Streeter in Israel

Back in the States/ Last Post

2008-01-21T18:43:00.000+02:00

I've been back in the states for over a week now. It feels weird but I am getting used to it. First off, it's freezing cold. Like 8 degrees cold. It's also been weird adjusting to using dollars again and speaking to the bus drivers in English. Speaking of the bus, I met a crack head on the bus. A real live crack head. That was something I never saw in Israel. I'm also a lot more aware of the poverty that exists here in America. I also feel less safe in my own neighborhood in Pittsburgh than I did anywhere in Israel because there is legit crime that goes on here. I'm not writing this to trash Pittsburgh. I love this city, but poverty and crime were things that I was used to before leaving and once I got away from it, I pretty much forgot about it. But now I'm living in the middle of it and it stirs up a lot more feelings inside me than it did before. My adjustment to classes has been smooth. I like my courses a lot and am excited to learn about non-Jewish and non-Israeli topics this semester. I was on overload while I was in Israel and needed a break. It's very odd for me to be back in an environment that does not question Israel on anything, let alone relations with the Palestinians. I've tried to have rational discussions with people and they just get ugly and I end up looking paranoid and pessimistic. I was supposed to start the Union of Progressive Zionists chapter at Pitt. It was actually one of my goals for coming back, but I've been so busy adjusting back into life at Pitt that I haven't done anything about it. I've been invited to Hebrew practice sessions on Tuesday nights. I'm going to go. As frustrating as it was to learn Hebrew in Israel, it would be a waste to let all of that frustration produce nothing. I played my Israeli monopoly game last night with some friends. It was a lot of fun. The banking system in the game is messed up and if I could play with Monopoly dollars instead of shekels, I would clean house and win all the time.

This is my last post on this site. If you're reading this, thanks for coming. I really appreciated you reading this site and learning about my ups and downs in Haifa. Haifa is a great place and I highly recommend that you visit there if you haven't. Don't let anyone tell you that it's a dump and that there's nothing there except for factories and Arabs. That couldn't be further from the truth. Haifa is the embodiment of Israel and a shining example for Israel's future. It's not a city in its own little bubble like Jerusalem and it's not a playground like Tel Aviv. It's a real city, with real people, joy, and struggles. Check it out.

If you have any questions for me, please leave a comment or ask me in person.

Ben Gurion Airport

2008-01-09T03:29:00.001+02:00

I'm at the airport right now. The first leg of my trip is from Tel Aviv to London, and then from London to San Francisco. I got here too early to check my bags and go through security, so I'm just hanging out and using the free wireless here.

Despite the fact that I'm leaving, tonight has been a pretty good night. I got to go have dinner with friends and then say goodbye. My roommate and I said our goodbyes and exchanged e-mail addresses. Getting the cab to the airport was really easy. He was just waiting outside of the dorms. I'm waiting for Murphy's law to take effect.

The ride down here was nice. I got to take one last trip to through Haifa and see all of the places along the coast that I had adventures in, including Atlit and Caesarea.

My stomach is acting up again. The doctor yesterday did nothing. Thankfully, I made an appointment at Student Health for Friday morning. I need some serious medicine, not just immodium. I found out yesterday that the guy is known to be a horrible doctor and that it wasn't until someone complained to the insurance salesman that a real doctor was brought in. Oh well, I just need to hold out for Friday. It's going to be a long trip.

Packing

2008-01-08T16:36:00.001+02:00

I'm all packed and ready to go. The cable company came and picked up my modem today and I canceled my internet. I bought some last minute gifts for people and I've been saying goodbyes throughout the day. One of the hardest was actually with the guy from the mini market on campus. He was a nice guy and when I was sick he would always offer medicine. He lived in Pittsburgh for a while and he and I knew some of the same places and people. I'm going to miss this place. I've been saying goodbye to friends as they've been leaving. It's been sad. My cab to the airport is at 1am and my flight is at 7am. I have to get there early because of all the extra security in Israel. Plus, there's even more security because President Bush is visiting. It's costing the government $25,000 an hour to keep him protected. It's insane. I'm glad I'm leaving when I am. This place is a crazy.

Dr. Visit

2008-01-07T10:09:00.000+02:00

I felt really sick this morning and had to cancel my trip to Jerusalem. I went to the doctor and it was a serious waste of time. The guy looked like Azmat from the Borat movie and did not want to see me because he was talking to his friend. He didn't speak English very well and got mad when I couldn't say things in Hebrew. I told him that my stomach hurt me for over a week and that I had really bad diahrea. He just stood there smoking a cigarette thinking what to do. He then went to go get a box of immodium. He cut out 2 pills and said to take them with lots of water, which was what I had already been doing. I went because the immodium stopped working! It took me longer to walk to the doctor's office than it did for the appointment.

Getting Ready to Leave

2008-01-06T20:59:00.000+02:00

I spent today getting ready to leave. I got my paperwork from the housing office and from the library saying that I don't owe any money. I bought laundry tokens to take care of laundry before I leave. I called the cable company to make sure that someone is coming to pick up my modem and cable on Tuesday before I leave. I got a ride to the airport. All I need to do is turn in my keys Tuesday night.

Tomorrow I'm going to Jerusalem to visit a friend for the day. Afterwards, I'm coming back and getting ready to pack. My roommates seem sad that I'm leaving.

I'm leaving on the same day that President Bush is coming to Israel. I'm expecting delays and chaos. Hopefully there won't be. I fly from Tel Aviv to London and then London to San Francisco. I spend less than a day at home and then I'm back in Pittsburgh.

I'm going to miss this place. I went to the far end of campus today to eat some lunch and look out on Haifa. This city is great and I recommend that all of you come and see it for yourselves.

Classes have ended

2008-01-06T10:04:00.000+02:00

Classes have ended and I leave in 2 days. My finals went pretty well, I hope. I spent Wednesday afternoon in Tel Aviv with my mom and grandmother at Dizengoff center because they needed to do something to get away from their tour guide. It was fun. I bought monopoly in Hebrew.

Afterwards, we went to the airport. My mom exchanged some loud words with the tour guide at the rental car place because the bill cost more than what he told her it would or something like that. She then, literally, threw some money at him. He sat there counting it after being yelled at, resembling the worst of Jewish stereotypes: the greedy, kippah wearing, scraggly bearded, short, bald, money loving Jew. He was a disgusting person. If you ever come to Israel and decide to hire a private guide, DO NOT use Tuvia Grossman.

Anyways, after I said goodbye to them at the airport, I rode the train back to Haifa. On the train to Tel Aviv I studied for my Hebrew exam the next day and the Israelis next to me corrected the spelling mistakes on my flashcards and it was very productive. The ride back was completely different. I ended up sitting next to this senile old guy who kept rambling on and on about his life adventures. Apparently he came to Palestine in the 1890's as a kid (he'd be over 100 now) and helped do something or other with oranges (it was all in Hebrew). He said he fought with Moshe Dayan in WWII (which would have made him about 50 years old) and then he trailed off into these bizarre stories about how he has children all over the world and how he visited all over America. There was a girl sitting accross from us, and so when an ultra-Orthodox guy walked on the train he told him to sit next to her (he wouldn't because he can't for religious reasons). The old guy burst out laughing when the guy gave him a dirty look. He then went on a rant about how he hated the Orthodox and how they were ruining his country. After dealing with the horrible tour guide, I'm inclined to agree. However, I've met a lot of religious, non-fanatical, and optimistic people in Israel. So I'm back to being neutral. Anyways, the guy talked and talked and talked. I think it was the only thing that was keeping him alive.

Starting last weekend, I started having stomach pains. I think it was from the sushi I ate. Anyways, the pains culminated Thursday night. I thought they were originally from exam stress or something like that, but apparently not because I spent all day Friday being friends with the toilet. I went to the doctor at 12:30, but he left at 12 for Shabbat. I finally was able to get some medicine last night. Apparently in Israel you can't buy Immodium or Pepto Bismal from a store rack. You have to ask for it from the pharmacy. It was fun trying to ask for it in Hebrew. I didn't know if either of those existed here, so I just told the guy that I had "shilshul norah" and he understood. If you don't know what I said, look it up or ask an Israeli.

After the trip to the pharmacy, my friends and I went to go get some really good falafel in downtown Haifa. It was fun. One of my friend's roommate left and so she was pretty bummed and needed cheering up. After falafel, we went for coffee. I spoon-fed the tea leaves to my friend while making airplane sounds. And she ate them. It was funny. While I was sitting and drinking my tea, the medicine I got started putting me to sleep. When we got back to the university, I could barely keep my eyes open and went to sleep.

Finals Week

2008-01-01T13:48:00.000+02:00

I'm in the middle of finals week. It's progressing slowly. I had my exam for Rabbinic Literature yesterday. It was tough, but I think I managed. Today I have my exam for Terrorism and Responses. My Hebrew exam in on Thursday and my final paper for Arab-Israeli relations is due February 3. I don't know how much I'll post during the rest of this week, so here's some random photos of me from Israel to tide you over. Seriously, I've been so busy that it kept my New Years celebrations to only a cigar outside my building.

Me wearing a headscarf for no particular reason.
My friends and I getting some lunch in Jerusalem.
Me at the aqueduct in Caesarea.

Sushi in Israel

2008-01-01T13:44:00.001+02:00

I went for sushi on Saturday night with some friends to celebrate a birthday. It was delicious. Here's some photos.

Bowling

2008-01-01T13:35:00.000+02:00

Last night we took the Ethiopian children that we work with bowling. It was a lot of fun. I don't think my kid had been bowling before, so it was a good experience for him. The kids were, as usual, really rambunctious and excited to see us. They also were really excited for bowling. Israeli bowling alleys are different from American bowling alleys for 2 reasons:
1. They do not rent bowling shoes. In fact, they don't even require them.
2. The claw machines in the arcade have cigarettes with 20 shekel notes attached to them instead of stuffed animals.

Anyways, bowling was lots of fun. I said goodbye to my kid. I don't think he cared. Or he didn't understand my broken Hebrew. Either way, having the opportunity to tutor was a great experience and I learned a lot about Ethiopians and how they're adapting to Israel. Tutoring also gave me the opportunity to speak Hebrew for a few hours a week. It was tough most of the weeks, but it was still a good experience.
(I think this picture really shows the elements of American culture that have penetrated into the Ethiopian community here. And no, that is not a cigarette in his mouth, it is a sugar tube)

Eema v'Savtah came to visit!

2007-12-29T17:23:00.001+02:00

My mom and grandmother came to visit me here in Haifa. As mentioned before their tourguide sucks. But there have been good moments when they've been with me. On Thursday night we went and had dinner in the German Colony in Haifa and saw the Baha'i gardens all lit up. As mentioned before, we went on a tour of the Zichron Ya'akove winery yesterday and then had some lunch afterwards without the tour guide.

Today, the came for lunch. I made a bunch of food and bought some Middle Eastern delicacies and we had a very pleasant lunch. It played backgammon with my mom several times and won all but one game. I also made my grandmother actual coffee. She normally drinks a lot of coffee, but in Israel they don't have drip coffee. All that's here is instant or espresso. So I made her coffee with my French press and she loved it. Unfortunately while my mom was doing the dishes, she broke it. So no I have to settle for instant until I leave. Oh well, I'm only here for 10 more days.
Tomorrow, we're going to Daliyat al-Karmel to do some shopping. Tuvia can wait in the car if he doesn't like it or the people.

The Tourguide from Hell

2007-12-29T11:51:00.000+02:00

My mom and grandmother came to visit me and they hired a private guide to take them around while I'm in class. Big mistake. This guy is a schmuck. Seriously. He got us lost yesterday in the hills around the university thinking that it would be short cut. Wrong. We were lost for nearly an hour trying to find the highway so we could go to the winery in Zichron Ya'akov.

Before that though, he had been ruining the trip for my mom and grandmother by taking them to places that they had no interest in, such as the Palmach museum in Tel Aviv. The last straw was when he took them to the Illegal Immigrants camp in Atlit, which is neither interesting or handicapped accessible (my grandmother uses a walker). Everything this guy wanted to take them to had some sort of relation to Israel's wars. And his political commentaries are not just right wing, but fanatical right wing. He's levied serious charges against the U.S. government and said that the State Department is full of anti-Semites. He's seriously a racist. And I mean it. He says the word "Arab" like it's a deragatory word and views Ethiopians as non being Jewish or as Jews who should not marry European Jews.

The guy is also a West Bank settler. He lives in Samaria. I don't remember where, but yesterday he raced back to Haifa from the winery so that he could make it home in time for candle lighting. I wonder what he will have to say tomorrow when we go to Daliyat al-Karmel.

Anyways, if you are looking for a private guide for Israel, DO NOT hire a man named Tuvia Grossman. His website is tuviatours.com. DO NOT HIRE HIM!

Roaches

2007-12-29T11:49:00.000+02:00

We've been finding roaches in our apartment and have been disposing of them accordingly. (We throw them out the window with a broom)

Sorry for not posting in a while...

2007-12-29T11:09:00.000+02:00

Sorry I haven't posted anything in a while. There hasn't really been anything exciting in the last 2 weeks or so since my Jerusalem trip. I've been here in Haifa, going to class, studying, and not doing much else.

The university is really boring on the weekends. Most of the Israeli students go home and the non-Israelis are left with an open campus. I spent last weekend working on my project for Intro to Rabbinic literature. I did a presentation about the rabbinic stance on war. It was really tough because not much has been written about it because during the time when the laws were written, the Jewish people were unable to go to war because of the exile. Therefore, there is no black and white legal text about war. Everything is extrapolated from the bible and strung together to create standards of conduct and what constitutes a correct war. It was a tough project and in hindsight I should have chosen another topic.

