Passover Preview

Passover begins next week but, as with Purim, evidence of preparations began well in advance of the actual holiday. First we noticed huge displays and sales on cleaning supplies and aluminum foil. Then it was new dishes and pots and pans, followed by unbelievable quantities of matzos boxes, kosher for Passover candies, kosher for Passover honey and so on. Our friend, Edna, warned us that we would be hearing lots of stomping and furniture moving overhead as our fellow apartment residents did the heavy cleaning that is de rigeur at this time. We also saw advertisements for “Pesach cleaning help.” We are managing on our own but I’m sure our efforts would not pass muster with the more observant (or obsessive) residents.

Meanwhile, for our last session at Gordon Ulpan before the three week festival break, the entire Tuesday/Sunday evening student body celebrated a seder together. Each student was asked to bring a hard boiled egg and a cooked potato and the school supplied the ubiquitous gefilte fish (no horseradish!) and the necessary ritual foods (matzos, charoset (pretty tasty date paste from a jar), and sweet wine. After a (too) brief explanation in English by one of the teachers, students— either a representative or the whole group- from each class took turns reading parts of the Haggadah. Noga, the music teacher, accompanied us on the guitar as we sang the songs she had taught us----Ma Nishtenah Ha Lilah HaZeh (Why is this night different?: the four questions), Echad mi yodea (Who knows one…..up to 13), Halleluya, Go Down Moses, and others). Students from Brazil, Italy, Canada, and Greece also shared special songs with us from their communities. At the close of the ceremony we all stood and sang Ha Tikva, the Israeli national anthem. Some of the non-Jewish students looked a bit lost and I saw a lot of gefilte fish left on the plates, but everyone loved the wine and the singing! The teachers and staff worked really hard to put this together and they were clearly excited to share this tradition with all their students, whatever their background. Kol Ha Kavod (all honor) to our teachers for a terrific event!

Photos: my classmates--two women in white across the table are Rina and Galya from Romania; my teacher, Edna-standing in black sweater and white blouse; student in hat and yellow tshirt from another class reading; Vivian, with red scarf, my friend who is the cultural attache at the Columbian embassy, and Lew's class standing to read.

P.S. We are still looking for a seder to attend. We may go to Jaffa to the seder at the Ruth Daniel guest house run by Beit Daniel, the Reform congregation in our neighborhood. I’ll keep you posted.

Frum and Fabulous: A Visit with the Yellins

It’s always a pleasure to challenge stereotypes. Generally I don’t have much contact with highly observant Jews and thus am fairly ignorant of the nuances in the various groups. Growing up in Beverlywood, an upper middle class Los Angeles neighborhood, I was surrounded by highly assimilated families, mostly Reform and some Conservative. Since I left home, however, many prosperous Modern Orthodox, Hassidic, Israeli and Iranian Jewish families have moved into the neighborhood, along with a more diverse mix of non-Jewish professionals. That is how we came to know Ester and Carmi Yellin and their four children, a very observant family. They moved into the house next door to ours twenty-three years ago when their eldest child, daughter Rivital, was five years old. Carmi’s work as a computer engineer brought the family from Israel to Los Angeles. As their family grew with the addition of three boys, they would come next door to visit my mother or swim in her pool. My mother took a great interest in the children and enjoyed seeing them grow up. When we were in town we would make a point to stop by and say hello and our children got to know them as well. On Friday evenings we would see Carmi and the boys, dressed in white shirts, black pants and impressive black hats, returning from Kabbalat Shabbat services at the their shul on nearby Pico Blvd. Then, through their open kitchen window, we would hear the lively Shabbat singing around the table. Ester’s parents, and later, her widowed mother also came from Israel to spend several months with the family and enjoyed talking with my parents. Over the years a fondness grew between the two families—very different in their practices but both committed to Judaism and connected to their own Jewish communities.

In 2001 when my father died and my mother was treated for breast cancer, Ester sent the boys over to our house every Friday with a delicious Shabbat meal. She looked out for my mother, sending flowers on her birthday and other gifts for the holidays. Rivital grew up and went away to school in England. As the boys got older, Ester became concerned about their education, arranging for them to be home-schooled with a young Canadian tutor for two years when she was dissatisfied with the local options. But finally, she felt that they needed to return to Jerusalem. So, for seven years she commuted between her husband in L.A. and her children and mother in Jerusalem. As she put it, she was El Al’s best customer! Finally, it became too much. Just a few months ago Carmi decided to leave his job and move back to Jerusalem to be reunited with the family, which has grown larger with the addition of two granddaughters from Rivital’s marriage.

