Camels and Cliffs

Torrents of ran poured down on us yesterday in Tel Aviv. Crossing the street we felt as though we were wading through the Jordan River to reach the Promised Land—we could see the other side but could we ever reach it? Certainly not with dry feet! The wind whipped the sheets of rain sideways, rendering our umbrella useless. We ducked into doorways and overhangs, scurrying out when there was a slight break and taking cover when the deluge became more intense-- a stark contrast to our desert trek a mere 24 hours earlier.

Adventures in Arava---From the Dead Sea to the Desert Heights

Wednesday afternoon we packed up our backpacks and headed to Jerusalem to join Lynn Glassman for the drive to the Negev. We met Lynn through our Chapel Hill friend, Barry Roberts (Lynn and Barry are longtime friends from high school and college). Lynn, her husband, Lee, and their two daughers moved to Jerusalem from Scranton Pennsylvania about 20 years ago when the girls were in their teens. Lee is a certified tour guide who leads groups all over Israel. Lynn, who also took the extensive two-year guide course, works as a volunteer lactation consultant at Sha’arei Zedek Hospital in Jerusalem. Lynn had invited us to join her for the Fifth Annual Hike for Hope to support Tzad Kadima (A Step Forward). Tzad Kadima is a program that works with children with cerebral palsy, and their families, to enhance their abilities and empower them to become independent and active participants in school, work, and life. They use a system that was developed by a Jewish physician in Hungary. Several years ago an Israeli family with an affected child learned about the program and moved to Hungary to experience it first hand. Encouraged by the results for their daughter, they convinced the government to send ten Israeli soldiers to Hungary to learn the method and bring it back to Israel. Five years ago that couple teamed up with a friend, an Anglo-Israeli tour guide, to organize the fundraising hikes that have been taking place annually. Those who participate include parents or relatives of children who have benefited from the program, along with friends who pledge money and get others to contribute to the organization. We were impressed with the moving testimony of a mother whose son has been able to study and travel extensively on his own as a result of his participation in the program. We also saw a video featuring a young man in his twenties who is currently studying to become a social worker. With the support of Tzad Kadima, he overcame many challenges to gain an education and complete his military service. A boy of about 9 or10 shared his experiences with us when the staff and a group of the kids joined for dinner at the Hatzeva Field School where we spent the night. The challenges these kids face put into perspective the rigors of the six hour hike we took the next day!

Before we hit the road, Lee Glassman explained a bit about the geology of the area we were going to explore, the Arava region south of the Dead Sea, and the vast expanses of the Negev rising dramatically above. The Dead Sea was created by activity in the Syrian-African seismic rift causing the eastern plate (the land on the Jordanian side) to move to the north while the western side (Israel) moves south. Ions ago as the plates moved away from each other steep, sheer cliffs were formed. Below them, at a depth lower than sea level, an opening was created that allowed water to flow in, forming the Dead Sea. The sea has shrunk a good deal in the last 100 years, as we saw from a signpost by the road, and the evaporation continues at a steady pace. Another unusual feature in this area, also created in the aftermath of earthquake activity, is the machktesh (there is no English equivalent for this word). A machktesh looks like a crater but is actually the result of continual erosion of the soft inner layers of a fissure, leaving the harder layers of rock on the outer edges to form steep, jagged fins. There are three of these in the area, the Large Machtesh, the Small or Hatzera Machtesh and, further west, Machtesh Be’eri. On the first days’ hike, which we missed, the group climbed in part of the Large Mahktesh. From what we heard it was a beautiful if somewhat grueling 23 kilometer expedition.

On our way down to our base at Hatzeva Field School, we made a few brief stops. At the sea level marker we paid a visit to Lynn’s bedouin friend Aesof and his camel Shushu, both charming. Aesof,who speaks Arabic, Hebrew and English, lives with his two wives and six children (three per wife) ages 15 to infant. He is looking for a way to his oldest son to get a good education but the taxi to Jerusalem is expensive. He earns money by giving camel rides (with photo opportunities) to tourists and selling jewelry and knickknacks made by his family. We arrived at the Dead Sea around sunset. The glow from the setting sun reflected on the Jordanian hills turning them a soft pink against the silvery-blue sheen of the water---beautiful. Lynn pulled over to the side of the road across from what looked like a tall mound of stone rubble. This unmarked, unpreserved site is what remains of a port consisting of three boat slips and two deep cisterns built by Alexander Sannai (not sure of the spelling) in 160 BCE. He used the facility to lift his boats out of the harsh, salt-laden water when they were not in use so that they would not rot. He used the boats initially for pleasure and later for commerce. How all this is known, I’m not sure. Despite the “forbidden” sign we scrambled after Lynn up the stones for a good view of the DEEP cisterns (no guard rails, plenty of loose rocks). A small taste of the climb to come the following day. Then it was on to Ein Gedi. The path to the springs closes at dusk to allow the animals to come down to the watering hole undisturbed. We were, however, able to drive a short ways in and spotted a few ibex (small deer-like animals) and hyrax (look like fat rabbits or guinea pigs but are actually the closest living relative to the elephant!). Finally, just as dinner was being served, we pulled into the field school at Hatzeva. Used for programs for school kids, the facility has basic rooms (ours had two singles and a bunk bed and a small bathroom), basketball court, a dining hall and a space for gatherings. After a good meal of spring chicken and the usual array of vegetables/salads/flat breads, tahini, and so on followed by cookies and spiced sweet tea with mint, we gathered for introductions, a brief presentation about Tzad Kadima (described above) and a description of the next day’s plan—including a 5:15 a.m. wake-up call!!!!!! For those who know my habits, you can imagine how excited I was about this. So, after star-gazing with Lynn and a hiker who is an amateur astronomer, we headed inside for an early bedtime. At least that’s what we hoped. Unfortunately, the school is very close to highway 90. All night the road was busy with noisy trucks, probably carrying some of the produce grown in the region (this area grows 75% of the produce that is exported from Israel). The lack of sound insulation and the glow from the outside lights left on all night made for a less than restful night, not to mention that Lew and I kept waking each other up with our own sounds and trips to the bathroom. So, with two solid hours of sleep, I was ready for anything, including a six hour hike.

After eating a good breakfast, making our lunches and loading up our backpacks with two 1.5 liter bottles of water, we boarded the bus for the half hour ride to the trail head up Ma’aleh Akrabim (The Scorpion’s Ascent). And what a ride it is, definitely not for the faint of heart. The steep, switch- backed road, blazed during the mandate and expanded later by the IDF Engineering Corps, is supposedly two lane although it appears to be barely wider than the bus. The “guard rail” consists of oil drum barrels filled with ballast and spaced a few feet apart at the road’s edge, over which, should one miss the road, one would plunge several thousand feet. We were amazed to learn that this was once the only road from the western interior (Beersheva) down to the Dead Sea, linking Jerusalem to Eilat in the south. Descending this road at the end of the day was even more hair raising than the ascent. Kol HaKavod (all honor) to the bus driver for his skillful and safe management of this journey.

As we set off on the trail the weather was absolutely perfect-- a clear, sunny day, not a cloud in the brilliant blue sky, warm but not too hot. Although we consider ourselves to be in reasonable shape, we certainly haven’t been doing any significant hiking lately. So we were a little uncertain about how we would manage. The rest of the group members, with a few exceptions, were mainly in our age range and didn’t look any fitter. So we figured we could keep up. Also, after the first leg, there were going to be two alternative routes—the more challenging and less challenging—giving us some reassurance of making it back to the bus. The next six hours and 12 kilometers were amazing. We encountered unbelievable vistas, unusual rock formations, vast stretches of moon-like terrain, high cliffs with vertical strata and caves cut into the sides, several varieties of wild flowers, fascinating wadi beds and deep pools in green oases. Overhead in the distance floated a huge white surveillance blimp (definitely surreal). Much of the terrain reminded me of the southwestern US but thankfully without the high altitude, making the hiking less taxing. Along the way we scrambled up and down steep inclines, skirted the tops of ridges and tramped along the sides of a wadis, pausing for snacks at the most dramatic locations (the ruins of a Roman fort, the overlook of a vast canyon far below where two river beds come together, under a tree by the wadi, and by the side of an oasis where we came upon a young couple stripped down to their underwear (she very pregnant) and, with their dog cavorting around them, unselfconsciously sunning themselves on the rocks and periodically plunging into the cold pools of deep water. We chose the route that followed a wadi rather than the one that involved climbing up a steep rock face, partly via an iron ladder, and then following a narrow ridge where some iron hand rails are all that prevent falls over the sheer drop. On the alternative route we also enjoyed some opportunities to climb up some steep rock strewn ridges.