For some reason, Hebrew has gotten drastically better. I think it's because my teacher realized that I am the only one who does their homework every night. Terrorism and Responses is still the same course. We keep going off on bizarre tangents and it's really impacting what the course is supposed to teach. I'm disappointed by it. And so are other people. Arab-Israeli Relations remains a waste. The teacher gave out our final assignment a few days ago. It's due February 3, one month after courses end. That means I have to work on it back in Pittsburgh. I am not happy about it at all. Thankfully we have a program review sheet to tell the university everything that is wrong with their program. Other people, including myself are going to write letters as well.

The teacher strike still has not been resolved. The last day to resolve it is January 13. My Israeli roommates are not happy that their education lies in limbo like this.

These last few weeks have been really uneventful.

Haircut, Shabbat, and Jerusalem

2007-12-16T21:38:00.000+02:00

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.

Long Update

2007-12-12T16:04:00.000+02:00

Please pardon me for not writing very often. Here's what you've missed:

Thursday night:
Ska music swap with my roommate. We traded almost 4 data cds worth of music. It was a good swap.

Friday:
I did nothing. Absolutely nothing. I had Shabbat dinner on campus with the rest of the international school. There's usually Israelis here, but they all went home because of the potential for a strike on Monday.

Saturday:
Not much during the day. I hung out and watched "Wet Hot American Summer" with some friends. It's a hilarious movie about Jew Camp. I highly recommend it. Saturday night my friends and I went to a pub to celebrate a birthday. It was a lot of fun. There was a band covering good rock songs and everyone was in a good mood.
Sunday:
My friend and I went to the Druze village of Daliyat al-Carmel. It's a short ride away from Haifa and is a neat place to visit. There's lots of touristy type shops where everything is "Druze work" and "made by my cousin". You always get a "special price" because "you're a good boy" and will "bring friends from the university" to visit the village. It was a good time. I finished my Chanukah shopping and so now I have gifts for people.
Monday:
The Israeli students went on strike in support of the teachers. They closed down the campus and burned tires in the parking lot to keep people from getting in. Our classes are "unaffected", they're just being held in the dorm's social hall and synagogue. My class on Monday afternoon was canceled because the teacher couldn't make it to Haifa because his wife got injured or something, so my friends and I made some shakshuka for lunch and played backgammon in the afternoon. I got the review sheet for my Hebrew exam on Monday. The test had more vocabulary words and grammar subjects on it than our midterm did. After tutoring on Monday night, I spent almost 3 hours making flashcards for the test. Tutoring was alright. I've been teaching young kids the alphabet. I don't know if it's sinking in, but at least I'm doing something more than getting spanked at checkers.
Tuesday:
Went to Hebrew in the morning and started to stress more and more about my exam today. Have I mentioned my teacher is a b****? If not, my teacher is a b****. In the afternoon I had my Terrorism and Responses class. We watched the movie "Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West". The footage in the movie is chilling, but the argument and the logic that it uses are inaccurate. The glaring argument of the movie is that radical Islamic terror is an offshoot of Nazism. It's an interesting idea and could probably be proven, but the movie's proof lies in Nazi propaganda being redrawn in Arabic and the similar structures between terrorist youth programs and the Hitler youth. I can't say that I buy the argument that radical Islam derives itself from Nazism, however the main thing that bugged me about the movie was that it essentially re hatches Cold War propaganda framing Islamic terrorists as being people who attack America because of its freedoms and liberties (both are ambiguous terms by the way). It did a very good job of framing the conflict of us vs. them and stopped short of overtly advocating suspicion towards Arabs and Muslims living in the West. The film also implores mainstream Muslims to essentially apologize for the acts of the radicals and creates this expectation that mainstream Muslims are obligated to speak out. It recognizes that many are too scared to do so because it's very dangerous to do so, but nevertheless the attitude is there.

Honestly, I am very disappointed about this course. If you were to ask me what I know about non-Palestinian terrorist groups, I wouldn't be able to tell you much. And if you asked me what I could tell you about how governments dealt with those groups, I also wouldn't be able to tell you much. I understand that we are in the neighborhood, but that doesn't mean that there aren't examples and parallels that can be drawn from other groups. It's irresponsible of the professor to condense over 100 years of Irish and IRA history into 20 minutes, presented by students. The course is called Terrorism and Responses, not "A History of Palestinian Terrorism".

After class, I went back and ended Chanukah and my roommate and I made cous cous for dinner. Later on, we smoked some hookah and kicked it with out Israeli roommates. Then it was on to studying.
Today:
Hebrew test. If I get a C, I'll consider myself lucky. I spent 3 hours learning words and grammar last night and got up early this morning to keep studying. Most of the stuff on the review sheet wasn't even on the test. For some strange reason, our test was today, while the rest of the Hebrew classes have there tests tomorrow. One of the classes had there test postponed until they get a classroom. And they got to VOTE on the decision. I heard that my teacher gives tests on Wednesdays because she doesn't want to grade them on Shabbat. It's a legit concern, but she is done teaching, especially now, at 12pm on Thursdays. That leaves Thursday afternoon, Thursday night, and Friday morning to grade tests. That also leaves all day Sunday to grade them and even Monday. It's not like she reviews the tests once she gives them back. That woman makes absolutely no sense to me and has sucked all of the fun out of learning Hebrew.

Chanukah

2007-12-06T19:38:00.000+02:00

Monday night we had a pre-Chanukah party with the Ethiopian children that we tutor. My kid gave me some gelt, I gave him more gelt. It was a sold investment on his part. I let him listen to my ipod while we were there. He wanted hip hop. He kept asking for 50 Cent and some other people who I didn't know. Instead, he got Dr. Dre and N.W.A. Thank God he doesn't understand English. His parents would kill me if they knew the vulgarity. They also don't speak English. I realized Monday that I was getting sick.

Tuesday was the first night of Chanukah. It was fun. The international school had a Chanukah party on campus. I played some dreidel, a little shesh besh, ate some sufganyot...the usual Chanukah stuff. Afterwards my friends and I made latkes in my room. Not much else to report. I realized that I was actually sick Tuesday night and decided that I was not going to go to class on Wednesday. Happy Chanukah to me!

I light Chanukah candles in my room. One of my Israeli roommates said it was cute. The guy who I live with was amazed that I knew the prayers and was actually lighting candles. And yes, I did make my menorah out of bottle caps.

We had a second night Chanukah/Birthday party last night. It was fun. We had stir fry for dinner and afterwards introduced Israelis to the art of shotgunning beers. They were really confused. My friends and I also noticed that the cans here are a lot thicker than American cans. Therefore, you can't just stab your key into it. You have to exert effort. Lots of effort. Possibly more effort that it's worth. But nevertheless we did it.
Tonight is the 3rd night. It's been pretty uneventful. I lit candles and made some dinner. I had the most boring class ever this afternoon. My teacher did not stand throughout the entire class. It was so boring and the respect that I had for him went out the window because he sat for 3 hours and did absolutely nothing. It was a serious waste of my time and his. I also went grocery shopping today and had a delicious schwarma. That's about it. Maybe it's the holiday spirit, but for some reason my Hebrew teacher has stopped being a b**** to me. I'm sure everything will be back to normal on Monday.

Speaking of Monday, the Israeli students are striking and blocking entrance to the University. Because of this, the International school is moving classes to the dormitories. They NEED to solve this strike. They're almost at the halfway point for their semester and chances are they're going to have to cancel the semester. My friends and I were talking about this last night. If they cancel our classes, which they said they wouldn't, we're going to demand refunds. We came to get credit. And if they cancel classes, we can't get credit. What a lovely situation.

Blog Feedback

2007-12-02T19:48:00.000+02:00

So apparently my blog is boring. And dry. And other things. Leave some feedback if you want something changed. Also, let me know who you are. Sometimes I wonder if people read this site or not.

Update cont./ Tel Aviv/ Haifa Mayhem

2007-12-02T10:27:00.000+02:00

Thursday:
I did my oral presentation in Hebrew. We were given 5 minutes to speak about anything. I spoke about ice hockey. I needed to get some words from my teacher for the project. Apparently there are no words in Hebrew for puck, hockey stick, or ice skating. When I said puck to my teacher, she thought I was saying something else. I really would like to say the other thing to her. She deserves it. She makes patronizing comments to me and makes me feel stupid.

Arab-Israeli Relations is the most boring class I have ever taken. We turned in our midterm on Thursday. It was 4 questions contrasting the 1922 and 1939 British White papers. People write doctoral dissertations on this. We wrote 25 sentences. What a waste. People were literally falling asleep in class. Towards the end of the lecture, somehow the teacher started talking about Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and couldn't remember what his name was before he converted to Islam. I shouted out "Lou Alcindor" because I was really bored. I was right. People laughed and were woken up. The teacher said I would not get extra credit. I know too much useless information. But I guess in this case it was useful.

After class, my friends and I went to a pub for happy hour. It was happy.

Friday:
My friends and I woke up early to go to Tel Aviv instead of going on the trip this weekend to Masada and the Dead Sea. We took the train there and for some reason security was tight. They asked for our passports at the train station. All we had were our driver's license. They asked me questions about mine and butchered all of the Spanish/English words on my license. They let us take the train, but they told me to get a new license because I don't look like I did when I was 16. Mostly because I don't have a beard anymore.

When we got to Tel Aviv, we took a bus to Dizengof center and to the art market. Dizengof center is huge. There is a verb in Hebrew that means to waste time there. We got there just as it was opening, so we didn't do any shopping.
After Dizengof center we went to get some lunch. I made a major faux pas at the restaurant by ordering a "coos mayim" in stead of a "cos mayim". I'm not going to explain what it means because there could be children reading this. Let' just say what I ordered was not a cup of water.

After lunch we went to the art market. I got Chanukah gifts there. There was a good ska band playing at the market and a giant tree walking around and juggling. It was a pretty cool market. Afterwards, we went to the shuk and walked around for a while, seeing all of the counterfeit merchandise and smelling the dead fish. It was lovely. Afterwards, we took a sherut to the train station to head back to Haifa. On the way to the station, the driver stopped in the middle of the road and hopped out to help a blind guy cross the street.

We got back to Haifa in the afternoon and missed the last bus from the train station to the university so we had to take a cab. In the cab, I posed an interesting would you rather question to one of my friends who I was covering for the fare: Would you rather pay Streeter 12 shekels or shear the back of his neck? She paid me 12 shekels and lent me her mirror so I could do it myself. Anyways, back at the university, I found a site online that had episodes of "The Office" for free. I doubt it's legal. So I've been watching those for the past 2 days.

We had Shabbat dinner on campus instead of going somewhere. It's provided by the Student Union and it's really depressing. It isn't even close to the experience at Hillel in Pittsburgh, where there's tons of people and energy there. Most Israelis go home on the weekend and the international students are usually there, but a lot of them went on the university's trip to the desert this weekend. I would have gone, but I've already been there and wanted to explore other parts of Israel. Regardless, I was most amazed at how the Israeli who was doing kiddush didn't know what he was doing and none of the other Israelis in the room seemed to know either. But who am I to judge. It was a free meal. That's what counts.

Yesterday I did nothing. Absolutely nothing. I just watched TV online, sheared my neck, and made myself dinner. Afterwards, my friend and I went to the same pub that we went to on Thursday for happy hour. It was happy. Very happy.

A Week Without a Post

2007-11-28T11:35:00.000+02:00

I've gone a week without a post. So here's what you missed:

Friday:
Went to the Wadi Nisnas market in Haifa and bought some pitas and fruit. It was a good shopping trip. The Israeli who my friend and I were having dinner with that night called me while we were out and he told me all of the details for that night in Hebrew and I actually understood. When we got back to the university I changed for Shabbat and then my friend and I walked to the synagogue and met up with the family. They were nice people. They spoke mostly Hebrew to us and didn't try to convince us of any particular ideology or beliefs, as previous families have done. Instead, it was a very pleaseant meal with lot of food and good company. I think my Hebrew got a lot better because of that night. Afterwards, my friend and I walked back and played backgammon.

Saturday:
I made shakshuka for lunch and spent the day stressing about my Hebrew exam. The shakshuka was good, but the stress was not. That night my friends and I went out to a pub for happy hour. After that, we went to the supermarket and went grocery shopping. One of the things I bought was a bottle of scotch. While on the bus back, I was having a conversation with a friend of mine about alcoholism and when the bus stopped the old woman in front of me got up, stuck her finger out, and said really loud "It is not good to be an alcoholic". That was a very Israeli thing to do.

Sunday:
Studied. All day. Except for when I had the make up class for Arab-Israeli Relations.

Monday:
Hebrew Exam. I got a C. Much better than last time. Hebrew is hard, but my teacher doesn't make it less hard. In fact, she makes it more difficult by forcing us to write with vowels which is not done by Israelis.

Yesterday:
Terrorism and Responses exam. Complete waste of time. All multiple choice/ short answer and only 20 questions. That class is garbage. My group did our presentation about ETA. The teacher liked it, but I wish that we could have studied it as a class.

I'm still eating from the massive pot of vegetable soup I made. One of the things I bought Saturday night was a bag of soup nuts to eat with the soup. It was a smart purchase.

Jerusalem Post Removed

2007-11-23T16:13:00.000+02:00

I've removed the Jerusalem Post from this site. It's nothing but fear mongering drivel. Bye bye!

Thanksgiving Recap

2007-11-23T16:09:00.000+02:00

Thanksgiving was great. There was lots of food, great people, and even football broadcast on the internet. Here's some photos.

Thanksgiving was great. There was lots of food, great people, and even football broadcast on the internet. Here's some photos.

Thanksgiving

2007-11-22T14:03:00.000+02:00

Today is my 20th Thanksgiving, but I am not home for it. Instead my friends and I will be having a pot luck dinner. I don't know if there will be any turkey.