That is how we came to visit their home in the Matersdorf neighborhood of Jerusalem. They were in the midst of Passover cleaning---a huge deal here—but welcomed us warmly to their three-level, four bedroom town-house on a small street with an incredible vista of the city spread out below. Rivital and her two young daughters— two year old Miriam Saraleh and seven week-old Freidaleh—came from their nearby apartment. It was wonderful to see how the boys had grown and to see Rivital so happy with her girls. She has given up teaching English to high school girls but speaks to her daughters in English and wants them to be bilingual. In fact, we had brought a Hebrew version of “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” for Miriam and Rivital said it was her favorite book in English. Ester regaled us with the hilarious story of her Herculean efforts to get an Israeli driver’s license (after driving for 30 years in the States, the bureaucrats wanted her to prove she didn’t need supervision!). She applauded our attempts to speak Hebrew, remembering what it was like to transform the English she learned in school into real conversations in LA. Ester’s mother, a Tel Aviv resident for sixty years (Ester also grew up there), shared her stories about witnessing the creation of the state as a girl of seventeen. She informed us that she never joined any political parties because she wanted to keep an independent mind and think for herself. Coincidentally, she lived on Y.L. Peretz, the very street where Kav LaOved (the worker’s organization where I have been volunteering) has its offices. We also heard the story of how Ester’s grandfather came here- a journey that took him from Poland to Russia to Siberia before he became part of a Polish regiment of the British armed forces in Palestine (from which he deserted with the help of Jewish militia). His father had been a rebbe in Russia but after the Russian Revolution had moved to Poland and established the first yeshiva there. Carmi’s family has been in Jerusalem for eleven generations. There’s even a street named after his great, great, great, great, great ( not sure how many greats) grandfather—David Yellin—and a descendant has written a book about his life. Driving us to the central bus station to get the bus back to Tel Aviv, Carmi told us an incredible story about this great (plus) grandfather who came to Palestine during the time of the Turkish rule. He and his wife were living in Poland with a daughter but, after l0 years, had been unable to conceive another child. They felt their luck would change in Zion. When they got to Jerusalem a plague broke out. The choices were to seal up your home and remain inside or leave the area. Their neighbors remained in their home but both parents died, leaving a small orphaned baby. Carmi’s great (great, great,etc.) grandparents took in the child even though they could have been exposed to the illness. Soon thereafter they conceived their own child and the two boys grew up like brothers. I’m sure that the book he showed us tells many other fascinating tales but it was in Hebrew. Maybe I’ll learn more about the family history next time.

If You Gotta Go....

Not that you’d be able to enjoy it if you were a permanent resident, but the view from the cemetery occupying the steep slopes of Rosh Pina is spectacular. After a leisurely lunch under the trees (replete with bird droppings on my head) on a hillside terrace in Rosh Pina, we explored the small artisan shops in the old streets of Rosh Pina, a community founded by Zionists from Roumania in 1882, the first “modern” Jewish settlement in the Galilee. We paused to inhale a piece of coma-inducing intensely chocolate cake at Chocolata Café with its stone-walled cave like atmophere, Then we hiked up through the tiers of gravesites in the Rosh Pina cemetery, going further back in time as we climbed to the top of the steep hillside which was strewn with wildflowers. Among the more traditional markers, we found interestingly decorated memorial plaques—one decorated with Gaudi-style mosaics, others modernistic with bright colors or the writing in Hebrew cursive script. There were some sad stories—a young family that died together, probably in an accident, young soldiers who died in combat (one very recently) as well as those who had immigrated from Europe and died here at ripe old ages. I loved this spot and came away feeling that those who lie here have found a good resting place.

Who is this Woman?

Yes, c’est moi outfitted in full bird-watching, bike-riding regalia at the Hula Nature Reserve. As you can see, we rented bikes and binoculars for the 11 km ride around this wonderful bird sanctuary, which happens to be surrounded by agricultural fields. The farmers and naturalists have managed to cooperate to find ways to keep the birds from destroying the crops while maintaining a protected environment for them. The most famous residents are the silver cranes from Russia and Finland who spend the winter in Israel. They are a noisy lot. The couples, joined for life, depend on vocalization to stay in touch with each other as they migrate. We were lucky to see quite a group of them who had not yet left for their return trip north. Amongst them we saw one lone (soundless) stork while other sightings included a great egret, little egret, pelican, kingfisher, ducks and lapwings. I ‘m pretty sure I also saw a European roller—bright purple and blue. I know all this from my handy laminated foldout pocket guide “Birds of Israel” purchased along with the guides to wildflowers, trees, and mammals at the reserve. I am now fully prepared to identify all the plants and creatures I come across. I can assure you, however, there’s no danger that I’ll join the worldwide community of birdwatchers since, as those who know me can attest, I am not usually up at the crack of dawn.

