Hello readers and Chag Pesach Sameach (Happy Passover) from Israel! I realize it’s been over a month since my last post, and I apologize. I also realize I promised to work on some posts about Poland, but something I learned in Rwanda has persuaded me otherwise. While I was in Africa, I learned that there are several ways to cope with tragedy, and these options fall into what seem like two major categories: the past and the future. Some people deal with emotional and tragic loss by reflecting on the past, on what once was, but I don’t find that helpful. The people of Rwanda taught me to look forward, to think about the future and all the possibilities that lie ahead. So, for this reason, and many others, I am choosing to focus on all the wonderful experiences I have had since I’ve returned to Israel. Since much has happened, here are my top ten updates from Jerusalem:
1. About three weeks ago, I went on a tiyul (trip) with my Comparative Religions class to the Belz quarter of Jerusalem. Belz was originally a very orthodox community in the Ukraine; it existed there for hundreds of years. However, with World War II came the end of Belz; of the entire community, which was estimated in the thousands, only the Belz rabbi and his brother survived the Holocaust. They arrived in Israel in 1945 and began rebuilding the Belz synagogue, the epicenter of Belz life. Today, the Belz synagogue stands at 14 stories, half of which are underground, and cost $70 million to construct.
The synagogue includes study halls for up to 100 people (men), a tea and coffee room that seats 7,000, a plaza with bleachers to seat 10,000, a mikvah with 25,000 towels and hundreds of showers, and seats in the main sanctuary that sell for up to $1 million. The main sanctuary is for men only; the seats in the main sanctuary must be purchased (seats in the middle and toward the back cost about $5,000). Some seats can be “double purchased,” which means that the man who first purchased the seat is not a Jerusalem resident or doesn’t come to services weekly (there are many members of the Belz community in America and Europe, so they buy seats and only come to the synagogue for the High Holidays and maybe Pesach). These seats can be purchased for a cheaper price by someone who frequents the synagogue, but during the holidays, when the primary owner is attending services, the second owner cannot have the seat. Above the main sanctuary is the women’s area which seats over a thousand women (the main sanctuary seats several thousand men), and above the women’s area is another partition for yeshiva boys and children. With thousands of people in the synagogue at a time, how does anyone hear the rabbi? To maintain quiet, the service leader (the gabbi), uses the “clapper.” Now, this clapper is about as long as I am (five feet), and looks like a giant wooden soup spoon. As a prayer ends, the gabbi raises the clapper and beats it against a special pillow that causes the sound to resonate throughout the synagogue. The gabbi continues to hit the clapper against the pillow until there is silence.
Today, the Belz community numbers about 100,000 followers worldwide; families have many children (a family of a mother, father and eight children is considered small). People travel from all over the world to meet the Belz rabbi and seek his advice; he has two secretaries and a letter-answering service to keep up with responding to everyone who contacts him. To learn more about Belz and the Belz Great Synagogue, visit: http://www.gojerusalem.com/discover/item_10306/The-Belz-Great-Synagogue.
2. The Mahane Yehuda market is slowly becoming my favorite place in Jerusalem. Not far from the city center, the market (shuk), is always bustling with people; don’t even try to walk through there on a Thursday afternoon or Friday morning before Shabbat, you’ll probably get smacked in the head with a crate of challahs or fish being thrown between stalls. Not only is all the produce very cheap and fresh, there’s always something new to find that seems hidden. Last week, I found a handmade pasta stand, which also sells homemade cheeses and sauces. Naturally, I had to buy some (pre-Passover indulgence). There are also some great restaurants and food stands scattered throughout the mess of fruit, vegetable and meat stands – try falafel in a bag (ask for “rak falafel” – only falafel, no pita – in a paper bag) and for four shekels, it’s a great snack, or go to Fish n’ Chips, a very well-hidden takeout place that features ingredients found in the shuk for maximum freshness. It’s fun to walk around, take a taste of whatever is being pushed in your face, and try not to get stepped on – making it out of the shuk unharmed can be a major feat.