This week has been really rough. I was supposed to give a presentation on Tuesday but we ran out of time in class, so now it's been put off until this coming Tuesday. I have a Hebrew exam on Monday. It's going to be brutal. And I have my midterm for Terrorism and Responses on Tuesday. And I have a make up class on Sunday. Which means no going anywhere this weekend.

Tuesday night the international school held a cooking class. I learned how to make shakshuka, which is a Middle Eastern egg dish. It's made with eggs, tomatoes, onions, and peppers. The vegetables make a sauce and then the eggs are cracked right into it and simmered until the eggs are hard. It's delicious. It's become one of my new favorite foods. I tried it for the first time on Monday from one of the restaurants on campus. The best way to describe it is that there was a party in my mouth and everyone was invited. Except you. Just kidding.

I had a really bad day yesterday, so I made myself a pot of soup for dinner. From scratch. It was delicious.
It's been raining, so soup was a good thing to make. The thunder here is really loud. It almost sounds like bombs are going off.

Tomorrow night I'm going somewhere for Shabbat, as usual. Hopefully it will be neither awkward or a time share presentation for Israel or Orthodox Judaism. And hopefully the synagogue will not have people reading the newspaper during services. And most importantly, hopefully the food will be tasty.

Jerusalem

2007-11-19T11:09:00.000+02:00

Yesterday I went to Jerusalem on a trip with the International School. There were only 15 people who came, but it was still fun. In the morning we went to the traditional site of King David's grave. It's neat, but apparently it's not where he would actually be buried. Who knows? It's still neat.
Afterwards, we went to the room where the last supper was held. It's actually right on top of King David's tomb. It was cool, but it's just a room with some stained glass windows. After that, we walked through the Jewish quarter and saw some underground ruins from the First and Second Temple periods. They were also really cool. I got a pita with za'atar on it for a snack. It was delicious. After snack time, we saw some more ruins and then went to eat lunch. I had a delicious schwarma in a laffa. It was very tasty.
After lunch, we went to the Western Wall. I went over to the tefillin table and did the usual Jewish things in front of the wall. When I got them from the table, one of the guys told me that teffilin are the best life insurance policy you can have. When I was returning them to the table, one of the Chabad guys asked me what my name was and when I am going to come to his house for Shabbat. I told him my name and that I didn't make it down to Jerusalem from Haifa very much. However, he told me that I now have a reason to come. He made me put his number in my phone. I'm not going to call him. Another Chabad guy asked me where I go to school. I told him Pitt, and he asked me if I knew Rabbi Weinstein and if I go to Chabad there. I told him I go sometimes for meals and that I usually help Rabbi Weinstein make a minyan on Shabbat if he needs men. He told me that they were friends and that I should go back to Pittsburgh and tell him that we'd met. I'll do it if I remember.
After the wall, our group walked through the Jewish quarter to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in the Christian quarter. I didn't go in because one of our guides from the International School is Orthodox and he doesn't go into churches. I don't want to say that I felt bad for him because he's a great guy and I like him a lot, but I felt that it would be rude to leave him outside of the church by himself for an hour and a half. So he and I wandered around the Christian quarter, bought a new backgammon set, got some drinks, and played backgammon. That was by far more interesting to me than going into the church. This was my second time in Jerusalem and I won't get that many more chances to go back, so I felt like I learned more by walking around the neighborhood than by going into the church. Plus, our tour guide was really boring and I didn't feel like standing through an hour long remedial Christianity lecture about its formation and the Great Schism and Christian theology. I say remedial because I took both Religions of the West and the Bible As Literature at Pitt, so I know what's up. While we were playing a Greek Orthodox Monk walked by and looked like he wanted to ask us if he could play. If he had asked, I would have said yes.
Once everyone got out of the church, we went to the Mahne Yehuda out door market for a bit and then we headed back to Haifa. It was a good trip and I hope to get back to Jerusalem at least once more before I leave. As glad as I am to be going back to Pitt, I'm sad that I won't get to do as much exploring now because I have to be back so early for classes.

Outlying Statistics on Shabbat

2007-11-19T10:47:00.000+02:00

Friday night my friend and I went for Shabbat dinner with another family in Haifa. The food was declicious, but the conversation felt like a mix between and interrogation and a time share presentation for aliyah. The parents came in the late 1960's after the 1967 war, and so naturally, they were big proponents of all Jews returning to Israel. It got to the point where the conversation became uncomfortable because all the was discussed was aliyah, military service, how much "better" life in Israel is, and how every Jew should find his or her own connection to not just the recognized State of Israel, but also the occupied territories. One of the sons offered to take me on a tour of different places in the West Bank. My response to him was that I have no business going to the West Bank because there is nothing there for me.

I have no plans to make aliyah. I have nothing to gain and I certainly do not believe that it is my divine right to move into the occupied territories. I guess I'm the outlying statistic. Some of my friends in my program are planning to make aliyah after college. It's cool, but it's not for me. The ultimate goal of MASA, an organization that gave me scholarship money, is to get Jews to make aliyah after spending a year here. Again, I am the outlying statistic.

And don't tell me that I'm paranoid about them and their intentions. When they gave their presentation to us, they said 5 times that they were not trying to get Jews to make aliyah, however the very next day I went to their website and saw that they were having an aliyah fair. Similar to a career fair in America. WTF? They also said that they were trying to encourage dating and marriage within the Jewish people and to get people to go back to their home countries and tell Israel's side of the story, whatever it may be. So to sum up, they want people to blindly defend Israel publicly, have lots of Jewish children, and move here. I'm glad I gave the money back. I like thinking freely and standing up for what I believe in, not what people tell me to. I like being the lone outlying statistic. It makes life more interesting.

Concert in Tel Aviv

2007-11-16T12:59:00.000+02:00

Last night my roommate and I made the trip from Haifa to Tel Aviv to see the Abyssinians and Black Uhuru. They may have been old and way past their heyday, but it was still a great show. It was the first reggae show that I've been to where there were actually real Rastafarians and not the poser white kids who are only in it for the sacrament. The Rastafarians consider themselves to be an offshoot of the Jewish tribes that migrated to Ethiopia and they worship King Halie Selassie, who was the last king of Ethiopia. They also consider Marcus Garvey, who led the Back to Africa movement in the early 20th century, and Bob Marley to be their prophets. The Rastafarians believe that God created the world from Mt. Zion, like the Jews, and so they come and hang out in Israel. Not to mention, there were a lot of Ethiopian Jews there.

I must say that it was probably the first reggae show I've been to where white people were outnumbered. It's about time. There's too many casual Bob Marley fans who go to shows in the states and think that they're so cool. They're just posers. If you're a real reggae fan, than things such as Trojan Records, Toots and the Maytals, The Skatalites, and Peter Tosh mean something to you. Owning the Bob Marley greatest hits album or one Matisyahu album does not make you a fan of reggae. Branch out. Listen to lots of it. If you need to start slowly into getting into reggae, listen to the Blues Brothers' "Briefcase Full of Blues" album. They cover King Floyd's "Groove Me" which is a great start for getting into real reggae. Not commercialized pot smoking music like Matisyahu.

Anyways, the show was great. Both bands were great and the show actually started on time. After the show we went straight to the train station and got a train back to Haifa. We got back here at 3:30am. It was worth the trip to Tel Aviv for the show. It's really unfortunate that most of the really great reggae acts are old and their days are numbered. The next act on my list to see is Toots and the Maytals, although I have no idea where.

New Friends

2007-11-15T14:57:00.000+02:00

Yesterday was a day of new friends. While watching the concert and drinking free beer, two guys from the Haifa student union came up to my friends and I and talked to us. They told us about how the Arab student group in Haifa is putting out propaganda comparing Israel to Nazis or something like that and that they're protesting. However, after we got off that topic, they started telling us about the night life in Haifa. They gave us their phone numbers and said that they could get us in to any club or bar in Haifa and get us free drinks. I don't remember their names, however one looked like Lenny Kravitz and the other looked like Donald Sutherland. That's really wrong, but I can't remember their names. I feel bad. They were cool guys.

I made dinner last night with my existing friends. We made beef stir fry and it was delicious. We ate the stir fry, drank some wine, and had some delicious pancakes with nutella on them. Afterwards, we broke in my new hookah, which works wonderfully. Thanks for asking.

While we were smoking, an Arab guy named Nasser just walked up to us, said he was bored, and asked if he could join us. He seemed like a nice guy, but my roommate Evgeni was there and he was not too happy. Not because he's anti-Arab or anything, but because he feels cheated that he spent 4 years in the Israeli Navy while Nasser, who I'm guessing is named after Gamal Abdel Nasser, the Egyptian Pan Arabist leader, was able to go straight to college without doing any sort of community service. I completely understand Evgeni's frustration. I would be pissed too. There's a bill in the Knesset right now that would mandate a year of communal service for all Arab youth in Israel. It seems like a good idea, and I support it and think the US could use something like that (NOT MILITARY SERVICE), but who am I to make that call for Arab youth in Israel. It seems like a win-win situation. Arabs would get full military benefits without having been in the military and their communities would be strengthened. But again, who am I to say that it's right or wrong. I'm just a guy with a computer. One of the first things Nasser said was that he was not a bad guy with a bomb. I was a little confused by it, but I understand why he would say that. Arabs have a really bad image in the West and I certainly hope that his visit to our table was not specifically intended to debunk this myth. If my friends and I truly believed this, why would be in Haifa, where half of the students are Arab? Anyways, Nasser seems like a nice guy and he said he would come up and visit sometime, however I think it's all talk. When it comes down to it, I think he was just free loading.

Wednesday!

2007-11-14T17:41:00.001+02:00

Wednesdays here are great. There's music and free beer. And I only have one class. I had a falafal for lunch to go with my free beer and free music. Wednesdays at Pitt are nothing like this.
Aferwards, my friend and I went to the Arab market and Wadi Nisnas to do some shopping. I came back with a big bag full of fruits and vegetables, a dozen fresh pitas, some fresh olive oil that was pressed last week, and a brand new hookah. It was a great shopping trip. Plus everything was really cheap. It only costs me about $5 for all my produce, which included grapefruits, red peppers, onions, and eggplants among other things. The hookah was probably a fourth of what I would have paid in America. It was a good day.

The Supreme Court, Teacher Strike, and Shesh Besh

2007-11-13T13:33:00.000+02:00

Yesterday was a typical Monday. I went to class in the morning, gym in the afternoon, and then tutored refugees at night. After my morning class I was hanging out in my room talking to my roommate Evgeni. Somehow he and I ended up talking about American Supreme Court cases. It was a pretty cool conversation. I didn't realize that other people, let alone people from the United States, knew anything about the Supreme Court. It was a good conversation. We talked about the situation in Guantanamo Bay and the new Attorney General, who is Jewish.

Tutoring is a serious waste of time. Not because the kids are apathetic, but because the teachers are on strike here. How are we, as college students, supposed to tutor without homework? They need to resolve this immediately. I asked our madrich why there isn't a national solidarity strike because the strike has been going on for almost 2 months. He said that the other unions won't do it because they make more money than the teachers. This is outrageous. Apparently garbage men make more money than teachers. WTF? I would have figured, or even expected, that out of all the money that comes to Israel from the United States, through economic aid and private donations, some of it would go to the education system in Israel. I'm also amazed that in the new Holocaust reparation proposal for Germany, money for education is not included, at least from what I read. Needless to say, I'm outraged. The amount that Israel spends on buying 4 or 5 new American made fighter planes has got to make some sort of dent in the education deficit. It's also very inconsistent that within the next few days, Israel will be doing more large scale military exercises. Again, these cost money. Lots and lots of money, beyond normal soldiers pay. Did anyone factor in the cost of ammunition, gas, even bottled water. I have no idea who does the budgeting or accounting for the Israeli government, but this is insane. Children should be in school, not uniform.

Some of you might be asking why I am so critical of Israel on this matter and not the US. American school systems are not nationalized and are state and local issues. Because of this, the auditor general and the controller for states and counties keep track of everything and the governors do not divert funds to something commonly viewed as the antithesis of education (the military). Yes, my former governor, Gray Davis, messed up California schools and other institutions to the point where they went on strike, but he paid the price for it by being recalled and wasn't diverting funds to the California National Guard. Instead he was paying the price for a contract he signed with Enron that destroyed California's energy infrastructure when Enron imploded. I've been reading Ha'Aretz and the Jerusalem Post and nobody is singling out individuals to be accountable for this. This is unacceptable. The two sides haven't even talked about the issue. Teachers deserve better than this. Students deserve better than this. Israelis deserve better than this. All of the original Zionists were proponents of education and must be rolling in their graves because of how skewed the priorities are here.

Back to tutoring. This week the kid I worked with was Israeli and he spoke no English. I spoke Hebrew with him the whole time. It was good practice. Because I had nothing to work with him on, we played checkers. He taught me a magic trick. I taught him the English words for checkers and helped him with his writing. Ironic, since mine is terrible. I also taught him how to ask for his favorite foods in English. During my time there, an older kid came up to me and told me, to my face, in Amharic, that he was cooler than I was. I didn't know what he was saying so I nodded my head and smiled. After he left, someone told me what he said. When I saw him on the way out he said it again, so I gave him a dirty look and told him to go f*** himself in French. That's right, I speak another language that nobody in the room could understand. Let's see how he feels. Despite this, it was definitely a better tutoring session than last week. They just need to get the kids back in class.

When we got back from tutoring, my friend and I played shesh besh (backgammon) and smoked some hookah. It was fun.

Rainy Day in Haifa

2007-11-11T14:24:00.000+02:00

It's raining here. I don't have a lot of work to do. I said I did in the last post, but the work is part of a project on ETA for Terrorism and Responses, and our meeting has been pushed off until Tuesday night. I've been sitting here in my room, exploring some untouched music on my computer and reading The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain. It's a great book. It's about Twain's trip to Europe and the Holy Land towards the end of the 19th century. The image it casts of the Middle East is a lot different from the Middle East of today.

