Tag Archives: Tel Aviv

Love and a Pigeon

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From my blog:

Ten Characteristics of a Good Pigeon Handler:

  1. The pigeon handler is moderate in his disposition. A reckless pigeon handler frightens the pigeons.
  2. The pigeon handler is loyal and responsible and carries out his tasks in an orderly and punctual fashion.
  3. 0The pigeon handler is kindhearted and cares for each and every pigeon.
  4. The pigeon handler is patient and devoted.
  5. The pigeon handler is tidy and attentive to cleanliness.
  6. The pigeon handler is strong-willed and maintains discipline over the pigeons.
  7. The pigeon handler is sensitive in observing and discerning the character and condition of each and every pigeon.
  8. The pigeon handler is industrious. There is always work to be done in the pigeon loft.
  9. The pigeon handler is considerate of others. Continue reading →
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the layers come off

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From my blog:

The layers come offIMG_1993

Did that grab your attention? Well don’t get too excited, sorry to disappoint.

I was bracing my self for that cold shock on my face, but I got off the bus, and the sun hit my face. Oh hello sun! I walked to a coffee shop (duh) and sat outside…as the sun’s rays was beating down on me I started to have this weird feeling, warmth! Oh I haven’t felt you in what felt like forever! The sun was so strong I took off my jacket, heavy sweater, scarves, and cardigan! At this point I was only wearing a tang top! Scandals! I became so aware of how much skin I was showing, something where when I used to live in nyc I would give a second thought to, all of a sudden seemed so revealing. But the feeling on the sun on my skin, the vitamin D was so amazing!

IMG_2035

I stayed in tel aviv for 3 days, although I totally felt like I was in a different dimension. With the weather sunny, people smiling, and couldn’t stop saying “ahh hashemesh!” (the sun!) everyone looked so trendy, hip, and beautiful and I realized I am defiantly not in Jerusalem anymore! Continue reading →

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Times Like These….

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[Cross-Posted from my blog, Lost in Jerusalem]

Dear readers (all three of you), as you can see, it’s been almost four months since I’ve written for my blog. I could blame writer’s block or the typical day to day distractions as the reason behind my silence. For instance, I’ve been getting into Lost, because my parents have Netflix, and I’m a sucker for TV dramas. This is like Star Trek: Deep Space 9 all over again, when watching five episodes in one extremely late night became a common occurrence. That time, I believe my addiction nearly destroyed my Hebrew classes in college, because I lent the series to my professor; I managed to hook he and wife both, like a junkie looking for fellow junkies to connect with as we slip further in between the cracks of the productive parts of society, boldly spiraling to where no man has gone before (except for millions of other hopeless Trekkies). Talk about distractions. But the reason for my virtual silence is really quite simple; I’m exhausted. I’m exhausted, and thinking of my beloved Israel and Jerusalem is even more exhausting. I miss being there so much, that it drains me to think about it. I then get sad, and when I get sad, it looks very similar to anger, and my poor family has had to put up with my sad/angry shit for years. I’d rather not be sad and angry, if for nothing else, to save my family the headache of my bellyaching.

However, my exhaustion isn’t just from my perpetual state of longing for Israel; it also comes from what has been my job for the last couple of months. Continue reading →

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Heavy Boots

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Originally posted on my blog:

“We need enormous pockets, pockets big enough for our families and our friends, and even the people who aren’t on our lists, people we’ve never met but still want to protect. We need pockets for boroughs and for cities, a pocket that could hold the universe.”

-Jonathan Safran Foer,
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

In one of my favorite books, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, the main character, a 9-year old boy, talks about how he becomes overwhelmed with the state of the world. He calls this having “heavy boots.”

“Seeing homeless people gives me heavy boots.”

“Hearing that my best friend’s grandma had died gave me heavy boots.”

This metaphor has always resonated with me, because I can easily feel overwhelmed with the pain and suffering in this world.

Today, I have particularly heavy boots.

