2 February 2006
Millburn, New Jersey
For our last few days in Israel we crammed in several good, expensive meals that my cardiologists would definitely not approve of (and then probably go eat there themselves hoping no patients walked in the door). We started with a train ride to Jerusalem, twisting through narrow valleys of farms and olive groves that can’t be seen from the highways, to spend the day at the Israel Museum. We went for the art (Chagalls and Magrittes that you don’t see in New York or Paris) and not the archeology, though a walk through the Shrine of the Book is mandatory. The real reason for another swing through Jerusalem is Liz can’t go home without having the sweetbreads at Hess, the Sausage King of Germany, Switzerland and, now, Israel. We gorged ourselves on veal (sausage and chops), goose breast and the sweetbreads. Mr. Hess took the good wine glasses out of the cupboard (the restaurant is decorated to give the atmosphere of a farm house/wine cellar for our Tishbi Cabernet (try the 2002 or the 200 if you can get it – Metrowest suspects can get Tishbi at Wine Library but you’ll have to wait for next week’s shipment as I got the last two bottles of the Cab).
Friday night we had the DiCastros over for Shabbos dinner. Keren’s quiet younger brother Daniel joined us. He’s the sort of teenager who doesn’t seem to speak or eat. It turns out he does both (if you only count appetizers and dessert) and his English is much better than he lets on. One thing I notice about the meal is that we are managing to have a long dinner conversation without having Keren constantly translating. Liz’ Hebrew has reached the point where she can communicate pretty well, especially if we are talking about cooking. At the same time Nurit, the biological mother of Keren, is more willing to use her English than she was when we first met last March. I even manage to get in 6 or 8 words, which is about the extent of my usable vocabulary. Give us a few more months of going to Ulpan and dealing with taxi drivers and we may be functional in a second language.
On Monday, 30 January, we go on our “farewell tour.” Remember the band, Cream? Their farewell tour lasted about 3 or 4 years and would still be going on but for the fact that the drummer overdosed on amphetamines. Well, our last full day in Tel Aviv was something like that, only without the amphetamines. We managed lunch with Marcia and David (dropping off a few items for them to hold onto for Becky – including the laptop which will live out the rest of its binomial life in Israel) and then headed out for Beit Noar Kadima.
Beit Noar’s staff and students put together a good-bye party for us. We were thanked by a number of children who had made thank you cards. Now I have to keep studying Hebrew just so I can read them. Those who wanted to got up and read them to the entire group. It was a bit like having the Lollipop Guild from Munchkin Land honor us for killing the wicked witch. We are definitely going back next year. It didn’t take much for Yael, the center’s director, to get me to do a couple of songs with the kids, including a reprise by my talent show group (next time, Jeff, my Gibson gets to go to Israel). You don’t get this kind of satisfaction, or learn as much, on the packaged tours.
Then its one last Ulpan class with good wishes coming in 12 or so languages. After class we go have what may be the ultimate in comfort food, Hungarian blintzes. The restaurant is small and half the place is taken up by a post-wedding party gathered to sing and recite the Sheva Brachot. The blintzes were the size of large manicottis and stuffed with potatoes, cabbage, cheeses, onions, mushrooms and lots of paprika (so you’ll know its Hungarian). Dessert includes a blintz stuffed with chocolate mousse and drowning in whipped cream (I told you my cardiologists would not be happy but I’m going with a smile). More wine and we stumble back to the apartment to start packing.
Leaving the country began as a depressing affair. Yossi, our Persian cab driver, got us to the airport without incident. We got past the first security officer, the pleasant young woman who engages you in a pleasant conversation. She finds out about your trip and whom you know (I give up my cousins in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Yagur) and where you stayed and probably has a decent-sized dossier in the making before she decides you are harmless and lets you through. As this is my third (Liz’ fourth) trip to Israel, and this was the longest by far, the conversation with the nice security woman went on far longer than previous encounters of this kind. But finally she concludes that I really am a harmless, middle-aged tourist from New Jersey (who has packed his own bags and not taken anything from anyone) and we get to the x-ray machine. And then it happens.
I have a history of almost getting arrested. Its not that I live such a moral life, it's just that I’m not very good at criminal enterprise (I once failed to get arrested at a demonstration where the whole idea was to get arrested). From time to time, however, my wife or one of my friends will manage to put me right in the path of law enforcement. Like the time Liz got me stopped at the Canadian border for having peaches and then made me eat a dozen peaches while sitting at the US customs station at the border between Montana and Canada. Or the time Burt Solomon, the most honest, law-abiding, stickler for following the rules no matter the consequences, an attorney of the highest integrity and a pillar of our community, came within a hair’s breadth of getting us both arrested for grand theft auto. This time I get stopped by Israeli airport security for carrying – strawberry jam.
Liz had two jars of the stuff in one of her bags. They will either be a present or, more likely, get spread on the muffins when Mark Chodrow comes over to shmooze or push wood around a chessboard. But in Ben Gurion Airport two jars of strawberry jam must look mighty suspicious on an x-ray. The third security person of the evening is still polite but not quite as laid back as the first two. He brings up the x-ray picture on his monitor and tells Liz to open the bag. He carefully pokes around and finds, the package. He asks Liz to open the package. This takes longer than you would like because the jars have been wrapped in lots of paper in the hope that the baggage handlers won’t spread the jam before its time.
Apparently two jars of jam look sinister on an x-ray and lead to the following conversation:
Security: What are these?
Liz: Strawberry jam.
Security: How did you get these?
Liz: I bought them.
Security: Where did you buy them?
Liz: At Supersol
Security: Where?
Liz: In Tel Aviv?
Security: What was the purpose of the purchase?
Liz: To have something to go with the muffins when my husband tries to play chess.
Security: OK, you may go.
I may have embellished the last couple of quotes but you get the idea. Not long after, I tell more security people that I can’t go through the metal detector because of my pace maker/defibrillator. They tell me to stand aside and ask for my card (us wired up folks carry cards that describe what we are wired with and when we got so lucky). A large gentleman walks over, looks at the card and, as I brace to be frisked which is what always happens at US airports (air travel since 9/11 has, for me, become a more intimate experience), he hands me my card and says, “Have a nice trip.” They spent far more time on Liz and the jam. Yes, the Israeli security apparatus has decided that I am completely harmless. The former SDS member/union organizer part of me is actually disappointed. The rest of me just wants to have a nap and eat the jam.
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Monday, February 6, 2006
Disengagement - Part 2 - Amona and the Altalena
2 February 2006
Millburn, New Jersey
Part 1 would have been the end of the blogs for this year but I can’t resist one last political ramble. Part of our last full day in Tel Aviv was spent at the Etzel Museum. This museum serves to educate and be a memorial to members of the right-wing underground. The main organizations so memorialized are the Irgun, led by Menachem Begin among others, and the Stern Gang. Whoops, sorry, my mistake, at the Etzel Museum Mr. Stern and his followers had a minor ideological difference with Irgun, Lehi and just about everyone else on the planet and so formed a splinter organization known, in this museum as the “Stern Group.” Nice ring to it. Sound like a bunch of financial advisors or accountants. What all these groups did was engage in a national liberation struggle to convince the British to leave and the Arabs to stop shooting at Jews. Fortunately for them their side won the war and, eventually, became part of the government. So they get to be heroes of the struggle for independence and not terrorists who indiscriminately killed civilians along with military and political targets. In the Etzel Museum, the Haganah and the leaders of the Yishuv (the governing body for Jewish affairs in Palestine) play minor roles at best or are stumbling blocks at worst, in the struggle for a Jewish State. This would come as a surprise to David Ben Gurion, Chaim Weizmann and any of your children who learned Zionist history at school or summer camp (unless, of course, you send them to a Betar summer camp)
So, it's 1948 and Ben Gurion has announced the formation of the State of Israel and now he has a critical task to perform. What distinguishes a State from “a bunch of folks” is the ability to define its own borders and to have a monopoly on the use of violence within those borders. Whenever a national liberation movement manages to gain the upper hand, its leadership has a short-lived window of opportunity in which to get all the factions into one unified government. Oh, there can be political differences of opinion but, as the Palestinians now like to chant, there can only be one people and one gun. If the liberation movement fails to get this level of control, someone else will soon be running the show. For example, Sun Yat Sen in China and Kerensky in Russia failed to get everyone under one command. But Lenin and Stalin and Mao did manage to gain such control. This can be done by merging groups or by winning the Civil War (you can be nostalgic for Jeff Davis and Mars Robert but Abe Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant were the big winners).
So, shortly after the State was declared, Ben Gurion and Begin, et al, cut a deal under which Irgun fighters would form two distinct brigades within the Haganah. The combined organizations will eventually become the Israel Defense Force (Tseva HaHaganah Le Yisrael). For a few months during 1948 Haganah and Irgun were ostensibly under a single command. But not really. Etzel’s international wing had continued its fund raising and arms buying activities outside of Israel and, in the early fall of 1948, sent the Altalena sailing toward Tel Aviv. The ship was loaded with arms, ammunition and about 900 volunteers ready to fight the Arabs. Well, the government didn’t mind receiving guns and conscripts to fire them. What the government objected to was Irgun’s contention that its brigades should get a substantial portion of the weapons first and then Haganah could have the rest. Ben Gurion rejected this and, taking a page from the British playbook, sent troops to prevent the Altalena from unloading its cargo. Things got out of hand and the new government of Israel wound up firing upon a ship of Jews, blowing up munitions and killing a dozen or so people. Etzel relives this tragedy much like the south likes to refight the Civil War. But the government of Israel had to do what it did or risk falling apart before it could really dig in.
As noted in another blog, Menachem Begin goes on to help form a political party that eventually becomes part of Likud, becomes Prime Minister after the Labor Party has failed to deliver security and jobs and has suffered a series of corruption scandals and, within a few years, the man who once espoused and would never give up a dream of Israel within Mosaic, if not Solomonic or Hasmonean borders, became the first Prime Minister to dismantle a settlement. Netanyahu would interject that Begin got something in return for the disengagement from Sinai but no one on the right has ever described the pull out from Sinai as anything other than a tragedy. Nevertheless, Begin had to decide what the borders would be and he had to be ready to use force if necessary to defend those borders from without and from within...just like Ben Gurion had to sink the Altalena or watch his government fall.
Which brings us to Amona. Unlike the Gaza disengagement, the settlers’ groups decided to use violence against the police and army rather than give up nine illegally constructed houses. No one is talking about the fact that the rest of the Amona settlement is still alive and well. This time the settlers decided that it would be OK to throw rocks at and otherwise try to injure representatives of the government rather than give up an inch of what they claim as Israel. Problem is that the government, including a couple of panels of the Israel Supreme Court, has determined it to be an illegal settlement (one established without government permission). Well, where I come from, if you throw a rock into a policeman’s face your head, arm or some other body part that you have become attached to is going to be broken and you are going to be arrested and charged with assault and resisting arrest (police just love charging people who are lying on the ground, writhing in pain, with resisting arrest). Lots of people are shocked and outraged that (pick your side) would do this to (pick your side). I’ll spare you my rant about how the settlements were a bad idea in 1972 and have gotten only worse since then. Let’s just state the obvious: If you’re the government and want to remain the government, then, when faced with uncompromising opposition to your rules, you have to sink the Altalena.