Not having a TV set is great. It gives me more time to read. I've compiled a list of books that I plan to read while I'm here. They're not literature, they're all related to the place I'm in now. The books are:

The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy by Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer (I read the original paper in the London Review of Books)
From Beirut to Jerusalem by Thomas Friedman
Palestine: Peace not Apartheid by Pres. Jimmy Carter (I skimmed this over the summer, I recommend people read it and take it with a grain (or sack) of salt)
The Deadliest Lies by Abe Foxman (I'm curious what his rebuttal is to Walt and Mearsheimer)
Anything by Tom Segev
Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East since 1776 by Michael Oren
The Autobiography of Chaim Weizmann by Chaim Weizmann
Anything by David Ben Gurion

There's a lot more I just can't think of them right now. I've left off Chomsky, Dershowitz, and Finkelstein. They're all childish pundits and are all equally full of crap. Foxman is too. I'm just curious about what he's written.

Interest in Middle Eastern politics is a disgusting vice and is a lot more addictive than tobacco.
Discussing the politics here reminds me of the scene in All Quiet on the Western Front where two old German guys are sitting with a solider, discussing the tactics of the war and how it will be over before Christmas. To demonstrate the tactics, they move beer glasses and nuts around on the table. Everyone is guilty of this somehow. Reducing the lives of soldiers and civilians to beer and nuts. It's disgusting and mind boggling how people can toss around other people's lives and think that they're more expendable than others. Or that they're worth more than others.

That's exactly why I'm going back to Pitt. I am on Middle East overload. All the talk about war, peace, nuclear weapons, terrorism, Iran and such is making me sick. I need to get back and work on something else. But I'm still going to read those books. I'd rather be informed than ignorant.

Busy Weekend

2007-11-11T10:52:00.000+02:00

My weekends start on Thursday night. This week there was a program called Carlsberg and Carlbach. It's pretty self explanatory. We hung out, sang some Carlbach songs and drank some Carlsberg beer. We learned something interesting. Carlsberg was the first beer to be brewed in Israel and it was also the first beer to receive Kosher certification. And also its sister beer, Tuborg, was created by a Jewish immigrant to Denmark who had no money. Pretty cool stuff.
I spent Friday afternoon preparing for Saturday afternoon's bbq and waiting for my friend from Pitt to show up. I made a big pan of chicken kebabs that I finished right before Meredith arrived. After she got here, we had some coffee and hung around for a bit and then we went to Shabbat services in the dorm's synagogue. We tried to light candles in my room, however we were afraid of the candles falling over and burning the place down. I already set the fire alarm off once, and I really don't want to do it again. I was the only American guy at the service. The rest of the people were Israeli soldiers, most of them secular, and most of them had no idea what was going on in the service. The religious situation here in Israel is deeply divided between the Orthodox and the secular and there is generally no middle ground, which most people believe is hurting Judaism and Israel more than helping them.

After services there was dinner on campus for students. Dinner was schnitzel and vegetables. It was tasty. There was no desert. Which was weird. So my friends and I went back and ate a cake that I bought earlier in the day because I knew I would be having a guest. The cake was really good. After cake, we decided to watch the movie "Snatch". I'd never seen it before, but it is not one of my favorite movies. It has lots of my favorite movie things in it, including:
Ska Music
Reggae Music
Crime
England
Irish People
English People
Jews
Violence
Humor
Dennis Farina (The guy that replaced Jerry Orbach on "Law and Order")

The next day was the potluck bbq for the International School. I brought a big pan of kebabs that were absolutely delicious. We at them with hummus, pita, and cabbage salad. They turned out great. I seasoned them with garlic, pepper, and hot paprika. After the kebabs, my friends and I made turkish coffee on the grills, which also turned out great.

Meredith left around 7 Saturday night. We waited outside for a bus and played with some of the stray cats that were hanging around the station. One of them was black and had no tail. He looked like he was expecting food or something from us. Seriously, I hate cats. He kept climbing up on me. I told him that if he ripped my jeans he would learn the hard way that there is more than one way to skin a cat.
After Meredith left, my friends and I went out to a pub. It was fun. We went with some other people from the international school and then we took a long walk down Mt. Carmel to get some late night waffles and crepes. We stopped in a park to look at a fountain. It was lit up and looked really cool. We took a cab back to the university. The cab was a brand new Mercedes, which was reflected in the price of the cab ride. I never would have thought that a Mercedes would be used as a cab, especially in Israel, but apparently the cars are part of a reparations settlement with Germany.

Anyways, this weekend was great, but now I need to get some work done.

Misc. Photos

2007-11-08T14:06:00.002+02:00

Here's some photos that people took of me that surfaced on Facebook.Day 1 at the Baha'i Gardens (I know I look pissed. I was trying to tell someone how to work my camera)

The hike in the desert (I look happy)

The opening bbq

The Concert that Wasn't

2007-11-08T13:29:00.000+02:00

The concert last night was a bust. The ticket said that the show started at 10:30pm. Or so my friends and I thought. Apparently, 10:30pm was when the doors opened and the show started later. Much later. When we got there, they said 1am. 1am rolled around, and there was no show. 1:30am, no show. At 2am, they did sound check. And at 2:30am, the show started.

It didn't matter. I left at 2am. I was pissed. The show was at a massive club on a kibbutz. The club has something like 9 different rooms playing all sorts of different music, all of it club stuff. Anyone who knows me knows that I hate night clubs. I hate the music. I hate the culture. And I hate the lifestyle. I went to see a band, and there was no band. At least not until 2:30am.

The ticket price included transportation to and from the university, however the buses didn't start running until 3:30am, even though when we bought the tickets they told us that the buses started at 2am. So my friends and I were calling cab companies at 2am, trying to get a cab. Nobody wanted to drive to the kibbutz to get us. (The ride is only 20 minutes, but the kibbutz is outside of the city limits)

We were stuck until a cab miraculously showed up and picked up my friends and I. This was at 2:45am. The driver told us that it would cost 60 shekels to get back to the university. That's reasonable. He drove like a maniac and blasted techno music at full volume and kept asking me if I liked music. I do like music. I love music. But not techno at 3am! When we got to the university, somehow the price became 70 shekels. We tried haggling with him, but he was adamant. So we paid him.

I went to bed at 3:15 pissed off, reeking of smoke and sweat (people were smoking everywhere), and feeling like I had been scammed. Not every student in Israel has professors who are on strike. Some of us have class. But what can you expect from a place who's motto is "Never Stop Partying"? Thankfully my class was at 10am. This was probably the worst night out I have ever had.

And Hillary, if you're reading this, this was worse than our Avenue Q outing. A lot worse. At least we got burgers then.

My roommate and I will be going to a reggae concert in Tel Aviv next week. Hopefully it will not be anything like this. It's on a Thursday, so we don't have class the next day. But we still have to get back to Haifa. That will be interesting.

FREE BEER!

2007-11-07T13:45:00.000+02:00

That's right. Wednesdays at the University of Haifa is FREE BEER DAY! Seriously. Every Wednesday they set up a stage, get a band, bring some kegs, and everybody comes and just relaxes. It was great. And they don't give out bad beer. They give out Tuborg and Carlsberg. I can't imagine any college in America doing this. Especially Pitt. The closest thing they do to this is give out free t-shirts a Fall Fest and Bigelow Bash. The whole experience reminded me a lot of Music in the Park in San Jose. It's outdoors, the bands are cool, and people are just hanging out. The only difference is that there's free beer. Hooray Beer!

Needless to say, schnitzel and beer is now my Wednesday afternoon activity.
On a side note, I'm going to a concert tonight. The band that's playing is called Ha Yehudim (The Jews). They're apparently one of Israel's best bands. I know, their name is very original. Anyways, it should be a lot of fun. My roommates are going and they told me to come. The street team for the band actually interrupted my class this morning to tell us about the concert. I'm excited. The ticket cost 45 shekels (11 dollars) and includes transportation. That's cheaper than any club show in America. It's going to be great.

Roommate Bonding

2007-11-07T13:44:00.000+02:00

Last night my roommates and I bonded. We went outside, smoked some hookah, drank some beers...the usual. It was cool. We talked about all sorts of stuff like classes, politics, the army, what we want to do after college. It was a good experience. My roommates are cool guys. I'm sad that I have to leave them.

It's Official, I am Coming Back to Pitt

2007-11-06T19:05:00.001+02:00

This afternoon I terminated my enrollment for next semester. I did this because staying here is not the best thing for me to do academically. Over the summer, my educational and career goals changed drastically and unfortunately Haifa is not the place for me to achieve them. Don't get me wrong, I love it here. The people are great. The food is tasty. The beach is beautiful. The campus is beautiful. And I'm getting better at speaking Hebrew. But when it comes down to it, I need to be back in Pittsburgh prepping myself for grad school and taking courses that diversify my education. It's great that I'm here learning about the Middle East and Judaism and it was great that I had the opportunity to intern with an Israel organization this summer, but unfortunately I feel like I'm cornering myself in the Jewish community. All my job and personal references are with Jewish organizations and the majority of my classes have some sort of Jewish element to them. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. I'm not burned out on Jewish matters, but I need to diversify.

My ultimate goal is to go to grad school and become a policy analyst, researcher, writer, or professor or some combination of them. And recently, becoming a corporate or tax lawyer has become an option as well.

I applied to Haifa at in a time in my life when I was absolutely broken, stressed, and devastated about my shortcomings at Pitt and with Hillel. I thought that going abroad would be the answer, and to an extent it has been. I had a long summer to explore new things, to meet new people, and to figure out what I'm going to do with college. And I think I've figured out everything that I needed to.

I'm a year a wiser from last November, and I'm ready to get rolling on achieving my goals back at Pitt.

Los Gatos in the Middle East

2007-11-05T23:06:00.000+02:00

If anyone is interested my hometown, Los Gatos, California, got some recognition in the Middle East. I was watching the Kansas City Chiefs play the Green Bay Packers last night and they did a little vignette about Jared Allen. Jared Allen is the Chiefs' star defensive lineman and went to my High School. When I was a senior and in the marching band, we played at the East-West Shrine Game at Pacific Bell Park to show him some hometown support. Anyways, because of Middle East Network, Los Gatos now has international recognition in cities like Haifa, Baghdad (I'm sure soldiers were watching), Doha, Cairo, and probably Tehran and maybe Kabul. Now let's see if any Buffalo Bills games are broadcast. (Trent Edwards also went to my high school and graduated my freshman year)

Thomas Friedman was right: the world is flat and and everybody is connected.

The Tutoring that Was

2007-11-05T22:17:00.000+02:00

Tonight was the first night of actual tutoring. However, nothing was accomplished. All of the high schools are on strike in Israel. From what I know, the government doesn't want to fork over the money to both the university and high school teachers. If you've been reading this site frequently you've probably seen the news reports from Ha'Aretz and the Jerusalem Post.

Anyways, I sat there with two Ethiopian girls tonight trying to communicate with them and help them practice their English. I ended up speaking more Hebrew than they spoke English. I feel like I may have wasted their time because I was pretty useless. However it was great practice for me. Hopefully the strike will be resolved and the kids will have homework to do next week.

I asked the girls if they liked to go to the beach. They said no. I asked why. One of them said "because I'm Black". That was a really surprising answer. I would have expected something like "I don't like the water" or something like that. Not "because I'm Black". I don't know how race relations are in Israel, but I hope that that really had nothing to do with the answer.

I wish I had more to write about this experience, but unfortunately I don't. Tonight was pretty uneventful. Although I got a better glimpse as to the conditions that the new immigrants live in. We walked through the playground in their complex and I noticed that the jungle gym was covered in graffiti and that there were used drug needles laying around. It's really depressing. I hope that some day Israel gets its priorities straight and cleans up the education and social messes that exist. Herzl must be rolling in his grave.

Art and Waffles

2007-11-04T13:29:00.000+02:00

I went with a group of friends to the Haifa art museum last night. It was pretty cool. The exhibit last night was all modern art. There were some really cool pieces there and there were also some really weird pieces. My favorite piece there was a big noose made out neck ties that someone bought at a market in Kenya. The piece was a statement of how the structures of capitalism and corporatism are nothing more than a noose around people's neck, sucking the life out of them.

After the gallery, we went to this all night waffle and crepe place along the main road back to the University. It was delicious. I had a waffle with maple syrup, apples, cinnamon, and vanilla ice cream on it. It was tasty. Quite possibly the best waffle I've ever eaten.

When I got back to my dorm room, I found that my roommate had moved in. Finally. He seems like a good guy. I hope he stays that way.

The Never Ending Shabbat Feast

2007-11-03T09:59:00.001+02:00

Last night I had Shabbat dinner with a group of friends with a family in Haifa. I think it was the biggest meal I have ever eaten in my life. The food did not stop coming. Let me list the things off to you:

Fresh Challah
Matzah Ball Soup, with plenty of balls an soup nuts
Salad
Marinated Peppers
Roasted Vegetables
Rice
Couscous with Lentils
Chicken
Beef
Turkey
Chicken Pad Thai
Roasted Potatoes
Meatballs
Individual Apple Pies with Sherbet
Birthday Cake
Brownies
Coffee
Tea
Wine
Beer
Scotch

It was a feast. And all of the food was delicious. The beef was very tender, the challah was great, the vegetables were seasoned perfectly. The Scotch had to have been at least $50 a bottle. The coffee was great. The brownies were really chocolaty. Seriously, we were really spoiled.

There were 20 people there last night, and apparently this family does a large Shabbat meal twice a month. We found out how they do there shopping. They get together with their friends at 10pm every Thursday night at the supermarket, buy everything, and then spend all day Friday cooking. I'm amazed that someone could not only afford to do this twice a month, but also be able to make everything on Friday and have it taste good.