As we emerged from the trail to meet the bus, we paralleled a group of camels making their way through the desert in the near distance. The bus took us to another spot to meet up with the hikers who took the other route. Here we hiked in a short distance and scrambled down another rocky slope to a wadi oasis, the beauty of which was marred in one corner behind some rocks by ribbons of toilet paper. This area is more accessible to the road and hence more populated, especially by the school kids from all over the country who come on hiking expeditions to the area. We had seen 250 high school yeshiva students from up north camped out near the field school in Hatzeva. Unfortunately in this parking lot a large group of Haredi youth had left behind a big box filled with garbage that was being blown all around—amazingly inconsiderate and disrespectful. We tried to pick up what we could. Our final stop was an area similar to Death Valley with deposits of colored sand---yellow, red, bluish-white. Part of the group hung out here while others hiked for another forty-five minutes up the side of a fin on the machtesh. Guess which we elected to do. I have to say we did very well—no blisters and no major problems. Even without the benefit of my usual gym workouts, I was able to handle both the ascents and descents. Next time I might prepare with more quad work and go for the extra climbing!

Hiking side by side with one or another of the group members we had many opportunities over the course of six hours to get to know our new friends. They are mainly Anglo immigrants (US or British), who have been here for a long time. The work they do includes: high tech, tourism, business owners, research in the ministry of health, grant writing for nonprofits, translating, academics, yoga instructor, English tutoring, etc. Most live in Jerusalem although one of the hikers lives on Kibbutz Gesher (which also happens to be the home of our friend Gladys Siegel’s son and his family). Like me, he also happens to have a sibling who lives in New Mexico. We found amazing connections with other members of the group. Gary, a health economist, spent a year and a half in Chapel Hill where he received a doctorate in public health, worked with Pat (Berry) Fischer and was in a relationship with a current colleague of Lew. Although we never met there, Jeff and I both attended graduate school at Harvard during the early seventies (he in comparative literature; me in sociology) and were active in the graduate student strike. Weirder than that, his son now works in the Washington branch of a huge New York/International law firm in which Lew’s high school friend is a managing partner. Another hiker turned out to be the son of a high school teacher in Cleveland with whom Lew studied one summer.

We finished the day with a wonderful feast served Bedouin style in a tent. Then it was back to Jerusalem to catch the bus for the ride home to Tel Aviv. Altogether it was an outstanding experience and one we would not have had without the connection to Lynn and her persistent urging that we join her. Thank you Barry and thank you Lynn!

Shiksa

This is too good to make up. We have been sharing stories about ourselves in ulpan class. Today we heard from Precious, I kid you not. In halting Hebrew, she explained that she was raised in California and is living here with her Israeli boyfriend whom she met in China. They want to get married but, she announced, "Ani shiksa" (I am a shiksa). I thought I would explode trying to contain my laughter. Edna, our teacher, said (in Hebrew), " What is this shiksa? That's not Hebrew. You should say, I am not Jewish." Then there was a conversation about how difficult it is to convert here.

Two other young women in the class moved here to be with their Israeli boyfriends. A woman from Brazil met her Israeli husband at carnivale in Rio. Shia,from Japan, works in a Japanese restaurant in Tel Aviv and lives with her boyfriend who, she explained in Hebrew laced with a thick Japanese accent, comes from a "not good" city. When Edna asked the name of the city, Shia could only remember it was in the south. Edna asked her if it was Beersheva and she said yes. Edna cracked up. She said Beersheva's bad reputation is undeserved. She told us that although she was born in Tel Aviv and lived on Lasalle St. (the street where Ulpan Gordon is located), her next door neighbor, David Ben Gurion, told her that Beersheva was a great place to live and suggested she go there. So she did, spending 22 years there while raising three children.

At the River

Busy and faced with recent bouts of rain, I missed several days at HaYarkon river. So today, on a sunny, clear and slightly breezy afternoon, I headed out for a long walk. Encumbered as I was with Ipod, cell phone, and keys, I foolishly decided to leave the camera at home. A bad decision but I’ll have to make do with this word picture. In the park I encountered a world so vividly green I wondered if I had fallen asleep and dreamed my way into Oz, although this Oz was teaming with water birds rather than flying monkeys. Crossing the pedestrian bridge to the far side of the river, I paused to watch Mr. and Mrs. Mallard lazily drifting and pecking at the reeds at rivers’ edge, while out in the deeper water a cormorant repeatedly dove down, each time coming up a good ways further downstream. Continuing on I reached a gentle curve in the river where my gaze was riveted to a view so stunning I was immobilized. The brilliant emerald green grasses lining the banks, the swaths of fluffy yellow wildflowers, the graceful Eucalyptus trees and a low stone wall at a curve in the embankment were all so perfectly reflected in the glassy surface of the water that I felt as if I could step through into an alternative universe. A few paces further revealed a magnificent crane standing stock still at the water’s edge. After a long pause I moved on, following the river and then circling back on the opposite side where masses of purple and golden wildflowers lined the path. Passing a flock of geese and another group of large white birds with black speckles and red beaks, I came once again to the pedestrian bridge. Here I stopped to watch another beautiful crane--- long white neck, slender head with long pointy orange beak, grayish-white feathers and a black stripe running from the eye along the side of the head—move slowly along, lifting one long leg at a time and pausing momentarily before putting it down and lifting the other. All this accompanied by a Mozart piano quintet. Heavenly!

Brides and Cats

There are a lot of brides here, but many more cats. Sometimes there are brides and cats together. Wednesday seems to be the day when brides and grooms dress up in their bridal regalia and travel with an entourage of photographers and attendants to a scenic spot to shoot nuptial portraits. I encountered several lovely couples while wandering around Neve Tzedek, the quaint and now trendy neighborhood next to Jaffa that was the original Jewish quarter, as well as in the Old Jaffa and the port. In fact, in Old Jaffa there were several bridal traffic jams. Descending one narrow staircase to the port, I squeezed against the wall as a bride in her billowing gown ascended with her friend holding up her skirt. At the juncture of three alleys I stopped to admire bridal couples in all three directions. In the beautiful park at the crest of a hill in Old Jaffa, I found one bridal party waiting for a turn to shoot underneath the stone arch where another couple was finishing up while still another couple posed nearby on the grass looking out towards the sea. Cats seem to be very curious about these couples. There are so many cats that sometimes it’s a challenge to keep them out of the photos.

Bus drivers and Schoolkids

Yesterday I waited with a mixed crowd of boisterous kids and patient alta kakers (old folks) at the bus stop on Yehuda HaMaccabi. As the 25 bus pulled up a swarm of 10- year-old boys stampeded to the door while the oldsters did not hesitate to join the fray. It was every man, woman, and child for him/herself. In contrast, on the way home I was the only rider to enter an empty 24 bus at the stop near the Carmel Market where it originates. I was having a hard time coming up with the exact change and stood by the coin box as I fumbled with my purse. As the bus pulled away I wasn’t really listening to what the driver was saying. Then, he started to yell at me in Hebrew—“What are you doing? You didn’t hear what I said? Sit down!” I was chastened but loved the fact that he thought I would understand him. I also love the cooperative effort it takes to pay on the sherut (mini-bus). As on the bus, the driver is in a hurry to continue. Concerned for safety (or possibly wary of being sued), he demands that everyone be seated immediately. So unless you have your change handy, you need to pass your shekels up person to person to his waiting hand, cupped backward to receive the coins. The process is reversed as he sends your change back to you. There are a lot of b’vakashas (pleases) and todahs (thank-yous) along the way. Can you imagine doing this in the states? Would the money make it safely all the way up and back?

I was on my way to a public school just off the main street, Yerushalim, in downtown Jaffo. I had responded to a request for volunteers to teach English to fifth and sixth graders. The Jaffa Institute has been running an English tutoring program in the local primary schools there for twenty years. Jaffo is a relatively poor community populated by a mix of Arab and Jewish immigrant families from North Africa and Eastern Europe. At this school a dozen or so Arab children participate in this supplementary class for an hour and a half each week. After the organizer, Marc Schoen, introduces the day’s topic in a lively give and take exchange, the tutors work in small groups with two or three children. Since it was my first day, I paired up with another tutor who has had about three weeks’ experience. Isabelle is Scottish and has a lovely accent. She is here with her husband, a minister who has been posted to a local church, but her visa does not permit her to work. We had a lot of fun attempting to engage two charming girls, Aya and Seneen, in conversation about the months, seasons and what items of clothing we wear for different kinds of weather. Isabelle: “Seneen, what is Aya wearing today?” Seneen: “Aya is wearing a white scarf (head scarf). Aya is wearing pants jeans. Aya is wearing pink and white shoes.” Aya: “Seneen is wearing a blue sweater. Seneen is wearing light blue and dark blue pants. Seneen is wearing yellow and white shoes. Seneen is wearing a blue hair band.” Next week Isabelle and I will continue to work together with Aya and Seneen and another new girl.

Bauhaus and Beyond

Bauhaus and Beyond: More Buildings, History, and Neighborhoods in Two Parts

I’ve learned a lot from two architectural walking tours, one rambling up and down Rothschild Blvd. and the other covering the Tel Aviv University campus. While the information the guide shares may just be the tip of the iceberg (and there’s probably a particular slant--some things included and others omitted), the tours are interesting nevertheless.