The past week has brought a lot of destruction, in all senses of the word, to southern Israel and Gaza. There are constant air raid sirens and bombs falling in the south, thousands of soldiers being called in from the reserves, casualties on both sides of the border. Today, there was a bus explosion in Tel Aviv, wounding 21 people. Continue reading →

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Sirens and Rockets

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Originally posted on my blog:

On Friday evening, an air-raid siren went off in Jerusalem.  This was not supposed to happen.  We were supposed to be out of range, in a city too holy to Muslims, with too large a Palestinian population.  It appeared that we were wrong.  Hamas had fired a rocket towards Jerusalem, but it had fallen somewhat short.

What is it like to hear an air-raid siren?

It’s scary, but less scary than you might think.  You know what you have to do.  In Jerusalem, you have a minute an a half to get to shelter (the further you are from gaza, the more time you have).  Then you wait a few minutes, or until you hear an explosion.  And anyway, most of the rockets don’t hit.

The scary part is afterwards, waiting for it to happen again, realizing that Jerusalem might not be immune.  Every footstep upstairs starts to sound like an explosion, and a car revving up sounds a lot like the beginning of another air-raid siren.

That was half of my reality on Friday night.  The other half was that it was Shabbat, and life went on.  If anything, it was all more powerful than usual.  Phrases from the liturgy like בואי בשלום took on new meaning (ה’ עז לעמו יתן, ה’ יברך את עמו בשלום is another example)[1].

Then, life continued going on, and memory of the siren faded.  It takes surprisingly little time for this to happen.  Twenty-four hours later, things felt almost completely normal again.  Hamas continued firing on Tel-Aviv, but not on Jerusalem.  It now appears that Hamas may not be able to quite reach Jerusalem after all, and that they may not have meant to try in the first place.  It may have been a misfire.

There is a feeling of invincibility in the place, a sense that its citizens are protected from the turmoil engulfing areas nearby.  It is ironic but unsurprising that the main sources of this feeling are the Al-Aqsa Mosque and Dome of the Rock.  In any event, it seems entirely possible that I will never hear another Siren.  If only the rest of Israel could be so lucky.

[1] Translation:  The first Hebrew phrase means “come in peace,” in reference to Shabbat.  The second means “May God give His people strength, may God bless his people with peace.”

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The Scariest Shabbat of my Life

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This is a note I have dreaded having to write when I decided to spend some time living in Israel. But as I am sure you are aware there has been an escalation of violence in the region. I want to let you know that I am safe and also to share with you what was potentially the scariest experience of my life.

On Friday night I arrived at synagogue just on time to start the service. The beautiful melodies were comforting after an intense week of hiking in the desert and hearing the news of the renewed tension between Israel and Gaza resulting in three Israeli fatalities and 35 Palestinian deaths. I was fully aware that rockets had hit further than their normal range and sirens had been sounded in Tel Aviv. However, living in Jerusalem like the rest of the city I felt completely out of harms way. After all, why would rockets be fired into the religious capital for Jews and Muslims alike? I had gone to Shul wanting to find the words to pray for peace and healing for those hurt in the crossfire.

The congregation was singing the opening prayers when we heard the first siren. There was a silence in the room and everyone froze and looked at each other. There was a collective gasp as we began to make sense of what was happening. I felt my whole body go rigid in the moment that the conflict became a living reality for me. I was unprepared experience anything like this. The Shilach Tzbor ( service leader) turned their head to look outside and then continued with the prayers. 30 seconds later the siren went off again. We left the room and headed downstairs to the bomb shelter.

After a while the service resumed. This time everyone in the synagogue was singing with what I can with even greater spirit and power. It was the embodiment of the typical Israeli attitude that ‘life must go on’. Shabbat still needed to be celebrated even with bomb sirens going off. Witnessing this spiritual resistance was extremely powerful and I felt in awe of the bravery of the people in the room who were determined to continue. I for my part stood in the back of the room hyperventilating.

However, the optimism was short lived. After we finished the next psalm an announcement was made that a rocket had hit the south of the city, groups of 50 plus should disband- we all went home.