The family was very friendly and were another family of ex pat Britons. I practiced Hebrew with some of the kids and talked about Lockheed and the defense industry with the father, who works for Rafael, which is Lockheed's Israeli competitor. (Dad, I'm sorry to say, that's why you can't come to Israel. It's all business and you should be pissed)

The synagogue we went to was a little weird. Most of the men sitting in the men's section were reading newspapers during the service. That seemed a little odd. There was also a huge spider walking around. We're pretty sure he was Jewish. He coordinated his movement with the service. There was a mix of both modern Orthodox Jews and Chassidic Jews. One guy was davening harder than anyone I've ever seen. He looked like he was a Carlbach follower (dirty hippie), so either he's reached spiritual enlightenment or he's on something. Probably a mix of the two.

Today, I'm not sure what I'm doing. I'm still full from last night and I've been hanging out this morning listening to music. Tonight, I'm going to an art gallery opening. That will be a lot of fun.

Things are Picking Up

2007-11-02T14:25:00.000+02:00

Last night there was a Halloween party on campus. It was a lot of fun. I tried to wear the Halloween costume that Hillary sent me, but unfortunately it was too small. And yes, it is a little princess costume. The party was exactly what I needed to unwind from my lousy day and week.
Tonight I'm going to have Shabbat dinner with a family in Haifa along with a group of people from the university. I'm excited. The Madrich who organized it, Levi, considers this family to be his second family, and I trust his judgment. He's a stand up guy. The guy is orthodox, but he's not out to impose anything on anyone and he's working on a very noble cause that unfortunately gets over looked in a lot of places: domestic violence. He also has a lot of great ideas for bringing helping students connect with Judaism, not organizations, such as next week's campus Shabbaton, which starts Thursday night with a program called Carlsberg and Carlbach, which essentially means everyone will be hanging out, drinking beer, and singing songs by Rabbi Shlomo Carlbach who tried to bring Judaism into the hippie movement. Friday night there will be a dinner on campus and then on Saturday there will be a pot luck/bbq at a park near by. It's going to be a great weekend.

Anyways, back to this weekend. Tomorrow night, I'm probably going to go to the beach, as usual, and then go to an art gallery opening somewhere in Haifa. One of my friends is doing an internship with the art gallery, so she invited us to come.

Weekends here are great.

Really Bad Day

2007-11-02T11:44:00.000+02:00

Yesterday was a terrible day. I got my Hebrew test back, and just as I predicted, my grade was not very good. In fact, my teacher wrote on it, in Hebrew, "You need to study harder". I hate this teacher. It's going to be a long rest of the semester.

After Hebrew, I tried to get something from the library, however, bur for some reason nobody was willing to help me. Needless to say, I didn't get what I needed and just used the internet.

After that, I went to the gym, but did not have headphones with me for my ipod. My ears were bombarded with horrible, non workout like music such as "Hey There Delilah" by the Plain White Tees. I hate that song. A lot. It sounds like a suicide note and is just a real downer of a song.

In the evening, my friend and I decided that we would cook some dinner. We decided to make chicken and sauerkraut because we were both really burned out on flavorful Israeli food. It was a serious dinner. It had lots of chicken, apple, sauerkraut, garlic, pepper, carrots, potatoes, onions, sweet pickled cabbage, and beer in it. It was on track to be a great dinner. However, we left the kitchen to check on something online and while we were in my room, something started to smell. And then the fire alarm went off. Our dinner was burning! The house mother ran into our room because she thought the building was on fire. When she came in, she saw me and my friend holding the pot out the window and letting the smoke out. On the plus side though, the smoke added an interesting element of flavor to dinner.

Seriously, yesterday sucked.

It's Wednesday Night

2007-10-31T20:13:00.001+02:00

It's Wednesday night. Under normal circumstances, I would have work to do. However, I don't. I got my major stuff for the week out of the way earlier. I had an exam in Hebrew this morning. I think I did alright. Everyone else has theirs tomorrow. I'm not sure why mine was scheduled that way. Either way, everyone else is stressing tonight, and I'm literally just sitting here with my beer.
I'm drink Baltika #9. It's terrible. It's like drinking cake. It's heavy and sweet. Too sweet to be beer. I bought it expecting that it would be a heavy dark lager. I was mistaken.

It's pretty tough to drink. I'm at the point now where I just want to finish it, and then get my shekel back for the bottle. Seriously, it's gross.

Making a Sandwich in Israel

2007-10-31T13:30:00.000+02:00

I must say that making a sandwich here is much better than making a sandwich in America. Seriously.

There are more varieties of bread here. Most of them fresh and not full of preservatives. The meat companies here have invented all sorts of ways to make kosher cold cuts delicious by adding different spices. Hummus is way better than mayo. Tahini is way better than yellow mustard (if I find brown mustard, do I dare mix it with the hummus?). There is an endless supply of hot sauces ranging from mild to super super hot. Onions, cilantro, sauerkraut, raw cabbage, peppers, and other pickled vegetables are plentiful here. And to top it all off, the ketchup here is delicious and not full of corn syrup like Heinz. It's also a lot cheaper here than it is in the states to make a sandwich, unless you resort to Wonder Bread, Oscar Mayer Bologna, and maybe some runny yellow mustard.

Seriously, the food here is amazing. I bought a kilo of hummus yesterday. Do you have any idea how much that is? It's gigantic. It's literally a bucket of hummus. And I bought it at the mini market on campus for less than 3 bucks. That's unheard of in the states.

There's also delicious Turkish Coffee that will get you going in the morning and keep you going for the rest of the day. I've also grown accustomed to the instant coffee here. It's still crap, but it's there at 4pm when I really need it along with a candy bar. By the way, the candy here is really tasty. They have this one called Bounty, which is like a mix between a Mounds bar and an Almond Joy. It has the coconut of the Mounds, but the Milk Chocolate of the Almond Joy without the almonds. Delicious.

And exotic beers like Baltika #9 which is something like 10% alcohol and I'm pretty sure it's illegal in some states. I had to have my roommates tell me what the label said because it came directly from Russia to Israel.

If anyone is concerned about me going hungry, I promise you I will not.

Politics

2007-10-30T21:40:00.000+02:00

Some of you may have noticed that my blog has become more and more political over the past few weeks. The reason for this is simple: I don't have adventures every day. I also don't have a TV. (If you want to remedy this, buy me a TV and pay my cable bill) And Israel is definitely not a place to be apathetic or ignorant of the news.

So while many of you visit this site hoping to read about my adventures in Israel and are instead confronted with politics, I assure you, there is nothing more Israeli than to be up on politics.

Speaking of being Israeli, I've asked my roommates to speak only Hebrew to me. I need to get better at it. This is not a step towards aliyah, it's a step towards not looking like a jackass.

TERRORISM TERRORISM TERRORISM!!!!!

2007-10-30T20:35:00.000+02:00

There, now that I have your attention, say hello to the NSA! At least that's what my teacher for Terrorism and Responses said. Apparently, the US government tracks everything with the word "terror" in it and has read it within a matter of hours.

If you're from the NSA or any other intelligence organization and you're on this site, leave me a comment. I'm curious if what he said is true.

Today was our second class and I had a few interesting thoughts in class based on what he was saying. First off, the man is an officer in the IDF and does something with anti-terrorism training and analysis. My general impression of him is that he is a good man who takes both his job as an officer and a teacher seriously.

However, he is incredibly biased and makes his positions very clear. He co-writes for a website called Middle East on Target which is intended to combat the "anti-Israel bias" in the "liberal media". Those are not direct quotes. Those are quotes like Dr. Evil in Austin Powers.

Anyways, today he ranted about how the New York Times was "dribble" and made a very subtle plug for FOX News. His criticism du jour for the New York Times was that it's coverage of casualties in Iraq is neither worthy of the front page headline or even national news. I subscribed to the Times for a few months and received it daily while I was back at Pitt. Their war coverage is important, if not essential to educating the nation about the war. The human cost of the misguided Iraq campaign cannot be ignored. He tried to make a comparison between WWII coverage and the Iraq coverage, but the two wars cannot compare. WWII had clearly defined battles that could be reported on and FDR did not lead the country into a war that was both a quagmire and cooked up through doctored intelligence. The insanity taking place in Iraq cannot be covered like a regular military campaign, where there are battles and clearly defined enemies. The New York Times needs to continue it's critical coverage of the war and the Bush administration's deception.

Beyond his labeling of the New York Times as drivel, he also made a claim that Israel stops something around 30 terrorist attacks per day. That number seems way too high. I've heard between 2 and 3 but never 30.That means that in a year, nearly 11,000 attacks are foiled. Which would mean that there are at least 11,000 new Palestinians jailed annually. That means that there are 44,000 Palestinians that have been arrested and jailed since 2003, when the wall was completed. That too seems way too high. If 44,000 people had been jailed in 4 years, someone in the mainstream "liberal" media would have said something. Even if 3 attacks are foiled every day, that would mean 4,000 people have been arrested since 2003. Again, somebody would have said something. 4,000 people is a lot of people. Needless to say, I want to see some facts. And by facts I don't mean ZOA, AIPAC, or Hasbarah talking points. I want an official government report with names, dates, offenses, and sentences. If Iraq has taught me anything, it's that governments cannot be trusted and must be held accountable. If an official report exists, like either the Winograd (about the Lebanon War) or the Sasson (about the illegal settlements in the West Bank) I would like to see it.

To the teacher's credit, he and I both agree on somethings. We both agree that the current policy of cutting power to Gaza is wrong. My belief is that it is a humanitarian crisis in the making and will do nothing but piss of more Palestinians and increase the rockets falling on Sderot and Ashkelon. By the way, according to the teacher, there are only 3 or 4 rockets per day, at most, that hit Israel, and the ones that do hit are essentially lucky shots. Katyshua Rockets are inaccurate and cannot be aimed. They have no technical guidance system, let alone enough fuel, to hit a target accurately. They're still dangerous, but not to the degree that they are made out to be in America. Anyways, he opposes the power shut down because he views it as being ineffective, based on the logic that the power outages will cause the unarmed Palestinians to overthrow Hamas. (Non-Hamas members were stripped of their arms) He also questioned the government's motives for the shut down. He suggested that the shut down will not meet its goals and will be used as a pretext for Israel to invade Gaza and confront Hamas outright, which makes sense.

Hopefully it won't come to that. Hopefully something will come from the Annapolis conference in a few weeks. Hopefully.

My teacher is also a pretty big critic of the way that the Lebanon War was carried out, like myself. I'm not sure on the specifics of how he would have conducted the war, but he did say that he, like myself, believed that the rescue of the two soldiers was not possible and that a full scale invasion was not the way to go about it. Funny how an officer in the IDF and someone who was labeled as a "bad Jew" and "not Zionist enough" could have the same opinion. By the way, those who labeled me those things are NOT in Israel right now, supporting its people, the economy, and paying taxes. Just thought I'd point that out.

While I may disagree with the teacher, I do respect him and his point of view. He knows things that I don't, but at the same time, he is prohibited from questioning some of those things that he knows as well as the general policies of the government. It's his job. My duty as a civilian is to question the policies. Either way, I plan to take his lectures with a grain of salt. Today though, I needed a whole bag of salt.

Anyways, back to the class. The class itself is interesting and is progressing slowly. My friends and I are responsible for doing a report on ETA, which is the Basque Separatist Group in Spain and France. Our project is coming along well and we're pretty confident that we will get an A with it.

Just to add to a previous post, all the military activity in the north of Israel is just an exercise. "Just an exercise". Not sure what for. But just an exercise.

The Tutoring That Wasn't

2007-10-30T12:14:00.001+02:00

Last night we were supposed to start tutoring refugees from Ethiopia. However, the program isn't ready to start yet or something because instead of tutoring, we ended up at the museum next to the absorption center drinking coffee.

The feeling around the absorption center is weird. The center isn't so much a single building as it is a neighborhood. It's basically an American style housing project, playground and all. From the outside it doesn't look so bad, but it definitely has the feel of being in a slum. We toured the actual school where we will be working. It's like a brand new American school, complete with bean bag chairs and new computers.

At some point during our tutoring sessions, we are supposed to start going to the children's homes and working there. I honestly have no idea what that will be like. I have never met anyone from Ethiopia before, so it will be interesting to learn about their culture and experience their lives.

It's Quiet, Almost Too Quiet

2007-10-29T16:35:00.000+02:00

Nothing happened. I wonder what was going on? Must have been practice or something.

Fighter Jets

2007-10-29T10:38:00.000+02:00

There's fighter jets and helicopters flying around Haifa. I don't know what's going on.

Maybe it's the all the coffee, but when you couple this with all the boats I saw yesterday out on the water, I think something might be going down.

Beach and Kebabs

2007-10-28T21:51:00.000+02:00

By now, you're probably asking yourself, "doesn't this guy ever go to class?" Well, it's hard to go to class when there isn't any. I don't have classes on Friday, Sunday, or Wednesday afternoon. Why not go to the beach?

My friends and I went again today. It was a lot of fun. We hung out, smoked hookah, drank cold ones, frolicked in the water etc...That's right, we kicked it old school.

We also saw five Israeli Navy destroyers go across the water. I guess it was cool. It was different at least. Hopefully the Mossad won't disconnect my blog and destroy my camera because I took and posted the picture.

Afterwards, we went over to the bus station and had some delicious food for dinner. I had a kebab sandwich which was absolutely amazing. The meat was great and it came with hummus, tehina, baba ghanoush, hot sauce, sauerkraut, pickled carrots, and red peppers. It was a serious sandwich.

