trees are blowin' in the wind, whoosh!

though it was a couple of weeks ago, i still want to share some of the photos i took on tu bishvat. better late than never!
my mom was here visiting and we joined in with the פורום לצעירים (the young adults group of the israeli reform movement) for a hike in the sataf, a beautiful nature preserve just outside jerusalem. it was a sunshiney day, perfect for picture-taking!
our guide was my fantastic cousin/hevruta

the almond trees were blooming

we ran into a group from kolot having a tu bishvat seder

we got to see how local folks are using the ancient terraces to plant organic gardens (cool!!)

it was an all-around lovely mid-winter day in israel. a hint of spring to come!

oh, how i want to be in that number

last night/this morning, 13 crazy jerusalemites (mostly temporary jerusalemites, but...) gathered in my living room to watch superbowl XLIV at 1am. there was veggie chili and there were nachos, there was beer and there were quesapitas. a good time was had by all.

this über-american event, which follows visits from the majority of my parents, has allowed a little cloud of homesickness to settle in over me. 
i love being in israel. i feel better here than i did in my first couple years in philly. my life here is rich, full of wonderful people, intellectual growth, laughter, good food, nice weather, and i feel an ironic peacefulness in this war-torn place. but it's simply not home. 
it's my favorite place away from home, but home, it is not. for better or for worse, that spot in my heart is pretty much reserved for chicago. city of big shoulders and of my big family. in the not so distant future i'll be hoping to find gainful, satisfying, lasting employment as a rabbi in chicago. i invite you all to my superbowl XLVII party there.

come on baby, light my fire

so, my very generous family bought me a kindle!! i'm so excited. so far, reading on it has been just lovely. now, all i want to do is sit and read books on my fancy dancy new machine.
the first book i bought was the help, and i've clicked through 20% of the pages already :) (i have no idea what that translates to in paper page numbers.)
i am now opening up the comments section for suggestions of other books i should read. what have you read recently that knocked your socks off?

whoa! whoa! i gotta go!

putting together a course schedule is one of my absolute favorite activities. just ask my sister. she loves it too. so, though it was a little bit insane to try to put together a schedule at multiple institutions all of whom are on different calendars, i might have done it!

the goals i set out for this year in israel were threefold:

• improve my Hebrew to the point of (near) fluency
• meet fascinating people
• make personal and professional connections with israeli institutions that i think are cool

okay, maybe fourfold:

• have fun

my schedule, as is turns out, it perfectly styled to do just this. most of my classes are in hebrew, and are with israelis, and are in progressive settings, and i even get to study at some really innovative institutions like Elul and Alma!

since i'm studying at so many different places, some are still in the fall semester, and some have already started the spring. so, last night i went to a new class for the first time and tomorrow i have the last session of another class. :)


if all goes as planned, by the time we get deep into february and we're firing on all cylinders, my schedule will be:


sunday: zohar study group (hartman institute)
monday: halakha (HUC)
tuesday: talmud (HUC), israeli music as prayer (HUC), medieval thought (CY), rabbinical students program (Hartman)
wednesday: bet midrash elul, kabbalah (CY)
thursday: medieval jewish thought (alma in tel aviv!)
friday: free day!
saturday: shabbat!


i'm sooooo excited. :)

O little town of bethlehem

the other day i was chatting online with my friend rebecca and she told me about an interesting situation near our neighboring town of bethlehem. she then sent me the following e-mail: 

You are invited to a painting party at Osh Grab/Shdema (as the Women in Green like to call it).  OshGrab is a hill overlooking Beit Sahour, a Palestinian town that is next to Bethlehem.  When the Jordanians were in charge of the West Bank, the hill at OshGrab had a small military outpost on it.  In 1971 the Israeli's also decided to use the hill top as a military outpost.  They also decided to seize all the private land surrounding the outpost.  That land has been unavailable for development by its owners since that time.  Four years ago the Israeli military decided to pull out of Osh Grab and to no longer use the site for military needs.  However, the seizure order was never canceled, even though the military no longer has a use for the site.  Three years ago the mayor of Beit Sahour was approached by Cure International, an NGO that builds hospitals in needy places around the world.  Cure wanted to build a children's hospital in Beit Sahour.  Unfortunately most of Beit Sahour's historic municipal lands (ie the places where the town can grow into and use for development in general) have been annexed to Jerusalem, including what is now the "neighborhood" of Har Homa.  Beit Sahour is becoming hemmed in, leaving very few options for development.  One of the remaining options is developing the area around and on top of OshGrab.  The mayor spent several years trying to get planning permission from the Israeli army for the building of a hospital at the site.  But he did not succeed.  During that time he did get verbal permission to build a park on part of the hill.  The park is now threatened with demolition if the settlers get their way.

