Haircut, Shabbat, and Jerusalem

I had a great weekend that started on Thursday night.

Thursday Night:
Roommate and I made spaghetti and home made meatballs and sauce. They were delicious. And spicy.

Friday:
My friend gave me a haircut. You can see the before and after pictures.
After my haircut, I went to Shabbat dinner at a different synagogue in Haifa. The family I went with this week was wonderful. They were very pleasant and funny. They were also Americans. But most importantly, they were not trying to convince me of any political ideology or religious beliefs. They were just great, friendly, people. With delicious food. When my friends and I got back from Shabbat we decided that we would go to Jerusalem Saturday night. More on that later. I ended up going to sleep early so that I could get up early the next day so that I could go with my friend to synagogue because his grandmother passed away a few days before and he didn't want to go alone. We got caught in the rain on the way back, and it warped my kippah.

Saturday:
Services in the morning. The services were quick and both my friend and I received an aliyah and a blessing from a 90 year old guy. It was one of the best services I've been to ever. No stop and go. No annoying people running around. Nobody was there who didn't want to be there. Plus, the synagogue had a really friendly atmosphere. After services we went to lunch at the home of the guy who owns the largest electronic business in the Middle East. His house was huge and full of nice things. Easily over a million dollars. The food was delicious. It was all made by his mother. His wife died a few years ago and he decided that in her memory he would rededicate the synagogue in the neighborhood to her and keep it running as a community oriented institution. He and his 3 sons were definitely closer because of the tragedy. It's a shame that that's what it took for them to be close. Anyways, the food was delicious. There were homemade tuna, egg, and pepper salads as appetizers and the main course was a 6 liter slow cooker filled with cholent. Desert was homemade cake and chocolate mouse along with a glass of cognac. $150 cognac. It was a great lunch.

I got an interesting insight into the Israeli impression of America and George W. Bush at Saturdays lunch. In America, Bush is considered a failure at best and a criminal at worst. In Israel, they think he's the best friend they could have, or at least the Israelis who I talked to Saturday did. They spent time trying to convince me that Presidents Carter and George H.W. Bush were vehemently anti-Israel and quite possibly closet anti-Semites. I wanted to ask if the Egypt-Israel treaty or the Gulf War and Iran-Contra meant anything. Or about Nixon being a full blown anti-Semite (documented in the Oval Office Tapes). I guess that's forgivable in their eyes because of how much military aid he gave. They also did the usual anti-Arab/Muslim fear mongering that comes with their political persuasions. I'm not quite sure why or how they managed to work it in, but it was there. I sipped my tea politely. Politics is a dirty business and quite possibly the easiest way to wreck any social gathering. My friend and I just nodded our heads and smiled.

After lunch, I came back from lunch, did laundry, and packed for Jerusalem. It was hard for me to move because lunch was so filling. But I managed. We got on a bus for Jerusalem around 6, after hanging out in the train station and missing the first bus because it filled up. We got to Jerusalem around 8, took a cab to our hotel, the Beit Shmuel guest house, and then from there we walked around Ben Yehuda street, which is the nice shopping area of Jerusalem. There were all sorts of vendors and street performers out. Even the Hassidic Messiah gang was there, who I've mentioned before, with their LA Kings throwback flags. Anyways, Jerusalem is a really pretty city at night. We ended up eating dinner at this sketchy Russian bar which turned out to be pretty terrible. Thankfully, I only had a beer there. For some reason I could not trust the food and instead got myself a shwarma later on in the night.
After the amazingly sketchy dinner, we went to the main bar area of Jerusalem. However, the entire place was full of Birthright kids. Seriously. Now I know how people felt when we were there 2 years ago. Birthright kids are obnoxious, loud, smoky, and rude. They think they're the kings of the world. Just like we did. We went to a bar with reasonably priced beer, good music and free hookah. Unfortunately, it was packed and we couldn't move around because of all the Birthright kids thinking they were so cool because they could legally drink for the first time in their lives and because they were getting free hookahs at their table. I remember when I was one of them. But I'm over that. That was when I was young and stupid. After that bar, we went to this really relaxed coffee house. We ordered so drinks their and relaxed, chatting with the baristas. They gave us free drinks and food. They were great guys.

We got back to our hotel around 3:30. I went to bed as soon as we got there. My friends stayed up until really late.

