticket at the counter, and found our way to the platform. We were still inside the main building waiting in a line that extended into the parking garage-like area where the buses load passengers. The 5:15 bus wasn't actually coming until 5:30, and when that bus arrived and loaded up, it became clear soon enough that we wouldn't be able to fit. The crowd of people pressing into the bus filled it too quickly, so Amanda and I relegated ourselves to waiting for the 6:00 bus (the last one to leave for Haifa).

The Israelis behind us warned us, "You have to be aggressive, or you will not leave Jerusalem today." Armed with that encouragement, Amanda and I determined to make it onto the 6:00 bus. We were fairly near the front of the mob (you could never describe what we were in as a line), and I felt sure that there was no way that 40-50 people were "ahead" of us. Nevertheless, we weren't going to take any chances. I tried to inch forward (as other people entered the garage from other doors and sauntered right up to the "front'), and I clutched our ticket (hoping, probably fruitlessly, that having purchased a ticket might guarantee us a seat).

When the 6:00 bus finally arrived after 6:05 it pulled into the space that was filled with human bodies. Again, I wasn't willing to relinquish any ground, but I was literally moved by the crowd to make room for the people who had to get out of the way of the bus. Amanda was trying to hold onto me, and I was trying to avoid falling off the ledge I was standing on. It as madness! As the bus started loading, I stood not three feet from the door - yet, people streamed in from the sides, and the people in front of me couldn't enter the bus. Eventually, I put my arm in front of some people to my right and planted my foot in the door. The woman in front of us was trying to secure passage for her dog but was denied by the bus driver; she left in a rage. The driver then told me that there was only standing room on the bus ... but Amanda and I had come too far to be deterred now. The bus driver stamped my ticket, and Amanda and I boarded.

As luck would have it, there was one seat on the bus (albeit an uncomfortable one in the back row), which Amanda was able to sit in. I managed to sit on the steps by the rear door, and though it was by no means comfortable, it was a lot better than standing still for an additional two hours (after having waited for the bus for over an hour already).

The ride was uneventful, and the bus station at Haifa was much less hectic than the one in Jerusalem had been. We got off the bus at 8:10 (the wedding started at 7:30) and made our way to the cab station. A driver was more or less ordered to take us to the reception hall, which we were later to find out was about a half-hour away from the bus station. On the ride to the reception hall, I actually had a fairly pleasant conversation with the taxi driver in Hebrew. I told him that I was studying to be a rabbi and that Amanda was studying to be a "chazanit" (female cantor), and he made a sign of obvious surprise. "Chazanit? Chayav lih'yot Reformim." "A female cantor? Must be Reform!" We also talked about Haifa, how we had lived only briefly in the country, and that we would call him when we were ready to leave the wedding so that he could come pick us up.

We finally arrived at the reception hall at 8:45, and judging by the number of name-cards on the table, we were far from the last guests. We walked in, I got something to drink, and Amanda and I scoped out the scene. The wedding was taking place in an outdoor area next to the dining/dancing room. An orthodox rabbi was officiating, and a few rows of chairs were set up in front for the people who were interested in watching (at least, those who weren't just going to wait for the video (as everything was being recorded)). However, hundreds of other people were milling about, talking, drinking, and eating from the buffet line of hors d'oeuvres. A few minutes after we arrived, the groom stepped on the glass, there was a general display of good cheer, and a host of white balloons were released into the air. Seems like we had arrived just in time!

In an effort to greet Chen, Amanda and I stayed near the chairs and watched guests file past. The dress of the guests was very different from what one would expect in the United States. Some people were dressed in their every-day clothes, others wore fancy (though not necessarily "formal") dress, and a select few wore formal clothes; even the bride's dress was not your expected white gown. I'm glad I had kept my necktie in my pocket!

We did manage to greet Chen and her family and then followed the crowd to dinner in the enormous reception hall. (I estimate that there were 400-500 guests.) Amanda and I found our seats, but about a quarter to a half of the crowd (including the happy couple) went straight to the dance floor. The music was reminiscent of an American bar mitzvah - dance music that included some contemporary Israeli rock/pop and some American classics (the Twist, Rock Around the Clock, etc.). There was nothing slow, and guests of all ages danced the same way to the same music (though the older songs did tend to attract a slightly older crowd).

There was no order to the meal; when you were seated and ready to eat, someone brought food. I had some delicious pasta, and Amanda had fish. I conversed half in Hebrew and half in English with an Israeli sitting next to me from a small village where he worked with the merchant marine corps. He was very interesting - born in Morocco but raised in Israel, he said, "I'm not religious, but I go to synagogue three times a day." And so do his children. He doesn't follow the mitzvot, but he loves to hear the words of the prayers at the synagogue. I wonder how un/common that attitude is in Israel....

Amanda and I danced for a while (how could one not?), but we didn't stay very long. After all, we had an orientation program the next morning in Jerusalem! So, after an hour and a half, we had Coby the taxi driver pick us up and take us to the Sheirut (shared cab) station. We found a 10-seat sheirut and paid our fare to Tel Aviv. It certainly was nice to (A) have a seat, (B) have accessible air conditioning, and (C) have someone to talk to on the long drive home. Once we made it to Tel Aviv, we had to repeat the process on a sheirut to Jerusalem - there's no direct public transportation from Haifa to Jerusalem that late at night. We finally arrived back in the City of David at about 1:15 am, making ours a 9 hour trip of which 1.5 were spent at the wedding.

Still, after this experience, I have adopted a "bring it on" mentality about traveling anywhere else in the country. My Hebrew is good enough to be understood, so I can always ask for help, and I have a much better understanding of the bus and sheirut systems (both of which are significantly less expensive than mass transit in the US). Overall, despite having a great time at the wedding party, I feel empowered to travel wherever chance may give me an opportunity to go.

The following day included a concluding orientation program and a some down-time before Shabbat services. Friday night and all of Saturday were fairly meaningful, and I will write about them next time. For now, it's time to hit the hay since I have an early morning tomorrow ... which is the first day of classes! Cheers for now.