Sharks on the Internet, Time Zone, and Links

2007-10-28T10:53:00.001+02:00

I listened to the Sharks last night on the internet. It was disappointing. The Sharks have always pounded Columbus, and yet they somehow lost 2-1. Hopefully, they'll play some more games that I can listen to online. I'm going to send a postcard to Dan Rusanowsky and Jamey Baker to let them know that Sharks hockey is alive and well in the Holy Land.

And by the way, our right wing "friend" from the last post is an Edmonton Oilers fan. 2 years ago, the Oilers got lucky. By the way, why did Pronger leave? Because he knocked up some woman who wasn't his wife. And what about Ryan Smyth? Sold off to the highest bidder. Same with Gretzky back in the 80's. I think Craig MacTavish might have suffered some brain damage by not wearing a helmet all those years. And how are they this year?

That's what I thought.

I changed the time zone on here to Israel time. That way you all can know when I am posting. Because you were dying to know it.

I also added some links. Check them out.

Ideology Ruining a Night

2007-10-28T10:00:00.000+02:00

I knew that while I was here I was going to meet someone who had different beliefs than me. So far, I've met a few, but they've been respectful, and that's all that can be asked. I also am fairly close with some of them. But last night someone crossed the line and ruined both a night out and her chances of having friends at Haifa.

To give you a little background info on this girl, she's not a US citizen, a member of the Conservative party in her country, is Orthodox, and very far to the right on the Zionist political scale. Our chances for friendship from the outset were not good.

The first day I was here, I was sitting in the lobby of my building reading Ha'Aretz, which is the liberal paper here in Israel. She asked me why I was reading such liberal propaganda. My response to her was when did optimism become liberal propaganda. After that she went on this huge rant about the "liberal media" and how it was anti-Israel and how it was pro-Arab and pro-Iran and all this other stuff that I really didn't want to pay much attention to. During her rant she hinted at something quite profound; she wouldn't care who or how many people died in a U.S. led war against Iran, as long as Israel was safe.

First off, it really offends me that as a non-citizen she was not only calling for the use of our armed forces, but was also completely apathetic towards the human toll that would undoubtedly be faced if such an event were to happen. Second of all, with the military stretched as thin as it is, where is the United States going to get more troops? From the wonderful Selective Service System that me and the rest of America's young men are registered for. So essentially, through extrapolation, she doesn't care about my life or anyone else's life, so long as her end goal, which she herself cannot achieve because she is neither a male nor an American citizen, is reached. That's a very insensitive of looking at things. The way the news is going, I hope she plans to volunteer.

Anyways, on to last night. Last night my friends and I were ready to go out to a pub and we decided to be nice and invite her along with us, thinking that we could turn over a new leaf with her after her rant last week about how PBS was anti-Israel and ruining the United States. Again, how could she know this? She's not a citizen and does not live in the United States. Second of all, how is Sesame Street anti-Israel? It's probably the best attempt at creating tolerance in Israel if not the world. How is the News Hour anti-Israel? If anything, it's the most objective coverage on TV.

Anyways back to last night. As we were waiting for the bus (yes, I do ride the bus in Israel. It is safe, especially in Haifa), she started, unprovoked, to criticize the fact that a Jew from our group was dating a non-Jew from Asia. Everybody around her just stopped talking. At that point we didn't know if she was being provocative or bigoted. We soon learned the latter. Somebody called her out and said something to the effect of "who are you to judge someone else" and she just went off on this big rant rallying off a very narrow interpretation of Jewish family laws and then questioned everyone's commitment to Israel and Zionism because we did not see things her way. She started yelling a bit more and I just left. I didn't want to listen to her. She ruined my night. She ruined everyone's night. The rest of the group followed me and we all went back and watched a movie.

I don't know if people like her realize how offensive their rhetoric is and how hypocritical they are when they spew it. First off, she was naming names, which means that she was committing an act of Lashon Hara, gossiping, which is absolutely forbidden in Judaism. You would figure that someone with as much of a background in Judaism such as herself would know that what she was saying was technically against Jewish law, but apparently not. Second, I don't know if she realized that three people out of the group there were products of interfaith marriages. The way that we all heard her rant was that our lives are illegitimate because the marriages that produced us were abhorrent to God, or something like that. Basically, what she and others like her were saying is that we have no right to exist, the same thing that anti-Zionists say about Israel, which considering that all of us there last night were Jewish and a part of the K'lkal Yisrael (tribe of Israel) she was essentially no worse than an anti-Zionist or an anti-Semite because we are all a part of Israel, whether we are citizens of the state or Jewish.

I knew people like this existed, but I never realized that at 11pm on a Saturday night, on the way to a pub in Haifa, someone would rally off such hate speech without thinking of its implications. I honestly would have expected to hear something like this from someone with a beard and black hat. But instead, I heard it from some immodestly clad girl who was sitting at a bus stop on the way to a pub. Again, another instance of hypocrisy.

Needless to say, nobody wants to talk to her, let alone be around her. Her roommate is planning to move out and we're hoping that she just packs up and leaves Haifa and goes to another university in Israel.

I'll close by saying that I love my parents and that I feel blessed that they are not divorced, which was actually advocated to me by somebody back in Pittsburgh. I'm also very proud of my father because of how he helped raise me to be an upstanding and respectful man and I'm very impressed with the way that his participation in Judaism has grown throughout my lifetime. I know that it was not easy for him to make the sacrifices that he did and so he deserves a tremendous amount of respect for being more than just a good sport. It is up to him what he decides to do as a member of a Jewish family, and we as Jews, are explicitly forbidden from imposing anything on him because our tradition teaches us that everyone is great the way they are.

Unfortunately, those like the girl from last night are not willing to tolerate families such as mine.Their anti-interfaith marriage views are so bigoted its sickening. Their rhetoric reeks of Jim Crow laws and flat out racism. Yes, the Torah does not look highly upon interfaith marriages. But at the same time, the Torah views love, strong family values, and openness in the highest regard.

Judaism is not black and white. It's colorful. Rabbis ancient and modern have said this over and over again, but there seems to be a few people that don't listen. All that can be hoped for in the Jewish commubity is respect. But apparently, some just aren't willing to give it, and in the end, that will cause a greater detriment to the Jewish people than anything else.

Shabbat and the Beach

2007-10-27T18:17:00.000+02:00

Last night's Shabbat dinner was great. The family was really nice and the food was delicious. The synagogue we went to was a very modern Orthodox one (no Black Hats in sight). We had some interesting table conversation about making aliyah (which I don't plan on doing in the near future), the university, Haifa, Iraq... It was a nice night. The wine we brought was also very good. I'm definitely planning to go back out in the community for Shabbat. Not because I'm super observant and need to go, but because it's fun to meet new people and learn things about Israel and Judaism that don't really exist on campus.

Next weekend I am probably going to Jerusalem to celebrate a friend's birthday. If anyone can recommend a place to stay that would be great. Otherwise, I'll be at a hostel.

This afternoon I went to the beach with some friends. I know I've said this before, but the beach is beautiful. We hung out there, smoke some hookah, drank some cold ones, played in the water, and at some awesome ice cream. We had to take a cab down because it's Shabbat and the busses weren't running. The cabs here are pretty reasonable. It costs a little more than the bus, which isn't too bad. We were planning to have a party tonight on the beach, but it's cold and windy down there right now, so it's not happening.

Shopping in Hadar before Shabbat

2007-10-26T15:39:00.000+02:00

This morning my friends and I went to the Hadar neighborhood of Haifa to go shopping in the large, open air market. It was an experience. The food there is delicious looking because it's all fresh and mostly organic. It's also dirt cheap. I paid $1.00 for an eggplant. I'm going to fry it in some oil and make sandwiches with it later this week. I also got 4 huge grapefruits for $1.50 and some really sweet red peppers for a $.75. I also got a bag of 5 fresh pitas that were absolutely delicious. I took them home hand made a schnitzel sandwich for lunch. It was delicious. Just to clear up, if anyone is interested, eating your vegetables is the thing to do in Israel. So don't worry, I am getting nutrition.

I brought my camera to take some pictures, but unfortunately the place was absolutely packed and bustling before the 2pm deadline when Israel pretty much shuts down.

There were a lot of Black Hatters there, which is a common site in Israel. They had their van parked their with the "Moshiach Now" flag or whatever they call it. It's purple and gold and has a crown on it. In fact, if I recall correctly, it looks exactly like the L.A. Kings' logo from back in the day. Who knew that the ultra-Orthodox were Kings fans, let alone hockey fans. The list of things that the ultra-Orthodox and I disagree on continues to grow. GO SHARKS!!!!!!

(For non-hockey fans, the Sharks and Kings are rivals. And the Sharks are better. It's a scientific fact.)

Tonight I am going to be having Shabbat dinner with apparently one of the wealthiest families in Haifa. I don't know much about them other than that they're loaded and originally from England. My friends and I are meeting them at their synagogue tonight, which is close to the University, and then going to their house. It should be fun. We bought a bottle of wine to bring over because we're super classy. Except we don't know if it's good. The brand is Gato Negra from Argentina. Anybody heard of it? I would hate to bring bad wine, and unfortunately Israel has some notoriously bad wine. Hopefully this isn't one of them.

Azerbaijan and Kitties

2007-10-25T20:35:00.001+02:00

Tonight my friend and I made some dinner and smoked hookah with a student from Azerbaijan. It was an interesting experience. Before coming to Haifa, I had never met anyone from Azerbaijan. The guy who we hung out with tonight is getting a masters degree here in Haifa. He's not Jewish, but says he really loves living in Haifa. We learned a lot about the culture in Azerbaijan tonight and it sounds like a really neat place. It's pretty close to Israel, so maybe I'll go check it out for a few days during my vacation.

The cat situation here is crazy. We were eating dinner out side tonight and a kitten walked up and stole a piece of bread. And then his friend came and took one. Cats are rude. Although, we did see a cat attack a roach tonight. It was pretty cool. It's one of those things that I can't describe in writing. You'll just have to come to Israel and see it for yourself.

Gym and Soccer

2007-10-24T20:37:00.000+02:00

I've been going to the gym here for past few days. It's a decent gym. The machines work. The place is clean. No real complaints about the gym itself. I'm willing to bet that the showers in the locker room are the best at the university. The only thing I need to do is figure out the conversion between pounds and kilograms. But the real reason for this post is to vent about how the music at the gym is terrible. Absolutely terrible. Lately, they've been playing Janet Jackson, Celine Dion, the Plain White T's and Nickelback.

For those of you who don't know, Nickelback makes my ears bleed. They have got to be the worst band in history. Their singer's voice is grumbly and he looks like an ugly woman. Their lyrics are terrible, repetitive, and only set to music so that they can make money. Seriously. Nickelback sucks. Hardcore. Who would think that Canada, the nation that gave the world hockey, maple syrup, and politeness, could churn out such a complete and blatant mockery of modern music. Although Celine Dion and Alanis Morissette are Canadian, so this really shouldn't be surprising. But how could Canada go from Rush to Nickelback in the span of maybe 20 years? What happened? If I ever hear "This is How You Remind Me" again, I'm going to go insane.

Thankfully, I was able to fight off the assault on my ears by bringing my ipod to the gym. Black Flag, Run-DMC, the Ramones, and Motorhead kept me from going insane. Which is ironic because during America's interventions in Latin America in the 1980's, Motorhead was used to drive the enemy insane. In fact, I think they still blast "Ace of Spades" at high volumes at Guantanamo Bay prison, but don't quote me on that.

Anyways, I played soccer for the first time in 11 years tonight. It was a completely different experience from when I was 11. I didn't have people telling me that I sucked at soccer, before I was even picked for a team. I didn't have a coach screaming "Dammit David, you're like a Goddamn ping-pong ball." I didn't have people calling me fat. I didn't have people saying that I couldn't play with them because I was Jewish. It was almost surreal.

I am the first to admit that I am a terrible soccer player. But, at least this time, nobody picked on me for it. They even encouraged me. And I wasn't playing with other Americans. These were German and Israeli players who had been playing all their lives and love soccer. Really really love it. One of the German players plays professionally when he is back home during the summer. Either way, I had fun playing and I can see myself playing soccer regularly while I'm here.

I just can't picture myself watching it. It's so boring. And the talent level in the Israeli pro-leagues is not very good. Plus, I don't want to deal with hooligans. That would be bad. I'm going to play it safe and start listening to Sharks games online at 3am, now that I have internet.

Speaking of which, I have gone back and added some photos to this site and will add more while I'm here.

Sorry this post is a rant, but I needed to vent.

Internet

2007-10-24T10:24:00.001+02:00

I HAVE INTERNET IN MY ROOM!!!!!

Yitzhak Rabin

2007-10-23T21:32:00.001+02:00

Tomorrow is Yitzhak Rabin Day, so tonight we watched a "documentary" about his assassination. I put documentary in quotes because it was incredibly one sided in the way that it depicted religious Jews as fanatics conspiring against Rabin, but regardless of that, the film raised many issues that linger to this day.

To start off, I am a fan of Rabin. The man truly believed in what he was doing and his later decisions were reached through reflections upon his previous actions. The man WAS Israel's modern history. He helped found the state, defend it, and led it twice. Towards the end of his life, he tried to secure a peaceful future. Whether or not it would have happened is beside the point. The point is he was committed to his ideology and deserves to be both studied and respected for the courage he displayed under pressure.

In the months before the assassination, fringe elements of the right wing, mostly settlers in the West Bank, began to study laws in the Talmud about the government of a Jewish nation that had not been used the since the Roman Conquest around 70 CE. I'm no Talmud expert and have never claimed to be, but my understanding of the laws is that they sentence anyone who commits treason against the Jewish nation to death. The person committing treason in this case was Rabin because of his commitment to handing over the West Bank and Gaza to the Palestinians with the intention of establishing the long overdue Arab state alongside of Israel. This act met the extremist definition of treason, and therefore, he "deserved" to die. The man to carry out his death sentence was Yigal Amir who was a follower of the right wing propaganda against Rabin and was the "unexpected" culmination of the political conspiracy against Rabin.

