והגדת לבנך ביום ההוא לאמר

I woke up on Sunday morning full of excited and nervous energy. After herding my three houseguests out the door, we just missed the #13 bus (which was three minutes early) and stuffed our bags into the back of a cab to the Inbal Hotel, where we met up with the rest of the Center for Jewish Nonviolence delegation. During check-in, I learned that a stranger from the trip has been reading my blog (!!!), and she recommended it to her daughter.

Surprising thing about the Center for Jewish NonViolence delegation—out of 130 participants, at least 30-40 are over the age of 40. Yay for an intergenerational movement!

We were supposed to go through the Kalandiyah checkpoint, as an experience of solidarity with Palestinians. However, a week and a half ago, the Israeli government announced that they would start enforcing a rule prohibiting international visitors from entering the West Bank without prior written permission, so we used a settler road instead. This, combined with the closed military zone on Friday is starting to convince me that Israel is working hard to keep the Palestinian territories hidden from international observers.

Our tour guide in Bethlehem said that he hasn’t had tap water in 45 days. Before Oslo, Israel allotted 120 million cubic meters of water for Palestinians per year. Though the population has increased, water allocation for Palestinians has gone down to 90 million cubic meters. This includes water allocation for East Jerusalem. While, supposedly, our tour guide lives in Area A and the PA controls his water supply, when he goes to the water supply office, or when Palestinian refugees go to UNRWA, the response is “we can’t help you, Israel controls the water”. I know lots of Jews who are obsessed with Area A/B/C, but, in reality, Israel is calling the shots. Later, I learned that residents of Susya have to buy their water for 30 shekels per cubic meter. It costs Israelis (including settlers) five shekels per cubic meter.

Today (Monday) was both our first day in the field, and Nakba Day. We started off by hearing from Sami Awad, the founder of Holy Land Trust, a non-violence organization in Bethlehem. Surprisingly, he is way more Zionist than I am. He, like most Palestinians, deeply identifies with land-as-identity, and thinks that just like Palestinians want access to the whole land for the sake of their identity, so, too, Jews want access to the whole land for the sake of their identity. I asked him what Palestinian identity looks like when it isn’t defined by the trauma of 1948. Aside from generalities (culture, language, habits, food and family unit) he also mentioned two specific things: hospitality, and the memory of coexistence among Jews, Muslims and Christians.  Coming from an Ashkenazi Jewish culture that oftentimes defines itself by otherness, victimization and xenophobia, I was surprised at how central the coexistence narrative is to Palestinians (or at least to Sami Awad).

After, around 40 of us drove to the South Hebron hills, and got a tour from someone from Ta’ayush. The South Hebron hills are entirely in Area C. When the British, and later the Jordanians, started mapping the West Bank, and granting ownership papers to Palestinian residents, try started in the north, and worked their way to the south. By 1967, they had gotten to about Ramallah. Israel, of course, claimed that they were only there “temporarily” so they stopped registering land. That’s why it’s easier for Israel to claim land in the south.

The Israeli military uses multiple tactics to try and make life difficult enough in the South Hebron hills so that Palestinians pick and move to cities (Area A).

They establish “firing zones” near Palestinian villages (i.e., the base is near the village, but the firing zone is in the village). Villagers who live in firing zones can go in and out of their villages, but no one else (including doctors or repairmen) can visit.

In 2016, armored military vehicles did a training exercise on a Palestinian field. All crops for that season were lost.

The government builds highways through agricultural land so that Palestinians have to go out of their way to access their land.

Infrastructure needs are denied (there is running water in Bethlehem, but not Susya). However, even supposedly “illegal” outposts (all Israeli settlements, including Gush Etzyon, are illegal under international law), immediately get access to municipal services.

If Palestinians build water systems they get demolition orders.

Police harassment and military searches.

The Israeli military confiscates cars and tractors.