The contrast between the beauty of the Friday night service which strives to celebrate the creation of the world and provides a taste of the peace and harmony of the world to come and the fear and violence that was aroused by hearing a bomb siren is sickening. The rocket was launched at a time when Hamas knew it would have the most psychological damage. Shabbat is a time when I feel safe and calm knowing that I am entering into a space where I focus my energy on on things that are important to me, family, Judaism and of course food! This week it was shattered by the threat of violence from terrorism.

Whilst this is the first time since 1991 that Jerusalem has been on the receiving end of rockets, unfortunately the rocket- retaliation cycle is not new. Israel and Gaza have been at constant loggerheads since the disengagement. It was only a few years ago that Operation Cast Lead took place with the intention to putting an end to the threat from Hamas. However we are now witnessing a new round to the violent cat and mouse game that Israel and Gaza are playing. The situation is complex to say the least, it is not black and white, goodies and baddies, David and Goliath. To be honest I do not care who started it and who was right and wrong. My hope and prayer is that both sides can stop kidding themselves that it can be resolved through violence. What is needed is to sit down and begin to map out a future for both states.

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Falling in love with Tel Aviv

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Originally posted on my blog:

So there is this thing. Tel Aviv vs. Jerusalem- and I’d say probably the majority of your average secular Israelis would say Tel Aviv, hands down. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m in love with Jerusalem… there is incredible history, beauty and complexity here. But there is something else going on in Tel Aviv, and I like it.

First off its a metropolitan city that just feels more city-like… tons of cafes, bars and restaurants that call my name everywhere I go… “Cara, come have a civilized glass of wine on this uber-cute street and watch the world go by.”

Secondly there is the sparkling Mediterranean and incredible biking and Continue reading →

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Life Post-Chagim

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Originally posted on my blog:

Hey, remember me? Sorry it’s been so long since I posted last, but things have been pretty busy here. I’m not exactly sure where I left off last, but I think it was somewhere around sukkot break (called one of the chagim aka festivals), so let me jump to that since that included plenty of excitement.

During the week of sukkot break, I went with 2 friends from Pardes up north to Tiberias. We hopped on a bus on Wednesday morning without much of a plan other than wanting to sleep on the Kenerret (also known as the Sea of Galilee – the only fresh water source in Israel, and the only source of water other than the Mediterranean) . So when we arrived in Tiberias, we began as any proper American would by stopping at the (kosher!) McDonald’s right outside of the bus station and getting awesome milkshakes for ourselves. Then, after exploring for a bit and swimming in the Kenerret, we saw a mountain by us and decided that we wanted to climb it – so we did. We wandered around until we found a trail up, and eventually made it to an amazing point where we could see the whole Kenerret, mountains, and an aerial of Tiberias, at which point we (well at least I) spent some time reflecting and meditating over our time so far and getting to look back at Jerusalem from afar in order to properly think about it. Also, it was nice to finally be near a body of water. We then hiked more and finally wandered around the Kenerret, until we found a great place to set up camp, about 15 ft. from the water. Or I guess I should use the measurement system of the country and say about 5 meters. But you get the idea.

The next morning, we decided to head over to Tsfat, so we spent the day wandering around the town; it was so great to be back there, since it had been about two years since I had been there. Also, on the way there, our bus broke down and we had to switch, but, being the unplanned travelers that we were, we got to experience it as just another cool part of our journey instead of something that got in the way. Then, after coming back to Jerusalem that night, I hopped on the first bus out to Tel Aviv the next morning (~6am) to partake in the massive cycling event that was going on there. They blocked off about ten miles of highway and a bunch of major roads through the city, and I got to join thousands of bikers in doing a 42k through the city, and it was great; definitely a nice way to ease back to Tel Aviv after not being there for ~2 years either. Then, after finishing up the ride, I went to hang out and stretch on the beach and jump in the Mediterranean and think about how 24 hours earlier I had woken up in the Keneret. Definitely a pretty packed few days.

