Hasbara

I'm well aware that Israel needs to promote itself, but sometimes that gets a little out of control. Planning moadon bishul on tuesday afternoon, I had settled on making shakshuka and was searching online for recipes. (I know it's easy, I just wanted a little guidance.) What I came up with was a recipe posted on the ministry of foreign affairs website. Check it out here: Shakshuka Recipe.
Maybe I'm splitting hairs here, but it just seems to me that they can put the time and bandwidth to better use.

As you can probably guess, it's slow around here. I'm getting into work at the school and my classes. The international school is going to the Negev for hiking and a little touring over Shabbat, so I will write it up when I return. Shabbat shalom.

Ofakim

I started work at the Ofakim school today. Hoping to get a jump on my first day of interning, I set my alarm for 7, with the intention of getting up to shower, dress nicely and have a nice, calm breakfast. These plans never work out for me though. I snoozed my alarm the first time it went off, which is standard behavior for me. I even build in a single snooze when setting my alarm. Unfortunately, the alarm did not ring again. I blearily glanced at my cell phone seemingly minutes after putting my head back down, before I leapt out of bed in a panic: It was 8:05 and I was due in Hebrew class in ten minutes! I rushed a shower, pulled on the first collared shirt I could find, grabbed a handful of kumquats on the way out the door and only arrived 5 minutes late to Ulpan.

Hebrew was uneventful. I grabbed a cup of Nes "cappuccino" before heading down to the bus station, and then caught a sherut to Mercaz HaCarmel. The school is on "HaYam" street, a few blocks below the Carmel Center. I arrived at about 10:40 and headed down to my classroom. I'll be working most closely with Rola Farah, the teacher of "Gan Tamar", who was trained at the Peto Institute in Budapest. She will be teaching me the "Peto method" which entails repetitive, exhaustive physical therapy that can help train a child with severe locomotion difficulties to overcome them.

The day was free and easy. I spent the mid morning and early afternoon in Gan Tamar, meeting kids, playing games and helping out with whatever the staffers needed. It was nice, except for the tiny chairs that were not designed for children over 7 years of age. My lower back hurts right now, the punishment for spending too many hours with my knees higher than my belly button. Most of the kids left around 2 o'clock and I entertained that one's who stayed behind for about a half hour. They really took to me quickly. Rola and a new group of staff members came back around 2:30 and the kids ate their boxed lunches. Then the physical therapy began. I wasn't able to participate much, and I mostly observed, but there were a few times where I was able to pitch in. The time passed pretty quickly. My biggest concern heading in was that I would be using Hebrew professionally for the first time ever. I'm thrilled to report that I kept up and even was able to crack a few jokes! This is going to work out just fine.

Where's The Beef?

Spring has returned to Haifa. The trees are in bloom, wildflowers are carpeting the Carmel park, and the whole city has been taken by a warm, wholesome air. Of course a return to spring means a spike in outdoor activities. Yesterday I was out and about all day, enjoying my new friends, my freedom and the killer weather we are being blessed with.

Budding flowers on the tree outside my bedroom.
Soon the whole area will smell like flowers again.

At about 11 yesterday morning, I met up with a group of people and we went on a romp through the park. It was never intended to be a hike, and so we took it easy, talking and joking as we wound our way down the path. Someone started talking about plans for late night, and I tossed out a suggestion: how about a bonfire in the park late that night? The idea took and I began to spread the word. We walked for almost two hours and I had begun to work up an appetite when we came back to the main road. Bill had been telling me about a "Druze Pita" stand that was only open on Shabbat. We walked over to it and I bought myself a sandwich of just baked pita, labneh, zatar and olive oil. We sat by the side of the road people watching for about an hour while I munched, indulging in lots of olives and about 8 dixie cups full of tea. It was magic.

A lazy afternoon in the Carmel park.

That evening we went to a soccer game, Maccabi Haifa versus Maccabi Herzliya. The game was astoundingly slow for the first 65 or so minutes, and then picked up for the rest. It ended in a 1-1 tie, the second tie I've seen in person at Kiryat Eliezer stadium. One of my friends remarked "There's no overtime? But aren't they required to have a winner?" Unfortunately, ties are perfectly legal in soccer. They are just patently un-American.

This look is a keeper.

One of the best things about going to Israeli games is that you get to see a side of Israel that doesn't show its face in most places. Frankly, Israeli soccer fans are overwhelmingly crude, chain smoking yahoos, the lowest common denominator of society. We rode the bus back with a group of nut job teenagers, who were thrilled to pose for pictures, chat with me about Michael Jordan, and hit on our girls with the reckless abandon of a pervert who knows the object of his lust doesn't understand a word he is saying. I told them to knock it off.