Blessed are the Cheesemakers

You know the story about the synagogue you attend and the one in which you wouldn’t be caught dead, but how about the kosher Chinese restaurant that is open only on Shabbat and its twin across the street--with the same owner, cooks, and wait staff--that is open the rest of the week, except for Shabbat. As we learned on our recent trip to the Galilee, such a phenomenon exists in Tiberias. Although we drove past this attraction on our tour around Lake Kinneret, we decided against stopping in for a kosher Chinese-Thai feast as the area was very crowded with many tourist buses parked at the nearby hotels. Instead our dining experiences in the Galilee included: the local Arab restaurant in Korazim, a large establishment next to a gas station just off the main highway heading north (similar to our favorite “fifteen salads” restaurant in Tel Aviv—you can see from the photo where we got this name); a sophisticated hillside restaurant in Rosh Pina with a gorgeous view from the terrace of the hills and fields in the Hula valley below; and the cozy ranch-style restaurant at Vered Galil, a ranch/spa down the road from the Frenkel’s B and B, our base of operations in the Galil. Believe it or not Vered is famous for their “ fried chicken in a basket” and their excellent apple pie. At the Frenkel’s we took our breakfasts with a young Italian couple, Carlos and Anna, he an airline pilot and she a psychologist, visiting from Milan. We enjoyed the orange marmalade Etha made from their oranges, the olive oil pressed from the olives in their backyard grove, the pomelo from their trees, and the homemade labne, breads and rolls made by Irwin, among other goodies. The Frenkels moved to the Galil about 10 years ago from Jerusalem where they had been living for many years. Irwin, a former Weslelyan graduate, retired after a 15-year stint as the editor of the Jerusalem Post. Etha, born in Israel, spent much of her youth in the States. She continues to work as a psychologist. Their place is situated in a community of beautiful, rather large homes in the hills overlooking Lake Kinneret (Sea of Galilee) not far from ancient synagogue ruins in Korazim.

From there it was a short drive to the Church of the Beatitudes, a beautiful spot on the shores of the lake where Jesus is said to have given his sermon on the mount about the meek and poor inheriting the earth, as visitors are informed by plaques with the essential quotations which line the main path. Unfortunately, after Lew put it into my head, all I could think about was “blessed are the cheesemakers” from Monty Python’s Life of Brian. Other more reverent folk were gathered in designated spots around the grounds conducting services with prayer and song. We strolled around for a bit before we began to feel overwhelmed by the many tour groups from Japan, Italy, Nigeria, and the States.

Josie in Karmiel

Our tiyul (trip) last week-end to the Galilee was a wonderful break from the intensity of city life. The hills were green, dotted with beautiful wildflowers and flowering trees, a sight I had never seen since I had only been to this area in the summer when the landscape is less lush and more brown. On the drive up to Korazim, where we stayed at the Frenkel’s bed and breakfast (no relation!), we stopped in Karmiel to visit with our friend Howard Weinberg”s mother, Josie (that’s she in the photo on the balcony, behind which you can she her frum (religious) neighbors setting up their challah distribution for Shabbat). Josie, originally from England, made aliyah shortly after Howard came to Israel to study at Technion University some 25 years ago. Her daughter Linda lives nearby with her husband and two sons. Josie is a delightful, spunky woman in her 70’s who teaches English to new immigrants. She shared with us her perspective about the development and social dynamics of Karmiel which has grown tremendously from a small community of 15,000 to a substantial town of 60-70,000, and is home to Russian speakers, Ethiopians, English-speakers from England, the U.S. and South Africa, and many others. Two new groups have recently been added to the mix, stirring some controversy. In her neighborhood, many religious families have been directed (and financially supported) to settle here by their religious leaders, changing the complexion of the area. She misses the friendly camaraderie among neighbors that she used to enjoy. Her new neighbors barely acknowledge her and, in contradiction to Jewish ethical teachings, don’t even bother to check on the needs of an older woman living alone. With a twinkle in her eye, Josie described her way of dealing with the yeshiva buchers (the religious school boys) who barrel six abreast down the sidewalk, never looking her in the eye. She refuses to defer to them or step off the curb and simply plows straight ahead, forcing them to part like the Red Sea. In this she displays the true Israeli spirit, NEVER DEFER!