Read more!
Millburn, New Jersey
Part 1 would have been the end of the blogs for this year but I can’t resist one last political ramble. Part of our last full day in Tel Aviv was spent at the Etzel Museum. This museum serves to educate and be a memorial to members of the right-wing underground. The main organizations so memorialized are the Irgun, led by Menachem Begin among others, and the Stern Gang. Whoops, sorry, my mistake, at the Etzel Museum Mr. Stern and his followers had a minor ideological difference with Irgun, Lehi and just about everyone else on the planet and so formed a splinter organization known, in this museum as the “Stern Group.” Nice ring to it. Sound like a bunch of financial advisors or accountants. What all these groups did was engage in a national liberation struggle to convince the British to leave and the Arabs to stop shooting at Jews. Fortunately for them their side won the war and, eventually, became part of the government. So they get to be heroes of the struggle for independence and not terrorists who indiscriminately killed civilians along with military and political targets. In the Etzel Museum, the Haganah and the leaders of the Yishuv (the governing body for Jewish affairs in Palestine) play minor roles at best or are stumbling blocks at worst, in the struggle for a Jewish State. This would come as a surprise to David Ben Gurion, Chaim Weizmann and any of your children who learned Zionist history at school or summer camp (unless, of course, you send them to a Betar summer camp)
So, it's 1948 and Ben Gurion has announced the formation of the State of Israel and now he has a critical task to perform. What distinguishes a State from “a bunch of folks” is the ability to define its own borders and to have a monopoly on the use of violence within those borders. Whenever a national liberation movement manages to gain the upper hand, its leadership has a short-lived window of opportunity in which to get all the factions into one unified government. Oh, there can be political differences of opinion but, as the Palestinians now like to chant, there can only be one people and one gun. If the liberation movement fails to get this level of control, someone else will soon be running the show. For example, Sun Yat Sen in China and Kerensky in Russia failed to get everyone under one command. But Lenin and Stalin and Mao did manage to gain such control. This can be done by merging groups or by winning the Civil War (you can be nostalgic for Jeff Davis and Mars Robert but Abe Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant were the big winners).
So, shortly after the State was declared, Ben Gurion and Begin, et al, cut a deal under which Irgun fighters would form two distinct brigades within the Haganah. The combined organizations will eventually become the Israel Defense Force (Tseva HaHaganah Le Yisrael). For a few months during 1948 Haganah and Irgun were ostensibly under a single command. But not really. Etzel’s international wing had continued its fund raising and arms buying activities outside of Israel and, in the early fall of 1948, sent the Altalena sailing toward Tel Aviv. The ship was loaded with arms, ammunition and about 900 volunteers ready to fight the Arabs. Well, the government didn’t mind receiving guns and conscripts to fire them. What the government objected to was Irgun’s contention that its brigades should get a substantial portion of the weapons first and then Haganah could have the rest. Ben Gurion rejected this and, taking a page from the British playbook, sent troops to prevent the Altalena from unloading its cargo. Things got out of hand and the new government of Israel wound up firing upon a ship of Jews, blowing up munitions and killing a dozen or so people. Etzel relives this tragedy much like the south likes to refight the Civil War. But the government of Israel had to do what it did or risk falling apart before it could really dig in.
As noted in another blog, Menachem Begin goes on to help form a political party that eventually becomes part of Likud, becomes Prime Minister after the Labor Party has failed to deliver security and jobs and has suffered a series of corruption scandals and, within a few years, the man who once espoused and would never give up a dream of Israel within Mosaic, if not Solomonic or Hasmonean borders, became the first Prime Minister to dismantle a settlement. Netanyahu would interject that Begin got something in return for the disengagement from Sinai but no one on the right has ever described the pull out from Sinai as anything other than a tragedy. Nevertheless, Begin had to decide what the borders would be and he had to be ready to use force if necessary to defend those borders from without and from within...just like Ben Gurion had to sink the Altalena or watch his government fall.
Which brings us to Amona. Unlike the Gaza disengagement, the settlers’ groups decided to use violence against the police and army rather than give up nine illegally constructed houses. No one is talking about the fact that the rest of the Amona settlement is still alive and well. This time the settlers decided that it would be OK to throw rocks at and otherwise try to injure representatives of the government rather than give up an inch of what they claim as Israel. Problem is that the government, including a couple of panels of the Israel Supreme Court, has determined it to be an illegal settlement (one established without government permission). Well, where I come from, if you throw a rock into a policeman’s face your head, arm or some other body part that you have become attached to is going to be broken and you are going to be arrested and charged with assault and resisting arrest (police just love charging people who are lying on the ground, writhing in pain, with resisting arrest). Lots of people are shocked and outraged that (pick your side) would do this to (pick your side). I’ll spare you my rant about how the settlements were a bad idea in 1972 and have gotten only worse since then. Let’s just state the obvious: If you’re the government and want to remain the government, then, when faced with uncompromising opposition to your rules, you have to sink the Altalena.
Read more!
Saturday, January 14, 2006
More Shabbos Musings
14 January 2006
Tel Aviv
In The Rhythm of Life
This week Liz and I got into a rhythm of living in Tel Aviv. We go to Ulpan five nights. Liz is now so good that she can translate between a woman who speaks French and a butcher who speaks only Hebrew. She does La Soba twice a week and we both go to Beit Noar twice a week. Other days are spent finding a museum or just setting up shop in a café and doing our Ulpan homework while we eat and drink. Food and coffee have definitely been upgraded here from 13 years ago. Life here today is a matter of so many cafes and so little time. I asked the rental agent to get us this place for four months (December through March) next year and am waiting for an answer.
Someone donated an old, beat up guitar to Beit Noar Kadima. It came with strings that were more rust than steel so I put on a new set. I've used the guitar to teach some kids an Israeli song in English (Bashanah Habaah – Next Year – a pop classic here). One of the kids was Orli, one of my girls from the talent show. Orli has a good ear and really should be getting music lessons. This may be something her family can’t afford and the local community center can’t provide. I’m going to make inquiries. Jeff’s backpacker guitar is great to travel with but having a full sized guitar just feels better. My ambition is to buy an airline proof guitar case and bring my Gibson. My guitar went to Woodstock and deserves a trip to Israel.
Football Shabbos
Becky came home from Marva for the weekend, bringing four friends from her base (two of whom were in Hatikvah with her). Plus Deborah who is working in a school in Acco came back for a second weekend, needing to decompress from dealing with troubled kids and having to do it in Hebrew. This all meant that Liz spent three days cooking chickens, brisket (a real adventure in using her Hebrew as no one at the Supersol knows what brust deckle is), noodle pudding, mandel bread, soup and lots of veggies. But mostly we are eating strawberries. Strawberries are in season here and they are delicious. Every time Liz passed another vendor in the shouk their strawberries looked better than the last vendor’s (and they would, of course, assure her that such was the case). So she came home with about four times as many strawberries as she set out to buy. This turned out to be a good thing as the feeding frenzy lasted for about a day and a half.
Becky regaled us with the tale of getting to fire an M-16 both during the day and at night (she couldn’t see the sights let alone the target). Also learning to crawl without putting any body parts up where they can be shot off. And lots of other good Army stuff. Her next assignment is to run a seminar about what they will encounter in the north. This would not be hard as Becky has written and given many Peulot (which I think is Young Judaean for educational programs). Only this time all the information is written in Hebrew and her partner is a lovely young woman from Spain who speaks no English (to go with Becky’s complete lack of Spanish). How this seminar gets done is a bit of a mystery but I think the concept is that one of Becky’s friends can read Hebrew (Thank G-d for Day Schools) while the Spanish girl’s boyfriend knows English. Well, the Army commander ordered this one up so we’ll see what happens.
Meanwhile, later tonight we get a bit of home right here in our Tel Aviv living room. The NFL playoffs are shown live on the European version of Fox Sports and something called METV. Last week I watched the Giants self-destruct. This week we get Washington and Seattle at 23:30 and, for insomniacs and the truly obsessed fans, Denver and New England at 03:00. Maybe if I get up early I can catch the last quarter.
Bibi and Robertson, Perfect Together
For the record, Israeli politicians are still holding off campaigning out of consideration for Sharon’s condition. In reality this means that they don’t openly impugn one another’s maternal heritage. Meanwhile, the campaigns are in full swing as various parties get their lists together or just implode before our very eyes.
Last Thursday was a fun day for Likudniks. First, Bibi once again ordered the four remaining Likud ministers to resign. Bibi wanted them out of the cabinet before the Likud Central Committee voted Thursday night to nominate the party list for the March elections. Silvan Shalom’s people (he was Foreign Minister) took a public shot right back and said that Bibi might be party chairman (a post he got by default after Sharon left (or was driven out) of the party) but he’s not the boss of the cabinet ministers. So Bibi had to sit down with Shalom and basically apologize. Shalom, in the interest of party unity, and also because he was already guaranteed the number 2 spot on the list, agreed to resign but on Friday, not Thursday. So Likud gave up the Foreign, Education, Agriculture and Health ministries. This allows Bibi to run as the leader of the opposition. He also gets the bullet proof Mercedes and the perks. His four former ministers will be lucky to get re-elected as MKs. Sharon’s people, also not actively campaigning, pointed out to any reporter who would listen (which is most of them as the Sharon story is getting to be dull – Ariel is unconscious and its unlikely his condition is going to change any time soon) that this is another example of Bibi being unable to take any pressure and quitting rather than standing up for his beliefs. Good thing the campaigns are in abeyance or this could really get nasty.
Before we leave Bibi, his people somehow got the Times reporter to deny that Bibi said that Bibi is the true inheritor of Sharon. The Times man says that he made the remark as part of his own write up of the interview. Well maybe yes and maybe no. I saw the CNN International interview that Bibi gave the same day and there’s no doubt but that he was claiming to be the real inheritor of Sharon. Given that Bibi’s people cut off Sharon’s microphone and literally drove him out of the Likud Central Committee this goes beyond farce to true comedy.
As long as we are speaking of sleazeoids, Pat Robertson rides again. First he tells his 700 Club audience that Sharon’s illness is a punishment from G-d inflicted as divine retribution for pulling out of Gaza. Israel’s response was to cut off negotiations for an Evangelical Christian center in the Galilee. Evangelicals are usually well treated in Israel. First, they provide strong political support in Washington, which translates into serious foreign and military aid. Second, they provide a lot of tourist dollars. Telling the Evangelicals that a $50 million dollar religious center won’t receive the necessary permits (or the land from the government) is serious business. Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network is one of a number of Evangelical organizations that are on board for the project. Faced with the loss of a new, major source of fund raising, its obvious that the other partners in the project prevailed on Robertson to do the Christian thing and apologize. Of course, his apology was in writing to one of Sharon’s sons, the Israeli Ambassador to the US and released to a bunch of newspapers, none of which Robertson’s hard core followers will read because Robertson has convinced them that any non-Christian news source is a cover for Satan, Communists, Liberals and other evil doers. What Robertson did not do was apologize on the 700 Club (at least no news report indicates that this happened). Also, he apologizes like Palestinians condemn terrorism. He says he’s sorry that ill-considered words caused pain to the family of such a wonderful friend as Sharon, but he doesn’t say that just maybe Sharon’s illness is not divine retribution for giving up a piece of Greater Israel. Meanwhile, it’s not clear that the Evangelical Center is going to go forward. Kadima controls all the cabinet ministries, thanks to Bibi, and those folks are still not happy. My bet is that eventually the center gets built but after the elections and a bit more groveling from Pat.
