Israel

O Jerusalem

/ IlanaB / Leave a comment

4:30am

I awoke from a pleasant funny dream.  One cat curled behind my knees and another cat giving me what she considers a “massage.”  All the lights were on.  I had fallen asleep on the couch again.

I put myself to bed, but I couldn’t sleep.  One siren. Two sirens.  Lots more sirens.  I learned in my first years living in Israel that one or two sirens was probably an accident, but three signaled the likelihood of a terrorist attack.  Suddenly I was AWAKE.  What was going on?

Voices shouting on my street.  Subtle sirens.  Light honking.  I got up and went out onto my porch.  It looked like a brawl in the park.  I used my phone to Google current events.  Stabbings, more stabbings, brawls, violence.

Soon the crowd dispersed from my street.  And eventually, I fell asleep.  How I wanted to be back in my pleasant funny dream again.

Just another glorious day in paradise.

Just another glorious day in paradise.

4:30pm

Sirens all day.  Helicopters patrolling. Peeks at the news.  Why is there one terrible story after another?  Violence. Idiotic international media.  Funerals.  Sadness.  Hatred.  It’s just a vortex of negativity.  I understand the benefits of a “news fast,” but how else will I know what’s happening on my own street, in my own neighborhood, in my city?  I sure as hell don’t want to investigate it myself.

There were a lot of great and joyful things that happened in the past week and they will all be overshadowed by the violence.

I’m sad, but I’m not anxious.  I won’t throw myself in the middle of any dangerous situations, but I am not afraid.  Jerusalem is still my city.  It’s the eternal city and we’ll get through this too.

*Normally I write a Friday post, but today isn’t Friday.  It feels like Friday though because it’s the evening before a holiday.

Let’s prove Hobbes wrong

/ IlanaB / Leave a comment

One of the things I dislike about the media is the idea of “if it bleeds, it leads.”  Reading the news in any country, one might think that Thomas Hobbes was right, life really is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.”  I actually wanted to write about Sukkot, the Christians who are visiting Israel right now for the Feast of the Tabernacles, the parade that marched through the streets of Jerusalem showing love for Israel and making a joyful noise, and the fact that I have had what I consider one “perfect day” after another.

And then my Facebook wall filled up with the news of two national tragedies.  I was troubled.

Tragedy 1:  Students were shot in class.  Christians seemed to be the targets.

Tragedy 2:  A Jewish couple was shot in their car travelling on a highway.  Their four children were in the back seats.

People died, but that’s not the story.  Eventually, we will hear about the victims, but the filler of the stories will be the politics.  Sides will be taken and the people who died and their families will be footnotes in some other story that other people are telling.

Where is the humanity?

One story took place in Oregon.  It will be about gun laws and probably about mental illness and societal breakdown.  The other story took place here – even naming the location is political.  That story will be about place and the question of terrorism versus “justified” rage.  In one story, the victims will fade into the background, wallpaper for a story about a guy who lost it and went on a rampage (I suppose).  In the other story, the victims will be either glorified or it will be suggested that they “deserved it” because of where they chose to live.

And again I ask, where is the humanity?  Human beings lost their lives today.  Families were shattered.  The race to find out how to spin the story to suit a particular narrative is beyond distasteful, it’s disgusting.

You probably know which story took place where.  But I purposefully didn’t point it out.  The reason is that I would like you, dear reader, to consider your response if you didn’t know where the stories took place.

I hope you would have the same reaction to both tragedies.  People were murdered in cold blood.  The victims were killed by gunmen who didn’t agree with their beliefs.  They were not fighting a war.  They were human beings going to school and driving on a road.  If we haven’t totally lost our humanity, the politics should not matter.

I especially want to applaud the local sheriff in Oregon, John Hanlin, who said that he will not say the name of the shooter.  The victims – may their memories be a blessing – deserve better than to be forever linked with their killer.

My thoughts and prayers are with the families of the victims of these tragedies.  The hole in their lives will never be filled by the politics.  Let us also find our own humanity and in some small way prove Hobbes wrong.

ScreenHunter_03 Oct. 02 19.06

Life doesn’t have be solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.  Together, let’s try to reject the bleeding leads.  Let’s celebrate life.  Live joyfully.  Love, or at least respect, one another.  It’s possible, but we will have to find our humanity first.

9/11 and Rosh HaShana

/ IlanaB / 1 Comment

Today is 9/11.  Of course I remember September 11, 2001, and we should take a moment to commemorate those whose were robbed of the rest of their lives by a major terror attack.  Let this sad day remind us all that none of us knows what the future will bring.  Let’s be kind to one another today.

For me 9/11 is directly linked to the High Holidays.  Next week it’s the Jewish New Year.  Rosh HaShana (literally, the head of the year) is a two-day holiday that is usually in September or October.  I won’t get into the religious details and questions; you can look those up yourself.

