Wildlife update

Thursday evening, walking home from a my Children's Literature class at Machon Schechter, I saw a porcupine! I was walking down the steep hill that leads between some scrubby areas when I heard a rustling in the bushes. When I looked, I saw that one of the bushes was walking! I waited and sure enough, a very large porcupine ambled its way across the road about fifteen feet away from me.

I had recently been thinking about how much I missed seeing skunks in my neighborhood in Boston, and this critter had a similar air about it that said: my apparent cluelessness is simply a measure of my confidence that you, human, have no real interest in getting any closer to me. It was gigantic though! Maybe two and a half feet long!

A woman was walking her dog nearby and after the porcupine was gone I asked her, "What is that called?" and she told me the name in Hebrew: דרבן/Dorban. Then she asked what it was called in English (so much for the "perfect accent" people claim I have).

A little bit of internet research revealed that this was an Indian Crested Porcupine and that they are pretty common here. They are the largest rodent on the Asian continent and can grow up to 3 feet long and weigh up to 35 pounds. The joke/question about how porcupines mate is answered in interesting detail here, but --with apologies to most of our readers-- the entry is in Hebrew only. One tidbit: porcupines are usually monogamous.

Fear -- and awe -- with Women of the Wall

Monday morning I woke up at 5:30am and walked to meet my friend and classmate Emma. Together we walked to the Old City, up the rocky path to the Zion Gate and down to the Western Wall. It's Rosh Hodesh, the new moon marking the beginning of the Hebrew month of Shevat. Every Rosh Hodesh, the Women of the Wall meet to pray together.

A Rosh Hodesh service would typically include morning psalms and prayers, the Hallel service (a set of celebratory psalms used on new moons and festivals), and reading from the Torah. For women praying at the Western Wall, this last part is actually illegal under Israeli law.

It turns out that wearing my tallit was also illegal. I didn't know that it was illegal, but I did know that it felt scary. There were nine of us there, huddled in the back of the women's side of the space in front of the Kotel. I wasn't sure what to expect of this whole experience, so I found myself watching the other women closely for social cues. Emma took out her tallis so I took out mine. And then it hit me: the other women had tallitot that could easily have passed for a scarf or shawl that happened to have fringes on its corners; my tallis is a large rainbow tallis designed by Zalman Schachter-Shalomi. It more or less shouts: "Hello, everybody, I'm wearing a tallis!!!"
I felt fear and hesitation and then I realized that this fear and hesitation is one I have been walking around with since I got off the plane last summer: fear of the scrutiny of my Haredi/ultra-Orthodox brothers and sisters. And, in this context, not only fear of their disapproval, but fear of their violent attack.

This garment that I wear as a reminder of the mitzvot, that I wear to wrap myself in Divine light and love, was now turned into a marker that I could be attacked for wearing. Suddenly not wearing it did not feel like an option. I wrapped myself up and took a moment to let the space underneath its folds be the only space, to let this place itself --regarded as Jews by holy and yet governed by laws which strike me as deeply unholy, as simply wrong-- to let this place itself disappear. To remember that, more that I am subject to Haredi scrutiny, I am also subject to ultimate scrutiny. I chose which master to serve, I tried to let fear melt into awe. And then we prayed.

No one threw anything at us or attacked us physically (though there have certainly been attacks in WoW's 20 year history). Mostly the worst we were subject to was dirty looks. I was reminded of the college course I took on deviance. Jim Monsonis, a favorite professor of mine, had us do a project where we were instructed to "do something mildly deviant and write about it."

When it was time for the Torah reading, we trucked all the way over to Robinson's Arch, a site further south on the wall where men and women can pray together, where women can form a minyan, a site which is freed from the clutches of state-backed ultra-Orthodox control. When I asked why we were moving, one of the women said simply, "Because if we tried to read Torah here, we would be lynched."

I have too many mixed emotions and thoughts to describe here and now but I am very glad that I went.

Meanwhile, back in the States . . .