The other group whose residence in Karmiel has engendered some controversy is the Arab population. Some Arabic-speaking professionals and business people have chosen to live in Karmiel rather than the Arab towns nearby. Recently, there was a campaign to prevent them from doing so, with some residents arguing that Jewish Israelis would not be allowed to move into or buy property in Arab communities should they desire to do so. She was quite critical of this view and pointed out that the shops in the mall are filled with Arab customers on Shabbat, supporting Karmiel’s economy. Arab-speaking workers do much of the back-of-the-store work in the market, unloading and preparing food. On Hanukkah, however, her teenage grandson (who had a part-time job as a cashier in the supermarket) was called in at 4 a.m. to make the sufganiyot (jelly donuts) that are popular during the holiday. They needed a Jewish person to do this so that they wouldn’t lose their kosher certifiation. In any case, the three nearby Arab towns differ among themselves—one Muslim, one Christian, and one mixed—and don’t get along with each other. She explained that the Arab towns lack some adequate infrastructure because they don’t pay taxes or maybe it’s vice versa, they don’t pay taxes because they don’t receive services. She participated in a women’s group that visited one of these towns and her synagogue has a long-standing relationship with a Greek Orthodox church in a Arab town on the way to Naharia. She is extremely fond of the people in this church, especially the priest and his family, and explained that they are very well-educated and send their children to Haifa University. The two congregations have visited each other’s services and taken field trips together.

These efforts at coexistence and mutual learning are, unfortunately, offset by other examples of conflict, as we learned a few days later. Our route to and from the Gali had taken us through Umm-Al-Fahm a large Arab-Israeli city of 50,000, bisected by highway 65, with many impressive looking homes built up on the sides of the hills. A few days after our trip, this community was the scene of a confrontation provoked by radical right-wing Israeli Jews from the National Union Party against the local Arab residents joined by Jewish supporters from the leftist parties Meretz and Hadash and members of Peace Now. The anti-Arab group had gotten permission to stage a march in the city but the police, 3,000 of whom were brought in to prevent clashes, restricted them to a short 30 minute route in an outlying, unpopulated area away from the center of town. However, in the three hour brouhaha that ensued after the march was dispersed, 28 people (including 15 policemen) were injured from stone-throwing and a dozen or so youths were arrested. Thankfully, nothing worse occured. The Umm-Al-Fahm municipality put out a statement that said that the entire Arab public had "with the support of the Jewish forces for peace and democracy had stood together to stop this provocation and managed to curb racism and facism." A local resident who had taken the day off from work to protest the march said, "We want to live in peace and coexistence and say we are citizens of Israel, and they are trying to present the opposite picture." (HaAretz, Mar25)

School Daze

On Monday afternoons I head south on the #25 bus to teach English to 10-11 year old kids at Lev-Jafo (Jaffa) primary school. The route, which takes about 40 minutes or more depending on traffic and the condition of the bus (once it broke down and we had to wait for a replacement), begins at Rehov Yehuda HaMaccabi, winds through central Tel Aviv and deposits me on Yerushaliyim St., the main business street in downtown Jaffa. From the bus stop I enjoy a short walk past the fruit and vegetable market, the fish, meat, and spice shops, the supermarket, hair salons, the many small shops selling clothing and household goods, and the official looking building with its Arabic sign to reach the entrance to the school courtyard. Here a curious sight greets me---two primary schools face each other across a large open plaza/playground. To the left is Weitzman primary school, to the right Lev-Jafo primary school. Why two schools in the same location?

The story behind this arrangement is beginning to sound all too familiar. Initially these two buildings housed one school: the building on the right housed the preschool grades, children from three to six years old (there is a large sand box behind this building), while the building on the left housed the classrooms for the first through sixth grades. Reflecting the population of Jaffa, the children come from Arabic speaking and Hebrew speaking homes. Jaffa is a rather poor community (although experiencing some gentrification) with a mixed population-- Jews from the FSU (former Soviet Union) countries, Yemen, and Ethiopia, and Israeli Arabs (Christian and Muslim). Arab-Israelis (born and raised in Israel with passports and full citizenship rights) constitute 20% of the Israeli population as a whole but the percentage is higher in Jaffo where the breakdown among the 45,000 residents is 30,000 Jews and 15,000 Arabs, one third of whom are Christians.