Israel and the Evangelicals have a relationship that should cause Jews to be more concerned than we are. Yes, Israel needs all the friends it can get but do you really want to be in bed with Pat Robertson and the rest of the Christian Right. Even the Bush White House is distancing itself from him. Also, the reason Evangelicals support Israel is the Book of Revelations. For those of you who haven’t made it that far in your biblical readings, Revelations goes into the details of what has to happen before Christ returns and the new, final Kingdom of G-d on Earth gets going. Before any of the good stuff, however, a whole lot of bad stuff goes on. Part of the action requires that the Jews return to Israel in general and Jerusalem in particular and re-establish the Jewish state. We will, when JC shows up, all admit our guilt and convert. This is not exactly what we Jews have in mind. In the meanwhile, the Evangelicals try to make themselves helpful and, times being what they are it’s hard to turn away the help. I think Malcolm Hoenlein, the Executive Director (I think) of the Organization of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations (don’t you love that name?), probably has the best take on the Evangelicals. Malcolm suggests that, for today, we need all the friends we can get in Washington (and some tourist bucks never hurts). When the Messiah comes, if it turns out that the Jews are right, none of this will matter. If it turns out that the Evangelicals are right, Malcolm will apologize.
Meanwhile several parties that once were able to influence government policy by joining or quitting a coalition seem on the verge of becoming irrelevant if not disappearing altogether. Among these are Shinnui, which used to be the main centrist party run by a former TV announcer named Tommy Lapid. Last spring Lapid, who for years whenever he was in the governing coalition had decried parties (usually Shas and other religious parties) that would black mail the Prime Minister for money for their pet projects in return for enough votes to adopt a budget. So, last Spring Lapid goes ahead and blackmails Sharon into cutting off funds for Shas projects and adding nearly a billion shekels to Lapid's favored activities in return for enough votes to pass the budget. You’d think someone so shameless would be rewarded with re-election. But Lapid’s party will be lucky to have any seats in the next Knesset and Lapid himself has lost so much support within his own ranks that he may quit the party and form his own party. If he leaves with a majority of current party MKs he gets to keep the party name. So Shinnui will split from Shinnui and run against Shinnui. Shinnui, by the way, means Change. How can you not love this stuff?
And, speaking of religious parties, the two religious Zionist parties, National Religious and National Union, have been told by every pollster they pay that if they unite they’ll get twice as many seats as they separately have now. If they don’t unite, they may not get enough votes to have any seats. So, of course, their unity talks have broken down over how gets to head the list (they resolved all the substantive policy issues). Actually, there is some poetic justice here, if not divine retribution (one would hope that G-d has a low tolerance for arrogant asses). The religious parties have over the years gained control of funding for religious education. They then put all the funds into their Yeshivas and leave nothing for public, secular schools. As a result they have raised a generation or two of Israelis who haven’t a clue why Israel is what it is or where it is. They get some inkling of this when they go into the Army as the Army is smart enough to know that you really do need to give an 18 year a good reason why he or she may have to do something that is likely to get them killed. But the sad truth is that the Jewish education of most secular Israelis isn’t even up to the sorry state of such education for too many American B’nai Mitzvahs. And it’s the religious who are a root cause of the problem.
While I’m ranting about the religious parties, the other problem they have caused involves the sorry records of failing to convert immigrants who are not Jewish under Jewish law (Halakah). Here’s the disconnect. Under the Law of Return anyone who would have been a candidate for a Nazi death camp may claim citizenship in Israel. This group is defined as anyone with at least one Jewish grandparent (the definition used by the Nazis). Halachically, a Jew is anyone with a Jewish mother (let’s not get into the Reform movement’s usage of patrilineal descent). The Orthodox have a monopoly on conversions done inside Israel and, by order of the Supreme Court and directions from the appropriate ministries, are supposed to be expediting the conversions of thousands of immigrants who came here, mostly from the former Soviet Union, under the Law of Return (to say nothing of their non-Jewish spouses who came as family members). The Orthodox do very few conversions every year because, instead of merely insisting on a Halachically correct conversion they want the immigrant to agree to adopt an observant life style satisfactory to the Orthodox. At this point most immigrants (many of whom come from places where it was illegal to live as Jews) just shrug and forget about it. So, Israel is taking in more people but fewer of them are actually Jewish. It’s a good thing we let the Orthodox call the shots, isn’t it?
Finally, the highlight of the week was a proposal from one of Sharon’s campaign managers that Sharon be kept in the first position on the Kadima list. Olmert would be announced as the party’s candidate for Prime Minister but Sharon would head the list. Setting aside the fact that Sharon has until February 7 to wake up and sign a declaration that he wants to run for the Knesset and accepts the first position on the Kadima list, just about everyone thought that this was not a constructive suggestion. The proposal was shot down as a flagrant attempt to play on the sympathy Sharon now gets because he is sick. Bibi’s people joined this chorus. Just one day after Bibi tried to do the same thing. Of course, the polls show that Kadima would probably still get 40 or more Mandates. Personally, I love the thought of Bibi losing the election to someone with the mental and physical capacity of a bowl of Jello.
And here is the rest of it.
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Tel Aviv
In The Rhythm of Life
This week Liz and I got into a rhythm of living in Tel Aviv. We go to Ulpan five nights. Liz is now so good that she can translate between a woman who speaks French and a butcher who speaks only Hebrew. She does La Soba twice a week and we both go to Beit Noar twice a week. Other days are spent finding a museum or just setting up shop in a café and doing our Ulpan homework while we eat and drink. Food and coffee have definitely been upgraded here from 13 years ago. Life here today is a matter of so many cafes and so little time. I asked the rental agent to get us this place for four months (December through March) next year and am waiting for an answer.
Someone donated an old, beat up guitar to Beit Noar Kadima. It came with strings that were more rust than steel so I put on a new set. I've used the guitar to teach some kids an Israeli song in English (Bashanah Habaah – Next Year – a pop classic here). One of the kids was Orli, one of my girls from the talent show. Orli has a good ear and really should be getting music lessons. This may be something her family can’t afford and the local community center can’t provide. I’m going to make inquiries. Jeff’s backpacker guitar is great to travel with but having a full sized guitar just feels better. My ambition is to buy an airline proof guitar case and bring my Gibson. My guitar went to Woodstock and deserves a trip to Israel.
Football Shabbos
Becky came home from Marva for the weekend, bringing four friends from her base (two of whom were in Hatikvah with her). Plus Deborah who is working in a school in Acco came back for a second weekend, needing to decompress from dealing with troubled kids and having to do it in Hebrew. This all meant that Liz spent three days cooking chickens, brisket (a real adventure in using her Hebrew as no one at the Supersol knows what brust deckle is), noodle pudding, mandel bread, soup and lots of veggies. But mostly we are eating strawberries. Strawberries are in season here and they are delicious. Every time Liz passed another vendor in the shouk their strawberries looked better than the last vendor’s (and they would, of course, assure her that such was the case). So she came home with about four times as many strawberries as she set out to buy. This turned out to be a good thing as the feeding frenzy lasted for about a day and a half.
Becky regaled us with the tale of getting to fire an M-16 both during the day and at night (she couldn’t see the sights let alone the target). Also learning to crawl without putting any body parts up where they can be shot off. And lots of other good Army stuff. Her next assignment is to run a seminar about what they will encounter in the north. This would not be hard as Becky has written and given many Peulot (which I think is Young Judaean for educational programs). Only this time all the information is written in Hebrew and her partner is a lovely young woman from Spain who speaks no English (to go with Becky’s complete lack of Spanish). How this seminar gets done is a bit of a mystery but I think the concept is that one of Becky’s friends can read Hebrew (Thank G-d for Day Schools) while the Spanish girl’s boyfriend knows English. Well, the Army commander ordered this one up so we’ll see what happens.
Meanwhile, later tonight we get a bit of home right here in our Tel Aviv living room. The NFL playoffs are shown live on the European version of Fox Sports and something called METV. Last week I watched the Giants self-destruct. This week we get Washington and Seattle at 23:30 and, for insomniacs and the truly obsessed fans, Denver and New England at 03:00. Maybe if I get up early I can catch the last quarter.
Bibi and Robertson, Perfect Together
For the record, Israeli politicians are still holding off campaigning out of consideration for Sharon’s condition. In reality this means that they don’t openly impugn one another’s maternal heritage. Meanwhile, the campaigns are in full swing as various parties get their lists together or just implode before our very eyes.
Last Thursday was a fun day for Likudniks. First, Bibi once again ordered the four remaining Likud ministers to resign. Bibi wanted them out of the cabinet before the Likud Central Committee voted Thursday night to nominate the party list for the March elections. Silvan Shalom’s people (he was Foreign Minister) took a public shot right back and said that Bibi might be party chairman (a post he got by default after Sharon left (or was driven out) of the party) but he’s not the boss of the cabinet ministers. So Bibi had to sit down with Shalom and basically apologize. Shalom, in the interest of party unity, and also because he was already guaranteed the number 2 spot on the list, agreed to resign but on Friday, not Thursday. So Likud gave up the Foreign, Education, Agriculture and Health ministries. This allows Bibi to run as the leader of the opposition. He also gets the bullet proof Mercedes and the perks. His four former ministers will be lucky to get re-elected as MKs. Sharon’s people, also not actively campaigning, pointed out to any reporter who would listen (which is most of them as the Sharon story is getting to be dull – Ariel is unconscious and its unlikely his condition is going to change any time soon) that this is another example of Bibi being unable to take any pressure and quitting rather than standing up for his beliefs. Good thing the campaigns are in abeyance or this could really get nasty.
Before we leave Bibi, his people somehow got the Times reporter to deny that Bibi said that Bibi is the true inheritor of Sharon. The Times man says that he made the remark as part of his own write up of the interview. Well maybe yes and maybe no. I saw the CNN International interview that Bibi gave the same day and there’s no doubt but that he was claiming to be the real inheritor of Sharon. Given that Bibi’s people cut off Sharon’s microphone and literally drove him out of the Likud Central Committee this goes beyond farce to true comedy.
As long as we are speaking of sleazeoids, Pat Robertson rides again. First he tells his 700 Club audience that Sharon’s illness is a punishment from G-d inflicted as divine retribution for pulling out of Gaza. Israel’s response was to cut off negotiations for an Evangelical Christian center in the Galilee. Evangelicals are usually well treated in Israel. First, they provide strong political support in Washington, which translates into serious foreign and military aid. Second, they provide a lot of tourist dollars. Telling the Evangelicals that a $50 million dollar religious center won’t receive the necessary permits (or the land from the government) is serious business. Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network is one of a number of Evangelical organizations that are on board for the project. Faced with the loss of a new, major source of fund raising, its obvious that the other partners in the project prevailed on Robertson to do the Christian thing and apologize. Of course, his apology was in writing to one of Sharon’s sons, the Israeli Ambassador to the US and released to a bunch of newspapers, none of which Robertson’s hard core followers will read because Robertson has convinced them that any non-Christian news source is a cover for Satan, Communists, Liberals and other evil doers. What Robertson did not do was apologize on the 700 Club (at least no news report indicates that this happened). Also, he apologizes like Palestinians condemn terrorism. He says he’s sorry that ill-considered words caused pain to the family of such a wonderful friend as Sharon, but he doesn’t say that just maybe Sharon’s illness is not divine retribution for giving up a piece of Greater Israel. Meanwhile, it’s not clear that the Evangelical Center is going to go forward. Kadima controls all the cabinet ministries, thanks to Bibi, and those folks are still not happy. My bet is that eventually the center gets built but after the elections and a bit more groveling from Pat.