MORTAL KOMBAT!!!

When I got back to campus, David and I began our search for wood. It was awfully shortsighted of me not to collect wood during the daylight hours. Armed only with my wits and the tiny flashlight that my dad got for free from Dan hotels, I made my way off into the night in search of dead trees to strip for larger fuel. The coyotes were out last night and they were a little close for my comfort. Judging by the sound of one of their howls, it couldn't have been more than 10 yards away. I was understandably a little nervous walking around in the dark. I was searching near this outdoor bathroom stall when I heard something move in the dark, and I froze. I scanned the woods with my light but I didn't see or hear anything else, so I took a breath and stepped forward. Thats when I happened to flash my light into the bathroom for a moment, and the big red eyes staring back at me nearly caused me to stroke out. Regaining my wits a split second later, I fixated my light on the bathroom door and was treated to this absurd spectacle.

"You might want to give that a minute."

There was a fucking big, stupid cow staring at me from the bathroom. He seemed perfectly relaxed. I'm sure if the cow had an interior monologue, it was thinking something along the lines of "what?! I come here every night. What's your problem?!" I'm not even sure how the thing managed to turn around in there. The bathrooms are pretty narrow. My composure regained, we managed to collect enough dry wood for about an hour and a half of fire.

The humble beginnings of our bonfire.

We attracted a group of about 15 people, who mostly sat around talking, drinking wine and goofing off. The fire never got very big, but thats probably for the best. It was big enough to warm everyone's butt and keep away the coyotes, so that's all I can ask for. I'm definitely going to organize another one of these, and next time I'm collecting the wood during daylight hours.

David and Mallory warm up by the fire.

A Mediocre Evening With Idan Raichel

Some of you may remember that I attended a Masa sponsored Hadag Nachash concert last year in Jerusalem, and came away disappointed. Last night I ignored my better instincts and attended their spring concert, featuring the Idan Raichel Project. I saw them live in Champaign 3 years ago and it was one of the better concerts I've ever been to, so I had hopes for this one as well. Masa chartered a bus for us this time around so I rode with the other Haifaniks to Jerusalem directly. We got off the bus and were milling around outside before going in when I got tackled from behind. Bev Baer was hanging off of my back and screaming. I've said it before, but this sort of thing only happens in Jerusalem. Completely fucked up. She is spending the year in Ramla volunteering, and was in J'lem for the same reason as I. Unfortunately, we didn't have a lot of time to catch up because security was shooing us inside, so we had to say goodbye for the time being.

Bev and I outside the convention center.

Our seats were in the balcony, and well off to the left. The sight lines weren't great so we couldn't see the stage very well. We were treated to a half hour of verbal masturbation from a parade of self-congratulatory government officials before the band finally took the stage around 9:30. The concert itself was better than the Hadag Nachash show but just as short. They were on stage for all of 1 hour from start to finish. It's shameful that anyone would even call that a concert. Still, they were mostly good when they were playing.

Americans pretend to get excited over
songs they've never heard before.

I made my way down to the lower level to get closer to the stage, and there ran into Eli and the rest of the kids on his program. We hung out for about 10 minutes and talked about scheduling a time to go to Jordan together (yes, I am trying again.) The band closed out the concert by playing their hit single "boi", which got by far the loudest reaction, probably because it is the only song 90% of the audience recognized.

A candid shot of the international students dancing.

Because the show was over at about 10:30, we had no problem making it back to the bus by the 11 PM time we had set before going in. And to think, I had worried we were going to miss the end of the show! It was a lazy ride back to Haifa, with one stop in Netanya to drop off a group of Israelis who had hitched a ride with us. We got home around 1:15 in the morning and I went straight to bed. These kitsch , theme concerts just don't work for me anymore, and I will not be going to another if there is one. Shabbat shalom.

A Moment Of Clarity

My schedule for this upcoming semester is finally set, and since I know you have all been anticipating this for weeks, I won't make you suffer to wait any longer. I am only taking two classes this semester, Hebrew and Arabic. I have Hebrew from 8-10 AM on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, and from 10 - Noon on Thursdays. I have Arabic from Noon - 2 PM on Tuesdays and from 2:30 - 4 PM on Thursdays. Arabic will be a little different this go around, as Rina is no longer teaching us. I still have Mina for Hebrew, and as you know, I adore her.

I'll be filling out the rest of my schedule by volunteering at the Ofakim school in Mercaz HaCarmel, a school for Israelis with severe developmental disorders, predominantly cerebral palsy. I'll be there 15 hours a week, filling a number of different roles. I'll know more once I get started (next Monday), but I'm really excited to be doing something new, getting out into the city and helping people.