This mix does not always result in smooth relations. Apparently, eight or nine years ago the parents of the children in the unified school came into conflict over the educational practices and were unable to resolve their differences. The outcome was a split into two schools, both run by the Israeli government—one with students from Arab backgrounds while the other has a mixed Arab and Jewish student body. The principal of the Lev-Jafo school is a youngish, energetic Arabic man and most, but not all, of the teachers in the school are Arabic speakers. The instruction at Lev is in Arabic and Hebrew. The students speak Arabic, Hebrew, and are learning English (sort of). On the other side, at the Weitzman school, the instruction is entirely in Hebrew. The signs on the outside of the main school buildings reflect this difference—Lev-Jafo’s signs are in Hebrew, Arabic and English while Weitzman’s are in Hebrew and English only. Interestingly, many Arabic speaking parents want their children to attend the mixed school and the goal is to keep the ratio at 50-50 Arab/Jewish. However, I have heard that there is some difficulty maintaining the Jewish population and the Weitzman school may close. The more affluent Israeli Jewish families send their children to public or private schools with greater resources. The schools in the southern part of Tel Aviv are less well-endowed than those in northern neighborhoods, with per pupil expenditures much higher in the northern districts. In fact, the Israeli Education Ministry does not allocate as much money per Arab student as it does for the Israeli children. Not surprisingly, the dropout rates are higher in the poorer areas. Interestingly, our Bavli neighbors, Lee and Edna Perlman, in a reversal of the usual flight from the poorer south to richer north, sent their children to the Open Democratic School in Jaffa, because they did not like what they perceived as the materialistic bent of the parents whose children attend the local Bavli-Yerushalmi school. The Open Democratic School, which has a progressive, multicultural orientation, is one example of an integrated “private” (does receive state funding, however) school with a mostly middle class clientele. Some integrated bilingual and multicultural schools do exist, including some successful Arabic-Hebrew preschools, as well as primary schools run by the nonprofit Hand in Hand (www.handinhand.12.org). But for the most part Arabic-speaking and Jewish students don’t attend the same schools, even in mixed cities such as Jaffa, Haifa, or Akko (Acre). Typically, Arab and Jewish youth don’t have many opportunities to get to know each other. This separation reflects the general geographical, cultural and social segregation between Israeli Arabs and Jews. Even in mixed areas, the two groups don’t live, work, or go to school together, a situation that promotes inequality and gives rise to feelings of fear and/or hostility.

Interestingly, while the instruction in Arab schools is in Arabic, the state-mandated curriculum is the same as that in the Jewish schools, emphasizing Jewish history and Jewish heroes. You can imagine that there are many conflicts over language, religion, holidays, culture and heritage, the history and current politics of Palestinian-Israeli relations, identity, and inequality. I learned much of this from a power point presentation I found on the web by Dr. Tamar Margalit from the Center for Critical Pedagogy and the Kibbutzim College of Education (A Glimpse Into a Mixed Ethnic Elementary School in Jaffa, April 2008). Margalit gives one very telling example of hidden agendas in the curriculum from a math textbook:
A militaristic example from a textbook (5th grade, arithmetic fractions):
In a family there are 4 children: Neta is a soldier and Ival, Anat and Yuval are pupils.
The parents prepared a cake for the soldier’s vacation, and gave the children instructions:
“Divide the cake between all of you, so that the pupils will get equal pieces, and the soldier’s piece will be bigger than the others.”
Suggest how to divide the cake. Decide and write down how much of the cake each child will get.

Margalit outlines efforts made at the Weitzman school to implement a more multicultural approach to education. Student teachers from the Center for Critical Pedagogy worked with the children on several projects to promote cooperative learning and empowerment. Mixed ethnic and multi-aged groups of children chose to work on one of several projects: bilingual school magazine; school design; “I am From Jaffa”; and Children’s Rights. Margalit shares a few quotes about the friendships among the children from different backgrounds but I’m eager to learn more about how the momentum from the projects carried over into the normal school routine and whether the new ways of teaching and learning were sustained.

This week I decided to visit the English tutoring program at the Weitzman school to get a sense of the contrast in the two settings. Here the children spoke to each other in Hebrew rather than the Arabic (with some Hebrew) I hear at Lev. In contrast to the students at Lev---Mohamed, Machmud, Achmed, Aya, Sineen, Weesan, Omar, Isma, and Omar—the names of the Weitzman students reflect a different ethnic mix. At Weitzman the students are Matan, Mordechai, Batya, Avia, Tova, Eden, Shirel, and Christina and Yam, the two girls with whom I worked. This group seemed a bit more focused and, probably because there are more of them, the girls seemed a bit less shy. We had fun talking about animals—what they look like, what sounds they make, where they live, which is their favorite and so on. This was a repeat of the lesson we did with the Lev kid’s on Monday when I learned that Machmud has a brown horse and a cat named Lili and Sineen's teacher told her that the rhinoceros was called a "unicorn". Today I learned that Christina has a blue bird. I’ve met two new tutors this week. Cheryl is a Stanford student who is studying social inequality and working with a professor at Tel Aviv University. Lani moved to Israel one year ago from her home in Charlotte, NC!

“Closing the Gaps”, the afterschool English tutoring program, is run by the Jaffa Institute (www.jaffainstitute.org), a private non-profit multi-service social welfare organization that offers an impressive array of learning/enrichment activities and prevention /assistance programs to at risk and underserved children and their parents from Jaffa, south Tel Aviv, Bat Yam, and other impoverished areas in Jerusalem and elsewhere.