Israel and the Evangelicals have a relationship that should cause Jews to be more concerned than we are. Yes, Israel needs all the friends it can get but do you really want to be in bed with Pat Robertson and the rest of the Christian Right. Even the Bush White House is distancing itself from him. Also, the reason Evangelicals support Israel is the Book of Revelations. For those of you who haven’t made it that far in your biblical readings, Revelations goes into the details of what has to happen before Christ returns and the new, final Kingdom of G-d on Earth gets going. Before any of the good stuff, however, a whole lot of bad stuff goes on. Part of the action requires that the Jews return to Israel in general and Jerusalem in particular and re-establish the Jewish state. We will, when JC shows up, all admit our guilt and convert. This is not exactly what we Jews have in mind. In the meanwhile, the Evangelicals try to make themselves helpful and, times being what they are it’s hard to turn away the help. I think Malcolm Hoenlein, the Executive Director (I think) of the Organization of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations (don’t you love that name?), probably has the best take on the Evangelicals. Malcolm suggests that, for today, we need all the friends we can get in Washington (and some tourist bucks never hurts). When the Messiah comes, if it turns out that the Jews are right, none of this will matter. If it turns out that the Evangelicals are right, Malcolm will apologize.
Meanwhile several parties that once were able to influence government policy by joining or quitting a coalition seem on the verge of becoming irrelevant if not disappearing altogether. Among these are Shinnui, which used to be the main centrist party run by a former TV announcer named Tommy Lapid. Last spring Lapid, who for years whenever he was in the governing coalition had decried parties (usually Shas and other religious parties) that would black mail the Prime Minister for money for their pet projects in return for enough votes to adopt a budget. So, last Spring Lapid goes ahead and blackmails Sharon into cutting off funds for Shas projects and adding nearly a billion shekels to Lapid's favored activities in return for enough votes to pass the budget. You’d think someone so shameless would be rewarded with re-election. But Lapid’s party will be lucky to have any seats in the next Knesset and Lapid himself has lost so much support within his own ranks that he may quit the party and form his own party. If he leaves with a majority of current party MKs he gets to keep the party name. So Shinnui will split from Shinnui and run against Shinnui. Shinnui, by the way, means Change. How can you not love this stuff?
And, speaking of religious parties, the two religious Zionist parties, National Religious and National Union, have been told by every pollster they pay that if they unite they’ll get twice as many seats as they separately have now. If they don’t unite, they may not get enough votes to have any seats. So, of course, their unity talks have broken down over how gets to head the list (they resolved all the substantive policy issues). Actually, there is some poetic justice here, if not divine retribution (one would hope that G-d has a low tolerance for arrogant asses). The religious parties have over the years gained control of funding for religious education. They then put all the funds into their Yeshivas and leave nothing for public, secular schools. As a result they have raised a generation or two of Israelis who haven’t a clue why Israel is what it is or where it is. They get some inkling of this when they go into the Army as the Army is smart enough to know that you really do need to give an 18 year a good reason why he or she may have to do something that is likely to get them killed. But the sad truth is that the Jewish education of most secular Israelis isn’t even up to the sorry state of such education for too many American B’nai Mitzvahs. And it’s the religious who are a root cause of the problem.
While I’m ranting about the religious parties, the other problem they have caused involves the sorry records of failing to convert immigrants who are not Jewish under Jewish law (Halakah). Here’s the disconnect. Under the Law of Return anyone who would have been a candidate for a Nazi death camp may claim citizenship in Israel. This group is defined as anyone with at least one Jewish grandparent (the definition used by the Nazis). Halachically, a Jew is anyone with a Jewish mother (let’s not get into the Reform movement’s usage of patrilineal descent). The Orthodox have a monopoly on conversions done inside Israel and, by order of the Supreme Court and directions from the appropriate ministries, are supposed to be expediting the conversions of thousands of immigrants who came here, mostly from the former Soviet Union, under the Law of Return (to say nothing of their non-Jewish spouses who came as family members). The Orthodox do very few conversions every year because, instead of merely insisting on a Halachically correct conversion they want the immigrant to agree to adopt an observant life style satisfactory to the Orthodox. At this point most immigrants (many of whom come from places where it was illegal to live as Jews) just shrug and forget about it. So, Israel is taking in more people but fewer of them are actually Jewish. It’s a good thing we let the Orthodox call the shots, isn’t it?
Finally, the highlight of the week was a proposal from one of Sharon’s campaign managers that Sharon be kept in the first position on the Kadima list. Olmert would be announced as the party’s candidate for Prime Minister but Sharon would head the list. Setting aside the fact that Sharon has until February 7 to wake up and sign a declaration that he wants to run for the Knesset and accepts the first position on the Kadima list, just about everyone thought that this was not a constructive suggestion. The proposal was shot down as a flagrant attempt to play on the sympathy Sharon now gets because he is sick. Bibi’s people joined this chorus. Just one day after Bibi tried to do the same thing. Of course, the polls show that Kadima would probably still get 40 or more Mandates. Personally, I love the thought of Bibi losing the election to someone with the mental and physical capacity of a bowl of Jello.
And here is the rest of it.
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Saturday, January 7, 2006
Pilpul Part III
7 January 2006
Tel Aviv
Contemporary Art and Cholent
Shabbos in Tel Aviv is a combination of contemporary art (the Tel Aviv Museum is open and has a really good Menashe Kadishman exhibit – some of you have seen Kadishman at places like MOMA or Storm King Mountain) and cholent. Kadishman has a thing for goats’ heads but really stands out with his outdoor sculptures of things like negative trees, torn washing hanging from lines, the binding of Isaac and, at Storm King, a huge rectangle, standing on end in the middle of what would be a good-sized fairway if Storm King were a golf course. The rectangle is broken about a third of the way up and the broken piece dangles at an angle and a weight distribution that is simply impossible within Earth's gravity.
Cholent is what you eat when you want hot food on Shabbos but cannot start an oven or stove or cut new vegetables. Cholent (which varies in content depending upon where your great grandmother was born but consists largely of beans, potatoes, mystery meat and whatever else did not make it into the Friday night soup) stays on a stove or in an oven until Saturday afternoon when it has congealed into a uniform mass that instantly expands upon ingestion. There are those who think this stuff is delicious. Batya, a restaurant near our apartment, makes an excellent cholent served with a chunk of kishke. Kishke is lamb or cow intestine (depending on what you had around to kill before the weekend) stuffed with bread, grease and G-d only knows what else. Those of you from in between the coasts who have had a knish or a kosher hot dog and think you have had Jewish food have been spared the real stuff. And, by the way, if your great grandmother was not from central or Eastern Europe you don’t get off easy. There’s jachnun and shakshukah. Jachnun is solid starch and grease mitigated with a hard-boiled egg or two. Shakshukah is egg and cheese in a tomato sauce. Now that I think of it, cholent does sort of go with Kadishman.
You’re In The Army Now
Last night, Friday 6 January, we had Shabbos dinner with the DeCastros (Maurizio, Nurit and Keren, our Yemenite daughter, the officer). Also with us are Deborah and Marissa, two of Becky’s Hatikvah roommates who are taking a break from their current locations. This middle part of YC is, for Becky’s group, the Israel Experience. Deborah is working north of Acco at a shelter/school for troubled and abused teenagers. Marissa is working near Modiin at an environmental/organic farm that runs education programs for schools in the surrounding area. We are also joined by Michal Zur. So we are having a grand old time eating this incredible Yemenite vegetable and chicken soup, ktzitzot (a sort of chicken latke – don’t even try to pronounce this unless you speak Hebrew or you will hurt yourself) and plenty of wine to wash this down. The Kiddush is familiar though done in a Sephardic melody.
My highlight of the evening was the call from Becky. Becky just finished her first week of Marva, a sampling of Army training. She her day (which began at 4:15 and, at 10:30 was not over) has been spent on guard duty, on kitchen duty, cleaning herself, cleaning her weapon, getting into trouble with her commander, cleaning her living area, standing at attention with her weapon while being lectured at and, at 01:00, going back on guard duty. I will directly quote the only quotable portion of the phone call:
Becky: So they get me up at f-----g 4:f------g15 in the morning and we have to run for an hour before they let us eat food that really s---s big time and then we have to clean the f------g tents and the f-----g area around the tents and then, from 10 until 2 for four f-----g hours I have to wash f-----g dishes and then, finally, they let me take a shower but then I have to clean up the f-----g area and stand at f-----g attention with my rifle while they give me a f-----g lecture until they finally let me eat more food that isn’t worth eating and at f-----g 01:00 to 01:30 I have more f------g guard duty.
At this moment I really missed my Father who would have loved the rant and started telling some of his “fond” memories of army life. After I stopped laughing hysterically, I assured her that she will survive this and she should just suck it up and stick it out. She wasn’t asking to come home. She just wanted to complain, like a real soldier. She did ask how I could have let her volunteer for this. I reminded her that I don’t let her do anything.
Seven Jews Are Talking
On 25 and 26 January Liz and Becky and I toured the Supreme Court in Jerusalem. The building alone is worth the trip. It is architecturally a masterpiece of symbolic and functional design. But the fun part, for us retired attorneys, is sitting in on a case.
The Israeli Supreme Court is the highest court in the land. It has a panel of 15 judges, all appointed by a panel of government ministers. They court usually sits in panels of three though the Chief Judge may appoint (on his own volition or on petition) a larger, odd-numbered panel. In Israel there are no juries. Judges determine the facts and apply the law. There is also no written Constitution, just a series of Basic Laws that get amended from time to time by the Knesset and get interpreted by the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court has two basic jurisdictions. One is that any case from a lower court can be appealed, creating a serious backlog. The other is direct jurisdiction over certain cases including Human Rights cases. A Human Rights case has a very broad definition here. Remember, there is no Article III and no Judiciary Act for Congress to fool with. The Supreme Court can pretty much take whatever cases it decides to take. For example, a case involving the provision of appropriate education to a learning disabled child or a case involving the separation of a farmer from his farmland by the security fence can both go straight to the Supreme Court. The Judges will listen to testimony, look at exhibits, take briefs on the law and hear argument. The fun part is that this can be an almost simultaneous event. For you New York lawyers, its much more like a wild morning in the Appellate Division than the formality of the Court of Appeals.
