Live life by living, not only existing

Terrorist Attack (m'cha-bail pi-gua) מחבל פיגוע

International Arts and Crafts Festival (fes-ti-val cho-tzot h'yo-tzar) פסטיבל חוצות היוצר

As most of you know, last Thursday there was a terrorist attack in the south of Israel, near Eilat. This has been followed by an exchange of fire from both Israel and Gaza. While things have calmed down somewhat, rockets continue to be shot into Israel from Gaza. 

The last time that I was in Israel, I was here during Operation Cast Lead. Just like when I was here last time, living in Jerusalem is like living in a bubble, especially when not fluent in Israel. While there is much discussion about this ongoing situation life continues to go on. In fact, many of my peers and I commented on how shocked we were that after the attacks happened, life in Jerusalem kept on going just like it did every other day. For me, my only point of reference I have for such an event like this was 9/11 which was very different on many levels. For us as Americans, having never really experienced what it is like knowing that there always the possibility of violence against us as Americans, an event such as this can really change one's perspective. One thing that I have noticed is that Israelis have unfortunately had to adopt this attitude of living life by living, and not only existing. That is to say, Israelis know that there is always the possibility of violence, however, they do not let this possibility stop them from living their lives in the way that they normally would. Sure, there might be some increased security, and people might be a little bit more precautious, but this is just the way of life here. This is how I have continued to live here. While I am certainly more cautious and more aware of my surroundings, I am not going to let the possibility of something that may or may not happen inhibit my experiences in Israel for the year.

To this extent, last week I went to an International Arts and Crafts Festival with a few of my friends last week. This was in the midst of all of the fighting in the south, but if you had been at this festival with us, you would have been able to see that it was just like any other day in Jerusalem. The way I saw this fair it was a combination of a celebration of world countries and cultures, art festival and a circus. How can all of these things exist in one, you might ask? Take a look! 

This man was walking with a group of people from the  "circus." The thing that he is holding he used to do handstands and other entertaining tricks! 

Hand decorated umbrellas from the booth for Thailand

A piece of stained-glass art that was being sold at one of the booths from Central and South America. 

One of the coolest things about this festival is that they not only have different artists from all over Israel, but they have booths representing many different countries from around the world. Some of the booths were expected, like China and Russia, but some were very unexpected, like Hungary, Macedonia and Ghana. 

We were even able to see some of the performances by people from different places around the world. They were what you would generally think of for each of these countries, but it was still really interesting to see how the people at this fair reacted to these performances.

I also hosted a Shabbat dinner this week that was quite successful, if I do say so myself. On the menu was Israeli salad and other salatim (salads), homemade vegetable bourekas with a homemade teriyaki glaze, honey mustard chicken, roasted vegetables, mashed potatoes, and of course dessert from Marzipan. It was quite an entertaining evening, and I can't wait for us to host our next Shabbat dinner! 

This upcoming week is also my break from Summer classes. We finished last week with some great performances by each of the kitot (classes) and have now gone our separate ways for break. I am spending some of this break in Jerusalem, with all that it has to offer! Today I went on the light rail for the first time, so look out for a blog post about that. I will also be going to Haifa and Caesarea for a few days with my friends Rebecca, Lenette and Elle. I am sure that I will have many great pictures to show after this week. 

Clouds, Jewish Guilt and Bourekas...oh my!

Cloud (a-nav) עָנָן
Tour (ti-yoor) תִּיּוּר
Burekas (bur-ay-kus) בּוּרֶקָס 


It has been pointed out to me that I have been slacking in my blog posts, and that I have not posted for almost two weeks. I guess I can only blame this on the fact that time flies when you are having fun. At this point, I have been in Israel for almost exactly 6 weeks, which is incredibly hard to believe. We have really gotten into the swing of our summer classes, and also experiencing Israel. One of the most exciting thing that has happened in the past two days is that I have seen my first clouds in Israel since I got here! Now usually, this is nothing to get excited about, and in the US, clouds are incredibly overrated. But in Israel, in August no less, clouds are something to be coveted and enjoyed. I woke up both today and yesterday morning and when I looked outside could not figure out why it looked so different. It finally took me staring up into the sky for a good few minutes to realize that the sky was covered in clouds. In fact, I could not see one inch of blue sky. Now, I am sure that if you ask me again in a few months, I am going to be wishing for crystal clear blue skies and the nice "warm" temperatures, but right now, I will take all of the cloud coverage that I can get! I think that one of the most exciting parts about this who experience of clouds in August is that yesterday when we went outside on our way to services, it actually rained for a few minutes. Here, rain in August is like getting snow in the winter. It is pretty rare, but does happen every once in a while.