Torahs on Parade

Dancing in the Streets













Today's peak experience confirmed that you never know what you’re going to run into on the streets of Tel Aviv. I was returning from my afternoon shpatzeer (wanderings) and a delicious dinner of anchovy pizza at the newly opened Pizza/Pasta on Yehuda HaMaccabi. As I walked towards home I was listening to Haruki Murikami’s The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle on my Ipod. Suddenly the narrator’s voice was drowned out by a cacophony of sound coming from the side street across the road. I turned my head and saw what looked like carnival lights about half a block down. For some reason, I had the idea this might be a Bar Mitzvah or birthday party, but this seemed unlikely for 7 p.m. on a Wednesday evening. As I got closer I noticed a large crowd surrounding a caravan made up of a truck festooned with multi-colored lights in the shape of crowns, pulling a trailer with more lights, spewing periodic geysers of smoke and giant sparklers and outfitted with a large speaker blasting very lively Jewish music with an eastern flavor. After the truck and trailer came a large canopy under which men of all ages and mode of dress were vigorously dancing while holding aloft multiple Torahs. Pausing every so often along the way, the procession, accompanied by a diverse crowd of men, women, small children in strollers and on shoulders, teenagers, and elders, danced its way onto Herzog, crossed busy Namir onto Yehuda HaMaccabi and turned down the first small side street to reach its final destination---the Sephardic synagogue. Here the music and dancing reached a peak before the Torahs were finally carried into the synagogue. As I learned from a poster on the street, the congregation was welcoming a new Torah that a local family had donated in honor of their parents. Nice welcoming party!

My Beloved Hoopoe

I have fallen in love ……with a bird! The hoopoe to be precise. Let me explain how this happened. Yesterday I only had time for a short stroll at the river before heading out to my evening Hebrew class. Since I knew I wouldn’t be able to take my usual long route, I started out on the walkway but soon verged off the path to meander under the trees closer to the river. I was gazing across the river towards a large goose-like bird that was perched on a rock making a loud honking noise. Then something caught my eye on the ground no more than a half dozen feet in front of me. At first I was aware only of movement but then I was startled to see the form of a bird emerge out of the camoflage of the groundcover. And what a charming creature it was. It was busily pecking away at the undergrowth with its long, tapered, slightly curved beak and it didn’t seem to be bothered much by my presence. From the top of its head protruded a striking tawny pink crest tipped with black and white stripes, a zebra pattern that also adorned the feathers on the back half of its body and its wings. The rest of the body and head were a rosy-brown color. I was enchanted. But I had no idea what kind of bird this was. After spending several minutes admiring my new friend, I reluctantly left to catch the sherut for the ride downtown.

The first thing I did when I returned home was to look up Israeli birds on the internet. That led me to Kibbutz Lotan, a birdwatching center in the Negev, through which I found the Hoopoe Lark-- Eurasian Hoopoe. I learned that this bird is a denizen of Europe, Asia, North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa and Madagascar. The northern residents migrate to the tropics in the winter but their African cousins remain where they are all year round. I also learned that due to some unusually strong muscles, the long tapering beak can actually open when inserted into the ground to probe for insects. According to legend, the hoopoe is capable of cutting through stone, and is referred to as "nakar turia," or mountain chiseler, in the Talmud. Legend also has it that when its beak breaks, the hoopoe can continue chiseling through rocks with its folded crest - hence its name duchifat, which means "two beaks" in Aramaic (Arutz Sheva, Israel National News). The bird plays a role in biblical lore, carrying King Solomon’s invitation to the Queen of Sheba. Considered sacred in Ancient Egypt, hoopoe pictographs appear on the walls of temples and tombs. To Persians this bird was a symbol of virtue, while Ethiopian Jews called it the Moses bird because they believed it would lead them back to Zion.

Okay, so that’s all very interesting but wait, there’s more. THE HOOPOE IS THE NATIONAL BIRD OF ISRAEL!!!!!!! Yes, that’s right. In May 2008, it was chosen over a dozen other candidates through a nation-wide vote initiated by the Society for the Protection of Nature to celebrate the country’s 60th birthday. It turns out that this modest, monogamous bird that takes good care of its young and finds creative ways to defend itself (involving flinging excrement and excreting a foul-smelling substance when alarmed), is also, alas, non-kosher. There is no end to the contradictions in Israeli society.

Many Flickr sites have posted wonderful images of these birds—just put hoopoe photos in your search engine and you will be rewarded. I have now spent way too much time viewing hoopoe videos on the internet. I highly recommend those by sandrobico showing baby hoopoes but there are far too many other good ones to choose from. You must, however, view this clip from The Colbert Report on the hoopoe’s selection as Israel’s national bird. Not to be missed!