We sat in on two cases. One was a criminal appeal. We know because Becky caught the words vodka and hashish (and wouldn’t tell me why these two words just sort of jumped out at her). Liz heard kilograms, which is a heck of a lot of hashish. The other case had Army officers and several lawyers gesturing and talking about a map that was spread out on the Judges’ bench. Possibly a fence case or at least some dispute about whether the Army can take over someone’s land or put up a roadblock that stops someone from commuting to his or her business. In any event, every time a Judge asked a question or just paused to take a breath, one of the lawyers would launch into another long speech. This particular panel was being very patient with all this. Sylvia Ornstein recalls sitting in on a case when the Judge had had enough with a long-winded attorney and verbally whacked him upside the head. Ah, that's the courtroom I know and love. Anyway, for you lawyer types, the Supreme Court tour is a good busman’s holiday.
And speaking of a unique legal system. Has anyone been wondering just how Marwan Barghouti, a man serving five consecutive life terms for murdering Jews, is able to lead a faction within Fatah that has now gained control of the final Parliamentary list, with Marwan in the number one spot? And how he is able to release statements to the Palestinians apologizing for Fatah and the PA to date and asking for another chance? Or saying something diplomatic about Sharon’s condition? Isn’t this guy in prison? Well, yes, but prison here, like the Army here, does not work quite the way it works in the US. Here, prison officials, who ultimately answer to the political leaders of their agency, have certain amounts of discretion with respect to prisoners receiving visitors or making phone calls. Barghouti only speaks with those people who have been approved by the Warden and only communicates in designated rooms or on designated phones. Marwan has been allowed to participate in conference calls originating from the Warden’s office. Clearly, someone up the foodchain has decided that its better to allow Barghouti to become the next Prime Minister of the PA than just sit back and allow Hamas to grab it all. Besides, wouldn’t you like to be able to tape every key conversation between one of your most powerful enemies and his closest advisors (to say nothing of his wife)? Can you see Rumsfeld allowing Osama’s number 2 to call in from Guantanamo? And why wouldn’t that be a good idea?
Take The Aleph Train
What is new since my 1992 trip is that many of the major population centers and the main airport are now linked by Israel Railways. The trains are clean, modern, comfortable and run on time. Once again Israel destroys old stereotypes and replaces them with irony. The Army works, the trains run on time, it’s the education system and the government that are a mess.
But with the trains comes something that I never thought I’d see here. Israelis commuting to work from suburbs by train. You can see the cars parked in the station lots as you whiz by on an express. Try looking at that sight and humming Zum Gali Gali* to yourself.
YC Retreats from Hatikvah
The YC kids are not happy about this. They know that a major part of the experience was actually living in the neighborhood. But Hadassah is not going to put any kids at risk. So, after a series of break-ins, including the fellow who was just standing in the living room when one young woman came out of the shower, Hadassah has moved the current Hatikvah group to a hotel near our apartment. The kids get double rooms and two meals a day plus 20 shekels spending money and a bus pass. They commute to their volunteer jobs. The reaction from Becky’s crew was generally to say that this makes everyone look like wimps and takes away the real benefit of the program. By and large, the kids were part of the neighborhood, looked after by neighbors and merchants and generally made to feel at home. They were not treated like a bunch of prissy do-gooders from the outside. I’m certain most parents are happy with this arrangement. But I think the kids have got this right.
Last Word On Hanukkah
Its now way past Hanukah and I never did get around to my annual rant about Hasmoneans and the right wingers. My version of the Hanukah story was delivered just once at the Kiddie Service. Treasure and Cynthia have since carefully organized the services so that I am never left alone with the children. I take no offense at this. I have, however, decided to spare you my Hanukah story. At least for this year. Maybe you’ll get unlucky next year.
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* Zum Gali Gali is a sing-a-long whose only words are “Pioneers are for work. Work is for the Pioneers.” Its an early Kibbutz/youth group song that mostly lives on at US summer camps. I doubt anyone sings it while getting coffee on their way to their job for a nanotechnology firm.
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Tel Aviv
Contemporary Art and Cholent
Shabbos in Tel Aviv is a combination of contemporary art (the Tel Aviv Museum is open and has a really good Menashe Kadishman exhibit – some of you have seen Kadishman at places like MOMA or Storm King Mountain) and cholent. Kadishman has a thing for goats’ heads but really stands out with his outdoor sculptures of things like negative trees, torn washing hanging from lines, the binding of Isaac and, at Storm King, a huge rectangle, standing on end in the middle of what would be a good-sized fairway if Storm King were a golf course. The rectangle is broken about a third of the way up and the broken piece dangles at an angle and a weight distribution that is simply impossible within Earth's gravity.
Cholent is what you eat when you want hot food on Shabbos but cannot start an oven or stove or cut new vegetables. Cholent (which varies in content depending upon where your great grandmother was born but consists largely of beans, potatoes, mystery meat and whatever else did not make it into the Friday night soup) stays on a stove or in an oven until Saturday afternoon when it has congealed into a uniform mass that instantly expands upon ingestion. There are those who think this stuff is delicious. Batya, a restaurant near our apartment, makes an excellent cholent served with a chunk of kishke. Kishke is lamb or cow intestine (depending on what you had around to kill before the weekend) stuffed with bread, grease and G-d only knows what else. Those of you from in between the coasts who have had a knish or a kosher hot dog and think you have had Jewish food have been spared the real stuff. And, by the way, if your great grandmother was not from central or Eastern Europe you don’t get off easy. There’s jachnun and shakshukah. Jachnun is solid starch and grease mitigated with a hard-boiled egg or two. Shakshukah is egg and cheese in a tomato sauce. Now that I think of it, cholent does sort of go with Kadishman.
You’re In The Army Now
Last night, Friday 6 January, we had Shabbos dinner with the DeCastros (Maurizio, Nurit and Keren, our Yemenite daughter, the officer). Also with us are Deborah and Marissa, two of Becky’s Hatikvah roommates who are taking a break from their current locations. This middle part of YC is, for Becky’s group, the Israel Experience. Deborah is working north of Acco at a shelter/school for troubled and abused teenagers. Marissa is working near Modiin at an environmental/organic farm that runs education programs for schools in the surrounding area. We are also joined by Michal Zur. So we are having a grand old time eating this incredible Yemenite vegetable and chicken soup, ktzitzot (a sort of chicken latke – don’t even try to pronounce this unless you speak Hebrew or you will hurt yourself) and plenty of wine to wash this down. The Kiddush is familiar though done in a Sephardic melody.
My highlight of the evening was the call from Becky. Becky just finished her first week of Marva, a sampling of Army training. She her day (which began at 4:15 and, at 10:30 was not over) has been spent on guard duty, on kitchen duty, cleaning herself, cleaning her weapon, getting into trouble with her commander, cleaning her living area, standing at attention with her weapon while being lectured at and, at 01:00, going back on guard duty. I will directly quote the only quotable portion of the phone call:
Becky: So they get me up at f-----g 4:f------g15 in the morning and we have to run for an hour before they let us eat food that really s---s big time and then we have to clean the f------g tents and the f-----g area around the tents and then, from 10 until 2 for four f-----g hours I have to wash f-----g dishes and then, finally, they let me take a shower but then I have to clean up the f-----g area and stand at f-----g attention with my rifle while they give me a f-----g lecture until they finally let me eat more food that isn’t worth eating and at f-----g 01:00 to 01:30 I have more f------g guard duty.
At this moment I really missed my Father who would have loved the rant and started telling some of his “fond” memories of army life. After I stopped laughing hysterically, I assured her that she will survive this and she should just suck it up and stick it out. She wasn’t asking to come home. She just wanted to complain, like a real soldier. She did ask how I could have let her volunteer for this. I reminded her that I don’t let her do anything.
Seven Jews Are Talking
On 25 and 26 January Liz and Becky and I toured the Supreme Court in Jerusalem. The building alone is worth the trip. It is architecturally a masterpiece of symbolic and functional design. But the fun part, for us retired attorneys, is sitting in on a case.
The Israeli Supreme Court is the highest court in the land. It has a panel of 15 judges, all appointed by a panel of government ministers. They court usually sits in panels of three though the Chief Judge may appoint (on his own volition or on petition) a larger, odd-numbered panel. In Israel there are no juries. Judges determine the facts and apply the law. There is also no written Constitution, just a series of Basic Laws that get amended from time to time by the Knesset and get interpreted by the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court has two basic jurisdictions. One is that any case from a lower court can be appealed, creating a serious backlog. The other is direct jurisdiction over certain cases including Human Rights cases. A Human Rights case has a very broad definition here. Remember, there is no Article III and no Judiciary Act for Congress to fool with. The Supreme Court can pretty much take whatever cases it decides to take. For example, a case involving the provision of appropriate education to a learning disabled child or a case involving the separation of a farmer from his farmland by the security fence can both go straight to the Supreme Court. The Judges will listen to testimony, look at exhibits, take briefs on the law and hear argument. The fun part is that this can be an almost simultaneous event. For you New York lawyers, its much more like a wild morning in the Appellate Division than the formality of the Court of Appeals.
We sat in on two cases. One was a criminal appeal. We know because Becky caught the words vodka and hashish (and wouldn’t tell me why these two words just sort of jumped out at her). Liz heard kilograms, which is a heck of a lot of hashish. The other case had Army officers and several lawyers gesturing and talking about a map that was spread out on the Judges’ bench. Possibly a fence case or at least some dispute about whether the Army can take over someone’s land or put up a roadblock that stops someone from commuting to his or her business. In any event, every time a Judge asked a question or just paused to take a breath, one of the lawyers would launch into another long speech. This particular panel was being very patient with all this. Sylvia Ornstein recalls sitting in on a case when the Judge had had enough with a long-winded attorney and verbally whacked him upside the head. Ah, that's the courtroom I know and love. Anyway, for you lawyer types, the Supreme Court tour is a good busman’s holiday.
And speaking of a unique legal system. Has anyone been wondering just how Marwan Barghouti, a man serving five consecutive life terms for murdering Jews, is able to lead a faction within Fatah that has now gained control of the final Parliamentary list, with Marwan in the number one spot? And how he is able to release statements to the Palestinians apologizing for Fatah and the PA to date and asking for another chance? Or saying something diplomatic about Sharon’s condition? Isn’t this guy in prison? Well, yes, but prison here, like the Army here, does not work quite the way it works in the US. Here, prison officials, who ultimately answer to the political leaders of their agency, have certain amounts of discretion with respect to prisoners receiving visitors or making phone calls. Barghouti only speaks with those people who have been approved by the Warden and only communicates in designated rooms or on designated phones. Marwan has been allowed to participate in conference calls originating from the Warden’s office. Clearly, someone up the foodchain has decided that its better to allow Barghouti to become the next Prime Minister of the PA than just sit back and allow Hamas to grab it all. Besides, wouldn’t you like to be able to tape every key conversation between one of your most powerful enemies and his closest advisors (to say nothing of his wife)? Can you see Rumsfeld allowing Osama’s number 2 to call in from Guantanamo? And why wouldn’t that be a good idea?
Take The Aleph Train
What is new since my 1992 trip is that many of the major population centers and the main airport are now linked by Israel Railways. The trains are clean, modern, comfortable and run on time. Once again Israel destroys old stereotypes and replaces them with irony. The Army works, the trains run on time, it’s the education system and the government that are a mess.