Rosh HaShana is the beginning of a 10-day period that will end with Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement).  In English, these days are called The Days of Awe.  In Hebrew they are called the much scarier yamim nora’im (The Terrible Days).  It’s traditional to take a spiritual accounting (heshbon nefesh) of the past year – determine if you did well, where you can improve, make some adjustments for the upcoming year.  It’s more than the January New Year’s resolutions that go out the window on January 2nd.  Not so the spiritual accounting of Rosh HaShana.  It’s not about losing weight and taking care of your health.  This spiritual accounting is internal and focusing on becoming a better person.

“Aharei ha-chagim!”

The bureaucratic joke in Israel is that if you have a project starting at any time in September it will likely be pushed off to “aharei ha-chagim” (after the holidays).  However, this is not after the two-day holiday of Rosh HaShana.  Not even after Yom Kippur ten days later.  No, “aharei ha-chagim” means after Sukkot is over.  In Israel if you start anything in September, you can count on at least a 3-week delay.  Because there are so many holidays and kids are out of school (even though they only started last week), the entire country grinds to a halt and everyone is on vacation (again!).

On one hand, there is something really powerful about taking the time to reflect on the year that passed and look to the future; or, more likely, taking the time to be with your family during the holidays.  The rhythm of life in Israel allows for both (without mandating either one).

On the other hand, this is 3 weeks of sanctioned procrastination.  “Acharei ha-chagim” can be used for just about anything.  All your big plans and aspirations?  Meh.  Leave them until later.  Perhaps some real soul-searching is going on in these 3 weeks and it might be a legitimate way to pause and take a breath.  But who can honestly say that they are taking the full 3 weeks to do an internal spiritual cleanse?

And so we come back to 9/11.  What is the spiritual message that I heard in this tragedy?  You never know when the end will come.  Around this time I ask myself:  Is my spiritual accounting up to date?  Was I kind enough?  Did I let the important people in my life know that I care about them and they matter to me?  Was I true to myself?  If today was my last day, would I have regrets? Am I procrastinating or am I regrouping? What can I do to make tomorrow/next year better?

Well, I don’t want to end on such a blue and morbid note.  Rosh HaShana is a happy holiday!  We are given the opportunity to clean our slates and start fresh.  So let me wish you all a Happy New Year!  A Shana Tova u’Metuka (a good and sweet year)!

Obladee-Obladah

/ IlanaB / Leave a comment

Life goes on.  And so it does in Israel.  We’ve had terrible events, we are having on-going debates about the future of our country, ISIS is standing at our gates, Iran, well, who knows what’s going on there.  And yet.

My first flatmate in Israel taught me one of the most important things I’ve learned about life in Israel.  Keep living.  In those days, buses and cafes were blowing up.  You learned that one or two sirens passing by was fine, but if you heard a third, there had been an attack.  He never let attacks on public places ever stop him from going anywhere.  My newly arrived self thought it would just be better to stay home and stay away from public places.  He wouldn’t let me and I am so grateful that he didn’t.

A few days after the Hillel Café bombing in Jerusalem, I was supposed to meet a friend for coffee.  He thought perhaps I would want to cancel.  “Are you kidding?  We are absolutely not cancelling.  We are going to Emek Refaim and we are going to have coffee in whatever café is open.”  He was surprised, but if I wasn’t afraid to go out, then he shouldn’t be either, right?

To this day, he still remembers that coffee in an empty café on a nearly empty street.  I think we even ordered dessert.

Israelis are resilient – not crazy.  There is usually a day or two of caution and then life returns to its usual rhythm.  People may be more alert, but they are not staying home cowering in fear.

This week in Jerusalem there was a Thai evening at the train station.  It was packed with people including many children.  The international arts and crafts fair started this week and I assume it was packed as usual.  Last night there was a night market on Jaffa Street.  I was too tired to go, but I still have a chance next week.  In short, this is life in Jerusalem in August.

Thai Drama

Thai Drama

Standing room only!

Standing room only!

In preparing for this post, I took a look at headlines to find out what happened this week.  There was the usual: Iran, Temple Mount, UN, Russia, Greece.  But then I saw this little headline near the top of the page.  “Yerushalmi Café Culture.”  Turns out it’s about my local café!  Even with all the “big” news, there is a place for a write-up about a sweet little café.  The small things matter.  The small joys are what make life worth living.

So I’ll end here with two quotes that I think sum up this week’s email:

“A life lived in fear is a life half lived.” – from the film Strictly Ballroom

Still Here by Langston Hughes

Been scarred and battered.
My hopes the wind done scattered.
Snow has friz me,
Sun has baked me,

Looks like between ’em they done
Tried to make me

Stop laughin’, stop lovin’, stop livin’–
But I don’t care!
I’m still here!

Wishing you all a Shabbat shalom and in the spirit of the most famous Jewish toasts, L’chaim!  To life!