When people talk about a right wing conspiracy against Rabin, they are not lying and they are not overstating the influence of Rabin's opponents. There was a very intricate web of organization and propaganda that fueled the anti-Rabin sentiment so much that it went from being pure political opposition to being personal attacks on him and his wife, including calling him a Nazi, which is a very strong taboo in the Jewish community. Rabin was even cursed. People called for him to be violently killed, openly and in public and the Knesset (parliament). The anti-Rabin propaganda and the death threats inspired Amir to kill Rabin. That is a fact. He admitted it.

I cannot describe to you in writing the images that I saw in the film tonight. They were absolutely disturbing. Thousands of people came out and demonstrated against Rabin, calling for his death in rallies that resemble the Friday afternoon rallies in Tehran against the United States and Israel. People held up posters of him as a Nazi and lobbed baseless insults at the man calling him a "son of a bitch" and a "faggot". They shouted racial slurs against the Arabs and accused Rabin of collaborating with a modern day extension of Hitler (Arafat). I was appalled that this went on, as were the Israelis, who at the time were unable to see the footage because of government censorship. Regardless of your opinions on the peace process or the decision to give back land, my assumption is that if you were to see the footage that was censored in Israel, you would take a step back and question how somebody could not only verbally attack an elected official, but also burn effigies and depict him as a Nazi. You probably would ask yourself "Is this Judaism?"Is wishing death upon someone Jewish?

However the most disgusting thing about the rallies is that two future Prime Ministers were there: Ariel Sharon and Benjamin Netanyahu. After reading Netanyahu's comments about 9/11 and the Iraq war and seeing him on Fox news many times, I had very little respect for him to begin with. But after seeing him appear at a rally where people were shouting "Death to Rabin!"; his colleague, Prime Minister, countryman, and fellow Jew, is absolutely appalling. Same thing with Sharon. Again, is this Judaism? To wish a painful death upon not just another Jew but another person?

The most horrendous aspect about the assassination is not that it happened, but the lies that surround it. Yigal Amir received the blessing from a fanatical Rabbi to kill Rabin, according to the police report. When questioned on camera, the Rabbi in question denied it. Amir denied it. The only people willing to corroborate the charge were two students of the Rabbi's students who had heard the Rabbi say he would shoot Rabin himself. Again, is this Judaism? I'm pretty sure two of these things violate the 10 commandments and I'm also pretty sure that the act of both authorizing the assassination and carrying it out violate the very first commandment and concept in the Torah: B'Tzelem Elohim, that man was created in the image of God.

In the end, Rabin was assassinated, and many believe that the peace process died with him. Who knows. What I do know, is that I was 9 when he was killed and I remember going to school the next day impacted by the news reports of his killing. It was the first political event in my lifetime that I remember and all I could ask myself then was why? I still ask myself that. Maybe this is the reason why I believe in peace and that peace is worth working towards. Maybe that's what Rabin's death was meant to inspire; legions of young people from both sides working to bridge the divide between Arabs and Jews and to defeat the monopoly of the old guard of leaders, still working off a Holocaust and Cold War reactionary mindset. That statement is not intended to diminish the Holocaust and its lessons at all, but as the world learns the lessons of the Holocaust and realizes the cruelty that humans can inflict on each other, so too must we realize that we cannot live paralyzed by fear and suspicion of others, thinking that everything could potentially lead to a second Holocaust. Instead, let's be proactive and work with others to make peace and to understand others so that racism and ignorance disappear.

I think that's what Rabin would want. Maybe I'm completely wrong. Who knows? I didn't know him personally. The first time I ever heard his name was when I was 9 and he was killed. I only have his legacy to go off of. And this is how I, and many of my generation, interpret it.

I'm torn on how to end this post. I could end it in a youthful sort of way by quoting Elvis Costello by asking "What's So Funny About Peace Love and Understanding", or I could close by writing the most profound thing I saw in Israel on Birthright last year. I think I'll go with that.

At Rabin square, where he was assassinated, somebody wrote in graffiti the words "Know Hope". That's what we need to do. Know Hope.

Filler

2007-10-23T07:31:00.001+02:00

Here's a list of major things that I miss about life in the good old US and A:

Mexican Food
Ice Hockey
Politeness/Manners

That's about it.

That doesn't mean I don't miss anything else. It just means that these are all the things I can think of right now.

Plans have changed

2007-10-22T17:53:00.000+02:00

Tutoring apparently doesn't start until next week.

I ordered internet today. I don't know when I'll get it.

2 of my roommates moved out. I don't know who will replace them or why they moved out.

Football and Food

2007-10-22T10:32:00.001+02:00

The beach in Haifa is amazing. Have I said that already? I went yesterday with some friends. We kicked it old school on beach and watched the sun go down. It was very nice.

I'm going to say this, and I absolutely mean it: SOCCER IS THE WORST SPORT EVER! (I'm saying this knowing full well that I'll probably get my skull bashed in by a soccer hooligan, but I don't care) My friends and I were watching the 49ers-Giants game last night and some Israelis came in and changed the channel. They didn't bother saying anything. They just put on the Maccabi Tel Aviv game. I'm no expert on soccer, but I did notice that the stadium was empty and that the talent level on the field was terrible. Meanwhile, the game at the Meadowlands was sold out and the 49ers were having a great time sacking Eli Manning. Or at least that's what I saw. (I saw the blocked punt for a safety after the sack) Seriously, soccer is boring! Apparently CBC and maybe TSN broadcast in Israel. If somebody changes a ____(insert Canadian team)___ vs. Sharks game, skulls will be busted. I mean it. Tell your friends.

Israeli food is delicious. Even the canned stuff. I had canned hummus and grape leaves on the hike this weekend. They were delicious. I had the coffee and hummus for breakfast today. It's the breakfast of champions, next to Wheaties.

Hebrew has gotten better. My teacher is very thorough and is helping me to pick up the little things that I either missed or lost during Hebrew at Pitt.

I'm working on getting internet in my room. I have to go to the RA's office hours, but they keep changing. I'm going tonight. Once I get internet, I will upload pictures. I promise.

I start tutoring Ethiopians tonight. They're going to make fun of me because I have red hair and they probably will say bad things about me in Amharic and say I'm ugly because of the red hair, freckles, and pasty skin. It ain't easy being a Gingi.

Kitties and the Desert

2007-10-21T08:58:00.000+02:00

Apparently on Thursday night, I had a few too many beers and played with one of the kittens on campus, which is weired because I hate cats. Anyways, on to the important stuff.

I went on a 2 day hike in the Negev desert this weekend. It was tons of fun. We left Friday at 6amish and on the way down to the desert we stopped at the Arab market in Be'er Sheva. It was a pretty cool market. It felt a little awkward speaking Hebrew to the Arab shop keepers, but we managed. One of the Bedouin walking around offered to buy our women. He offered $10,000 a piece. I hope he was joking. Otherwise, he needs to adjust for inflation. I had the best laffa bread and cup of instant coffee I've had in Israel. The laffa was like eating a flat sheet of gummy dough. It was great with fresh hummus.

After the market, we got back in the bus and headed down south to the ancient city of Avdat. Avdat is an ancient Nabatean city out in the middle of the desert. You can hike around the ruins and get a great view of the desert. It was pretty cool, but I'm going to be honest, I didn't care at all what the tour guide had to say about the Nabateans.

After Avdat we headed to the town of Mitzpe Ramon, which like Be'er Sheva, is basically a random city in the middle of the desert. We hiked around the Mitzpe Ramon crater which is pretty cool. It is not a crater in the sense that it was hit by an asteroid. It's more like a canyon carved by water. Either way, it's neat. The desert is beautiful. After the hike, we went to a Bedouin campground and made camp for the night. We had a little Shabbat service and tons of food for dinner. Most people, including myself, tried to get to sleep early, however there were a bunch of kids staying the campground that were making lots of noise. It was hard to sleep.

We woke up around 6am, had breakfast, cleaned up, and loaded the busses. I had a peanut butter and chocolate sandwich for breakfast. It was odd. I never really ate sugary foods for breakfast at home, so it was a little odd to be having chocolate goo on white bread. It was tasty, but I don't plan to be doing it very often. I like grapefruits. Especially the ones here.

The hike we went on was 9 hours and was very tough. It was lot of up hill-down hill type stuff and for the last half it was like walking on a beach. We got an amazing view of the desert. I took some pictures, but I can't put them up because the internet is too slow. It was really hot yesterday. Really hot . I had to drink about 6 liters of water throughout the day. I also ate a giant bag trail mix, two apples, and two peanut butter sandwiches (sans chocolate goo). In my pictures, I look really bloated because of all the water. Somehow, I managed not to get sunburned. The Israelis on the trip made fun of me because I put sunscreen on religiously. They would say things like "Does the gingi need sunscreen?" really sarcastically. Whatever, I didn't get burned. I alternated two shirts on the trip. One on my body and the other under my hat serving as a koofiyah. I'm going to invest in one before the next hike. (A koofiyah is the Arab cloth that goes over the head. Unfortunately, only bad guys are pictured wearing them in the west, but they're very common and most of the Arabs I have met here wear them)

Did I mention the desert is beautiful? It really is. We got to climb up a mountain and we could see all the way to Jordan. It was amazing. The desert is so calm and peaceful. Ben Gurion was right. The desert is the future of the Jewish people. There's so much space and potential in the desert for both agriculture and commerce, as demonstrated by Be'er Sheva. I like it there and plan to go back another time.

I tried to sleep on the bus ride back but couldn't. The six liters of water had to come out some how, so it was almost impossible to sit still. We stopped at a rest stop on the way that had a McDonald's and a small schwarma restaurant. Everyone from our bus went to the schwarma stand. I thought it was odd that all the Americans went for the schwarma, even when a McDonald's was present. I found it even odder that the McDonald's was full of Arabs, you know, the people who allegedly are anti-Western and live in the stone age. Whatever political philosopher who said that people are bought off by the luxuries of modern society was right. I can't remember if it was Marx or if it was Rousseau or someone else. But either way, I think that the road side McDonald's is another example of how Western commercialism will most likely bring the end of the strife between Arabs and Israelis because everyone will be too busy super-sizing their orders.

Anyways, the schwarma was great. For those of you who don't know, schwarma is a pita sandwich made of some sort of shaved meat and all the toppings you can think of: hummus, vegetables, hot sauce...Anyways, the meat had a taste of curry powder on it, which is odd, because I've never had the before. Either way, it was delicious and hit the spot after the hike.

My Israeli roommates have all moved in. They're nice guys. One guy is from Russia and came in the early 1990's. He was thrilled to be living with Americans because he wants to practice his English. I told him I wanted to practice my Hebrew. So he and I have an understanding. Haifa is a wonderful place and I highly recommend that everyone come and visit.

Before I left, people expressed concern to me about whether or not I would turn Orthodox because I was in Israel. My initial impression after being in Haifa for a few weeks is that it is highly unlikely that I will turn into a black hat. The city, I feel, has a good balance between the religious and the secular and makes it easy to experience both sides, but also retain your values. Besides, most of my friends here were active in the Reform and Conservative movements religiously and the Habonim D'ror (Jewish-Zionist socialist movement), so most of them are set in their beliefs and know what they're looking to experience and what to take back from Israel.

To repeat, if you can get here, do it. It's a nice place.

And P.S.
I have massive blisters on my feet. And a kitty just walked by.

The Beach, Americana, and Cat Fights

2007-10-17T20:59:00.000+02:00

The beach in Haifa is wonderful. I went there this afternoon with some friends from the International school. The water is neither too hot or too cold and the sand is not rocky at all. The sun didn't shine very much, so I didn't have to worry about getting sunburned. After frolicking in the water for about an hour, my friend from Switzerland tried to teach me some Swiss card game that confused me. Really confused me. It seemed like he was making up the rules as he went along. After that, we went to a pub on the beach, got some pints and some snacks and watched the sun go down. It was a sight. The sun went down right over the water and the sky lit up with several shades of orange. It was pretty to say the least.

This afternoon I went to the mini mart on campus and bought some groceries. In my cart were two parts of America that are pretty tough to live with here: peanut butter and Tabasco Sauce (I don't mix them together). As great as the exotic hot sauces and relishes are in Israel, nothing can compare to the vinegary taste of Tabasco sauce. As far as peanut butter, who doesn't love peanut butter. I actually gave a student from Germany her first peanut butter and jelly sandwich after we got back from the beach. She won it off me because I bet that it wouldn't rain. But it did. A little. It wasn't Pittsburgh rain. I feel like I accomplished something significant by spreading the deliciousness of peanut butter and jelly to my fellow man. I just hope that she isn't allergic to peanuts. I tried to write the technical term for peanut allergy, anaphylaxis, but Mozilla corrected the spelling to the technical terms for condoms and tefillin.

There's cats all over this campus. One just walked right past me. Sometimes they come into the building and make a bunch of noise. Last night while I was working on my homework, two of them were fighting outside. It was loud. And funny. I think one of the cats is seriously wounded or dead. I really don't know. And I really don't care. Stupid cats.

Dirty Water and Classes

2007-10-16T21:15:00.001+02:00

The tap water here does not agree with me. I learned that lesson today. Instead, I will have to drink bottled water. I feel bad. Not only is bottled water expensive and a big scam, it is also bad for the environment and perpetuates the need for oil. And it also doesn't help that the university does not have a recycling program for plastic bottles.