But with the trains comes something that I never thought I’d see here. Israelis commuting to work from suburbs by train. You can see the cars parked in the station lots as you whiz by on an express. Try looking at that sight and humming Zum Gali Gali* to yourself.
YC Retreats from Hatikvah
The YC kids are not happy about this. They know that a major part of the experience was actually living in the neighborhood. But Hadassah is not going to put any kids at risk. So, after a series of break-ins, including the fellow who was just standing in the living room when one young woman came out of the shower, Hadassah has moved the current Hatikvah group to a hotel near our apartment. The kids get double rooms and two meals a day plus 20 shekels spending money and a bus pass. They commute to their volunteer jobs. The reaction from Becky’s crew was generally to say that this makes everyone look like wimps and takes away the real benefit of the program. By and large, the kids were part of the neighborhood, looked after by neighbors and merchants and generally made to feel at home. They were not treated like a bunch of prissy do-gooders from the outside. I’m certain most parents are happy with this arrangement. But I think the kids have got this right.
Last Word On Hanukkah
Its now way past Hanukah and I never did get around to my annual rant about Hasmoneans and the right wingers. My version of the Hanukah story was delivered just once at the Kiddie Service. Treasure and Cynthia have since carefully organized the services so that I am never left alone with the children. I take no offense at this. I have, however, decided to spare you my Hanukah story. At least for this year. Maybe you’ll get unlucky next year.
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* Zum Gali Gali is a sing-a-long whose only words are “Pioneers are for work. Work is for the Pioneers.” Its an early Kibbutz/youth group song that mostly lives on at US summer camps. I doubt anyone sings it while getting coffee on their way to their job for a nanotechnology firm.
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Wednesday, January 4, 2006
Our Daughter, The Officer
4 January 2006
Latrun
Today, Keren, our Yemenite daughter, became a lieutenant in the Israel Defense Force. The ceremony at which about 40 young women became officers in various armor units (Keren is an Engineer) was held in the fortress at Latrun. The symbolism of swearing in new armor officers here is obvious and compelling.
Keren was very happy today as she was told just a few days ago that her job will be in support but at her current base in the southern Negev (about 45 minutes north of Eilat). So Keren got to smile her wonderful smile as her Israeli and American parents, an uncle, some friends from West Orange and a bunch of her friends. After the ceremony we adjourned to Rishon Letzion to drink, eat and let the political conversation begin.
Keren, now 21, lived with us in Millburn for about six months during the 2003-2004 academic year. Keren fits in neatly between Molly and Jessica (who are a few years older) and Rebecca who is a couple of years younger. Her parents are Maurizio, whose family emigrated from Italy, and Nurit, whose family is from Yemen. Keren worked in our part of New Jersey as a youth ambassador (that's the best translation I can do of "Rishonim"). She worked mostly with Jewish teenagers, including the children of Israelis for whom she led a Hebrew-speaking scout troop. (Keren herself is a Young Diplomat.) Mostly she's remembered as a wonderful kid who, having earned her driver's license just three weeks before coming to America (and having learned to drive in Israel where highway fatalities are still the leading cause of death), was given a car and set loose at night in northern New Jersey. She never caused any physical damage and the damage to the three or four cars she went through was minimal. Nevertheless, she did build something of a reputation. So, when she went home and was drafted the Army made her an instructor in the civil engineers. Teaching Israelis how to drive heavy equipment and personnel carriers. No matter where you are the army remains the army.
Keren, being a smart kid, and personnel carriers not being items that wilt from simple fender benders (it helps to be made from armored steel and have no fenders to bend), was offered the opportunity to go to officers' training school. The first four months of the six months course was general training taken by hundreds of candidates, male and female. The last two months were training for specialized jobs, with the group divided into combat, support and non-combat jobs. The women still go to support and non-combat units.
Keren has been unhappy because, rather than the training position she thought she was heading toward, she was being trained to allocated troops and resources based on changing conditions in the field. This meant that if additional troops were needed to help move casualties, re-take a position, or set up roadblocks, Keren would be one of the people who selects the available soldiers and machinery and sends them in. This is a job that you can do perfectly but still know, every day, that another soldier may be killed or maimed. Also, you often get to do it in or close to area you would not want to drive through without your armored personnel carrier and a lot of guys with guns. Far better to decide who gets to train in "live fire" areas and who gets to drive the armored vehicle through the obstacle course. And do it on a Negev base well out of the line of fire.
Fortunately, her original base commander decided to get her back. She's not entirely certain what she will be doing but she won't be doing it in an unsafe place and won't be directly sending other young people into danger. All of her parents are relieved, though we know that this will mean that someone else's kid gets to step up and do a nasty job. This is the part of Israel that I admire the most and which definitely sucks the most.
Here's an example that is all too easy to pick out of the newspapers. During Hanukah, Israeli intelligence received a number of warnings about suicide bombing attempts. A prime target would have been the many public children's parties in places like Tel Aviv. Ori Binamo, a 21 year-old lieutenant, was ordered to take his squad and set up a surprise checkpoint inside the security fence but on the road to Israeli cities. Ori stopped a taxicab with Palestinian plates. Three passengers, strangers to one another, were sharing a ride. One passenger was about 18 or 19 and looked very nervous. Ori asked the kid to step out and pull up his shirt. The kid stepped out and detonated the bomb belt, murdering Ori, the cab driver and another passenger. Had someone not sent Ori to that spot, had Ori not done his job, the homicide bomber could have made it into Tel Aviv. The heavier-than-usual bomb and all the nails taped around it would have had an even more devastating effect if detonated inside a crowded room. Keren did not know Ori but Maurizio thinks she knows his girlfriend.
In the US, young people go into the Army and sort of disappear for long periods, especially if they get assigned overseas. In Israel everyone and everything is always close to home. The good news is you get to see your child at least once a month. The bad news is that's because the "front" is also your front yard.
A few days ago, on the train from Haifa to Tel Aviv (a beautiful ride on new equipment - Israelis have discovered how to commute by train - I'm not certain if this is a good or a bad thing though anything that keeps them out of cars is probably a good idea - soldiers in uniform ride for free), we sat across from a young woman with Sergeants' strips and an armor patch. Like one of my daughters (who shall remain nameless so I can go home and not have my throat slit), her acne has mostly but not entirely cleared up. In her breast pocket was a pink pen. She puts on her headphones and falls asleep. Probably on her way back to her base or post after a weekend at home.
The British built Latrun during the 1930s following Arab riots. It sits on a hill over the main route between Jerusalem and the sea. There was a time not so long ago when holding Latrun meant you could choke off Jerusalem's supply line from the west. After the UN partition, the British handled the place over to the Arabs who used it for that very purpose. The Israelis tried to take the fortress as part of their efforts to lift the siege of Jerusalem but, after suffering terrible casualties, failed and instead broke the seige by building the "Burma Road" to bypass the fortress.In 1967, the IDF took Latrun and the hills and vallies around it. Suffice it to say that no one thinks any of this is ever going back to the Arabs.
The fortress is now at the center of a memorial and museum to armored warfare. Surrounding the fortress (the walls of which still show holes and craters from artillery and rifle fire) are dozens of tanks, mobile artillery pieces and other mechanized war machines. The picture on the left shows Maurizio in front of a 160 mm mortar. He rode one these into Beirut in 1982. That's me on the right in front of a tank converted into a mobile bridge. Sharon used these to cross the Suez Canal in 1973 where he proceeded to disrupt the Egyptian supply lines and, crossing back, surrounded half the Egyptian army, forcing them to give up and go home. There are also tanks that are currently in use. These have low, sleek profiles and are packed with electronics giving them the ability to hide behind a hill and still hit a target on the other side of the hill. The collection also includes numerous examples of armor captured over the years. Which is how the Israelis have a German, WW II model anti-tank gun given up by Syrians who got it from the Russians who captured it from the Germans. Plus a number of other Russian, British and American built tanks used for and against the country. If you have an interest in serious military hardware, this place is a must-see and is easy to get to as you travel between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
The final picture is Keren with her American parents.
Read more!
Latrun
Today, Keren, our Yemenite daughter, became a lieutenant in the Israel Defense Force. The ceremony at which about 40 young women became officers in various armor units (Keren is an Engineer) was held in the fortress at Latrun. The symbolism of swearing in new armor officers here is obvious and compelling.
Keren was very happy today as she was told just a few days ago that her job will be in support but at her current base in the southern Negev (about 45 minutes north of Eilat). So Keren got to smile her wonderful smile as her Israeli and American parents, an uncle, some friends from West Orange and a bunch of her friends. After the ceremony we adjourned to Rishon Letzion to drink, eat and let the political conversation begin.
Keren, now 21, lived with us in Millburn for about six months during the 2003-2004 academic year. Keren fits in neatly between Molly and Jessica (who are a few years older) and Rebecca who is a couple of years younger. Her parents are Maurizio, whose family emigrated from Italy, and Nurit, whose family is from Yemen. Keren worked in our part of New Jersey as a youth ambassador (that's the best translation I can do of "Rishonim"). She worked mostly with Jewish teenagers, including the children of Israelis for whom she led a Hebrew-speaking scout troop. (Keren herself is a Young Diplomat.) Mostly she's remembered as a wonderful kid who, having earned her driver's license just three weeks before coming to America (and having learned to drive in Israel where highway fatalities are still the leading cause of death), was given a car and set loose at night in northern New Jersey. She never caused any physical damage and the damage to the three or four cars she went through was minimal. Nevertheless, she did build something of a reputation. So, when she went home and was drafted the Army made her an instructor in the civil engineers. Teaching Israelis how to drive heavy equipment and personnel carriers. No matter where you are the army remains the army.
Keren, being a smart kid, and personnel carriers not being items that wilt from simple fender benders (it helps to be made from armored steel and have no fenders to bend), was offered the opportunity to go to officers' training school. The first four months of the six months course was general training taken by hundreds of candidates, male and female. The last two months were training for specialized jobs, with the group divided into combat, support and non-combat jobs. The women still go to support and non-combat units.
Keren has been unhappy because, rather than the training position she thought she was heading toward, she was being trained to allocated troops and resources based on changing conditions in the field. This meant that if additional troops were needed to help move casualties, re-take a position, or set up roadblocks, Keren would be one of the people who selects the available soldiers and machinery and sends them in. This is a job that you can do perfectly but still know, every day, that another soldier may be killed or maimed. Also, you often get to do it in or close to area you would not want to drive through without your armored personnel carrier and a lot of guys with guns. Far better to decide who gets to train in "live fire" areas and who gets to drive the armored vehicle through the obstacle course. And do it on a Negev base well out of the line of fire.
Fortunately, her original base commander decided to get her back. She's not entirely certain what she will be doing but she won't be doing it in an unsafe place and won't be directly sending other young people into danger. All of her parents are relieved, though we know that this will mean that someone else's kid gets to step up and do a nasty job. This is the part of Israel that I admire the most and which definitely sucks the most.