Women and Work, Israeli style

Today is International Women’s Day. To mark the occasion the Rackman Center for the Advancement of the Status of Women at Bar-Ilan University released the results of a study of women’s wages. Women make up over half of the Israeli labor force but are three times as likely as men to work part-time. On average they earn 64% of men’s pay. In 2007, the average pre-tax monthly income of men was 9,267 NIS (New Israeli Shekels; about $2400) while women made 5,949 NIS. The study showed that the wage gap declined for single women as they got older but widened for married women over time. Quoted in Ha’Aretz, Rackman Center Director, Professor Ruth Halperin-Kadari said, “the State of Israel has one of the highest birthrates in the Western world, but the infrastructure for looking after children and the possibility of both parents playing a role in the workforce are extremely restricted. Because of the high birth rate here, mothers are more impacted by this than in other places." Yet the study also reported that women make up over half (56%) of the students in higher education and 52% of those working on doctorates. Slightly less than a third of Israeli executives are female, as are 34% of high tech workers. It is discouraging to think about the restricted opportunities available to these women. On the plus side, I have to say that in our limited experience here we have encountered a number of young fathers wheeling strollers and carrying babies during the daytime so perhaps there is some movement towards greater equality.

It's even more discouraging to learn that most of the labor law complaints reported in 2008 to Kav La’Oved (Worker’s Hotline for the Protection of Worker’s Rights) came from women. Complaints included unjustified suspensions, unpaid overtime and employers’ practice of regularly firing and hiring workers to avoid paying benefits. Of the 5,500 complaints fielded last year, security, cleaning and maintenance topped the list of labor violators. Private education and welare services also ranked high, with many complaints from nursery and kindergarten aides and exam monitors. Restaurant work generated many violations as well. A dramatic rise in the number of complaints from the ultra-Orthodox sector was also noted (Reported in Ha’Aretz on Sunday, March 8). This is a depressing picture but Kav La’Oved is doing great work to protect the rights of low wage Israeli workers as well as those of the large population of migrant workers from Thailand, the Philippines, India, China, Nepal, Sri Lanka and elsewhere who fill jobs in agriculture, construction and, the largest group, caregiving. The predominantly female migrant workforce in the caregiving sector provides in-home care for the old and disabled. These women work very long hours with few protections and are very vulnerable to exploitation. Last week I paid a visit to the Kav La'Oved offices and met Jessica Nevo, the development director. More on this organization and the grant proposal I'm helping to write in another post.

Purim Revelry--Until You Don't Know the Difference

Purim is almost here and the festivities have already begun. We are discovering that Purim is a big megillah in Israel!!! It is something like Halloween in Chapel Hill, although it lasts longer and carries a lesson. In case you need a refresher, Purim celebrates the foiling of evil Haman’s plot to slay the Jews. The story in a nutshell: Beautiful Queen Esther (our heroine), is chosen by the Persian King, Ahashuerus to replace the former queen,Vashti, a proto- feminist who talked back to the king and was thus no longer suitable queen material. Esther’s cousin, Mordechai (our hero), who raised her like a daughter, hides her Jewish identity from the king. The king’s advisor, Haman (villain), detests Morechai because he refuses to bow down before the king. Haman “acts out” his anger and plots to kill all the Jews. Mordechai persuades Esther to tell the king about this nefarious plan. As we’ve seen, the king does not like assertive women. In preparation for the confrontation, Esther fasts for three days to purify herself for the task. Luckily, her mission is a success. She persuades the King to stop the potential massacre. Haman is hung on the gallows he had prepared for Mordechai. The Jews’ enemies are destroyed and the people rejoice and get drunk. The holiday fits the timeworn Jewish theme—they tried to kill us, they didn’t succeed, let’s eat. The eating part includes triangular shaped cookies filled with various delicious combinations of fruits, nuts, or chocolate, and the giving of gift baskets loaded with said cookies, candies, and other goodies. The dressing up part has expanded way beyond the original queens, kings, mordecais and hamans, to include the vast range of typical commercial, gender-biased choices (superman, pirates, princesses, etc.) as well as more original homemade get-ups. According to an article in Ha'Aretz giving parents tips on how to economize, the average Israeli family spends 200 shekels ( about $50) on costumes. Leading up to the holiday, costume displays spill out of the shops onto the sidewalks, the aroma of freshy baked hammantashen (or Haman’s Ears as they are called here) wafts from the bakeries, and school and youth groups in creative outfits march through the streets in local “Ad Lo Yodah” parades. Ad Lo Yodah roughly translates as “until you don’t know.” The commandment is to celebrate until you are so plastered that you can’t tell the evil Haman from the righteous Mordechai. How much drink that involves is a much-debated question. Needless to say, the children don’t get drunk but they do dress-up, sing, dance and PARTAY! Children's activities abound at local malls, museums, parks and theaters. The actual Purim holiday begins tomorrow night with the reading of the Megillah (Scroll of Esther) and continues Tuesday and Wednesday. Purim means “lots”, referring to how Haman decided the date to initiate his destructive plan. Day one, the 13th day of the Jewish month of Adar, is the date Haman chose for the extermination of the Jews and the day they fought for their lives. The following day they celebrated their survival. A third day, Shusan Purim, is celebrated in walled cities (i.e. Jerusalem) because the book of Esther says that deliverance from the massacre wasn’t complete until the next day in the walled city of Shusan.