Clouds outside of my apartment!

This past week, on August 9, the observance day of Tisha B'av (the 9th of the month of Av) was observed. This is a חג (holiday) that mourns the destruction of the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem, as well as a plethora of other incidents that are said to have occurred on the 9th day of Av which include things such as the expulsion of the Jews from Spain. It is also the only holiday that is a full fast day besides Yom Kippur. This means that it is a fast of 25 hours and not just a half day fast from sun up to sun down. Outside of Israel, and generally, outside of more religious groups of Jews, this is a holiday that is not observed very frequently. In part, the lack of knowledge of this holiday stems from the fact that it falls in late July or early August, which means that there is not regular religious school at this time. Often times, the only kids who know about this holiday in the Reform movement are ones who are attending summer camps that observe this holiday in some capacity. Another part of this holiday that makes it a struggle for the Reform movement is that it people who are observing this holiday are mourning the destruction of the first two temples and also praying for the building of a third temple and the coming of a messiah. Reform Judaism does not necessarily believe in the coming of a messiah as a person, but rather it addresses the possibility of a messianic age to come, in which people will in part be able to peacefully coexist. To this end, we had some interesting experiences for the 9th of Av. On the night of Tisha B'av, it is often customary to attend the Kotel to hear the reading of Eicha (the scroll of Lamentations, which describes the destruction occurring). However, we were given the opportunity to experience a different sort of ceremony. We went to the Emmaus-Nicropolis. Currently, there is a monestary that resides at Emmaus, but prior to the existence of this monestary, there was a church that was twice destroyed by different groups of people. Emmaus is also where Jesus appeared to two of his followers after his resurrection. We had a ceremony there with a few of the Progressive/Reform congregations from the area, as well as some of the nuns who live at the monestary. We heard the beautiful and haunting chanting of Eicha (Lamentations) as well as many songs that were sung in Hebrew, Ladino and Yiddish. On the day of Tisha B'av we were given the opportunity to attend different study sessions at Pardes. I attended a session with a man named Marc Rosenberg where we discussed, in great detail, the kina (dirge) "Going Out of Egypt, Going Out of Jerusalem." This kina was an incredibly interesting juxtaposition of the exodus from Egypt, when God is said to have led the Jews out of Egypt, and the exodus from Jerusalem, when the Jews were twice exiled from Jerusalem. As part of this we discussed how often times Jews themselves will blame themselves for the exile from Egypt, and Marc Rosenberg commented that it was the origins of Jewish Guilt. With regards to the destruction of the Second Temple, it is often said that the reason that the Jews were expelled from Jerusalem was because of שנאת חינם (baseless hatred). He then commented that the diversity of today's world is not that much different from the diversity of the world then, in terms of the different types of people that were living and fighting over Jerusalem. It is interesting to thing about this in terms of the conflict in the Middle East, and whether baseless hatred has any part to play in this ongoing conflict.

So now on to something more uplifting. This past week Rebecca and I hosted our first Shabbat dinner! We were really excited to have some of our classmates come over to share Shabbat with us. We had an amazing time with everyone here and it was a great potluck meal! Here are some pictures from our Shabbat, as well as pictorial tour of my apartment. 

A view of my bedroom from the door 

The balcony that is attached to both my bedroom and Rebecca's bedroom

A view of my bedroom and the dining room from one of the balconies

Our beautiful bathroom, complete with a star shower curtain

Our kitchen straight out of the 1950s (notice the pattern on the tile)

The living room, complete with a TV that only gets the Jordanian news (note the beautiful pattern on the couch)

The other balcony attached to the living room

Another view of our living room

The dining room complete with Shabbat guests!

Yesterday, Rebecca and I ventured into the world of bourekas making. I was inspired by one of our wonderful interns, Daniel Bar-Nahum, who made delicious chicken bourekas with leek sauce as part of our Shabbat meal there. I have never made bourekas before and have never really worked with phyllo dough before, so it was definitely an experiment, but they turned out super tasty. The chicken filling that we made was just chicken sauteed with onions and lots of tasty spices (including curry, cinnamon and tumeric) but really the filling could be made out of everything. In Israel, there are many things that they have not really figured out how to standardize, however, boureka shape is one that everybody knows: Triangles = cheese, rectangles = potato, spirals = pizza, etc.  When I told my Hebrew teacher, Zohara, yesterday that we were going to try and make bourekas she was so excited for us, and offered that if we needed any help that we should call her and she would be happy to help us over the phone. While we didn't end up calling her, I did show her pictures today and she was very impressed. I have a feeling that we are going to be making these a lot for different Shabbas meals that we will be attending in the future! Check out some pics of our delicious meal...