When the Women in Green learned that Beit Sahour had submitted plans for developing the land at OshGrab they decided that the land belonged to Israel and Israel should not give it up.  They have launched a campaign for the hill top to become a Zionist Cultural Center (on the edge of a Palestinian village and partially on land seized from local towns people).  Their campaign has been libelous against the local community, rude and threatening, and occasionally violent both towards locals and the Israeli military.  If you want to see the tenor of the campaign you can visit their website at http://www.womeningreen.org/.  The video they have produced accuses the local population of terrorism.  Beit Sahour is an 80% Christian village with a history of non-violent protest against the military occupation.  Its citizens have stood up against oppression courageously a number of times.  During the first intifada the community decided to refuse to pay taxes to the Israeli military.  They ran their campaign under the slogan, "No taxation without representation."  Unfortunately the military came and confiscated property in leu of the taxes but this example shows the kind of approach taken by the community.

So my plan.  There are abandoned buildings at OshGrab that the settlers are using for by-monthly art shows and concerts and speeches by Israeli Knesset members and Rabbis from Efrat and other surrounding settlements.  I want us to paint quotes from Jewish sources that speak about the Jewish values that the settlers are failing to live by.  I want us to remind them of their obligations as Jews to live in ways that will promote peace and are in line with justice.  I have some texts that I have collected.  I would love it if you all wanted to bring texts that you want to write on the walls.  I think we should write in English, Hebrew and Arabic (if we can).  Please bring the texts that you have to contribute with you.

so, we did!

 well, we made our way to bethlehem and when we arrived, we found out that the settlers had gathered at the site, making it not a safe place for us to go paint peaceful torah messages. ironic. neither derek nor i had ever been to bethlehem before, so we decided to do some touristing in order to not waste the day away and in hopes that the settlers would leave and we would still have time to paint before heading back to jerusalem for shabbat.first we went to the church of the nativity. it reminded me (quite logically) or the church of the holy sepulchre. i love going to other religions' holy sites and seeing how they move people.

then we went to the milk grotto, where crusaders set up in the spot they claim mary spilled some breast milk while she was suckling baby jesus. we loving called this the boob church. it was also beautiful.

we met up with bethany and steve who took us back to the church of the nativity to show and explain some more, and to take us to the cell where jerome translated the vulgate and coined the term apocrypha, but there were some franciscans processing so we got to see them instead.

en route to lunch, we got word that the settlers were gone, so we switched courses, bought some food and paint, and headed up the hill. this is what we found:

so we got to painting:

this was my first act of graffiti not on the Wash U underpass, and I mostly did white paint over things the settler folk had painted. things like "we are freedom fighters for israel!" and "kahane was right!" while my friends painted biblical and rabbinic texts.

and then my camera died, so no more pictures. we also don't know what the reaction of the settlers will be, but we're hoping that the words of peace that we painted in hebrew, english, and arabic will be understood by both the settlers and the surrounding arab villages.

they're the people that you meet when you're walking down the street

the gilad shalit vigil is no longer alone. 
since bibi declared a 10-month settlement freeze. we've had a big protest: 

and now a tent has been set up with folks there all day and sometimes at night (but not on shabbos!):

it's hard to see two issues to which i have such very different emotional reactions side by side. i walk past the gilad shalit table and feel sadness for his family and hope for his return.
i walk past the settlers and feel mostly anger and frustration. there they are with their posters that say "we will continue to build in the west bank!" and my blood just boils.
like any political decision in Israel, the settlement freeze seems to have made lots of people unhappy. the very right wing is upset that there is any kind of halt to building in land they want to claim as jewish. the very left wing isn't satisfied unless the freeze is permanent, settlements are dismantled, and east jerusalem is included in the discussion.
here in this land that has been contested for millennia, emotions run high, opinions are many, and solutions are few.

well it's been a long, been a long, been a along, been a long day

i forgive myself in advance for how long it has been since i last blogged. you see, i've been planning to write about all of the wonderful people who have come to visit and all of the fascinating things i've been observing here in the holy land. i even take pictures specifically to post on the blog. but then, i do things like socialize and sleep and watch tv on the internet instead. so, it's 2010 and this will be the year of the blog.

the jury (a.k.a. me, myself, and i) is still out on whether i will backtrack and write in detail about all the things that you (the people of the internet) missed, or whether i'll just start from here. for now, i'll just post some highlights and photos and maybe fill in later.

here's what has happened since the phillies lost the world series: