Castles Made Of Sand

This is how the Hamas establishment in the Gaza Strip is beginning to appear. I read an article this morning about the upcoming Annapolis peace conference. Mostly good news: Saudi Arabia is sending its foreign minister and Syria is close to sending theirs. This is a political coup for Israel and the United States, and could signal the beginning of peace negotiations between Israel and each of these countries. Hamas' response was classic: Their Damascus based leadership is predicting a "new wave of Palestinian violence" in response to the peace conference. This is akin to the mafia predicting a structure fire in your store if you don't pay them protection money. I only have two things to say about such a brazen, vile position. The first is that Hamas has clearly lost any influence they once held in the eyes of foreign Arab governments. They have been bitching and moaning about this conference since the moment it was conceived, and to no effect whatsoever. Clearly, their power is waning. This brings me to my second point: Hamas can't strong arm their genocidal position politically anymore, so they are falling back on their favored tactic. Murder is what they know best, and murder is how they intend to proceed. One final note about Hamas. Since the PLC elections last year, Hamas has killed more Palestinians than Israelis. These are theocratic terrorist thugs and cowards who have already demonstrated they will do anything to maintain the power they have gained. Time is now on Israel's side. Don't be surprised when Hamas is finally washed away.

1000 Steps To El Pasha

This morning I went out with four friends and did a walking tour of Haifa along one of the paths down the Carmel. The path is called "1000 steps" because it involves walking down a whole lot of stairs. I did not actually count but we walked a whole lot of stairs today. On the way I saw many new parts of Haifa that I had never before visited, and I gained some perspective into the layout of the city itself.

Barbara on the steps.

We began at about 10:30 in the morning in Mercaz HaCarmel. The 1000 steps walk actually has 4 different branches. We intended to follow the branch that would lead us to El Pasha, the old city of Haifa. Several of my friends brought city maps with them, and we followed along closely as we descended through the neighborhoods. Our first stop of the morning was in Hadar, at the old Technion University campus. The University has moved to the Nave Sha'anan neighborhood, and the old building is now the Israel Science Museum. We didn't go in although I now have an idea for a rainy day during my semester break. The museum is at the head of a beautiful square where a lot of people were walking their dogs.

At the entrance to the old campus.

At about this point we abandoned the steps and walked down Balfour street towards city hall and a memorial garden commemorating Israel conquering Haifa in the War for Independence. At this point we were already extremely close to the port and almost to the old city. Things still looked new here and we had a lot more to see so we only lingered for a few minutes. Just one note: Haifa city hall has a nice list of sister cities posted on a plaque outside, which includes Boston and San Francisco. Extra credit to the first person to find out which Israeli city is linked with Chicago, and post it in the comments section.

El Pasha as seen from the memorial gardens.

We walked all the way down to the bottom of the city and finally reached downtown. It's an Arab neighborhood, so shops weren't particularly active today (Friday is the Sabbath in Islam.) However, there was still lots of old architecture to see. The old city is in bad shape. It's dirty and crowded and not particularly well maintained. There was a lot of beauty here once, and there still is some, but its certainly faded. We walked West all the way through the neighborhood and found ourselves on the Western border of the city, facing the port. From their, we walked along the road skirting the port, passing the Haifa municipal courthouse along the way, as well as a number of mosques and Christian churches.

Israeli Arabs leaving a Haifa mosque after Friday Services

We passed through Haifa's "Turkish market" on the way to the German Colony, a recently posh neighborhood with a lot of history behind it. Read about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Colony,_Haifa.
We ate lunch in a cafe there: 3 salads for the five of us, and we didn't finish everything. The portions were just enormous. The meals came with fresh bread and this to die for garlic butter, and the salads had cheese and nuts and specialty dressings and everything. Needless to say I would like to go back sometime.

Lunchtime!

Of course the downside of eating such a large (albeit light) lunch, is that it gets very hard to get moving again afterwards. At this point the weather started to change also. All morning we had sun and temperatures in the mid 70's. The sky started to look threatening all of a sudden and the temperature had begun to drop. We resolved to make one last stop in Wadi Nisnas to pick up some produce before heading back home. The walk was only about ten minutes. One of the lovely things about Haifa is that everything is so close together, it's possible to do what we did today and see large sections of the city. Unfortunately, I learned that the prices in the Wadi Nisnas market are noticeably higher than in Hadar. The last time I was in this shuk, I didn't know any better. I will be doing my shopping in Hadar from now on.

Residential Hadar

After we finished up, we started walking back up the mountain to get back to Hadar, where we could catch a bus back to campus. Everyone was tired and the sky was looking more ominous by the minute. Plus, going up just takes more energy than going down. All day I had taken a somewhat 'devil may care' attitude towards the map, preferring to get lost and find our way down anyway. At this point, Per and I became serious about finding a way back, and quickly. The girls were starting to grumble and we were worried about an insurrection. We walked for about 30 minutes through a residential neighborhood East of Hadar before finally making our way back. We began to search for a bus stop, but never did find one. A sherut headed for the University pulled up beside us and we piled in. The skies opened almost immediately. It was as though we were fated to get inside and narrowly miss getting wet. I dozed off in the car, and when we got home, everyone went back to their rooms for a nap. Now its time for Shabbat dinner in the moadon, so I am headed off to get ready. Shabbat shalom.

Turkey Day Love From The Land Of Shawarma

I want to wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving and I hope you are all enjoying your time at home with the family. Thanksgiving is probably the only major American holiday I really enjoy, so it is also probably the only major American holiday I will miss. Independence day always means crowds and bees and humidity at Navy Pier, and New Years day was always just a part of my winter break from school. Of course I do not even want to mention the wretched 3 month Christmas season in the U.S., and does anyone outside of Chicago even know what "Pulaski Day" is? Thanksgiving is different though. Thanksgiving means eating and hanging out with the family, arguing about football with my dad and enjoying the fact that we get three days to sleep off the meal before everyone goes back to work on Monday. In my absence, I request that everyone eat even more turkey and stuffing, watch even more football, and fall into an even deeper after dinner coma. Remember guys: This is one for you plus one for me, and no one has to pour a 40 on the ground.

On to my wheelings and dealings of late. My presentation in Terrorism and Responses went quite well. We were eloquent and thorough and probably earned an A on the whole thing. That night in the moadon, there was a class on how to make hummus and shakshuka. About 20 people showed up and we made a big dinner for everyone, complete with salad and pita, fresh tehina, red wine and chocolate balls for dessert. I made tehina.

Stirring the fresh tehina.

I am starting to feel like my days and nights revolve around food. Wednesday night was מועדון בישול (cooking club) as usual. We went southeast Asian this week. I made chicken stir fry and a huge pan full of vegetable fried rice. I've never made fried rice before and I didn't bother to check a recipe or even look at directions. I just winged it, as I am wont to do. It actually turned out pretty well, which will just reinforce my laissez faire approach to following directions in the kitchen. Late last night, some of the guys in the dorm threw an apartment party, so I was there for a few hours last night. I still love pubs, but house and apartment parties can really be a lot of fun, especially if you are there with friends. I had a great time.

There is a 40-something couple in my Hebrew class. The husband, Shlomo gave a presentation today on the carob tree. There were a few fun moments I would like to share. First of all, I got to class a few minutes early this morning, where Shlomo was setting up. For those who haven't experienced it firsthand, the male carob tree has a very 'distinct' smell. To put it lightly, this 40-something professional biologist smiled at me as I walked in, and told me he was doing his presentation on the 'sperm tree.' The laughs didn't end there though. He handed out carob fruit in class for people to try. Eva, the girl sitting next to me bit into hers, shrieked in horror and ran out of the room. Apparently, she looked at the bite and saw half a bug inside. Even our teacher Mina was laughing. Eva took it in stride once she came back so no real harm done. Needless to say, people stopped eating the carob after that.

Ecstasy From A Toaster Oven

I have a new roommate. Haven't met him, don't know his name or even his face, and yet he is my new favorite roommate. He brought us a new toaster oven! It's brand new and it works beautifully and it is sitting in our kitchen opposite the counter! Honestly, this is definitely another one of those instances where you are forced to get used to being without. I haven't had an oven or a microwave all semester, and I had basically stopped pining for either. What a sucker I was. I used it for the first time this afternoon. Nothing really complicated, I just broiled some chicken sausages I had in the freezer. Even so, it was magic!

Today may be my most significant day of the semester to date. I have two presentations scheduled for today, in Hebrew and in Terrorism and Responses. I already delivered my Hebrew presentation this morning, while Terrorism and Responses isn't for another few hours. I can only hope that project goes as well as the one this morning did. As you may recall, my topic is the relationships between Hebrew and Arabic (היחסים בין עברית לערבהית.) I chose this topic under the assumption that linguistics would bore my classmates and they would ignore my presentation, thus undermining their ability to ask additional questions at the end. I was dead wrong, and I'm glad I was. They were paying rapt attention the entire time, asking questions throughout. With the formal Q & A section after the presentation, I spoke for about 40 minutes. I definitely aced the project, and I had fun while doing it too.

I would prefer to keep this page relatively apolitical, for everyone's sake. However, I am compelled to say something political today. I read in the newspaper this morning that the continuing faculty strike in the University sector is about to complete its fifth week. The Universities are about to cancel the break between semesters and may need to dip into the summer break as well in order to make up for the lost time. The students are already in an awkward position because their professors are on strike, but adjunct instructors are still teaching, meaning that University students have those classes taught by a TA, but do not have those classes taught by a senior faculty member. This has led to serious crowding issus in the classes that do exist, and because adjunct instructors need permission from a professor to give an exam, some classes may not even have their midterms.

Meanwhile the secondary school strike reached its 36th day this morning, with no real progress to speak of. There was a massive protest at Kikar Rabin in Tel Aviv over the weekend in favor of the teachers, but it looks to have accomplished nothing. What does this all mean? Education in this country is not a priority. The government is sitting on its hands with both the high school teachers and the university professors, and that is indefensible. The government keeps trotting out the same line about money and working conditions (including class size and teaching hours) but is totally unwilling to come to the table and compromise. Education should be a priority always, especially here in Israel. If the government can't pony up the cash to pay their instructors a fair wage, then perhaps it is time to reexamine where their money is going.

100,000 protesters couldn't convince this shitty government to act.

On a lighter note.... We had a thunderstorm that raged all night last night, and we've had intermittent rain all day. It's cold, wet and generally unpleasant outside today. What this means of course is that everyone back home who is praying for rain in the holy land is doing a bang up job! I wish I could thank you all personally for this miserable day. I bought an umbrella from the university store so as not to melt on my walk to class. Enough for now, I've got to go practice for my presentation this afternoon. I hope everyone is enjoying their Thanksgiving breaks.

Cultural Haifa

While I'm here in Haifa, I really hope to see what the city has to offer. To that end, on Friday morning I visited Elijah's Cave, a holy site at the base of the Carmel, and the Israel Maritime Museum which is about a block from the cave. The rest of my time this weekend has been spent with friends, or working on various school projects that are coming due sometime in the coming week.

Elijah's Cave is now a synagogue. In Biblical times, Elijah is said to have lived and taught here, hid here from the rage of King Ahab of the Northern Kingdom of Israel. I went in and looked around for a little bit, then grabbed a copy of Tehilim from the bookshelf on the far side of the cave and read a couple. It was really a very short trip, but it was nice nonetheless. I thought about Papa Ruby for a little bit while I was inside, and then we left and walked over towards the museum campus.

A blurry photo of the inside of the cave.

I was surprised to learn that the Maritime Museum is less about Israeli maritime history and more about the maritime history of the world. It was still definitely cool though. The museum has two main exhibits. The upstairs exhibit is about the development of seafaring and shipping throughout the Mediterranean, and various parts of the exhibit touched on the ancient Greeks, Phoenecians, ancient Egyptians, ancient Romans, Macedonians, and of course Jews. The downstairs exhibit was all about piracy, which was really pretty cool. They had lots of old weapons and maps, as well as artifacts from different piracy cultures from all over the globe.

A model of an Ancient Greek shipping vessel.

After the museums we went to Hadar to pick up some produce for the week, and then headed back to the University. I went to Shabbat dinner in the moadon again this week which was excellent, and some friends and I went out to a pub in Mercaz haCarmel. People got a little silly, and later at a waffle joint, Dominique got a hold of my camera and started snapping photos nonstop.

Before the madness began. Dominique is the guy with the full liter of beer on the end.

This weekend has been mostly work for me, and I apologize for not updating more frequently. I have two presentations to give on Tuesday (1 in Hebrew, 1 in Terrorism and Responses), and the second presentation is not even finished yet. My Hebrew presentation is on the linguistic similarities between Hebrew and Arabic. It's a cool topic so far as I am concerned, but it's a dry presentation. This is intentional, because if people zone out and aren't listening, they won't have a lot of questions to ask me at the end of the presentation. With that, I'm going to get back to work. I'll update again soon.

It's pretty, but it just isn't me.