Our yummy chicken filling

Yes, the top one does say עברית (Hebrew) since our Hebrew teacher offered to help us. The other says R and J for our initials, although as some friends kindly pointed out, it could also stand for Reform Judaism. You can decide for yourself which you like better. 

The delicious leek sauce! 

Our beautiful finished bourekas

Our delicious Israeli meal. Thanks to Lindsey, Michael and Todd for all contributing to the meal as well!!

The Adventures of HUC

Adventure (har-pat-ka-nah) הרפתקה

It is hard to believe that I have already been here for just over 1 month. In some ways it seems like it has only been a few days since my arrival in Israel, and in other ways, it seems like I have been here forever. Throughout the past month, and specifically within the past few weeks I have had a lot of adventures, but with my class and individually. Here are a few of the adventures that I have had (in no particular order)!

1. Adventure of the Jerusalem Bird Observatory

Last week, my class and one of the other Hebrew classes got to spend the morning at the Jerusalem Bird Observatory. Having no prior knowledge of this place, I assumed that it would be something equivalent to a zoo or Butterfly World  wherein we would go into large rooms where there would be birds flying around that we could see. However, this was not at all the case. The Jerusalem Bird Observatory is a safe haven for birds from all across the Middle East, as well as other parts of the world. They have nature trails that are open 24/7 and where one can see all sorts of natural flora and fauna. It was a little bit different from the tiyul (trip) that I expected, but it was a nice break from the monotony of having class every day for almost 4 hours a day!

2. Adventures of the buying my first talit in Israel

I have every only owned one talit in my life, and that is the one that my mom made me for my bat mitzvah. I love that talit, and am sure that I will wear it plenty during my rabbinic career. However, I have been looking to begin cultivating my talit collection, as of course Rabbis always need just one more talit! I didn't necessarily expect to buy a talit so quickly upon my arrival to Israel although I did have a certain idea of the type of talit that I wanted to purchase. I have been eyeing talits made by Yair Emanuel , which has a very beautiful and specific style about it. I happened to be on Ben Yehudah street in Jerusalem with a good friend of mine and he wanted to browse in some of the Judaica shops. Being the good friend and avid shopper that I am, I of course obliged. When I saw this talit, I just couldn't resist!

3. Adventure of going to Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsua Mosque

The Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque have been on my list of places to see over the past 5 times that I have been in Israel. However, it wasn't until this week that I was actually able to go, and the day couldn't have been a more perfect day for it (with the exception of it being 100 F and having to wear clothes not so conducive to the heat- see pictures). What makes getting to the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque so difficult is that there are very limited within which tourists can go and visit this site which is the 3rd holiest in Islam. You can only go from 7:30-11:00am and must be dressed very conservatively (for women this means either long pants or a long skit and a shirt that covers below the elbows, and for men this means trousers and a t-shirt) and have to go through a separate security area to access the area. Just before going through security, there is a sign which is an official statement from the chief rabbis of Israel stating that Jews are not supposed to go and visit the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque. This is not because of the anything political, but rather because it is said that somewhere in this area is where the holy of holies used to be, a place that only the high priest could enter once a year on Yom Kippur. Since no one knows exactly where it is, the rabbis say that no one should go there, in case they accidentally enter the holy of holies. However, we decided to go anyways, knowing that this was a once in a lifetime opportunity.

The ramp to the right of the wall is the entrance ramp to Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Upon arrival to the entrance, the sight was absolutely beautiful. These sights, places that I have looked at for so long, but have no know what they looked like up close were suddenly right at my finger tips. This place, that has been fought over for centuries, was so incredibly beautiful and peaceful. While I understand the conflict behind why each group believes that they have a right to that land, for a few minutes, I forgot all about the conflict, and just marveled in the beauty of these magnificent buildings. I went with a few of my classmates, and once we reached the general area of the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque we each took some time to look around, take some pictures, and individually explore the area. I know that tourists, and especially Jewish tourists, are not allowed into Al-Aqsa Mosque and very rarely are let into the Dome of the Rock. However, as I was walking past Al-Aqsa Mosque I was lucky enough to see the door open and to grab a brief glimpse of what the inside of the mosque looked like.

A glimpse from afar of the open door of Al-Aqsa  Mosque.

The magnitude and beauty of these buildings cannot be done justice by the pictures below, but here is a general idea of what I saw while I was there.

And one more just for good measure...