This photo is totally unrelated to today's post. I just like it.

הכיף הוא על הכיפאק

Last night I attended a concert in Tel Aviv that was a full decade in the making. Lets flash back to the late nineties for a moment. Yoyo's were at the height of popularity, while Pokemon were just making a splash. Everyone knew how to dance the Macarena. People the world over were panicked by the Y2K bug, except in the U.S. where everyone was more concerned with whether or not the President got a blow job in the oval office. And back home, I was holed up in my bedroom listening to Kaveret, Tipex, and a groundbreaking Israeli hip hop group called Shabak Samech. My fascination with Israeli culture would grow and diversify as the years passed, culminating in this 9 month sabbatical here in Haifa. Last night, I met Eli and his roommate Daniel in north Tel Aviv to see Shabak Samech in concert, performing live as a group for only the second time since 2000.

Me and my ticket stub.

Their music style is silly, bordering on ridiculous at times. One of their most famous songs has only one line: שום דבר לא כבד מדי בשביל הפיל שלי. Literally, it means "nothing is too heavy for my elephant." I'm sure its some kind of inside joke with the band and they think it is hilarious to hear a concert hall full of people chanting it along with them. Because of the general goofiness of the act, the crowd tended to skew young. If not for this one eminently creepy 30 something guy who was trying to dance with a group of teenage girls, I might have felt like the oldest guy in the house.

Clearly we were excited to be at the show.

In spite of the predominantly teenage crowd, the show was phenomenal. They were on stage for nearly 3 full hours, and played just about every known song they have from the last 15 years. They especially brought the house down with one of Mook E's solo songs,
.כולם מדברים על שלום, אף אחד מדבר על צדק

Shabak Samech

We generally avoided the pit area in front of the stage, because we had jackets with us that we wanted to put down, and because it was a good 15 degrees hotter crammed into the crowd. Even so, I couldn't resist the allure to spend some time jumping, dancing and screaming with the rest of the lunatics. For your viewing pleasure, here is a clip from last nights concert. It really captures what a lot of the show was like.


Dropping the bomb.

That night the three of us crashed at Daniel's parent's house in a small, wealthy neighborhood called צהלה, just outside of Tel Aviv. This morning I woke up first and had tea with Daniel's parents before the other gentleman rose. Around 12:30, I said my goodbyes and hopped on a bus bound for the Arlozoroff train station, where I would catch my train back to Haifa. Here is where the madness began. I'm not terrificly familiar with Tel Aviv, and the bus I was on took a very roundabout route, actually going out west through Ramat Gan before coming back into the city. Because of my poor knowledge of the city, I badly missed my stop and got off in south Tel Aviv, by the Azrieli towers. From there I was able to find the Hashalom train station.

Closing out the concert.

I was cursing my luck at this point, even though I was relieved to have located a train station. The runaround cost me a half hour, which is a problem on a Friday afternoon when the buses in Haifa stop running shortly after 3. I quickly lost the sourpuss look though, when one of our madrichim, Or, came running up to me on the platform! Only in Israel does this happen. Apparently he was hanging out with friends the night before in Tel Aviv and was headed back to Haifa also. We chilled and talked the whole way north. Of course my concerns regarding the bus schedule turned out to be rooted in harsh reality. I had missed the last 46 bus, the only line that runs directly from the central bus station in Haifa up to campus. I hopped a 131 up to the Horev Center, and then transferred to the 24 which took me home. Israeli public transit is frustrating sometimes, but I was too tired to worry much about it. I headed back to my room to shower and get changed, and now I'm ready for Shabbat dinner and then some quality time with friends afterwards. Classes finally resume next week. Shabbat shalom.

The Return Of Moadon Bishul

We're back, and it feels so good! After a long intersession where our dinners were usually limited to 3 or 4 people, we've moved the day of the cooking club to Tuesday and made the effort to invite a lot of the new international students tonight. It paid off, big time. Because it was a cold and rainy night, we decided to make a big pot of chili. We ended up with 11 people at dinner, maybe our biggest since we began this whole thing. People meshed and the conversation flowed seamlessly, the food was hearty and tasty, and everyone went home happy. I think we're on to something good.

Now for something totally different. Last night I was sitting in the lobby of the dorms at my computer, talking to Elliot Gordon, another new American student. He told me he was from Woodmere, NY. I know a girl from Woodmere, Sheryl Gordon, who I went on Ramah Seminar with many summers back. I rolled the Jewish Geography dice and asked him if he knew her. His response was classic: "She's only my older sister! You're Eddie from Chicago..... You were at my house!" And indeed, I was. I was quite surprised although I probably shouldn't have been. This stuff just has a way of happening. It is a small, small Jewish world.