Determined to find the positive

/ IlanaB / 1 Comment

Synchronicity or bust

When nothing seems to help, I would go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it would split in two, and I knew it was not that blow that did it, but all that had gone before together. — Jacob A. Riis 

One of the blogs I read is called Zen Pencils.  His tag line is “cartoon quotes from inspirational folks.”  You should go see his blog because it is great (zenpencils.com).  This week the inspirational quote was this one and it really helped me get through the week.   Personally, I’m still dealing with the bureaucratic issues I’ve been complaining about for weeks.  Expect an op-ed about this in the future.  But I think this quote is also about Israel.

After the terrible events last week, Israel has witnessed a lot of debate, finger-pointing, self-flagellation, and every point of view has been publicized about every angle of the issues.  I don’t want to summarize all that here.  Instead, I want to bring out the positive things that I saw this week that give me hope that we can get through these difficult times together.  Each one is a hammer tap.  Each one has the potential to be the 101st blow.

Bubbles are better than blood

Some brilliant person took the initiative in the middle of the night to paint bubbles over the blood stains left in the street where the stabbing took place.  I saw the post on Facebook saying that they wanted to celebrate life with symbols of hope.  Here’s my picture taken this morning (a few days after painting).

Bubbles

Bubbles

Zionist Bedouins

Last night I went to the annual event of a Zionist organization I do work for.  One of the honorees was a Bedouin youth organization called Aharai (lit. “after me” or “follow me”) that prepares these kids for enlistment in the IDF.  There were about 40 kids who came to represent their organization.  When their organizer spoke after receiving the award, he told a story of a Holocaust survivor who came to speak to their group.  The kids gave her a bouquet of flowers and promised her that they would not let another Holocaust happen to the Jewish people.  Everyone gave them a standing ovation.

Receiving their well-deserved recognition

Receiving their well-deserved recognition

To me, this is what Zionism is all about.  Israel is a state that is built as the homeland for the Jewish people, but Israel must also embrace and protect all of its citizens, even and especially when they aren’t Jewish.  It’s not easy for the Bedouins to join the IDF.  Let’s face it.  There is prejudice in the army.  But they also have to face the rest of the Muslim community who feel it is a betrayal for them to serve in the IDF.  But they do it anyway because they want to defend their country, this country, the homeland of the Jewish people, the Jewish and democratic state.

A holiday of love turns violent

/ IlanaB / 1 Comment

Not really what I had in mind to start this blog with, but this is the hand I was dealt.  Herewith, the Friday email.

We had a very somber day on the Jewish calendar (9 of Av), so the rabbis decided to liven things up a bit with a festival on the 15th of Av (Tu B’Av). All the women dress in white – to make it difficult to determine social status – dance in the field and get chosen by a man for marriage.  Thankfully, Israel doesn’t do that anymore, but they did turn the holiday into a sort-of Israeli Valentine’s Day without all the marketing.  It’s a popular day to get married and is generally considered to be the beginning of the happy season in Israel.

The LGBTQ community decided to have the Pride Parade on Tu B’Av (Thursday). Jerusalem’s Pride Parade is pretty low-key and is mostly about support for the community and highlighting issues facing the LGBTQ community.  This year the focus was on transgender issues.  (This is not a new issue for Israel.  One of our most famous singers and winner of Eurovision is a transgender person, Dana International.)

The gathering point was across the street and since I’ve gone before, I stepped out to take a picture and sent my psychic moral support.

I’m glad I didn’t go.  Six people were stabbed during the parade by, unsurprisingly, an ultra-Orthodox Jewish man.  The police were on alert for Orthodox men, but he snuck in and started stabbing.

Now here’s where it gets weird.  The stabber (there are pictures, it’s not a question of if he did it) is the same guy that perpetrated the stabbing at the Pride Parade 10 years ago.  Let me repeat that.  It’s the SAME GUY!  He was released from jail 3 weeks ago after serving 10 years of his 12 year sentence.  Somehow, the police did not think he was a threat.

So Israel went to sleep on the holiday of love with the shedding of blood in the name of intolerance.

And then we woke up to more of the same.  Jewish extremists (not yet caught, so not sure) set 2 Palestinian houses on fire. A baby was killed and a family is in the hospital in critical condition.  It was what is called in Israel a “price tag” attack.  A price tag attack is essentially a provocative attack that says “this is the price you pay for hurting us.”

Every member of the government is issuing statements on both issues.  This is terrorism pure and simple.  I hope that our government finally starts to see that our country needs real leaders and their infighting and useless bickering about nonsense is ruining the country that their parents and grandparents dreamed of, prayed for, and built with sweat, blood, and tears.

Personally, I’m ashamed of Jews that would condone either of these actions.  Of the 10 commandments you might think “Don’t murder” is a pretty clear directive.  It doesn’t say, “Don’t murder unless . . .”  How does any person think that violence and murder are hastening the coming of the messiah?