Part One: Bauhaus Tour on Rothschild

Yona, our guide for the Bauhaus tour, spoke with a South African inflected accent but has lived in Tel Aviv for over forty years. She conveyed her love for the city and embellished her narration with a portfolio of historical photos. Here are some of the stories she told:

One hundred years ago, a Polish watchmaker bought land on the sand dunes north of Jaffa and convinced 66 families (some responding to ads in European newspapers) to become pioneers in what became the first modern Jewish city. Eager to escape cholera-infested Jaffa, they gathered on the beach where each selected a grey pebble and a white pebble—the family name on one, a lot number on the other-- a method the clockmaker devised to avoid argument over who got which spot. The watchmaker invented a special wheelbarrow used by a brigade of men, women, and children to fill in the wadi (a ravine carved by waters rushing to the sea) to create Rothschild Blvd. Edmund Rothschild, the Jewish banker and philanthropist, had no connection to the project but, as our tour guide suggested, perhaps the founders thought that by according him this honor they might encourage a donation. The houses, built in a hodge-podge of mainly European styles, were surrounded by gardens. They served as oases for the families while the men commuted to Jaffo where the shops and jobs were located. A precursor of hundreds to come, a kiosk was built to sell beverages and snacks and serve as a meeting place. The water tower served double duty as a “jail”.

There was no specifically Jewish decoration on the homes except for an occasional Magen David star or menorah worked into the iron grille-work. One elaborate home, built by a wealthy European who hired a noted architect to create a design that incorporated an open roof for use during Succot, is currently being restored as a center for non-Israeli youth serving in the Israeli Defense Forces. In previous incarnations this beautiful two-story building housed a British school and, in the 1920’s, served as the Russian embassy for a brief time until an anti-communist protester bombed the kitchen.

The city expanded as the waves of Europeans and Yemenis made aliyah (“went up”) to the land. The streets and neighborhoods grew higgly-piggly with no particular plan. The main boulevards ran north-south rather than orienting towards the seafront where the factories and cemeteries, both Jewish and Muslim, were located. Visiting Tel Aviv in the 1920’s, Patrick Geddes, a famous Scottish town planner who had lived in Bombay, was struck by the lack of coherence and the fact that the city turned its back on the sea. Our guide imagined the city officials responding, “Nu, we didn’t come here to lie on the beach and turn from side to side.” Geddes created a plan for a garden city featuring a series of east-west boulevards and 60 neighborhood grids, each with a park at the center. Eventually the plan was adopted and the infrastructure was in place for the most important architectural influence in the city. The Bauhaus style, brought to Tel Aviv in the 1930’s by Walter Gropius and other Bauhaus-trained architects who were forced to flee Nazi Germany, created a “White City.” This modernist, unadorned style, adapted to fit the Mediterranean climate, was perfectly suited to the needs of the expanding population. The simple but elegant 2-4 story buildings, built out of white concrete, were both functional and inexpensive to build. The flat roofs created a social space for gatherings and laundry. The numerous small windows and stacked balconies with ventilation holes or horizontal strips allowed the sea breezes in and kept the hot sun out. The stairways were cooled by small windows that ran up the sides of the buildings like thermometers (I also think they look like zippers)—the higher you go, the hotter it gets. Other innovations included porthole windows, rounded facades that resemble the bow of a ship, and gunnels for the water to drain off the balconies when the floors are washed (watch out below!). A later adaptation raised the buildings on pillars, creating an open space at ground level for a garden and perhaps a pond (for the fish to enjoy before being cooked for the Shabbat meal).

New buildings erected en masse after WWII and later in the 1960’s to house the influx of refugees were undistinguished, and, in fact, downright ugly. I read an article in the Jerusalem Post (“Balcony Scene” by Aviva Lori) that described how the look of the neighborhoods changed over the years. The need for more space in cramped apartments, as well as the desire to escape flies and street noise, led many families to close in their balconies in haphazard fashion, ruining the symmetry of the architecture. In 1934 mayor Meir Dizingoff called the balcony, “the smile of the building.” Now the smile was hidden behind cloths, curtains or more substantial edifices. This practice accelerated when, in 1957, an Israeli engineer invented an accordion shutter (made out of asbestos!) that could be pulled closed or left open. Although disputes with the city over balcony enclosures had been going on since the early days, the conflict really heated up in 1978 when officials ruled that balcony enclosures had to be uniform throughout a building, creating a truly ugly façade. Finally in 1992 a law was passed that said that the closed, covered balcony space would be counted as part of an apartment’s living space, upping the cost and thus discouraging the practice. Builders began putting up apartments with staggered balconies that were much more difficult to enclose but were decried as hideous by many. In response, architects and planners lobbied for a plan to restore stacked balconies; last year a new regulation came out that allows up to 14 square meters for a covered balcony that won’t be considered part of the dwelling. Meanwhile, balconies have served many social purposes—people sat out in their undershirts and played cards, visited, called out to one another from the street, and so on. Today you see a lot of laundry, chairs, bicycles and even kayaks hanging from the railings.

Tel Aviv had the largest, most consistent collection of Bauhaus buildings anywhere in the world. Unfortunately, over the years many buildings fell into disrepair. Out of 4000-5000 Bauhaus buildings only 1500-2000 of them remain in good enough condition to use or restore. In 2004 UNESCO declared Tel Aviv a heritage city, a designation that brings with it a host of regulations about how restoration should proceed. For example, one can extend to the back or side of a building but the façade as seen from the street has to remain as it originally looked. The city also requires tit for tat when it gives permission for new buildings. For example, a bank that wanted to erect a new skyscraper also had to restore an adjacent historical funeral home. In the past the city reasoned that if you were rich enough to build a house you must also plant a tree, while now sculptures may be added to enhance the street. The many beautiful trees lining the boulevard have created an unintended consequence: bats eat the fruit from the ficus trees and produce “sprutzen” which can’t be removed but only painted over. It’s always something!

Part Two: Tel Aviv U.

Francine Mallah, an elegant woman who looked to be in her 70’s, was my tour guide around Tel Aviv University. On campus every building, garden, courtyard, sculpture and so on is “named” for the donor whose contribution made it possible. As we passed the “Sam Mallah” grove of palm trees, Francine casually tossed out that he was her father. She spoke with an unusual accent, prompting me to ask where she was from. She said that she was from Marseille but that she spent most of her life in South America—Buenos Aires and Rio. Later in the tour she offhandedly revealed that she is the first cousin of President Sarkozy’s mother. A little digging on the internet provided more details: Their great-grandfather founded the rabbinical school in Thessaloniki, Greece. One of his eight sons, the grandfather of Francine and Mrs. Sarkozy, went to France and became a doctor. The doctor’s son, Francine’s father, became a financier in Buenos Aires. There must be many other Spanish speakers here because Friends of Tel Aviv University has a Spanish program in addition to the English series of lectures and classes.

The university is 50 years old and has 27,000 students. The first buildings, student dorms, were built with raw concrete in the Brutalism style (similar to the “turbine” high rise apartments in Netanya that I mentioned in an earlier post). In the 1960’s the mantra was functional and cheap. With no central air conditioning until the 1970’s, the architects used many of the techniques from Bauhaus days. The many small windows never face west and are shaded by overhangs, for example. Only one building on campus, however, is fully Bauhaus in style. All the others, designed by Israelis, incorporate more contemporary design features. There are only two campus buildings that were not designed by Israeli architects—one is by Louis Kahn and the other, a synagogue, by the Swiss architect, Mario Botta. The story of the synagogue is interesting. About 12 years ago, a wealthy Swiss visitor to campus, Mr. Cymbalista wanted to say kaddish on the anniversary of his father’s death. When told there was no synagogue on campus, he decided to donate the money to build one-- with a few conditions. He wanted it to be in a central space and he wanted to choose the architect. Both conditions were accepted. The beautiful result is strikingly different from other buildings on campus. It was constructed entirely from non-native materials. The two round towers are covered with stone from the Dolomite Mountains on the outside while the squared rooms inside—sanctuary and lecture hall—are lined with golden Tuscan stone. The ark is Pakistani marble. The non-Jewish architect had never been inside a synagogue. So as not to spoil the open and light feel of his design, he asked the chief rabbi what the least obtrusive requirement for the separation barrier between male and female worshippers could be. The result is a very thin black rail one meter high. Presumably, somebody complained about this because on one side there is Japanese style screen that blocks part of the women’s section more fully.

Many interesting and diverse pieces of sculpture dot the campus. I’m starting to recognize some of the artists from visits to the city’s museums and plazas. For example, a huge piece in the center of campus, called “Happening”, is by Igal Tumarken who also created a large sculpture in remembrance of the Holocaust that is located in Rabin plaza next to city hall. We saw several of his pieces in an exhibit called “Homage to Van Gogh” at the Rubin Museum last week (see Lew’s blog, www.halfshekel.blogspot.com). Another piece is by Pierre Arman, the artist who made the beautiful cutlery based on violin motifs that we saw at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. I wrote about this in an earlier post but I didn't mention the amazing wooden cabinet with hidden drawers at the back to hold the silverware, and another piece composed of pieces of a vertically sliced violin. The piece on campus has a similar feel with vertically stacked axes. I could go on but instead I’ll try to add some photos soon to show some examples. Up date: I added photos from Tel Aviv U.--the main plaza with dorms to the left, Francine in orange walking towards Tumarken sculpture, health/life sciences building, another view of Tumarken's "Happening" piece, Cymbalista Synagogue, Pierre Arman's axes, the only Bauhaus building on campus with red sculpture in background, Picasso like sculpture in front of Diaspora Museum. The other two photos of the bridal couple and the cat by the beach looking toward Jaffa go with a later post (Brides and Cats) but I haven't figured out how to move them yet.