Hebrew makes me want to cry. I really do not want to take it again. I've gone since May without speaking it and have just lost interest in the language. Plus, I've already taken 4 semesters at Pitt, which means that I have fulfilled the requirement for the Jewish studies certificate and no longer need to take it. Any credit that I get from taking it here, which would amount to 6, is elective credit. But yet, because I am receiving a grant from MASA, which is funded by the Israeli government (they told us so last night), I am required to. Because of this, I cannot take Modern Standard Arabic, which was one of the major things that drew me to Haifa. There's a spoken Arabic class, but it overlaps with 2 Political Science courses that I need to take.

I can't decide if I want to drop Contemporary Israel and replace it with Intro to Rabbinic Literature. The Contemporary Israel course will be offered next semester and if I don't end up taking it, I can take the Modern Israel course at Pitt. This semester, the Rabbinic Literature course focuses on the Mishnah and other legal texts. It is also offered next semester and covers the Midrash and Talmud discussion. They both sound interesting and I can't decided what to do.

I went to Terrorism and Responses to day. The teacher is an officer in the IDF and his job has something to do with terrorism analysis. It's a neat class and offerers a lot of things to think about. It covers all different types of terrorism and terrorist groups. I definitely do not plan to drop it because there is no equivalent and Pitt and it is only this semester.

I only have Hebrew tomorrow at 8:15am until 10. After that, I'm going to the beach with some friends.

My Israeli roommate moved in today. He's a nursing student. I only got to meet with him for a few minutes. He seems like a good guy.

My American roommate and I cooked dinner tonight. I made couscous and he made this bread thing with a tomato-pepper sauce. It was delicious. The food here is way better than anything I had at Pitt and it is much cheaper.

First Day of Classes

2007-10-16T08:25:00.000+02:00

Yesterday was first day of classes. I took the Hebrew placement exam in the morning. I don't think I did very well on it because I did nothing with Hebrew all summer. I also completely bombed the oral part of the exam because I was really nervous and was being asked questions with complicated answers that I could only explain in English (ex. Why did you go to Pittsburgh instead of a school in California). I also found out that for two years I have been writing incorrectly. Nobody bothered to correct me on how I wrote daleds wrong.

Afterwards, I went to my first actual class, Contemporary Israel because, as a previous roommate told me, I needed to contemporize, whatever that means. The class was great. It covers pretty much all of Israel's history from the biblical age until today. One of things I am looking forward to is reading Theodore Herzl's, who founded the modern idea of Zionism, Der Juden Stat. I've been told by many Israelis that Herzl must be rolling in his grave because of how his utopian ideology has been implemented. I don't know if they're right, but I look forward to contrasting Herzl's ideas with what actually exists. I'll probably post something on here about it.

After class, my roommate and I washed all of our dishes, which were absolutely disgusting. It took us about an hour and they're sitting on our kitchen table because we're waiting for housing to come and clean our kitchen cabinets. I also bought some new kitchen stuff yesterday. I got a cutting board, some bowls, and (drum roll please) a French press. I'm going to be honest. Instant coffee sucks. It is terrible. And Mr. Coffees don't exist in Israel. So I had to settle for a Chinese made French press which has tons of English spelling and grammar errors on the box. That makes me very confident in the product. Today was the first time I used it and I'm waiting to see if it breaks.

I've signed up to volunteer with Ethiopian refugees on Monday night. I will be teaching one student English once a week, apparently in their home. I'm exited and it sounds like it will be a very fun, memorable, and rewarding experience. If you're wondering what Ethiopians are doing in Israel, I will tell you. In the early 1980s, the Israeli government began bringing the ancient Ethiopian Jewish community to Israel amid tremendous amounts of controversy as to whether or not they were actually Jewish. The Ethiopians had been living in the mountains, secluded from everyone else, since at least the destruction of the Second Temple, and their brand of Judaism was completely different than mainstream Ashkenazic (European) and Sephardic (Middle Eastern/Spanish/Asian) Jewry. Because of this, their community has faced tremendous racism in Israel and has been largely excluded from society both because of their skin color and their status as new immigrants who speak no languages that Israelis do. The largest operation to bring Ethiopians to Israel occurred when my brother was born on May 24, 1991. The U.S. government intervened in both the Ethiopian and Sudanese civil wars to allow the Jewish community to assemble at an airfield in Sudan and be lifted to Israel. It's a remarkable story and I feel that I do not do it justice by condensing it to 1 paragraph. If you're really interested, read a book. It's good for you.

We went to a pub last night called the Beer House. It was a lot of fun. They had beers from all over the world and I wish I could have tried them all. However, I settled last night for 2 pints of some Irish stout beer that I had never heard of. It was delicious. I've noticed that binge drinking is rare in Israel. Since I've been here, I haven't seen anyone completely drunk or doing anything irresponsible. It's pretty refreshing since in most U.S. colleges, that's pretty much all there is to do. Here, everything is much more relaxed and whoever said that I would be bored in Haifa because of a lack of nightlife was completely wrong. I don't need the constant stimulation of a trendy night club with more bottles than G-D, I just need somewhere with cold beer and good music.

I don't have classes on Wednesday afternoon, so I'm hoping to make it down to the beach tomorrow with some friends to kick it old school and take in the beautiful Haifa coastline. Our add drop period is three weeks long, so I won't know my final schedule for a while. Once I do, I will post it.

If anyone is wondering, the food on campus is cheap and amazing. It costs only 3 bucks for a schnitzel sandwich with hummus and all the other stuff. Plus they have only Coke products on campus and you can buy them in cans as opposed to the 1 liter bottles you have to buy at Pittsburgh.

My coffee cup is empty and I need to get ready for class.

Quick Followup/Mall Experience

2007-10-14T20:18:00.000+02:00

Today's news: British Airways returned my bag to me today. And the university cleaned my room!! However, I'm pretty sure the shower still spits out cold water only. I guess I'll find out in the morning.

After our orientation stuff today, my friends and I went to the Grand Canyon mall, which is the main mall in Haifa. However for us, it was an adventure. To get to the mall on the bus, you ride the bus down Mount Carmel (Haifa U is at the top) and you are supposed to get off at a side street and walk to the mall. We missed the stop and continued on down the highway. Once we were two stops passed the mall, we got off the bus and decided to walk back up to the mall, dodging traffic from the shoulder of the road. It was dangerous and I'm pretty sure we cheated death several times.

The mall itself is an interesting sight. It is a massive building with every type of store imaginable. However the most significant aspect of the mall is that it clearly demonstrates that coexistence between Arabs and Israelis is possible. It was refreshing to see both Arab and Israeli families shopping beside each other and their children playing with each other. Maybe the solution to the Middle East crisis is to turn the region into a giant mall, give everyone a disposable income, and watch as the ethnic and religious differences take a back seat to commercialism and the pursuit of the perfect item to fill the empty spaces in their hearts and minds. I'm not sure if I want to admit this, but maybe globalization and commercialism are indeed good things because they united people under the shadow of the almighty dollar instead of dividing them over their definitions of the Almighty.

That's enough of me being provocative and cynical. I'm really tried and smell like the campfire and cookout that the International School had tonight. Thankfully I have my new sheets and pillow to sleep with tonight.

Showering

2007-10-13T18:39:00.001+02:00

There is no hot water in the shower. I had to boil water from the sink and use it to clean myself out of a bowl. I tried to turn the sink off, but the knob screws are rusted. I had to use a knife to fix it. Seriously, this is unacceptable. This would not fly in America. I'm going to housing tomorrow and busting some skulls.

First Day in Haifa

2007-10-13T17:03:00.001+02:00

Today was my first actual day in Haifa. We went to the Baha'i gardens which are absolutely beautiful.

After the gardens, we went to the Arab market to do some shopping. I got some extremely fresh fruit there as well as some parts for the hookahs that were left in the room. I really like the city. The view from the mountains is gorgeous and the people are very friendly. There's a good mix of religion and secularism here which adds a unique dimension to the city that places like Tel Aviv and Jerusalem don't have. One one side of the street there were Arabs and Jews haggling over produce and on the other side there were ultra-orthodox Jews walking to their synagogue, which is something that probably isn't seen anywhere else in Israel. There were also young Muslim boys celebrating the end of Ramadan by lighting fireworks in the street. I have to admit that it was somewhat of a shock to hear the fireworks going off, but as long as it's just fireworks it's fine.

I had a delicious falafal sandwich in the market. The falafal balls were hot and soft and had a great garlicy flavor to them. The tehina sauce that came with it was by far the best I have ever had. And the pita was baked fresh down the street. All for 15 shekels ($4.50ish).

I'm on my 6th cup of coffee today. That's what this place does to you. I started drinking coffee last year when I first came on Birthright, and now I'm drinking it whenever I can. The water boiler in our room is basically a pitcher with an electrical coil in it, so I can have instant coffee, which for some reason isn't too bad in Israel, anytime I want. My roommate and I are going to meet with the housing people tomorrow to try and get our room straightened out. We decided that we're going to ask for the equipment we need to clean the place up completely. Our stove is not self lighting, and I'm afraid to light it. I'm a little gun shy after burning my arm hair off a few months ago at home lighting the barbecue. I guess I'll have to get over it. It's also covered in grease and I don't want to start a grease fire. Maybe the university will replace it.

I got a call from British Airways baggage services. They said they haven't found my bag, but found something similar. They asked if I owned a pink women's sweater. I don't. I hope they find it. My towels are in there. And so is my water bottle and my coffee mug. I feel bad using Styrofoam cups and plastic water bottles all the time without being able to recycle them. Plus, I start Hebrew in a few days and will desperately need my copy of 501 Hebrew verbs.

For some reason, the public internet here doesn't support AIM or picture uploads. I wanted to put some pictures on here, but they wouldn't load. Maybe next time it will work, once I get my WiFi access card.

Finally in Israel

2007-10-13T09:09:00.001+02:00

After two very long flights, I am finally in Israel. I flew overnight from San Francisco to London Heathrow and stayed there for 8 hours. It wasn't too bad, except I ended up spending at least $30 just on food (a pizza, a sandwich, and 2 cups of drip coffee). I also bought myself a pack of Montecristo mini cigars, just to emphasize that I was not on American soil and could purchase Cubans. Ironically, they were cheaper than my dinner. At least I got free cocktails and Irish whisky at the duty free stores.

From London, I flew to Tel Aviv. The flight was by far the worst one I have ever taken, not because of the airline or the staff, but because of all the Haredim (ultra-orthodox Jews) on the flight. There were six families, each with 8 or so children, the majority of them infants and babies. Needless to say, the flight was noisy and I got not sleep because of all the screaming children. Where were the fathers during this time? They were praying. Loudly. Where were the mothers? Trying to juggle their children.

Upon arriving in Tel Aviv, I found out that British Airways lost one of my bags. I was and still am pissed. You'd think that the most secure airport in the world would be able to keep track of one duffel bag. But apparently not. From the airport, I took the train to Hof HaCarmel train station in Haifa. It's supposed to be a straight shot, however I got on 3 different commuter trains that cut out before reaching Haifa. At least the scenery was beautiful. I have to say that I experienced a very extreme case of culture shock because of how the people I was next to were carrying M16 assault rifles. And they were younger than me. I hope that soon, those younger than me will never have to do that.

Haifa University is a secluded campus up on top of a mountain. It has a great view of Haifa and the city is very easy to get to on the bus. Unfortunately, my dorm is a Hell hole. There are ants in the bathroom, the shower is moldy and hairy, my dresser is broken, the kitchen is greasy and sticky, our closet was full of empty beer bottles and newspapers when I arrived, and my mattress is falling apart. The people living in here before us left all sorts of pots and pans and food in the refrigerator. It's not a pretty sight. I feel like I'm living in a Salvation Army store. I'm going to meet with the housing people tomorrow and see if they can remedy most of the things wrong with the room. At least the previous tenants left 2 hookahs, coffee, and some vodka.

My roommate though is really cool. He's a fellow ska kid and rude boy, so unlike with previous roommates, there will be no conflict when it comes to music. AND HE'S NOT A SLOB, like my previous roommate.

I went shopping yesterday afternoon and bought the essentials. Toilet paper, hummus, bread, beer, and shaving cream. Too bad I can't shave in my bathroom because I can't stop the drain. And even if I could, the sinks are right underneath the cabinets, which means that I'm not near a mirror. Maybe I'll just go bearded. Who knows. I'll probably crack soon and shave.

Shabbat last night was pretty good. The service was somewhat of a failure because we were only able to get six of ten men. We did have a minyan of women sitting behind us, but unfortunately it's Israel and therefore they can't participate like in everywhere else.

After dinner I played scrabble with a bunch of people from all over the world and then fell asleep around 10pm because I was completely dead. I fell asleep thinking that I would wake up in the middle of the night covered in roaches, but thankfully it did not happen. Today we're going to visit the Bahaii gardens and the Arab market. Hopefully I can find an ATM and get some money. I didn't get a chance to change my dollars, so I'm operating off of cards right now. The bank will be open tomorrow, so I'm going to go change my dollars for shekels and probably pay a ridiculous commission charge.

I've met a lot of great people here and I'm really glad that I'll be here for a year. As much as my room sucks, so does everyone else's, so we all have similar complaints. I'm hesitant to take some pictures because my battery charger is in the bag that's missing. Once I get my charger, I'll start taking pictures and loading them on here because my camera sucks up batteries really quickly. I'll definitely take some later at the Bahaii gardens.

Neat Stuff on the Side

2007-10-10T01:15:00.003+02:00

I've added RSS feeds for Haaretz and the Jerusalem Post as well as the weather in Haifa. This way, everyone can be informed about what's going on.

24 Hours!

2007-10-10T00:49:00.000+02:00

I have 24 hours until I leave for San Francisco airport! I'm flying tomorrow night on British Airways to London and then London to Tel Aviv. Hopefully the flight will be smooth and painless, but you never know. I'll try and update when I am in London, but if that doesn't work out, my next post will be from Haifa!