Today (Sunday):
We woke up around 9 and went to breakfast at the hotel. It was a typical Israeli breakfast with bread, salads, and instant coffee. The grapefruits were awesome. Afterwards, we headed over to the Old City and spent all morning wandering through the Arab and Jewish quarters. I got myself a $5 Led Zeppelin t-shirt and a box of Jordanian hookah tobacco, which is way better than the standard Egyptian tobacco that they have here. It's honey flavored. And delicious. While we were wandering around, shop keepers kept treating us like Birthright people by telling us higher prices. That's where our Hebrew classes came in. We were able to haggle down to some good deals. There was an Arab guy trying to sell me a Chinese hookah. He first said $200 and that it was the best there was. I said I had no dollars, only shekels, and that I would give him only 200 shekels. He said ok. Then I said that I really didn't want it. He wouldn't take no for an answer. I made a final low ball offer of 100 shekels. He wouldn't take it. I started walking away, he chased after me, I told him I wasn't buying it and that I was going to go to the legit place in Haifa. So Hillary, if you're reading this, I'm getting your hookah in Haifa, from the same guy I got mine from. He gives good prices and lots of free stuff.
Anyways, we went to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. It's beautiful. That's all I can say about it. It's worth a gander, so go see it. You may recall that the last time I was in Jerusalem, I did not go in because one of the people with us was Orthodox and I felt bad that he would have been outside for an hour in a half. Anyways, the 30 minute self guided wandering about of the Church was just fine. We actually asked a Greek Orthodox Monk to tell us some info about the Church. He was more than happy and was very friendly to us. It was obvious that we were Jews walking around, mostly because when I go to Jerusalem I wear a kippah because you never know where you're going to need a head covering. And baseball hats don't cut it in a lot of places. Nevertheless, he was still friendly and told us all about the architecture and the story behind the site. There was a chapel in the Church where some old ladies were singing very beautiful songs. I'm not sure what they were, but they sounded good. After the Church, we went back out and wandered around the shuk some more.
We got really lost in the shuk area. We ended up in the really Arab area, where people shop for the food next to mosques in claustrophobic ally ways. It was crazy. People were pushing and shoving and shouting things. We saw a lot of neat stuff though. There was a guy that made a spice pyramid and put a Dome of the Rock statue on top of it. It was neat. Somehow, we manage to make it out from the Arab quarter and went to the shopping center right outside of the Old City walls and ate at Aroma coffee house for lunch. Aroma is essentially Israel's Starbucks, except they have good food. And they aren't evil. They're actually quite pleasant. It was my first time going. I had an Iraqi sandwich with eggplant, onions, hard boiled egg, and tahini.
During lunch, we decided that we would split up and go different places. My friends decided to go to some museum over in East Jerusalem. I decided that I wanted to go to the Western Wall and go hang out there for a bit. My trip to the wall was an adventure. I got lost for bit in the Jewish Quarter of the city. It wasn't bad though, people were really helpful. Eventually, I found the Wall. I went down, did the usual prayer thing and left a note wedged in between the stones. When I finished up there, I made my way to the bus and started the journey back to Haifa by myself.

While on the bus, I had an interesting discussion with an Evangelical Christian from Kansas. I asked him for directions earlier, unaware that he was going to try and proselytize to me. (Proselytizing is illegal in Israel) I did not see that coming. He seemed like just a guy out with his daughter on a Sunday. He even looked a little Jewish. He kept asking me all these questions about my beliefs about God and why I came to Israel and Jerusalem and he kept telling me about his opinions about how Islam and Christianity were going to fight it out in the next few years. I was getting pretty uncomfortable. I didn't realize that asking which bus went where would turn into a conversation like that, but it did. The end came when he kept hassling me to move to Jerusalem to keep ensure a Jewish majority in the city because of the whole controversy over dividing/sharing the city. There's signs up all over Jerusalem celebrating the victory in 1967 that reunited the city. I told him I'd do that when he packed up and moved to a swing state to make sure it stayed Republican. I moved a few rows back and sat next to an Orthodox guy who heard my conversation. He said I handled myself well.
I got the central bus station, boarded a bus for Haifa, and arrived back around 7. All in all, this was a great weekend and I'm glad I got to explore Jerusalem on my own.