B'ivrit (in Hebrew)

I attended my very first class at Gordon Ulpan and already I know how to say orgasm in Hebrew! If this is any indication, the next five months should be a blast. My teacher, Edna, an attractive woman in her 60’s, bubbles with enthusiasm and has a great sense of humor (which is essential given the ridiculous stuff that comes out of the students’ mouths). She seems to have boundless energy and patience and also exhibits a great talent for explaining the meaning of unfamiliar words in Hebrew without actually translating them into English (or Spanish, French, etc.). The class of about 30 is a virtual U.N. with representatives from Germany, Brazil, Columbia, China, Uzbekistan, New Zealand, Italy, Poland, Australia, the U.S. and several other countries I didn’t quite catch yet. I sat next to Vivian, the cultural attaché at the Columbian embassy. We struck up a conversation and discovered that we both have children in Washington. Her younger son is a student at American University while her older son graduated from Johns Hopkins and her daughter lives in New York. She is repeating Aleph Ploos because she didn’t feel that she achieved her goals last time. She said that Edna is fantastic compared to her last teacher so I feel very lucky to be in this class. More later on this topic but now I must prepare my shiur bayit (homework) for tonight’s class.

Reading the Newspapers

Although I haven’t mastered the Hebrew newspapers yet, I look forward to reading the English editions of the Jerusalem Post and Ha’Aretz every Friday. Aside from the political news and cultural listings, they contain a wealth of indispensable information. Here, for example, are two items from last week’s Jerusalem Post:

➢ The city of Ashdod is planning a pre-Passover clean up campaign that will have the city’s streets “as spotless as its freshly scrubbed homes” by the time the residents sit down to their seders on April 8.
➢ A resident of Tel Aviv who requested cancellation of her numerous parking fines will get an apology and a bunch of flowers to make up for the official letter of response she received from the head of the parking department which began, “Ms. Cohen the bitch.”

I especially enjoy two regular weekly columns: “Family Affair” in HaAretz Magazine and “Arrivals” in the Upfront section of the Post. They profile, respectively, families and new immigrants from every conceivable background. The interviewees share their personal histories, how they met their spouses, where they live and work, how they manage childcare, where they educate their children, their political and religious beliefs, daily routines and hobbies, dreams and happiness quotient, and, in the case of the olim (new immigrants), how and why they made aliyah to Israel. These stories are fascinating because they highlight the incredible diversity of people and circumstances that exist here. Some examples include:
➢ Uri and Geraldine, in their sixties, emigrated from Brisbane to Tivon near Haifa. He was born in Berlin and survived the war hiding with his mother in a village on the Polish-German border. In Australia he helped develop the government’s multiculturalism policy and also served as a rabbi to small congregations. She was born in New Zealand and converted to Judaism when she married her first husband, a Hungarian born Jew. They attend a reform congregation and are involved in progressive social causes.
➢ Nira and Onni,42 and 51, are a couple with two children who live in Holon, an urban area just south of Tel Aviv. She’s a sabra who joined a left-leaning youth movement in high school, served in Northern Command after the first Lebanon war, attended university in Haifa and traveled in India, Thailand, Japan, Africa and Europe. He’s Nigerian, a former teacher with master’s degrees in physics and mathematics, who now has an Israeli i.d. card and works as a controller at a plastics company. Earlier he spent some years working in menial jobs while evading the immigration police. He votes Likkud.
➢ Daniel and Osnat ( in their 30’s) and their two young daughters live in Ramot Menashe, a small kibbutz between Zichron Yaakov and Rishon Letzion . The husband, an administrator for a youth national service program, was born in London but moved to Israel as a child. He comes from a “traditonalist” family. The wife, a high school teacher with a master’s degree in literature and education from Hebrew University, grew up in Jerusalem where her mother is the principal of a school in the Old Katamon neighborhood. Her Moroccan-born father, an automotive engineer, currently manages a factory in Shenzhen China and commutes home every third week.
The permutations are endless and fascinating. I hope to meet many more Israelis, through these columns and in person, and hear many more stories.

Cows, Cliffs, and Conversation

Kfar Vitkin and Netanya

It’s Shabbat once again and its hard to believe another week has gone by. Last Friday Atar (Lew’s “boss”, the Director of Philanthropy at Sheatufim) invited us to her home in Kfar Vitkin for Shabbat dinner. She suggested we take an afternoon train (about a 20 minute ride) to nearby Netanya where she would meet us with her car. She arrived with her son Zeev (2 years 8 months) who had a lot to say about the train. We traveled the short distance to her moshav (cooperative village) where she and her husband, a “son of the village” rent a small home. En route she pointed out the closest beach and the hummos restaurant she suggested we might like to try. The village is located between the two main highways that run from south to north. In the past the primary enterprise of the residents was dairy production with each family, including Atar’s in-laws, maintaining milking cows behind their homes. Every day the milk would be collected and processed in a central facility and trucked out for distribution. Gil’s father still raises some cattle for beef and his mother makes cheese but these are hobbies rather than for income. The aroma of the barn still wafts over the village though. One child from each family is allowed to live in the community, which is how Atar and Gil are able to rent their home not far from his parents. They have a large yard with a garden and fruit trees and plenty of space for Zeev and his new puppy, Nano, to play. After a little tour, Atar sent us off in her car to explore until dinnertime.

Our first stop was the local hummos restaurant where a bevy of young, hippie-esque women served the customers who ordered from a colorful chalkboard menu. The restaurant’s motto, printed on the sign outside and on the check, is “Make Hummos Not War.” , Next we headed for Netanya, a large seaside town and home to a popular Ikea store (no, we didn’t stop there). We arrived just before the outdoor market was closing and got a good deal from the flower vendors on a bouquet to bring back to Atar. Parking the car, we headed down to the main plaza which is a huge open area lined with cafes and arcades, leading to the promenade that runs the length of the cliffs overlooking the sea.

Although Netanya is often called the Riviera of Israel, and apparently does have a lot of French-speaking residents, it put me more in mind of Santa Monica. The promenade is lined with beautiful, fragrant plantings, play areas, a roller skating area and an outdoor amphitheater. There’s even a glass elevator that goes down to the beach and closes at 6 p.m. on Friday for Shabbat. Across the street, lining the promenade and facing the sea, are the luxury high rises inhabited by wealthy Americans and others. We looked on the website for one particularly hideous new complex, built out of gray concrete and looking like industrial turbines, and found that the apartments sell for about a million and a half dollars.

We descended via an impressive stairway down to the beach and walked a couple of miles, enjoying the spectacular day and cloudless blue sky. At the far end of the beach, as we neared a resort hotel perched on the cliffs above, we came across a number of ultra-orthodox families and young couples. We wondered where they came from. After we hiked up to the hotel to use the facilities (and where we saw a banquet hall set up for a Tu B’Shevat celebration, the new year of the trees) we started walking back along the clifftop walkway. A short distance down the road we came to a very large yeshiva/school. On the corner was a sign marking the entry to a religious neighborhood and requesting that anyone who chose to enter should respect their customs and dress modestly. In an odd juxtaposition, this neighborhood is almost directly across from a huge seaside mansion, replete with its own helicopter pad. As we concluded our stroll on the promenade we passed many Russian-speaking couples and a group of oldsters sitting out in their wheelchairs enjoying the pleasant evening.

Then it was back to Atar and Gil’s home for Shabbat supper. We lit the candles and sang a few songs, then feasted on various appetizers such as kibbeh, pickled cabbage, grape leaves, nuts and dried fruits for Tu B’shevat, squash soup with a special middle eastern spice mix that we’ve since purchased, fresh cheese made by Gil’s mom, eggplant from their garden baked with tahini, chicken stew with curry, sweet potatoes, and Jerusalem artichokes, Russian style potato salad, green salad, rice, and, after a pause to digest a bit, fabulous carrot cake studded with sesame seeds and a tea infusion from lemon verbena freshly picked from the garden. It’s a good thing we took a long walk!