3. I am lucky enough to volunteer at probably one the most amazing places in Jerusalem. I work at Aleh, which is a hospital, school and residence for Israeli children with very serious mental and physical disabilities. None of the residents at Aleh are able to walk (they are all in wheelchairs) and very few can communicate at all (none can speak, but a few can make small noises or motions). I work in the Bogrot classroom, the oldest girls at Aleh. These girls – there are seven of them – have been at Aleh the longest and are now in their late twenties or nearly thirty. I arrive in the mornings for breakfast, which is one of my favorite times in the day. I’m learning (slowly) who can eat what – some of the girls can eat mashed up food, some can only have liquid, and a few are on feeding tubes. Every morning, I feed Naama. Naama loves breakfast – she sees me come in with a tray of yogurt, mashed up Israeli salad and cottage cheese and her eyes light up. I sit in front of her chair, fill the spoon and show it to her before bringing it up to her mouth – she likes to see what she’s eating. I know it’s good when she begins to rock back and forth in her chair (I usually have to lock the wheels to ensure her breakfast doesn’t end up in my lap when the “ta’im meod” – very tasty – dance begins), and she leans her head toward me. After breakfast, we sing songs, do art projects and watch movies. It’s impossible to know how much they understand, but I like to think they know I’m there, and that I love the time I spend with all of them. To learn more about Aleh in Israel, visit: http://www.aleh.org/.
4. Last week, my Comparative Religions class went to the Dome of the Rock. Prior to this trip, I hadn’t realized it was open to the public, but apparently, a few years ago, visitors were allowed up to what once was the Temple Mount. However, it is only open to the public one hour a day, and that hour changes without notice (for example, the day we were there, we were supposed to go up at 12:30, but we were then told it wouldn’t open until 1:30). In any event, the Dome of the Rock itself covers a rock which bears significance to both Jews and Muslims. Jews believe that it was from this rock that God created the Earth, and Muslims believe that Muhammad ascended to heaven from this rock at this very location. Until destruction by the Romans in 70 CE, what is now the Dome of the Rock was the Temple Mount; in the far right corner of the Dome compound is what Jews believe was the Holy of Holies. As Jews, we don’t walk on that part of the plaza (in the time of the Temple, only the Cohen Gadol – the High Priest – could enter the Holy of Holies). A common misconception is that the Dome of the Rock is a mosque. Across from the Dome is the Al-Aqsa mosque, the Dome itself is not a place of prayer. In the early 1990s, the Jordanian government undertook the project of recovering the Dome in gold, which cost approximately $8 million. Today, the Dome of the Rock is an area under Muslim control; this area has been the cause of much and ongoing conflict.
After visiting the Dome and Al-Aqsa (we aren’t allowed inside, only on the plaza and surrounding outer areas), we met with Professor Dajani, a former member of Lebanese Fatah until 1975. In the late 70s, Dajani left Lebanon and went to Europe, and then America, where he earned two PhDs and now teaches at a university in Jerusalem. He returned to Israel in the early 90s when his father was sick with cancer and was being treated in an Israeli hospital. Dajani was convinced that the Israeli doctors wouldn’t treat his father the same as they would an Israeli patient, but he was wrong; the doctors did everything they could for his father. Years later, his mother became very sick with asthma and needed emergency medical attention. When Magan David Adom arrived, Dajani was once again skeptical, but the Israeli medical team caring for her treated her and Dajani’s family with respect and kindness; they even brought her to a special army medical center for treatment. Although his mother didn’t survive, Dajani remains thankful to Israel for helping his ill parents. Today, he is the leader of a moderate peace organization and believes in the ongoing peace process between Israelis and Palestinians. To learn more about Dajani’s efforts for peace, visit: http://www.bigdreamsmallhope.com/.
5. Number five is especially important. On Thursday, April 7, Young Judaea and FZY Year Course participated in a five-minute freeze at the Ben Yehuda pedestrian mall in Jerusalem to honor the kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit. Gilad has been imprisoned by Hamas for nearly five years; we froze for one minute for every year that he’s been missing, for a total of five minutes. Wearing our official YC shirts, we took to Ben Yehuda Street, and after receiving a mass text message, froze for five minutes, in the middle of foot traffic, until receiving the “unfreeze” text. To see the video made that day, go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSNHGmFlnCY. Gilad Shalit Lives!