Here's an example that is all too easy to pick out of the newspapers. During Hanukah, Israeli intelligence received a number of warnings about suicide bombing attempts. A prime target would have been the many public children's parties in places like Tel Aviv. Ori Binamo, a 21 year-old lieutenant, was ordered to take his squad and set up a surprise checkpoint inside the security fence but on the road to Israeli cities. Ori stopped a taxicab with Palestinian plates. Three passengers, strangers to one another, were sharing a ride. One passenger was about 18 or 19 and looked very nervous. Ori asked the kid to step out and pull up his shirt. The kid stepped out and detonated the bomb belt, murdering Ori, the cab driver and another passenger. Had someone not sent Ori to that spot, had Ori not done his job, the homicide bomber could have made it into Tel Aviv. The heavier-than-usual bomb and all the nails taped around it would have had an even more devastating effect if detonated inside a crowded room. Keren did not know Ori but Maurizio thinks she knows his girlfriend.
In the US, young people go into the Army and sort of disappear for long periods, especially if they get assigned overseas. In Israel everyone and everything is always close to home. The good news is you get to see your child at least once a month. The bad news is that's because the "front" is also your front yard.
A few days ago, on the train from Haifa to Tel Aviv (a beautiful ride on new equipment - Israelis have discovered how to commute by train - I'm not certain if this is a good or a bad thing though anything that keeps them out of cars is probably a good idea - soldiers in uniform ride for free), we sat across from a young woman with Sergeants' strips and an armor patch. Like one of my daughters (who shall remain nameless so I can go home and not have my throat slit), her acne has mostly but not entirely cleared up. In her breast pocket was a pink pen. She puts on her headphones and falls asleep. Probably on her way back to her base or post after a weekend at home.
The British built Latrun during the 1930s following Arab riots. It sits on a hill over the main route between Jerusalem and the sea. There was a time not so long ago when holding Latrun meant you could choke off Jerusalem's supply line from the west. After the UN partition, the British handled the place over to the Arabs who used it for that very purpose. The Israelis tried to take the fortress as part of their efforts to lift the siege of Jerusalem but, after suffering terrible casualties, failed and instead broke the seige by building the "Burma Road" to bypass the fortress.In 1967, the IDF took Latrun and the hills and vallies around it. Suffice it to say that no one thinks any of this is ever going back to the Arabs.
The fortress is now at the center of a memorial and museum to armored warfare. Surrounding the fortress (the walls of which still show holes and craters from artillery and rifle fire) are dozens of tanks, mobile artillery pieces and other mechanized war machines. The picture on the left shows Maurizio in front of a 160 mm mortar. He rode one these into Beirut in 1982. That's me on the right in front of a tank converted into a mobile bridge. Sharon used these to cross the Suez Canal in 1973 where he proceeded to disrupt the Egyptian supply lines and, crossing back, surrounded half the Egyptian army, forcing them to give up and go home. There are also tanks that are currently in use. These have low, sleek profiles and are packed with electronics giving them the ability to hide behind a hill and still hit a target on the other side of the hill. The collection also includes numerous examples of armor captured over the years. Which is how the Israelis have a German, WW II model anti-tank gun given up by Syrians who got it from the Russians who captured it from the Germans. Plus a number of other Russian, British and American built tanks used for and against the country. If you have an interest in serious military hardware, this place is a must-see and is easy to get to as you travel between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.The final picture is Keren with her American parents.
Read more!
Saturday, December 17, 2005
Pilpul - Part 2
16 December 2005
Haifa 14:08
It’s Shabbat in Haifa. We drove up here from Tel Aviv yesterday (Friday 15 Dec.) and experienced something entirely new to us. It was raining in Israel. Squalls and thunderstorms all along the coast. It will rain intensely for a while and then the sun will come out. This weather cycle has been going on for over 24 hours now. Having only been here in non-rainy seasons (or during what everyone swears is an unusual December heat wave) it’s quite a novelty to listen to rain hitting the windows.
Packing and moving got a bit intense so I’m a few days behind with the blogs. But, your luck has run out. I’m going to catch up on a few items.
Back to Rehovot
Last Monday, we (Liz, cousins Marcia and David Chamovitz and I) got a VIP tour of Weizmann Institute. Turns out that Jay Leipzig, the Senior Vice President of the American Committee for the Weizmann Science Institute, and I share a Rabbi or two. Before we left home Liz and I visited with Rabbi Jehiel and Sylvia Orenstein to get tips on what would be good, off beat places to visit in Israel. Rabbi Orenstein said we should get a tour of Weizmann and suggested I contacted Jay Leipzig, who arranged a tour for him. I don’t know Jay so I asked how to find Jay. The Rabbi says, get his e-mail off the synagogue membership list. Fortunately Jay has a sense of humor about these things (I suspect we are not the first people sent his way like this) and arranged for our tour.
Weizmann is one of the world’s foremost research institutes. They work on everything, often using multidisciplinary approaches to extremely high tech (like nanotechnology and alternate energy sources). Next to a field of huge, movable mirrors stands a building with labs used to investigate the uses of sunlight (grow things, make more powerful lasers, etc). The building is set up to have the mirrors focus sunlight into various laboratories or a giant mirror on the side of the building used to step-up the light to get a beam of up to 20,000 suns. Turns out the particle accelerator is obsolete and Weizmann uses the Cern accelerator for its sub-molecular experiments. But a lot of cutting edge research goes on on site.
What’s really notable about Weizmann is that it looks like a college campus, only flat and beautiful. The campus includes Chaim Weizmann’s house. Long before he became the first President of Israel, Weizmann was a research chemist who developed a better way to produce acetone, which, in turn, was used for explosives during World War I. He lived then in the UK and made his discovery available to the British for their war effort. This made him both very rich and very well connected. Which led to him becoming a major instigator of the Balfour Declaration (in which the British recognized the right of Jews to establish a homeland in the Palestine Mandate). Weizmann helped create the State and a research institute in Rehovot.
Weizmann had one of the 30’s hot architects design a home for he and his wife on land that is now part of the Institute. The house itself is worth the tour (and we got to look into closets of art nouveau crystal and wander around the kitchen, both usually off limits but we got the VIP tour). It’s a variation of the International School. For example it has a three-story spiral staircase enclosed inside a curved wall of rows and rows of thermometer windows. The building itself is a work of art and contains a number of wonderful art pieces. It can’t buy you love but money can most certainly buy you a great house.
We Wuz Robbed
The talent show at Beit Noar Kadima was a hoot. My kids did not win but had a good time just showing off. The winner was a young lady who did a hip-hop belly dance to some Israeli pop song. I liked the four kids who used chairs as props and danced to a really strange version of Echad Mi Yodea. * Here are pictures of the girls and me. The first shows me and, from left to right, Keren (9 ½), Orli (11) and Illenit (9 ½), while rehearsing out back. The second shows us on stage and finally a picture of us while I was being thanked.
Carmel, one of the teachers, asked us to come up and said she was going to “talk about me.” I only caught a few words but when she introduced me as Liz’ husband lots of eyes lit up. Liz is well known and very popular here.** So I got thanked for playing guitar, for helping with English and for bringing one large bag of peanut M&Ms. (Israelis love M&Ms. If you want to cheer up someone in the Army just send a couple of pounds of the stuff. The kids inhaled a large bag.)
Jewish Geography with a Vengeance
Friday, 15 Dec, we pack up and leave Tel Aviv. For the rest of December we are going to be bouncing around between Haifa, Jerusalem and, possibly, points north. Yossi the cab driver Deena the real estate agent arranged for us is a friendly guy who was born in Hatikvah. His parents emigrated from Persia many years ago. Liz keeps up a running conversation in Hebrew all the way up the coast to Haifa (a little over an hour in moderate traffic). Yossi is very patient as he conjugates some verbs for her. Though at one point he said, its OK to say it in English. But Liz kept right on. Its good to have a wife who can speak with cabbies and plumbers.
Driving up the coast from Tel Aviv, we pass a number of towns and Kibbutzim. Then, suddenly, we come upon the first mountain range we have seen. So far we’ve been in the coastal plain or northern edge of the dessert. Now we are looking at Zichron Yaakov, once of the earliest Jewish settlements and a wine making center. The city sits on the first mountain you see driving north from Tel Aviv to Haifa. Haifa itself is a modern city built on a mountain. The US equivalent would be San Francisco. At the foot of the hill are great beaches and Israel’s major port. Haifa is a commercial center and does not have the nightlife of Tel Aviv. The old saying is you go to Jerusalem to pray, to Tel Aviv to play and to Haifa to work. Like all stereotypes there’s a lot of truth in the saying. Haifa is a beautiful city. It doesn’t have the run down areas of Tel Aviv. It’s also a city where Jews and Arabs have lived peacefully together for longer than anyone can remember.
Yael Paley, an Israeli friend from back home, has lent us her apartment. Yael spends most of her time working in the US (where her daughters and grandchildren all live) but comes back to Israel for vacations. She inherited her Mother’s apartment and has held on to it. Given what’s been going on with Israeli real estate this has proven to be a good move, even if she doesn’t eventually retire here. But for the next few days Liz and I have free run of a tastefully decorated, cavernous apartment (3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms; 2 bathrooms approaches my definition of civilized which is 1 ½ bathrooms per person). As we stretched out on a giant corner couch, sipping a really good Israeli wine *** , Liz said, “We aren’t really on vacation, neither of us work so we have nothing to be on vacation from. The fact is that we live like this. And we deserve to live like this.” I knew there was a reason I dated her in college.
So today, 16 Dec, is Shabbat and we decided to do the one thing that we routinely do at home but have never done in Israel – we decided to so to services in a synagogue. So far this trip we even walked into a church (St. Peter’s in Old Jaffa – as in raising Tabitha from the dead St. Peter) but have done nothing overtly theologically Jewish. Thanks to the internet we have a list of every Masorti congregation in Israel. Masorti is the Conservative movement in Israel. So off we go to Kehillath Moriya, the oldest Masorti congregation in Israel. We have called in advance so we know that they start at 09:00 (Jewish time, of course) and today is a bar mitzvah. So we get there by a quarter to ten or so and they are just at the end of repeating the Amidah (the Shemona Esreh to the hard core). Everything is in Hebrew but the service is your basic Ashkenazi, Conservative service (with a few Sephardic melodies thrown in with the mostly familiar melodies and a few words added or inverted in some of the prayers), so we can follow along. For the full Torah reading we are handed an English-Hebrew Soncino, a familiar book from back home. Take note Beth El people, these folks start at 9 and finished at 11:30, with a bar mitzvah, with the Rabbi and the bar mitzvah boy discussing the Torah reading and a full Torah reading. They did do the shortened Shemoneh Esreh for Musaf (the concluding prayers) but all in all you had a full service, without responsive readings in English.
Then, at the end came the announcements. Remember my blog about playing Jewish Geography in Busi? Well, here’s proof how small the Jewish world really is. In the middle of announcements I hear the President tell the congregation that Debbie Block-Temin will be back on Tuesday. Turns out her father, Samuel Block, died and she went home to the US for the funeral but will sit shiva one night at home in Haifa. Deborah and David Block-Temin were, back in 1984, members of Park Slope Jewish Center in Brooklyn. Back then they were newly weds who left Park Slope to make Aliyah. When I last heard of them (Andy Fair, do you still have contact?), he landed a job as an attorney in Haifa. Today I learned that he is now general counsel for Elbit, which I think is a major Israeli defense contractor. She became a social worker and works at a hospital for disabled children. They have 5 children. Back in 1984, Liz and I lived in Park Slope in Brooklyn and spent many Saturday mornings at services with the Block-Temins. They live a short walk from Kehillath Moriya. But for the unfortunate passing of her father, they would probably have been in synagogue today. Liz is proud of having found them in the phone book (quick, spell Block-Temin in Hebrew). We’ll try to make contact.