The conversation ranged from the current economic crisis, the need for corporate oversight/accountability and what role government should take, to questions about whom we supported and why in the recent U.S. presidential election. Gil, who has a business degree and works in high tech has a more positive view of the merits of capitalism, while Atar, the activist, weighs in on the side of the need to enforce social responsibility on corporations. Then we moved onto marriage, divorce and gender relations. Atar and Gil, not wanting to validate the Orthodox stranglehold on state-recognized marriages, followed the time-worn Israeli custom of leaving the country to get a marriage license in Cyprus (kind of like a quickie Las Vegas marriage) which the state accepts as valid. However, Atar also wanted a Jewish wedding so they had a lovely outdoor afternoon affair in her parents village, replete with chuppa and the seven blessings, conducted by a woman friend. Looking at the pictures and hearing about the event, we were struck at the similarity to our own wedding in Chapel Hill. When I asked about the prevalence of divorce, Atar said the rate is about 40%. She explained that whichever member of the couple applies for the divorce first, whether it be in a civil or religious court, the venue they choose will have jurisdiction. Men tend to choose the religious court because they will probably get a better deal there.

The conversation then segued into questions about the efficacy of real Arab-Israeli dialogue at the personal level. Atar shared her experiences with a group of Palestinian and Israeli women and the two ways of thinking that coexist uneasily in her: on the one hand she truly believes that all people have similar goals to love, be loved and live in peace, while on the other hand she has come face to face with the conflicting value sets, whatever their historical origins, which make it difficult, if not impossible, for members of each group to understand the other. She feels that this has become even more challenging as many of the brightest, most educated Palestinians have moved away. In response some Israelis have become cynical and just want to live their own lives, while others are sad and frustrated. Even so, I couldn’t help but feel hopeful knowing that this passionate and thoughtful young couple is committed to making a difference for the common good.

As the evening came to a close, Atar was curious about why we had decided to spend our sabbatical in Israel. Her question made me realize that aside from the a desire to be in a beautiful place, having lots of stimulating new experiences, I also wanted an opportunity to explore the many unresolved feelings I have about my relationship to this country. There is a big gap between the incredible summer I spent here as a teenager and our current sojourn. During those years Israel was mostly on the backburner for me. So now it’s time to reevaluate and deepen my understanding of life here.

Beyond the bubble of Tel Aviv

So far we’ve traveled twice to Jerusalem by bus, a very easy and convenient trip taking about 50 minutes and depositing us at the central bus station. From there it’s a pleasant walk down Jaffa Rd. past the enticing MahaneYehuda Market, a cornucopia of sights and smells—sides of beef, glistening fish, piles of vivid vegetables, breads and cakes, fresh and dried fruit, nuts, spices and herbs, coffee and teas, oils, cheeses. Who can resist lingering in the narrow lanes? There are even some trendy boutiques and cafes mixed in among the stalls, a sign of increasing gentrification. After picking up some quince paste and nutmeg we continued on down Jaffa, past the “Wal-Mart”-style bargain store (where we later scored a spatula and some dish sponges), past the numerous shoe stores, jewelry shops and clothing stores, and turned on to King George. Along this route, the presence of the black hat religious population is very prominent. I have a vivid image of one such gentleman, dressed in the long black coat and massive black hat, striding briskly along with a hot pink shopping bag dangling from one hand and a cell phone in the other. Somehow cell phones and cigarettes look out of place with 17th century garb.

Our destination the first time around was the Jewish Agency building where we met Becky Caspi with whom we had lunch. She gave us an overview of the Jewish Agency and its relationship to the alphabet soup of other organizations that assist new immigrants to Israel and Jews in need around the world (Joint Distribution Committee, United Jewish Communities, and others). I have to confess I still don’t understand exactly who does what but it was interesting to see the building which served as the first site of the government after statehood was declared.

On our second trip to Jerusalem, Lew had a lunch meeting with Steve Sager’s friend, Arnie, while I continued walking through the German Colony (a popular neighborhood for Anglos) to the Talpiyot neighborhood, the location of the Shatil office. It was a very warm and sunny day so I took my time strolling down Emek Refayim, a charming street lined with trendy clothing and jewelry stores, ice cream shops (of course I indulged) and many restaurants. The walk was very long, it was unseasonably warm and by the time I reached the street where the office was located I needed refueling. No surprise, there was a great felafel/hummos restaurant across the street, very crowded with locals and no English speakers—a good sign.

At Shatil I met with Elana Silver, a young woman who works on fundraising and development for the organization. She is originally from the states but met her Israeli husband when she was studying here and working as a waitress (he owned the restaurant). He is currently the night manager in one of the big hotels in Tel Aviv and commutes there from Jerusalem every day by train. She’s pregnant with her second child and laughs when some of her friends complain about the length of the PAID leave women receive after childbirth—14 weeks—in contrast to pitiful family leave policy in the states. Of course, the picture for women workers is not all rosy. Shatil just received a large grant from the European Union to address gender discrimination in the labor force. Elana is going to put me in touch with the project director so I can learn more about their plans for this project.

Later in the afternoon we made our way back to Emek Refayim to meet my friend Ruth Mason whom I last saw 44 years ago when we spent a summer together on an ulpan at Shefeya, a youth agricultural school near Zichron Ya’akov. She has been living in Jerusalem with her husband and three children for over twenty years, working as a journalist and now for Shatil. As I mentioned in an earlier post, she has become very involved with the Ethiopian community and has developed many projects to assist these immigrants. She had invited us to a presentation about the “From Risk to Opportunity” program at the Jerusalem Conservatory Hassadna, an impressive music academy founded in 1973. Ruth was instrumental in launching a scholarship program for Ethiopian children in 2005 that has grown from 10 to 35 children. Additional programs have since been added to include children from impoverished homes and to provide music education and music therapy to special needs kids with a range of physical and mental challenges. Recommended to the conservatory by social workers, teachers and others, including the director of the Jerusalem Battered Women’s Shelter, currently 65 disadvantaged children, (including10 children from the shelter), participate in the conservatory’s programs. Also among the 550 students are 35 special needs children (autism, Downs Syndrome, mental retardation, cerebral palsy, blindness) who receive individualized music therapy or therapeutic instrument instruction. There is a long waiting list.

This program is unique for a couple of reasons. First, the kids and their families get a lot of support to ensure that they can succeed in the program. The children are provided with full or partial tuition scholarships, free instruments, tutors who come to their homes to help them practice, and money for transportation costs. Also included in this network of care, the parents receive help to attend their child’s performances and are drawn into the school’s “family” so that they may encourage their children. Second, the inclusive philosophy of the conservatory builds bridges among all the children-- whether they are full-paying, special needs, Ethiopian, or at risk-- bringing them together to make music in various combinations. We witnessed the success of these efforts in four absolutely inspiring performances. First we heard ten year old Avraham, an Ethiopian boy from a severely distressed single parent family, play a movement of a Bach violin concerto. He has been playing the violin for two years. His enthusiasm and musicality captivated us and he beamed with pride when he finished. Next Ronit, a seven year old Ethiopian girl, played the piano with her tutor at her side. The school bought a piano for her home so that she could practice and her tutor visits her there every week to guide her practice. Malkamo, a shy Ethiopian boy, performed on the saxophone with a jazz combo comprised of mainstream students on piano, drums, and electric guitar. Although he has just begun his studies and could only play a limited range of notes, he definitely got in the groove and clearly enjoyed playing with the group. Finally, and perhaps most moving, we heard Rasha, a blind orphan with severe autism and mental retardation who is nevertheless a musical savant, play the piano. She played a duet with an advanced violin student while her teacher gently encouraged her with touches to her hands and cues sung along with the melody. Her performance was mesmerizing and she was visibly transformed by the music. The tour also included performances by some of the talented advanced students playing movements of chamber and solo works by Beethoven Rachmaninoff, Franck, Mozart and Bach. These students not only played beautifully but they also displayed an appealingly unselfconscious, down-to-earth manner.

The two young women who led the tour, Lena, a former teacher and now the Director of the conservatory, and Ronit, the Director of the From Risk to Opportunity Program, communicated their passion for and dedication to these kids and their families. Their enthusiasm and commitment to the continuation of the program are awe-inspiring. In sharing some of the many “unbelievable moments” they experienced daily, they certainly convinced me that this is a valuable endeavor. Now comes the sad part. Due to the recent economic woes and financial scandals, one of their main foundation supporters has cut their support for this academic year, leaving them with a $20,000 gap in their budget. They pay about $5000 each month to the Jerusalem municipality (who gives them no support) to rent a school building that is used during the day by a Waldorf-style school. Every afternoon they have to move their equipment into place and then put it all back at the end of classes. A full scholarship for an individual student comes to $2300/per year. They have put out a desperate plea for ideas about how to raise the necessary funds to allow all the currently subsidized students to continue their studies. I would love to hear any ideas about how to find more support for this incredibly worthwhile program.