6. I realize I’m jumping horribly out of order, but I must mention my family’s visit to Israel! At the end of March, my parents, brother and Bubbie and Oggy came to Jerusalem to visit me. We went to the shuk, Aleh, the Old City, and Tel Aviv for Shabbat. It was great to see all of them, and I can’t believe the next time we’re all together will be in June when I’m in New Jersey! Hugs and kisses to the Wiser, Stern and Estin families – miss you all!
7. On Tuesday, my Comparative Religions class (it’s a tiyul-based class, so every week, we travel to another part of Jerusalem and the surrounding area) went to Abu Ghosh, a Muslim village about twenty minutes from Jerusalem, and home to the best hummus in Israel. Across from Abu Ghosh is the village of Ein Rafa, where we met the Imam (the leader of the mosque, the Muslim equivalent to a rabbi) and a woman named Yasmin. Yasmin is originally from England and first came to Israel while studying landscape architecture in college; she worked at the Biblical gardens where she met her husband, a Muslim man living in Ein Rafa. Years later, she returned to Israel and converted to Islam, learned Hebrew and Arabic and changed her name from Jessica to Yasmin (her husband wanted her to have an Arab-sounding name so the small Ein Rafa community wouldn’t exclude her as an outsider). She is now a practicing Muslim and has three children. It was interesting to meet her, hear her story and listen to her views on Israel (Abu Ghosh and Ein Rafa remain at peace with the Israeli government).
8. It’s important to have friends in high places, I’m learning. I am now on a first-name basis with the laundry guys down the hill from my apartment – I’m one of their best customers – the people who run the bagel place, Bagel Bites, a few blocks from Ulpan (they also know my order, which is equally frightening), and a few of the vendors at the shuk (the cheese guy, an older man and his very intimidating wife who own a storefront where I get canned tomatoes, olive oil, etc., and of course, a butcher who knows I always order two kilos of chicken). It’s these small relationships that make a place feel like home – that people know me and I know them, and even for a short while, we were a minute part of one another’s lives. This is what makes me feel like I know a place, and what makes me miss it once I’m gone.
9. Roi has been asking me to teach him how to cook. So, in the spirit of Pesach, I asked my mom to send me the recipe for my Aunt Muriel’s famous kosher for Passover mandel bread. Roi and I went to the supermarket (taking your boyfriend to the supermarket in Israel two days before Passover is a notoriously bad idea), bought the necessary baking ingredients (we thought) and began our project. It wasn’t until we had mixed everything together that I realized something wasn’t right; the dough didn’t look as smooth or cake-like as it usually does. So, due to baking emergency, I called my mom and asked her what could have gone wrong. In our haste (and stupidity), Roi and I had used matzah meal instead of matzah cake meal, which is apparently much finer than regular matzah meal and is meant for baking. Well, we were stuck with lumpy mandel bread dough, and since we couldn’t exactly start over, we mixed in the chocolate chips and hoped for the best. Forty-five minutes later, we took them out of the oven, let them cool and tasted our creation. It was delicious! Conclusion? Even in the event of lumpy dough, cook the mandel bread anyway. With enough butter and chocolate, what could actually be so terrible?
10. It’s been an unbelievable month in Jerusalem, and now in Tel Aviv for the seder (there’s only one in Israel), and tomorrow, Eilat for vacation! It’s crazy for me to think that a year ago at this time, I was deferring from UPenn and committing to this life-changing adventure, with some hesitation. Now, the weather is getting warm again – it feels like September in Bat Yam (only with fewer cats) – and I can’t believe this journey has happened and will, in six weeks, come to an end. I’ve learned that some of the best, most memorable things can’t always be planned, but just must unfold by themselves. I’ve never been good at letting life surprise me, but I think I’ve learned, to some degree, to let life happen… and to worry about the lumpy dough only after the food processor can’t fix it.
Thanks for reading, as always. All my love,
Elana
No comments:
Post a Comment