Israeli settlers join in by poisoning water supplies with dead chickens which can destroy all of the water that has been collected over the course of a year, damaging olive trees, which take five years to grow enough for production, and, in one particularly gruesome incident in 2006, spreading rat poison all over the land, which killed sheep, gazelles, mice, snakes, dogs and birds of prey.

Beit Avigayil is an illegal outpost which was built in October of 2001. According to the “Roadmap” it was a post-March 2001 settlement on the slate for demolition. It is currently in the process of legalization, which means that they are building constantly—once they get legalized, they’ll need building permits, so better to build first.

For “security reasons” all hilltops are declared state land, even when Palestinians can prove their ownership. Then, settlements are built on those hilltops, and Palestinians are denied access to that land. There is one guy who has to coordinate with the army when he can actually tend his land.

Stories from specific villages: In 2000, the settlers from Chavat Maon started attacking students from Tuba on their way to school in Tawiyyeh. In 2005, the courts ordered the military to escort the students to school. The military kept shortening the route that they would escort the students. Sometimes the military is late. Sometimes they just don’t show up. While the straight walk to school, past Chavat Maon is a half-hour walk, the indirect path to avoid the settlement takes 2.5 hours.

After our tour, my working group of about 20 women headed to Susya. We heard from Abu Jihad, who was born in 1946—as he says “I’ve been here two years longer than Israel, and Israel’s telling *me* that I can’t be here.” Abu Jihad was born in Tel Arad, and his family owned all of the land between Tel Arad and Susya. Pre-48, the Haganah killed 12 people in Tel Arad, and his family had to move to the city of Arad. In 1948, they had to move to Susya, on the other side of their land. Then in the 1980’s, Israel decided that it wanted to excavate an old synagogue in Susya, and build a settlement nearby, so Abu Jihad and his family had to move to New Susya, where they are now. In 1991, New Susya made a Master Plan so that it could build on its land. The Master Plan was rejected. Now, while he cannot be kicked off of his land, every building there is illegal, and under a demolition order. The room that we were in has been destroyed 4 times. Abu Jihad described this as “Nakbat,” multiples Nakbas that have taken place over 70 years. Within the American Jewish community, we tend to only talk about 1948 and 1967 as being moments of trauma for Palestinians. That’s just not true—Abu Jihad said that every day is a Nakba. Displacement, land grabs, and demolition happen frequently—much more frequently than just 1948 and 1967.

Something really challenging that Abu Jihad said: Jews learned tactics around rounding up Palestinians and exiling them in 1947/48 from Hitler. I don’t think that’s true, but I deeply understand why he said it (hurt people hurt people).

We asked one of his daughters (in-law?) about how they teach their children about Nakba. She doesn’t—at least not yet, because the stories are hard to hear. “The stories are from our ancestors, the suffering is our’s”.

The stay for Susya’s next demolition order for is May 23, 2017.

Today ended with an incredibly powerful mincha/ma’ariv minyan—the first time in a long time that I have prayed with people who share my values.

*Tile means “On that day, you shall tell your child.”

הסתר אסתיר פני

Reading about the Occupation? Check.
Watched movies about the Occupation? Check.
Understanding the Occupation? Nope.

If a Palestinian thirteen year old and an Israeli thirteen year old are both caught throwing stones, the Israeli army can arrest the Palestinian. They have no legal authority to arrest the Israeli. At best they can call the police to “deal with” the Israeli. If the police come, they can’t arrest the Israeli, because he is a minor—adulthood starts at 16. By contrast, for Palestinians, adulthood starts at age 12.

I participated in a Breaking the Silence tour with a J Street U group on Friday. We were supposed to do a full tour of Hebron with Ido, a former soldier who served there between 2002-2005, talk to a leader with a Palestinian non-violence group, and then the J Street U group was going to meet with a settler leader (Leanne, DMH and I were not invited to that part).