Since coming back from break, we’ve been back in class for ~2 weeks now and it’s definitely been nice to be back in routine after about a month off for holidays. And now we don’t really have too much time off in the next few months other than a 3-day hike in November and a week off for Hanukah, so this time coming up will be a great time to start really getting into the learning and developing a routine which will be great. I’ve been reading a lot lately also, and I’ve really been enjoying two books in particular – “The Secret Life of G-d” and “The Sabbath”.

A few gems that I have picked up in “The Secret Life of G-d”…

  • Our choices really do make a difference, but the real difference they make is how they change us
  • As quoted by a Bob Dylan lyric, everyone is serving somebody – there isn’t anyone in the world that isn’t serving something or somebody. The question isn’t to serve or not to serve – it is who to serve.
  • And here’s a famous story that the author re-tells:

There was a man who dreamed that he saw his whole life’s journey as footsteps in the sand. Sometimes there were two imprints, his and G-ds. But during the parts of the trek that were most difficult, he saw only one set of footprints. He complained to G-d: “G-d, You promised me that You would always accompany me in my journey. How is it that during the most difficult times in my life, You disappeared?” G-d responded, “I have always been with you. The reason why you only see one set of footprints is because during your most difficult times, I carried you. Those footprints are Mine.

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The Old City

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From my blog:

Over Sukkot vacation, I got to do some relaxing and some traveling.  Sam and I spent a day at the beach in Tel-Aviv, and another day exploring the Old City of Jerusalem.  On previous trips, I spent a lot of time in the Old City’s Jewish quarter, which has a very touristy, Disneyland kind of feel (this is partly because the area is a magnet for Jewish tourists; and partly because it was razed to the ground by the Jordanians prior to 1967, and is therefore much, much newer than the rest of the Old City).  While I did spend a little bit of time in the Jewish quarter on this trip, I spent much more time in the Christian and Islamic quarters.

The main goal of the day was to visit The Church of the Holy Sepulcher.  As it turns out, the church is very easy to find, but its entrance is not.  Sam and I got a pretty good tour of the Christian quarter just searching for it.  The church itself was mobbed; apparently Sukkot (“Tabernacles” in Christian terminology) is a very popular time for Christian pilgrims to visit Jerusalem.  We didn’t even bother trying to get into the innermost area, where Jesus is believed to have been buried.  What we did see was beautiful and interesting enough.  I had to keep reminding myself that I was not in a museum but in a real, live holy site of a real, major religion.  I actually have this problem even at Jewish holy sites.  I think it’s a result of growing up in America, where we don’t have our own religious holy sites; museums are the closest we get.

From there, we followed to Via Dolorosa backwards into the Islamic quarter.  We spent a bit less time here, but still got to wander a bit through the narrow alleyways and see all of the little shops.  From there, we finished off the day at the Kotel.

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Blogging in 5773

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Originally posted on Oct. 1:

Two months since I last wrote. It is now 5773 and I am hoping to blog more regularly. Call it a Jewish new year’s resolution!

The Jewish New Year ראש השנה Rosh HaShanah was on September 17 followed by the Day of Atonement יום כיפור Yom Kippur on September 26. All Jewish holidays always start the sundown before the day of the actual holiday for those who are not aware. Tonight, September 30 the holiday called סוכות Sukkot began at sundown. It was amazing to walk around my neighborhood and other nearby areas and see these decorated sukkot (booths) everywhere. In front and behind apartment buildings, on balconies, on rooftops and even in front of businesses on a commercial street. I’m off from school for about a week and a half for the Sukkot break- vacation!

Tonight I also experienced rain for the first time in Israel. It was quite powerful to feel the rain drops through the beautifully decorated top of the סוכה sukkah, covered in date palm branches, other local leafy plants, a few strings of little apple lights and home-made paper balls and chains. It is a beautiful harvest holiday that lasts seven days in which it is a mitzvah to “dwell” in your sukkah, eating meals with invited guests and shaking the four species ארבע מינים arbah minim, see left. Although we had a festive feast of salad, hummus, challah, dolmas, roasted chicken, and kugels, my highlight of the meal was eating lots of pomegranate seeds for dessert, along with some chocolate cake of course. Throughout the meal the rain drops fell upon my plate, head and into my cup.