. . . I went for a (cold!) bike ride, today! (Training for Hazon Spring Israel ride.)

Composting Kavod

This community compost bin is in a little park down the street from my house and directly on my way to Machon Schechter. When Alan found out about it, he was somewhat incredulous that I wasn't taking my compostables there. Turns out that a partner's incredulity can sometimes be a decent motivating tool: I have been bringing my scraps and peels and whatnot to the bin ever since. This morning I combined a trip to the compost bin with my stop at the cafe for challah and coffee (my favorite challah here comes from the bakery/coffeeshop around the corner from me where I am something of a regular).

As I walked into the little park, I noticed an older gentleman seemingly hanging around by the compost bin. He was all bundled up and looked as if he might be...loitering. I realized that I was feeling somewhat unsafe. While street crime, in the sense of muggings and the like, is all but unheard of in Jerusalem, verbal sexual harrassment is much much more common than anywhere else I've ever lived. I haven't encountered anything truly horrendous; it's more of a constant quiet buzz of comments which distracts me from going about my business.

Because of this, I was none too pleased about moving toward the compost bin with my little plastic bag, but I didn't want to throw it in the regular trash or bring its steamy organic contents into the coffee shop. So, I kept going toward the bin and when I passed the bundled-up man he nodded and said slowly, "כל הכבוד/kol ha'kavod" (Literally "all the honor," this phrase is used to mean "Good job" or "Good for you!").

It was deeply refreshing!

On what you can build, not what you destroy

"Know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy." These are the words that (now) President Barack Obama uttered today in a part of his inaugural speech that addressed the Muslim world and critics of the West.

I don't know if Obama had the people of Gaza in mind when he spoke these words, but they certainly came to my mind as I listened to him. The people of America are not the only people who stand at a crossroads. As Israeli troops withdraw from Gaza and its residents start the task of sorting through the rubble, the people of Gaza stand at a crossroads. Which way do they want to go? Do they want to build? Do they want to focus their energies on creating the institutions -- and the economy -- that a successful nation needs? Or do they want to remain focused on destruction and hate? Do they want to continue devoting their energies to following Hamas' professed goal of the destruction of the State of Israel? Do they want to keep on supporting people who use courtyards and alleys right beside their homes and mosques to fire deadly missiles at Israeli civilians? Or are they ready to throw off Hamas' rule (or, alternatively, force Hamas to change its program -- to focus its energies on building Gaza instead of destroying Israel).

______________

I found tears in my eyes throughout Obama's speech and in the moments I saw his face on the television screen beforehand. The tears came from many places, but one was of fear. I looked at Obama's head -- hatless despite the cold, as JFK was hatless at his inauguration -- and thought of what a fragile thing the human body is. So much hope put in that person. And it could all be taken away with a single bullet. I was afraid for Obama and for us. I thought of Martin and Bobby. . . . and of the Russian civil rights lawyer killed just, yesterday. I thought of the courage it takes to work for freedom and change in the face of the possibility of violence. I thought of the courage it takes to choose life, to choose to build, instead of destroy.

It is this courage that I see when I think of the people and nation of Israel; they are very much on my mind these days, especially when I have a loved one there who I left behind just a couple of weeks ago. It pains me so much to know that the impression many have of the State of Israel now -- an impression left by the television images of destruction in Gaza -- is of a state dedicated to destruction. I wish people could see the miracle that is the building of what is now a modern state with an advanced, high-tech economy from what was largely a poor, agricultural nation not so long ago. A building that has been accomplished against so many odds. A building that has happened despite the hate of so many for the Jews and for the state they formed. A building that happened despite so many acts of violence against it. This is a people that long ago chose building over destruction and that would gladly keep its tanks and planes in their sheds if only they could.

______________

After Obama spoke, Elizabeth Alexander delivered a poem that near its end featured a repetition of the word "love" again and again. And then the 87-year old Rev. Joseph Lowery delivered his benediction. His words will probably be most well-remembered for the rhyming he used at the end in depicting a vision of a world where race is no longer an obstacle. But I was most touched a few sentences earlier when he quoted the vision of Isaiah that "nation would not lift sword against nation" and modernized Isaiah's "they shall beat their swords into plowshares" to add a hope that tanks would be made into tractors.