As I write this we are listening to the web cast of NPR (WNYC-FM, a New York City public radio station). Apparently we are not only missing snow and ice storms but also a transit strike. Even raining its reasonably warm here (60s to 70s by day; high 40s to low 50s at night). Winter in Haifa is like summer in San Francisco. So all I can say is, be jealous, be very jealous. And remember that, come January, we are back in Tel Aviv with a spare bedroom.
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*”Who Knows One” a counting song sung at Passover Seders in which each number stands for a different aspect of Jewish life, lore or theology. For the Christians in the crowd, think of Partridge in a Pear Tree.
**Digression – Learning English here is very serious business. A lot of technical and professional work gets done in English. Your ability to get into a top rated university hinges, among other things, on how well you do on an English test. Opportunities for advancement in the Army, government jobs and civilian life increase markedly with one’s fluency in English. So getting help with your English homework from someone who came all the way from New Jersey, America to help you is a big deal.
***Barkan Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon – about $18 retail in the USA; $12 in the duty free shop at Ben Gurion Airport. Anyone traveling through there with room in his or her bags, grab as many as you can carry and I’ll pay you back when you hand them over in Millburn. If they still have the 4 for the price of 3 sale it drops the price to under $10 a bottle.
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Haifa 14:08
It’s Shabbat in Haifa. We drove up here from Tel Aviv yesterday (Friday 15 Dec.) and experienced something entirely new to us. It was raining in Israel. Squalls and thunderstorms all along the coast. It will rain intensely for a while and then the sun will come out. This weather cycle has been going on for over 24 hours now. Having only been here in non-rainy seasons (or during what everyone swears is an unusual December heat wave) it’s quite a novelty to listen to rain hitting the windows.
Packing and moving got a bit intense so I’m a few days behind with the blogs. But, your luck has run out. I’m going to catch up on a few items.
Back to Rehovot
Last Monday, we (Liz, cousins Marcia and David Chamovitz and I) got a VIP tour of Weizmann Institute. Turns out that Jay Leipzig, the Senior Vice President of the American Committee for the Weizmann Science Institute, and I share a Rabbi or two. Before we left home Liz and I visited with Rabbi Jehiel and Sylvia Orenstein to get tips on what would be good, off beat places to visit in Israel. Rabbi Orenstein said we should get a tour of Weizmann and suggested I contacted Jay Leipzig, who arranged a tour for him. I don’t know Jay so I asked how to find Jay. The Rabbi says, get his e-mail off the synagogue membership list. Fortunately Jay has a sense of humor about these things (I suspect we are not the first people sent his way like this) and arranged for our tour.
Weizmann is one of the world’s foremost research institutes. They work on everything, often using multidisciplinary approaches to extremely high tech (like nanotechnology and alternate energy sources). Next to a field of huge, movable mirrors stands a building with labs used to investigate the uses of sunlight (grow things, make more powerful lasers, etc). The building is set up to have the mirrors focus sunlight into various laboratories or a giant mirror on the side of the building used to step-up the light to get a beam of up to 20,000 suns. Turns out the particle accelerator is obsolete and Weizmann uses the Cern accelerator for its sub-molecular experiments. But a lot of cutting edge research goes on on site.
What’s really notable about Weizmann is that it looks like a college campus, only flat and beautiful. The campus includes Chaim Weizmann’s house. Long before he became the first President of Israel, Weizmann was a research chemist who developed a better way to produce acetone, which, in turn, was used for explosives during World War I. He lived then in the UK and made his discovery available to the British for their war effort. This made him both very rich and very well connected. Which led to him becoming a major instigator of the Balfour Declaration (in which the British recognized the right of Jews to establish a homeland in the Palestine Mandate). Weizmann helped create the State and a research institute in Rehovot.
Weizmann had one of the 30’s hot architects design a home for he and his wife on land that is now part of the Institute. The house itself is worth the tour (and we got to look into closets of art nouveau crystal and wander around the kitchen, both usually off limits but we got the VIP tour). It’s a variation of the International School. For example it has a three-story spiral staircase enclosed inside a curved wall of rows and rows of thermometer windows. The building itself is a work of art and contains a number of wonderful art pieces. It can’t buy you love but money can most certainly buy you a great house.
We Wuz Robbed
The talent show at Beit Noar Kadima was a hoot. My kids did not win but had a good time just showing off. The winner was a young lady who did a hip-hop belly dance to some Israeli pop song. I liked the four kids who used chairs as props and danced to a really strange version of Echad Mi Yodea. * Here are pictures of the girls and me. The first shows me and, from left to right, Keren (9 ½), Orli (11) and Illenit (9 ½), while rehearsing out back. The second shows us on stage and finally a picture of us while I was being thanked.
Carmel, one of the teachers, asked us to come up and said she was going to “talk about me.” I only caught a few words but when she introduced me as Liz’ husband lots of eyes lit up. Liz is well known and very popular here.** So I got thanked for playing guitar, for helping with English and for bringing one large bag of peanut M&Ms. (Israelis love M&Ms. If you want to cheer up someone in the Army just send a couple of pounds of the stuff. The kids inhaled a large bag.)
Jewish Geography with a Vengeance
Friday, 15 Dec, we pack up and leave Tel Aviv. For the rest of December we are going to be bouncing around between Haifa, Jerusalem and, possibly, points north. Yossi the cab driver Deena the real estate agent arranged for us is a friendly guy who was born in Hatikvah. His parents emigrated from Persia many years ago. Liz keeps up a running conversation in Hebrew all the way up the coast to Haifa (a little over an hour in moderate traffic). Yossi is very patient as he conjugates some verbs for her. Though at one point he said, its OK to say it in English. But Liz kept right on. Its good to have a wife who can speak with cabbies and plumbers.
Driving up the coast from Tel Aviv, we pass a number of towns and Kibbutzim. Then, suddenly, we come upon the first mountain range we have seen. So far we’ve been in the coastal plain or northern edge of the dessert. Now we are looking at Zichron Yaakov, once of the earliest Jewish settlements and a wine making center. The city sits on the first mountain you see driving north from Tel Aviv to Haifa. Haifa itself is a modern city built on a mountain. The US equivalent would be San Francisco. At the foot of the hill are great beaches and Israel’s major port. Haifa is a commercial center and does not have the nightlife of Tel Aviv. The old saying is you go to Jerusalem to pray, to Tel Aviv to play and to Haifa to work. Like all stereotypes there’s a lot of truth in the saying. Haifa is a beautiful city. It doesn’t have the run down areas of Tel Aviv. It’s also a city where Jews and Arabs have lived peacefully together for longer than anyone can remember.
Yael Paley, an Israeli friend from back home, has lent us her apartment. Yael spends most of her time working in the US (where her daughters and grandchildren all live) but comes back to Israel for vacations. She inherited her Mother’s apartment and has held on to it. Given what’s been going on with Israeli real estate this has proven to be a good move, even if she doesn’t eventually retire here. But for the next few days Liz and I have free run of a tastefully decorated, cavernous apartment (3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms; 2 bathrooms approaches my definition of civilized which is 1 ½ bathrooms per person). As we stretched out on a giant corner couch, sipping a really good Israeli wine *** , Liz said, “We aren’t really on vacation, neither of us work so we have nothing to be on vacation from. The fact is that we live like this. And we deserve to live like this.” I knew there was a reason I dated her in college.
So today, 16 Dec, is Shabbat and we decided to do the one thing that we routinely do at home but have never done in Israel – we decided to so to services in a synagogue. So far this trip we even walked into a church (St. Peter’s in Old Jaffa – as in raising Tabitha from the dead St. Peter) but have done nothing overtly theologically Jewish. Thanks to the internet we have a list of every Masorti congregation in Israel. Masorti is the Conservative movement in Israel. So off we go to Kehillath Moriya, the oldest Masorti congregation in Israel. We have called in advance so we know that they start at 09:00 (Jewish time, of course) and today is a bar mitzvah. So we get there by a quarter to ten or so and they are just at the end of repeating the Amidah (the Shemona Esreh to the hard core). Everything is in Hebrew but the service is your basic Ashkenazi, Conservative service (with a few Sephardic melodies thrown in with the mostly familiar melodies and a few words added or inverted in some of the prayers), so we can follow along. For the full Torah reading we are handed an English-Hebrew Soncino, a familiar book from back home. Take note Beth El people, these folks start at 9 and finished at 11:30, with a bar mitzvah, with the Rabbi and the bar mitzvah boy discussing the Torah reading and a full Torah reading. They did do the shortened Shemoneh Esreh for Musaf (the concluding prayers) but all in all you had a full service, without responsive readings in English.
Then, at the end came the announcements. Remember my blog about playing Jewish Geography in Busi? Well, here’s proof how small the Jewish world really is. In the middle of announcements I hear the President tell the congregation that Debbie Block-Temin will be back on Tuesday. Turns out her father, Samuel Block, died and she went home to the US for the funeral but will sit shiva one night at home in Haifa. Deborah and David Block-Temin were, back in 1984, members of Park Slope Jewish Center in Brooklyn. Back then they were newly weds who left Park Slope to make Aliyah. When I last heard of them (Andy Fair, do you still have contact?), he landed a job as an attorney in Haifa. Today I learned that he is now general counsel for Elbit, which I think is a major Israeli defense contractor. She became a social worker and works at a hospital for disabled children. They have 5 children. Back in 1984, Liz and I lived in Park Slope in Brooklyn and spent many Saturday mornings at services with the Block-Temins. They live a short walk from Kehillath Moriya. But for the unfortunate passing of her father, they would probably have been in synagogue today. Liz is proud of having found them in the phone book (quick, spell Block-Temin in Hebrew). We’ll try to make contact.
As I write this we are listening to the web cast of NPR (WNYC-FM, a New York City public radio station). Apparently we are not only missing snow and ice storms but also a transit strike. Even raining its reasonably warm here (60s to 70s by day; high 40s to low 50s at night). Winter in Haifa is like summer in San Francisco. So all I can say is, be jealous, be very jealous. And remember that, come January, we are back in Tel Aviv with a spare bedroom.
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*”Who Knows One” a counting song sung at Passover Seders in which each number stands for a different aspect of Jewish life, lore or theology. For the Christians in the crowd, think of Partridge in a Pear Tree.
**Digression – Learning English here is very serious business. A lot of technical and professional work gets done in English. Your ability to get into a top rated university hinges, among other things, on how well you do on an English test. Opportunities for advancement in the Army, government jobs and civilian life increase markedly with one’s fluency in English. So getting help with your English homework from someone who came all the way from New Jersey, America to help you is a big deal.
***Barkan Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon – about $18 retail in the USA; $12 in the duty free shop at Ben Gurion Airport. Anyone traveling through there with room in his or her bags, grab as many as you can carry and I’ll pay you back when you hand them over in Millburn. If they still have the 4 for the price of 3 sale it drops the price to under $10 a bottle.
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