Earlier in the evening I sat out on my balcony with a friend of mine from my cohort, the group with whom I will be studying for two years- there are six of us all together. We chatted about our weekend trips away- he visited the kibbutz in the south he used to work at for two years and I vacationed with four friends from Pardes at a hotel in Tiberias the north. As we sat there above the two sukkot standing below us in the back of my apartment building, we saw two bunnies jump through the area, one brown and one white. Sometimes I have moments here, well really every day, when I think to myself, “Where am I?” and I remember that I am actually living here… in Jerusalem, in Israel, in the Middle East… half way around the world from Oregon.

It happened also today when I walked on Emek Refaim, a main street nearby, to go to the bank and I passed about seven different tables of young Israeli boys selling the four species: etrog (אתרוג) – the fruit of a citron tree (and smells amazing), lulav (לולב) – a
ripe, green, closed frond from a date palm tree, hadass (הדס) – boughs
with leaves from the myrtle tree, and aravah (ערבה) – branches with
leaves from the willow tree. There are also happy holiday חג שמח chag samayeah decorations all over. The bus reader boards have added חג שמח to their number and destination. There is a festive feeling :)

Now I will share a few random visual highlights of the past two month. In the next blog post I will explain all of my courses that I am taking at Pardes- Sunday-Thursday, 8:30am-5pm, sometimes 8pm, sometimes 9pm, sometimes 7pm… basically I’m spending many hours learning at Pardes!

Left: One of the most beautiful times of day, about 7pm, walking behind my apartment building and looking up and listening to the green parrots.


Right: I discovered organic tofu that is made in Israel in my new favorite store called זמורה אורגני zamora organi. I love this store so much… guess what else they have?!

Julie’s Organic Sorbet made in Eugene, Oregon! So cool, huh?!

Obviously it was very exciting to find this cooler tucked in the back corner by all the goat milks and yogurts that are organic and of course, from the bountiful Israeli dairy industry. Foodie friends, Israeli food is amazing in general but this specialty store of health food, including organic produce, bulk items, mindful cleaning supplies, toiletries, vitamins, supplements and more, is out of this world- I love it! There are two locations, one very close to Pardes and the other near my apartment. I have a club membership there which gives me specials deals and credit back after a certain amount spent.


 

These two pictures were taken as the sun was setting in Tel Aviv, off a one of three balconies at an apartment Abra has been subletting in a funky area called Florentine. I love visiting her and exploring this diverse and thriving city. Even though going to Tel Aviv is a nice get-away from the holy city, I still love living in Jerusalem.

Abra is from Eugene and we are becoming good friends. She and I are both lucky to have cool brothers who are also good friends. While in Tel Aviv she and I have rented bikes and ridden along the beach, watching the glistening Mediterranean waters and all the people out worshiping the sun. 

We ourselves have worshiped the sun with heavy doses of sunscreen and shade breaks, of course. We have also gone shopping in the shuk, visited a Friday arts and crafts fair and ventured into home goods stores in the area where I bought long coral curtains and a small woven rug to brighten my bedroom.

The highlight I will share from my two visits to Tel Aviv includes beer > really good 8% alcohol Belgian beer… One evening, along with my roommate Ellie who was also in town, we discovered a tiny locals’ bar in her neighborhood that only had La Chouffe on tap, the blonde and the dark. It felt like a piece of the Bier Stein in Israel, with a friendly bartender and the correct glassware! Yummy.

In a few days I will travel to briefly visit Abra again in Tel Aviv, go wine tasting in Zichron Yaacov and then visit a family who used to live in Eugene, who live in Ein Hod, an artists’ village in the north. 

להיתראות (liheetraot)
See you later
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