Aleph Plus

I found it very humbling to attempt a Hebrew conversation with (almost) three-year-old Zeev on our Shabbat eve visit to the home of Atar and her husband Gil in Kfar Vitkin last week. Up until this point I had mainly been honing my Hebrew language skills with shopkeepers and bus drivers, not very elaborate exchanges. Now I was confronted with a loquacious tot who expected me to keep up with his ongoing flow of commentary about the new book we had just given him, Richard Scarry’s Big Schoolhouse Book. As we sat together on the couch with the book open across our laps, he shared his excitement in a stream of words, only a small portion of which could I comprehend. Like Charlie Brown listening to the words of his teacher, I heard “wah,wah, wah, wah…..” and then “nachon?” (correct). Of course, I would have been an idiot not to agree, “nachon!” My only other contribution to this conversation was, “Ma Ze?” (what’s this) as I pointed to the picture of the monkey driving the banana-mobile or the fox flooding the classroom with water from the garden hose. It’s a good thing Lew and I have signed up for twice-weekly Hebrew classes at Gordon Ulpan in Tel Aviv. Perhaps I will learn more words for fish, other than salmon-- pronounced something like “saulmoan” in Hebrew-- so I will be able to buy other varieties at the fish store. Or maybe the mystery of the Beseq phone tree will finally be revealed. On our many calls to get help with the internet service I have cycled through the choices on the recorded message over and over, grasping for clues about whether I should “menakesh” (press) shtayim (2) or arba (4) followed by the “sulamit” (little ladder, i.e. the pound key) to get to an actual person. When I am successful, usually by pressing 2 at every choice point, my first question is, “Atah Medaber Anglit? – Do you speak English?” For some reason the only language choices offered for this exercise in frustration are Hebrew, Arabic, and Russian. I’m not sure, however, whether mastering sufficient Hebrew will help us deal with the Byzantine world of Beseq. With four different responses for every inquiry, the best technique seems to be to ask until you get the answer you want in whatever language.

To assess our level for Hebrew classes, Lew and I made our way to Ulpan Gordon one Sunday evening to take a test with a roomful of aspiring Hebrew speakers, mostly young, from all over the world---Turkey, France, U.S., Eastern Europe and China. I chose the level one/two test and, since we were told to “try really hard”, I patiently waded through the questions (written without vowel markings!) and answered or guessed to the best of my ability. The best of my ability turned out to be Aleph Ploos (First Level Plus), as evaluated by a very kind young woman who glanced for two minutes at my paper and conducted a short oral interview with me in Hebrew about where I had studied, where I lived, and what work I did. I struggled to explain that I had studied Hebrew at university a long time ago (!). She could probably tell it had been awhile because she announced that, “You know something, but it’s not systematic.” No kidding. That’s pretty much echoed what my instructor in college said, “It’s there but you need to let it come out.” My first class is this coming Sunday. I’m eager to meet Edna, my teacher, and the other students and to get more practice thinking/speaking on my feet in Hebrew.

Just as I finished writing the last sentence above, the doorbell rang. This rare event usually produces a moment of panic for me as I wonder if I will be able to respond appropriately to the visitor. I opened the door to find a young boy of about 10 smiling hopefully and holding a small coupon or receipt book. He rattled off a barrage of words that ended with a question. “Lo Mevena,” (I don’t understand) I replied. Luckily, my neighbor opened her door to see what was going on and was able to help out. She asked with surprise, “You don’t speak Hebrew?” I had to confess that I only knew kzat (a little). Between her limited English and my limited Hebrew she managed to convey that the boy was collecting money to benefit kids with autism. I said, “Oh, tzedakah”, which is commonly used in the U.S. Jewish community to refer to doing a righteous act by giving your time or money to help others, but she said no it was “truma,” meaning contribution or offering. Lew and I are curious about this distinction. Nevertheless,it sounded like a worthwhile cause so I told the boy, “rega” (wait a minute) and went to get 20 shekels (about $5.00). But I only had a 100 shekel bill and he didn’t have change so we had to get Tzipi to come up with some change and complete the transaction.

Gregory and I have been comparing notes via email about the travails of communicating in another language. I complained that I seem to have one space in my head for the “not English” language of the moment, whether it be Hebrew, Spanish, or French. If I’m hearing one of these repeatedly and then suddenly hear another (for example, listening to a group of women speaking Spanish on the bus to Jerusalem) the words get all shuffled together. Similarly, he reported running into two Israeli guys in his hostel in Cuzco and trying with limited success to recall his Hebrew vocabulary. He says that there are many Israeli travelers in Peru and that there are Hebrew language restaurant signs and menus and Israeli flags on the tourism offices. Like me, he’s finding it a challenge to avoid all the English speakers. Here's another peeve of mine: I get really mad when, after carefully sounding out something in Hebrew, it turns out to be an English word written in Hebrew letters--- Clean Shop (our local laundry), Aroma (a cafe), for example.

To Haifa By Train

We’ve begun to pierce through the bubble of Tel Aviv to points beyond---Haifa, Jerusalem, Netanya and Kfar Vitkin. As our friend Atar’s husband Gil put it, “There’s the country of Tel Aviv and there’s the rest of the country.” To start the tour….

Recently I made my first solo trip by train to Haifa, departing from the station near the university for the hour-long ride up the coast. I checked the timetable and waited for the announcement of the train’s arrival on platform #1. A number of trains came and went near the expected departure time but I waited until I heard the right destination. Just to be sure, when I entered the train I looked for a friendly face and queried, “Haifa?” “Keyn” (yes), answered the solid looking older woman with gray hair, her gold teeth gleaming. She motioned me to take one of two open seats facing her across the table. The train started up and almost immediately her cellphone blasted the Torreodor Song from Carmen. She answered, “Da, Da” in Russian and continued to talk for a few minutes, a scene that was repeated periodically during the trip. Next to her sat a quiet young woman in jeans, while behind her lounged a gregarious group of young men listening to Arabic music and bantering alternatively in Hebrew and Arabic. One member of the group spent a good deal of time speaking in Arabic into the cell phone plastered to his ear beneath his hoodie. About half way through the trip he stood up and it was then that I noticed he was wearing army khakis and carrying a rifle. Possibly he was one of the many Druze youth who serve in the army traveling home to a village near Haifa. Across the aisle sat two young men in casual attire wearing kippot and in front of them two secular Israeli guys carried on a spirited exchange in Hebrew. A polyglot microcosm of Israeli society. There are three stops in Haifa. As we neared the first stop at Hof Carmel, across from the beautiful beach a forest of high rise buildings suddenly appeared sporting the logos of familiar high-tech companies- Microsoft, Siemens, Phillips, Google,etc. As the train pulled into in the port area hesitated slightly, wondering if this was the central Haifa HaShmona stop I needed. My Russian friend piped up, “Haifa, Haifa”, so I quickly made my way to the exit.

Arriving a bit early for my meeting at the Shatil offices, I wandered up and down HaAtzmaut (Independence), the main boulevard in the port area. The Shatil office is located on HaAtzmaut directly across from the train station in a building that also houses other social change organizations such as Economic Empowerment for Women and Mahut, a hotline and employment training project for women workers. Shatil, an empowerment center connected with the New Israel Fund, provides training and support for social change organizations in Israel. With branches throughout the country, they support projects that address human/civil rights, democracy, religious tolerance, women’s issues, socioeconomic equality and environmental justice and they promote coalition building to address these issues. I had an appointment with Liora Asa and Fathi Marshoud, the director of the Haifa office. Liora, a woman in her 40’s, wearing brown jeans with a flowered pattern and a colorful top, greeted me warmly with an Anglo accent. While we were waiting for Fathi to become available we started playing Jewish geography. It turns out we are connected by less than six degrees of separation. We discovered that Liora’s mother graduated from Hamilton High School in Los Angeles, my alma mater, eight years before me. And, she lived on the same street as my grandparents! Liora grew up in Fullerton (Orange County) where her father was the rabbi at the Reform synagogue. Like me, she also went to UC Berkeley for her undergraduate degree. It’s hard to beat that for coincidence. Liora and Fathi filled me in on the various projects or organizations they support or know about that are doing good work on sex trafficking, migrant workers’ rights, domestic abuse, women’s economic development and employment discrimination. Fathi and the director of the Jerusalem Shatil office are working on a proposal for a project to increase Arab women’s participation in the Israeli labor force. From Liora I got some good suggestions about folks to contact to see if they could use some volunteer help.

As we finished and I reached for the door handle to leave, it swung open and Elana Dorfman entered. A woman of my generation, she was a founder of the Battered Women’s hotline and shelter in Haifa, and more recently, started Mahut, a hotline and support project for women workers. She is a longtime member of Isha L’Isha (Woman to Woman) a pioneer feminist organization in Haifa. We hit it off immediately and found a lot of common interests. Serendipity struck when she remembered an online presentation on sex trafficking which she thought might be happening that afternoon. She invited me to return after lunch to participate in this online event.

I spent about an hour strolling through the nearby German Colony at the foot of the impressive Ba’hai Gardens that rise up the steep hill from the port. As I made my way back down Ben Gurion, a street lined with interesting looking restaurants, I spotted a sign in Hebrew in front of Fattoush, a restaurant with a lovely patio and appealing menu: “Forbidden to enter with weapons.” Although I supported this request, I didn’t have enough time to linger over my lunch so I enjoyed a toasted cheese and vegetable sandwich, Israeli salad and olives, and a cappuccino at a small café a few blocks from the Shatil office. I returned to Shatil where Elana and I signed in for the webinar on “The Jewish Response to Sex Trafficking,” organized by the Jewish Community Relations Council and the New York/Jerusalem Experts Exchange. The first speaker was Rita Chaikin, the Anti-Trafficking Project Coordinator at Isha L’Isha . She is a vibrant young woman who has been instrumental in raising public awareness and prodding the Israeli government to adopt policies to combat sex trafficking and assist victims. Sex trafficking had become a big problem here with Eastern European women being trafficked into Israel through Bedoin trade routes (guns and women are profitable commodities). Rita, the Israeli Women’s Network and a coalition of 15 NGO’s and human rights organizations began working on this issue over ten years ago in 1997. Finally in 2000 the government passed a law against trafficking for the purpose of prostitution, but only after a U.N. report put Israel in the third (worst) tier of countries for trafficking in persons. The situation has improved due to the coordinated effort of the women’s organizations and Isha L’Isha is still working to get more legal and financial assistance to the women who want to escape the business but fear deportation. They are also working with Eastern European organizations and consulates to facilitate safe return without deportation for those who want to go home. They want to make sure that the women have access to rehabilitation and compensation after they return home. Another big effort is being made to distribute leaflets in public places to make potential clients aware of how they can help the women and to ensure that punishment of traffickers is enforced. Currently the flow of women trafficked from Eastern European countries has declined but the traffickers have become more sophisticated and buy private apartments to reduce visibility. Also, there has been an increase in trafficking from China and trafficking of Israeli women within the country and to Europe. Rita’s presentation gave me a lot to think about.

I was glad I had the chance to meet Elana and hope to return to Haifa to visit with her and meet more folks from Isha L’Isha. The return trip to Tel Aviv on the train was uneventful except for the fact that I sat across from another Russian woman, this time blonde and middle aged, wearing an eye-catching pair of black leather pants with a design cut into them with alternate strips of see through material.

The Write Stuff

I just finished reading a classic, if rather quirky, book. If You Want to Write: A Book About Art, Independence and Spirit, was originally published in 1938 and reissued in 1983, two years before the author died at the age of 93. According to the inside notes, the author, Brenda Ueland, was born at the turn of the century in Minneapolis to a lawyer father and suffragist mother. She spent some time in New York hanging out with the bohemian crowd in Greenwich Village before returning to the Midwest to write, edit, and teach. There are two great pictures of her on the inside cover. The photo from 1938 (age 47) shows her from the side in an austere suit jacket and plain white blouse, looking quite serious and yet dreamy as she gazes at some distant point. In the photo taken for the second edition (age 91) she's wearing a boldly stripped jacket with her bow tie askew and her hair rather wild as she looks directly into the camera with a quizzical half-smile on her face. It looks like a lot of living went on between those two pictures. The book is an odd mix of spiritual, feminist, and practical insights about the personal value of expressing one’s divine creativity through writing. Her main point is that, “everybody is talented because everybody who is human has something to express.” She believed that everybody has something original to say if he/she speaks the truth from his/her true inner self. She encouraged her students to get out of their own way and write what they knew and felt without laboring over the words. She was a big advocate of “living in the present moment”, long walks and making time for solitude, all of which she felt opened one up to creativity. She urged women to avoid being consumed by attention to housework and catering to everyone else’s needs. Sounds very modern! I wonder what Brenda Ueland would think of blogging if she were alive today?

Images, Buildings, and Names

With all due respect to Garrison Keillor, it has not been a quiet few weeks in eretz (land) war-be-gone. We have been very busy, continuing to soak in the sights, sounds, and smells of Tel Aviv and branching out by bus and train to Jerusalem (both of us) and Haifa (me).
Last week we made a Shabbat afternoon excursion to the Tel Aviv Art museum which houses an extensive permanent collection of impressionist and post-impressionist art donated by a Jewish Swiss family. Two special exhibits were also on display. “Art at Home, the Home as Art,” featured mixed media by Israeli and international artists, including a fabulous garden-themed bed designed by Max Ernst and a beautiful modernist set of silverware incorporating design elements from the violin (the curves, f-holes and bridge). Also amazing were the tapestries by Agam and other artists with abstract and figurative motifs (scrolls, ladders) in vibrant colors. Another special exhibit, “The Mound of Things” showed the work of Tsibi Geva, a multi prize-winning artist who epitomizes mainstream Israeli taste (according to a critic writing in HaAretz). Canvases (some very large) from several of his themed series of paintings done over the last twenty years of terrazzo floors, birds, flower, keffiyeh (head covering) and abstract designs of backgammon boards, fences, and shutters or window grilles were arrayed around the perimeter of the gallery space. I could see that the paintings were trying to address issues about Israeli identity-- the land, nature, people, constructed habitats and the meanings with which Israelis have imbued these things--but the exhibit as a whole didn't move me. In the center of the gallery stood a formation of high wall built of grey concrete construction blocks in the shape of the Hebrew letter “het” (looks like a square with the bottom side open). The newspaper critic in HaAretz wrote that this was a pale echo of a stone wall by Sharon Keren and Gabi Klasmer shown at the Israel Museum in 1975 and built for the artists by Palestinian construction workers. Obviously, the artist was making a political reference with this current construction but his rendition of the wall wasn't particularly illuminating for me.

We had another opportunity to think about the cultural and historical construction of the country at the Eretz Yisrael (Land of Israel) Museum. This museum consists of a number of exhibit pavilions scattered over a large park area near the university. We strolled through the grounds planted with native trees, plants, and herbs and viewed the somewhat quixotic collection of exhibits: a history of coinage from ancient to modern times; the history of postal service before and following statehood; ancient ceramics/ pottery; a judged show of contemporary clay works; artifacts and photos tracing Edmund Rothschild's travels to Palestine and his contribution to the building of several towns and the development of the wine industry in pre-state Israel; artifacts and tools from an excavation of a copper age site; old and modern glassworks; a collection of sundials; and, in the ethnography and culture pavilion, ritual and household objects from Jewish life around the world (menorahs, marriage contracts, Shabbat candlesticks, Kiddush cups, and a fabulous restored ark from an 18th century Italian synagogue) organized around the yearly cycle of holidays. Perhaps the most unusual display at this museum was in the "Song of Cement" exhibit. Outside the pavilion stood a cement mixer and inside, ranged around the walls, were photographs depicting the role of cement in building the state of Israel from the pioneer days to the present. In a small area to the rear behind a partial partition was a group of photos of the “separation” walls done by contemporary artists. These large color photos had more overtly political themes. Their inclusion created an interesting juxtaposition to the other black and white documentary photos and highlighted the tensions around the multiple meanings of “construction” in Israel.

This got me thinking about how certain versions of history and culture have become part of the physical reality of the country. In a previous message I jokingly suggested that Bavli sounds like Beverly, as in the “Beverly Hills of Tel Aviv”. What sacrilege! During a long walk in HaYarkon park, Nitzana, our landlady’s daughter, enlightened me about the meaning of Bavli and the derivation of the street names in the neighborhood. I had already noticed that many streets were called Rav (rabbi) so and so, as in Rav Toledano at our corner. Now it all became clear. Bavli refers to Babylonia, as in the Babylonian Talmud (Talmud Bavli), and some of the streets are named after the scholars who contributed to this work. Other streets are named for the Jerusalem Talmud (Talmud Yerushalmi), Sanhedrin (supreme court of ancient Israel) and Knesset Gadol (great assembly in ancient Jerusalem). All the major boulevards in Tel Aviv are named after men who were prominent in the history of the city and the state- Dizingoff (first mayor of Tel Aviv); Allenby (British general who led force that conquered Palestine), Ben Yehuda (reviver of Hebrew as a modern language), Rothschild (Jewish philanthropist and businessman) and a host of others.

Through the street names you can trace the history of Tel Aviv, the state of Israel, and the Jewish people. The significance of these names, however, is lost on some young Israelis, according to a recent article in the Jerusalem Post. In the seaside town of Netanya not far from Tel Aviv a local survey found a sample of the city’s teens to be woefully ignorant about the historical figures after whom a number of major streets are named. According to the Post, over one third of the 160 teens who took the survey thought that Rehov Dizengoff (Dizengoff St.) was named after Israel’s first shopping mall, the Dizengoff Center in Tel Aviv, rather than that city’s first mayor, Meir Dizengoff. More than half said Rehov Ramban was named after “a well-known hospital” in Haifa (Ramban Hospital) rather than the medieval scholar Rabbi Moshe Ben Nahman (Nahmanides). For Rehov Tel Hai, a street that has a lion statue to commemorate the 1920 battle at Tel Hai in which Joseph Trumpeldor and other Jewish fighters lost their lives, 75% of the teens chose the response, “a garden of statues which contains a famous statue of a lion.” Aghast at this ignorance about Jewish and modern Israeli history , a local councilman is calling for the city to put up signs to explain the history behind the names of the local streets. The city already put up about 30 signs on major streets but the councilman thinks these are insufficiently detailed and “an insult to the intelligence of residents.” He wants the city to reallocate the 500,00 NewIsraeli Shekels (about $125,00) currently earmarked for statues to put up "more respectable and prominent" signs. He said, “Those who do not know their past are likely to lose their future.” Wow! That statement opens up a can of worms. Whose past? What version of the past? To be continued……

A New Week, A New Look

It’s Sunday, the first day of the week here in Israel. The weekend spans Friday afternoon through Saturday night, then it’s back to business as usual. It’s nice to have that little oasis of calm every week, however brief. The busses stop and the stores are closed, though some cafes and restaurants remain open. The art museum is open (with children’s activities making it a popular place for families) and there are concerts and other cultural activities as well. We see a lot of extended families together, especially on Shabbat, but also during the week when we see bubbes wheeling strollers or picking up children from school. Given that the birthrate is not so high here, we are seeing a surprising number of babies and, of course, they are all adorable. Some examples from friends and relatives have reinforced our impression that family is very important. For example, Atar lives in the small community where her husband grew up and his parents live nearby. Her father-in-law picks up her three year old from preschool and keeps him until she returns from work. Tsipi, our neighbor across the hall, frequently has her grandchildren and children traipsing in and out. Rekefet, the young assistant at Sheatufim, told Lew that she and her husband barely know how to cook because her mother-in-law brings them food constantly. When I told my cousin Ruthie that Gregory would be in Buenos Aires this semester and that Rachel lives in Washington, she laughed with disbelief in her voice and said, “that’s how it is in America,” which I assumed meant that we are all scattered to the winds (which of course we are at the moment). Meanwhile, for those who can afford it, many people depend on Filipino women for child and elder care. In the park we see groups of older people in wheel chairs with their Filipino caretakers, the Filipino women visiting amongst themselves while their charges socialize and enjoy the sunshine. Also on the subject of domestic help, Lew reported a conversation amongst the young women staffers the the office about difficulties getting their husbands to share the housework. They expressed a familiar mantra, “I tell him something needs to be done but he doesn’t see it!” After asking Lew for his suggestions (!), one of the women chimed in with the solution, “Get a Filipino.” I’m very curious about how this particular conduit for immigrant workers developed.

Meanwhile we continue to explore the city. I am in love with HaYarkon park where I can run or walk for miles past open expanses and through groves of eucalyptus, palms, and olive trees towering above emerald green carpets of grass and groundcover. In the distance rise the new high towers of the bustling city, seen especially well from a hill with an unobstructed panorama. The main path is helpfully divided into two lanes, one for bike riders/roller bladers and the other for pedestrians, though not everyone obeys the rules. Passing me are hand-holding couples, young and old, groups of kids—sometimes in their scout uniforms, joggers of every age, parents wheeling strollers, and pairs of walkers deep in conversation. I am particularly fond of two grey haired gentlemen, perhaps in their early sixties, I see in the late afternoon. They are wearing shorts with matching long sleeved white t-shirts and talking animatedly while vigorously striding along at a fast clip. I observe all this as I bop along to the Temptation and the Four Tops or mellow out with Thelonius Monk on my Ipod and life is grand.

Speaking of Ipods. I am listening to a beautifully read novel at the moment (available in print as well, of course). The book, “The Clothes on Their Backs,” was short-listed for the Man Booker prize last year. The author, Linda Grant, a 57 year old novelist and journalist, was born in Liverpool to Russian/Polish immigrants. This book, set in London in the 1970’s, tells the story of a young woman in her twenties who uncovers the secrets of her immigrant parents’ former lives in Hungary through her hidden contact with a disreputable uncle from whom her parents have attempted to shield her. I also recommend another of Grant’s novels, “When I Lived in Modern Times,” which takes place in Tel Aviv in the late 40’s and describes the early years of the state of Israel (I think this book received the Orange Prize). She also has written a travelogue about Tel Aviv, “The People on the Street,” which I haven’t read yet.

With the war in Gaza winding down, the elections here are heating up. During the conflict all campaigning was temporarily stopped but now its back to politics as usual. We are following the best we can by reading the newspapers (Ha’Aretz and Jerusalem Post in English; I have Ha’Aretz as my home page). Unfortunately, the more hardline Likkud party (Netanyahu) seems to be destined to win the most seats. Although we didn’t hear a great deal of dissent during the heat of the Cast Lead operation, we did read some interesting exchanges and editorials that raised issues about the efficacy and conduct of the Gaza operation. If you are interested, I recommend you check out the exchange between A.B. Yehoshua (contemporary Israeli novelist) and Gideon Levy (journalist), and additional editorials by David Grossman (another novelist) and the recent column by Levy (“Twilight Zone, The Next Step”, on the Ha’Aretz website. If you read these and the comments that are posted in response you will get a good idea of the tensions in the debate here. On his website www. Gregmargolis.com, Gregory has put some of his reflections on the issues with links to columns he has found thought-provoking.

No matter what your view, one can only be dismayed by the lack of vision in the leadership. Where are the young leaders? Atar, who previously directed a community development organization in Carmiel that promoted dialogue with the Israeli Arab population, was very unhappy that none of the speakers at the conference on civil society we attended mentioned anything about empathy for Palestian casualties while expressing the usual support for the troops. She says that some of her Arab friends from her previous job are reluctant to come to events sponsored by Sheatufim because they are afraid they will not be welcome, a situation which disturbs her. During the conflict, the government tried to ban Arab parties from the election but the Israeli courts said this was illegal. Tel Aviv feels like a bit of a bubble, away from the more in-your- face conflict in the south, Jerusalem and the West Bank, and the northern border. Yet, the entire perimeter of Tel Aviv University is encircled with fencing and there is controlled access through turnstiles and gates manned by security guards. Also, in the middle of the city, directly across the street from the cultural center of the city (the art museum and the opera/theater complex) and the a few blocks from the Tel Aviv medical center, is the fenced off compound which houses the headquarters of the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces).

Back to more mundane observations/experiences:
A message from me would be incomplete without some mention of food! On evening last week we were strolling down Dizengoff St. in the heart of the city when the most incredibly enticing aroma wafted our way. We were literally led by our noses to a small shop from which emerged a line of patiently waiting customers. In the window a young woman was rolling out dough, cutting it into strips, and linking these strips in a continuous chain around a cylinder with a long handle. After brushing these with what I assumed was butter, she put them in an oven. When finished and taken off the cylinders what emerged were beautiful hollow tubes of exquisite tasting pastry, some flavored with cinnamon, others with chocolate and halva or other goodies. Crispy, hot and chewy, this Hungarian rugelah is sensational! For a good description and some pictures, go to www.kurtosh. co.il. Of course, the best part of the story comes next. We were given our prize after waiting our turn, told to let it cool in the open bag and then transfer it to another plastic bag and tie it closed with a bit of ribbon we were given. We left the shop and decided to catch a bus home. As we were nearing our neighborhood we determined that the pastry tube had cooled sufficiently so we started to ease it out of one bag into the other one, trying not to crush it. In the middle of this delicate operation I happened to glance over to the window ledge where I saw an intrepid cockroach scouting his territory.
Luckily we completed our transfer without mishap and at that moment reached our stop and exited the bus. With any crumbs we left behind, I say to the cockroach, “B’tayavon” (good appetite!).

Finally, here is the story of my new look. I decided I needed my hair cut and the color refreshed. Strolling the streets I saw many, many small hair salons, some looking very fancy, others full of older ladies. Walking around I’ve noticed a lot of women with bright red hair, sometimes tinged with purple undertones and sometimes veering towards orange. I was pretty sure I didn’t want that look. At random I walked into Sharon Chen’s small place on Yehuda HaMaccabbi, the main business street near our neighborhood. Sharon, the young man who owns the salon took me in hand and, with the Israeli confidence I mentioned in my last installment, decided he knew exactly what I needed. His lovely tall blonde assistant (probably Russian) applied the rich, brown color (“not too dark, I pleaded”) and, after I agreed I wanted “short” hair but “not too weird,” he spent about 45 minutes meticulously sculpting my head, leaving me with about 1” of hair or less all around. Actually, I’m very happy with how it feels and how little care it takes! Take a look and let me know what you think. Also check out new pictures on flickr (www.com/photos/linda-lew).

On Wednesday I’m off to Haifa to meet the director and some other folks in the Haifa office of Shatil, the training and support branch of the New Israel Fund. They are going to introduce me to some of their projects and explore what organization might be able to use some volunteer assistance from me. Next week, we’ll be going to Jerusalem to visit my friend Ruth, with whom I was on ulpan as a teenager 44 years ago. She is a former journalist who also works for Shatil. She is particularly interested in the challenges facing Ethiopian immigrants in Israel. She has arranged for us to visit to a music and dance conservatory where she started a scholarship program to enable Ethiopian kids to attend. She is also raising money to enable Ethiopian high school students to join their classmates on a trip to Poland to learn about the Holocaust and she is making a film about the derivation of Ethiopian names. I will send two letters describing these endeavors. I’ll have more information after we spend time with her in Jerusalem.

Well, time to stop for now. It’s lunchtime and I’m starving. The huge chunk of manchego cheese I bought from a vendor in the middle of the fancy Azrieli shopping center with the beautiful atrium (why there? Don’t ask!) awaits me, as does the fresh pita we purchased on our return trip to the HaCarmel shuk.