This just in from Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the spiritual leader of Israel's Sephardi community, as reported by Yair Ettinger in today's paper: women may chant the Scroll of Esther in front of men if no competent men are available. He rejects the claim that such sacred chanting is analogous to women's singing voice, something men must avoid hearing lest they risk sexual arousal. Since men and women have an equal obligation to hear the reading of the scroll, women will kill two birds with one stone by performing this task in a small community that lacks men capable of doing it properly. Further, the rabbi said that women could write a kosher Scroll of Esther. He noted that ancient megillahs written by women have been found in Yemen. Thus, they should be able to do this today, "to earn a living for their household" and because women "were part of the miracle" the scroll describes. Nevertheless, he admitted that he isn't sure who would buy such a scroll and, further, this ruling doesn't apply to other sacred texts such as the Torah. Equality can only go so far but the the reporter described this landmark decision is bound to outrage many of the rabbi's Ashkenazi counterparts.

On Tuesday the biggest Purim parade in the country takes place in Holon near Tel Aviv. From what we can tell it is something like the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade with 4,000 participants, street theater, circus performers, bands, dancers, balloons, doves and flowers. This year the theme is “We Got the Whole World in Our Hands”---preserving the world’s resources. I hear that there are going to be huge floats of political figures—Livni, Netanyahu, etc., although what that has to do with environmental preservation is a mystery. Environmental concerns were prominent in the Purim parade we attended on Friday with our friend Atar and her small son Zeev in Ra’anana (a very pleasant, well-kept and prosperous community between Herzilia and Netanya where Atar grew up). We came prepared, having purchased our costumes---rabbit and tiger ears with accompanying bow ties and tails--at the central bus station in Tel Aviv last week as we passed through on our way to the HaTikva market. We chose a minimalist look (see the accompanying photo of Lew). It turned out to be an unseasonably hot day and we regretted having left extra sunscreen and hats at home as we rushed out to catch the train to meet Atar. As we stood in the blazing sun watching the school and youth groups pass by in their colorful and clever costumes, we admired their stamina and good spirits. Undoubtedly they were sweating mightily underneath their finery. Each contingent had its own theme with unique costumes and, in many cases, an accompanying float. Some groups played musical instruments or performed dance routines as paraded down the relatively short route on the main street. Each group was introduced with a recorded trumpet fanfare and an announcement from a very loud public address system. Friends and relatives cheered and waved from the sidelines as they passed by—definitely a home-grown affair.

When the parade ended we recuperated from the noise and heat with a visit to Atar’s parents in a nearby “village”, one of a number of small communities between Ra’anana and Netanya populated by upper middle class families and retirees. These communities have expanded beyond the original older areas with their smaller homes to include new streets with more elaborate single family homes--some quite large with yards and occasional swimming pools (price range around 10,0000 shekels or $2.5 million). The villas in the newer areas reminded me of Palm Springs. Each village has its own school, community center and other amenities surrounded by orange groves and fields in a rural buffer. Atar’s parents moved here eight years ago. They built a modest but lovely home, designed to accommodate their needs as they age (they are in their 60’s). The house is on one level with complete access for walkers/wheelchairs and a separate living space for “a Filipino” (i.e. a caregiver) if they need help in the future. One of the small bedrooms is a “safe room” which can be sealed off to serve as a bomb shelter should the need arise. Eating strawberries and sipping iced coffee in their large open living, dining, kitchen space (which can accommodate 45 people for seder, including their five children, spouses, and grandchildren), we learned that they spent two summers at Camp Judea in the late 1970’s when Atar’s father worked for the Jewish Agency in Atlanta. They were quite interested in our impressions of Israel and particularly in our opinion about whether the society’s many internal fractures will cause it to implode. We hope to have an opportunity to continue our conversation with them. As we left, Atar’s mother gave us one of her ceramic creations, a hamsa with a household blessing, to take home. Our day ended with a leisurely lunch-- beautifully prepared, freshly caught fish with chips (fries)—sitting outside at a seaside restaurant not far from Kfar Vitkin with Atar and Gil. Zeev played nearby, bringing us “drinks” (plastic cups filled with sand) that he “bought” on the beach. Afterwards, Atar dropped us off at the bus stop on the highway where we caught the sherut back to Tel Aviv, arriving before the onset of Shabbat. Another beautiful day.

Negev photos

Here are some photos from our journey to the Dead Sea and the Arava region of the Negev. I've posted more photos at www.flickr.com/photos/linda-lew.