Then he quoted one of Martin Luthur King's most favorite biblical verses (Amos 5:24) -- "let justice roll down like waters And righteousness like an ever-flowing stream."

May it indeed be the Holy One's will.

[X-posted to abayye]

Not to worry

I just met my neighbor for the first time. We had two conversations in the space of five minutes. The first was prompted when we both walked out of our apartments with cell phones in hand trying to figure out why there were warning/air raid sirens going off.

When I heard the sirens I thought, "OK, let me look outside and see what the locals are doing." So, I poked my head out the window and then realized that was useless and potentially stupid. As I opened my apartment door to see if anyone was heading down to the מקלט/miklat/bomb shelter, I met a neighbor I had never seen before. She had clearly just thrown her coat on over her house clothes; she had two phones and her wallet. She asked me if I knew what was happening and I asked her the same and my immediate thought was, "I don't remember how to say, 'siren!!!'" But we communicated. The sirens stopped while we were wondering what to do. She headed back to her apartment and said, "Good, I hope I don't see you again in a little bit." I agreed but asked that if she figured something out, to please tell me.

I came inside, looked up "siren" and found the local radio news online. They said that sirens had been heard in many neighborhoods in Jerusalem (the word they used for "siren" was not any of the five options the dictionary had given me) and that they did not yet know what was happening but they would tell us as soon as they knew. Then, after the rest of the news (the dead in Gaza, rockets in Ashkelon, and more rockets from Lebanon) they said that we should all relax in Jerusalem and return to our routine because it was just a תקלה/takala/a mishap, a fault, a hitch in the system's giddy-up, nothing was going wrong in Jeruaslem.

And then my nieghbor knocked on my door to tell me the same news. Not to worry.

Empty Classroom

I went to my "Streams in Modern Judaism" class today to find that there was only one other student there. This is one of my two classes that I take with Israeli grad students and usually there are six of us in the class. Where was everybody?
-Two apparently have long commutes which may be complicated by military stuff going on (this was unclear to me; are they from the South such that their kids are not in school because of threat of Hamas rocket fire? Is traffic weird in other parts of the country? I couldn't quite understand what was being said about them).
-One has been putting together packages to deliver to IDF soldiers and was busy with that.
-One is a reservist who has been called up.

So that left just me and J. J's son is serving in Gaza and she said she hasn't been able to get anything done because she just sits by the phone and watches the TV all the time.
Our teacher was saying that it was good that we were there because too many people were reacting to the war by being glued to their televisions and that, as much as possible it would be good for us to try to go about our daily lives normally.

While we were in the middle of reading Ismar Schorsch's "The Sacred Cluster: The Core Values of Conservative Judaism", J's phone rang and she ran out of the room. The text was discussing the Conservative view that peoplehood and religion have never been separate for Jews and --thinking that J had just gotten some update about her son-- our teacher said sadly, "Another aspect of peoplehood in action."

It turned out that at the same time that her son is in Gaza, her elderly mother's health is failing. J's predicament was very poignant for me: this odd combination of "normal" sadness and difficulty layered on top of wartime concerns. That "life goes on" for those of us (relatively) far from the front means that life goes on in all its complexities and all its challenges. This call that J got was telling her that her mother was not doing well and that she needed to come be with her right away. I found myself feeling relieved that it was her mother who was dying and not her son and then feeling that this relief was somehow absurd.

I was the only student left in class; we went back to discussing The Sacred Cluster.

The real Israel

Israel has certainly been much in the news, lately, which has led many people to think again about what Israel means to them and what the still-young nation's nature truly is.

I thought about this on Sunday as I looked out on the Jerusalem view above. At that moment, I felt filled with a love for Israel and for Jerusalem. It's a challenge for me to understand what this love is really all about. After all, this view is not one of Jerusalem's famous ones. It does not have the Old City, the Western Wall or the Mount of Olives in it. And, yet this fairly ordinary view of west Jerusalem -- from a park hillside not far from the Israel Museum and which I have walked across many times on my daily business -- speaks to me deeply.

My thoughts brought me to the Pesach seder meal – our yearly “Feast of Freedom”. We conclude with the words, “לשנה הבאה ביושלים/l-shanah haBa b-yerushalayim” -- next year in Jerusalem. Since the time – since the formation of the State of Israel in 1948 – that Jews in large numbers have come to be able to live in Jerusalem, some have changed those words slightly -- “לשנה הבאה ביושלים הבנויה/l-shanah haBa b-yerushalayim haBenuyah” -- next year in the [re]constructed Jerusalem.

It never leaves my thoughts when I'm in Israel that the very existence of this State – and the very fact that I, a Jewish person, am able to get on a plane and freely go there to visit – is a miracle. It is a miracle built on the incredible sweat, spirit and courage of the Israeli people over the decades of the 20^th and now the 21^st century.

Yesterday, I spent much of the day going through various airport security stations on my way back to the United States via London Heathrow. All of us who have gotten on an airplane since September 11, 2001 have gotten used to these kind of intense security procedures, procedures that are based on the fact that there are people out there who would just like to murder us, just because of who we are. Just to make a political point.

But, when we leave the airport here in the States, we leave all that behind – including that strange feeling that comes with the realization that some people want us dead. In Israel, however, that sense never leaves. For all the decades of its existence – and even for the Jews who lived in that land well before the State was formed – it has lived like the inside of an airline terminal. When school kids go out on trips, it is never without someone with a gun. To enter a shopping mall – or even to go into many cafes – you must pass a security checkpoint and have your bag examined.

To build and maintain a country like Israel takes incredible spirit, vigilance and courage. That is what I see when I look across that park valley at the hills of the neighborhoods beyond – I see the built Jerusalem. I see the evidence of all the blood, toil and sweat that the Israeli people have devoted to the project we call the State of Israel. And it is that which I feel the most love for and awe of – much more than for any of the great holy sites the city is famous for.

With a war in Gaza and with Hamas rockets falling daily on the cities of Israel, now is a particularly poignant time to reflect on the sacrifices it takes to maintain this State. I was very sad to have to leave Israel at such a time of crisis. As small a thing as it is compared to the sacrifices that Israel's soldiers and their families are making, just being there as a tourist or student is still an important way of showing support – of showing a willingness to join in the dangers and struggles that come from being a people that some would just like to murder, whether it be with rockets fired at random places in residential neighborhoods or with suicide bombers getting on a random rush hour bus. I will miss Israel, and especially Minna, who I left behind there to continue her studies in that Holy city.

___________________________

I had ridden on Sunday by bicycle up to that hillside to meet Minna who was finishing up a class at Machon Schechter near the hilltop. We walked down a bit into the park and took pictures of each other on bicycles for our Hazon ride web page. This coming Spring Minna and I will be showing our support for Israel by participating in a charity ride to raise money for two organizations particularly dedicated to the task of maintaining Israel's threatened environment. You can help us by donating on my Hazon Irsrael ride page here! (http://arava.kintera.org/2009springride/abayye)

In the above pic, you can see a bit of an olive tree in the foreground on a right – olive groves are one of the most famous and beautiful parts of the Israeli landscape and it's a bit of a miracle to find them so close to the “built” Jerusalem of Wolfson Towers in the background. . . . . In addition to the people, what I love about Jerusalem and its surroundings is just the hills, so many of which have olive trees growing on terraces built into the hillsides. The site of those hills always takes my breath away.

Here is Minna also riding amid the olive trees with the “built” Jerusalem in the background.

Here she is again:


Minna's Hazon Israel ride donation page is here. (http://arava.kintera.org/2009springride/minna)

And here's our _team_ page.

[X-posted to abayye]

Tired

I went to class today and when my teacher asked how I was I said that I was tired. I didn't explain that I got up early this morning to see Alan off to the airport or that doing so left me not only sleep-deprived, but sad to see him go. My teacher said, tiredly, "Well, you're not the only one." And then the maintenance man who was removing a piece of audiovisual equipment from the classroom chimed in: "Everyone is exhausted from hearing about what is happening with our forces."
We nodded in agreement (though it was unclear what the content of this consensus was).
We opened our notebooks and started class.

Quiet

Quiet. That's what Ehud Barak says is the goal of Israel's current operations in Gaza -- "quiet for the south." By quiet, he says he means no more Hamas rockets falling on Israeli citizens within range of Gaza. No more sirens going off, giving people "45 golden seconds" to stop wherever they are -- even driving their cars -- and try to find cover, something a woman in Ashdod wasn't quite able to do the other day.

Here in Jerusalem, where I unfortunately will only be for a few more days before I have to return to the States, there is a strange sense of quiet. I feel confident that we are out of the range of Hamas' rockets for now. But, it has been raised in my conscious for the first time that I am staying in an apartment that does not have a "safe room". I do not have a gas mask or anything else I might need if Jerusalem suddenly came under a serious attack from the skies.

And, I well know that the quiet can end in many other says. I was here at another time of "quiet" -- in the summer of 2000 when there was real hope that, with Bill Clinton's help, a real peace agreement might be forged and all this death and violence could come to an end. But, at that time, the Palestinians, then led by Arafat (who has since passed from the scene), chose another course and returned to a violent path to seek their goals. Bus and other suicide bombings fell upon Israel over the rest of the year I was here and beyond. Everyone here knows that such attacks could happen, again.

Israel is gambling that it can continue to prevent such attacks with such measures as the controversial security barrier that prevents people from the West Bank -- hopefully, including suicide bombers -- from freely entering into Israel. The stated goal of this current operation is to, as I said above, prevent rocket attacks from Gaza. The possibility of rocket attacks was very much on my mind a few days before the operation began when Minna and I were driving up the relatively new Highway 6, a toll road that makes it possible to head from Jerusalem to the north of Israel without having to either pass through the Jordan Valley (in the West Bank) or through the traffic of Tel-Aviv. I noticed how close the road runs to the West Bank and, thus, how easy it would be for a tiny cell of terrorists to shut down the road entirely with a few homemade mortars. I know that it is not force that is preventing that from happening. Rather, it is a political solution -- the currently relatively good relations with the Palestinian Authority (which controls the West Bank, while the more radical and Islam-focused Hamas controls Gaza).

I think this is what this current operation has to really be about -- not stopping Hamas from firing rockets, which is something that is pretty much impossible to do with force, but with making a political statement to the Palestinian people. A statement like, you have a choice. You can either live in peace beside us and have a chance to form a real state that can join the community of nations and start to build a stable economy, like the Palestinian Authority is starting to do in the West Bank. Or, you can continue to live in a continuous state of mutual violence next to us. If you choose the second option, note that Hamas cannot even protect itself, not to mention you, from the Israeli Defense Forces. Look how pathetic and hopeless are their attempts to respond militarily with a few rockets. Look how our planes took them by surprise and killed so many of their leaders in the initial attack last Saturday morning. How is it in your best interests to choose to be led by such people?

Of course, Hamas is gambling that the Palestinian people will hear the opposite political message. They are hoping that -- instead of the people in Gaza looking to the West Bank and deciding it is better there -- that the people in the West Bank (and East Jerusalem) will look to Gaza and let their anger and outrage motivate them to choose Gaza's current path, the path of Hamas. If that happens, few places in Israel will have the safe feeling of quiet I enjoy now.

In order to reject Hamas' path, the Palestinian people will ultimately have to accept something that they have not been able to accept for decades before the State of Israel even came to be in 1948 -- they will have to accept that Jews have a right to live in this land and that the State of Israel has a right to exist. That will indeed involve much sacrifice for them.

But it is the only path to quiet.

[x-posted to abayye]