Our tour started in Kirat Arba, specifically new Kiryat Arba, which is actually pretty far from old Kiryat Arba. There's a long highway between them, which divides Palestinians from their agricultural land. Ido pointed out that if old Kiryat Arba simply wanted to build more houses for their community, the sensible way to do it would be be building houses immediately adjacent to old Kiryat Arba. Instead, they stretched a highway between two different hilltops, so that Palestinians would be forced to hike around the new settlement before reaching their land. We saw both a memorial to Kahana, and the grave of Baruch Goldstein (I opted not to place a stone, but refrained from pushing off the stones that were already there. Restraint, right?).

We are pointed to a "settlement" that is a tent which serves as a shul between the settlement of Kiryat Arba and Giva'at Ha'Avot. Ido said that soldiers refer to this tent as a "Condoleeza Rice house". Whenever a U.S. Secretary of State visits Israel, the army destroys a few settlements to make it look like they're serious about peace. This particular "settlement" which is less stable than a kosher sukkah, has been destroyed over 40 times.

When we got to Ma'arat HaMachpelah we crossed to the other side of Shuhada Street to listen to Ido. Right away, a settler approaches us and first starts to play music, and then starts playing a video of a previous BtS speaker. He claims that because a tourist bus has to wait a few seconds for our group to move out of the road in order that it can pass, we are breaking the law. What struck me was how blatantly obvious this guy was being. Clearly, he didn't want us to listen to what Ido was saying, either because he was scared of what Ido was saying, or because he had something that he wanted to hide.

As we were proceeding with our tour, all of a sudden we get told that the main street, Shuhada Street, right past where we are standing has been declared a Close Military Zone. The street, which had been guarded by only two soldiers sitting in a military stand, now has six soldiers and a giant tank blocking the street. Apparently, this has happened 10-12 times in the past year. Not only do the soldiers recognize all of the Breaking the Silence tour guides, but every four months, when new soldiers come, the settlers show them pictures of the BtS guides to "warn them". Apparently, if you ask to see the order declaring the area a CMZ, the army is supposed to produce the order within a certain amount of time, or let you pass. This rule is rarely applied, and even after the time expires the military won't let you through. As we are waiting for the order to be produced, we see another tour group, led by a settler, go through. When Ido asks why they're allowed through, he is told that CMZs can be applied selectively.


After waiting for over an hour, the J Street U group, along with Ido, turn back to meet with a settler representative. DMH, Leanne and I are not invited, so after separating from the group in front of Ma'arat HaMachpelah, we turn back towards where the road was blocked. Now, there are only two soldiers there, and no tank. They ask us (in Hebrew) to see our ID cards. Leanne responds that we are American, so don't have ID cards. They respond "even better." When I show one of the soldiers my passport, he (like many Israelis) compliments me on my Hebrew. I initially go to my fallback response (my father talked to me in Hebrew until I was seven)  and then realized that really I should be emphasizing my religious day school education. They let us through.

We head up Shuhada street, where we saw the cages that the military put over Palestinian windows and porches to prevent them from climbing onto streets where Palestinians aren't allowed to enter. Those Palestinians have to climb onto their neighbors' roofs, and walk through their neighbors' homes in order to go outside. All along Shuhada street we see beautiful institutions (synagogues, community centers, batei midrash) made of Jerusalem stone, bearing the names of American Jews.

We crossed through the checkpoint into H1, the Palestinian side of Hebron, and walked through the Casbah, or marketplace, where most shops have closed up. Before the Goldstein massacre, 35,000 Palestinians lived in the Old City of Hebron. Now, only 20,000 live there. This is a result of a combination of factors: the military banning Palestinians from being on streets where there shops once were, the military banning Palestinians from driving on other streets, regular 24/7 curfews with only a few hours of freedom offered every few days, settler harassment, etc. It's of note that while theoretically, Israelis are banned from H1 (it's area A), on Fridays, shabbatot and chagim, settlers lead tours of the Casbah, flanked by Israeli soldiers.

Other thing: During the 1929 Hebron riots, 67 Jewish residents of Hebron were killed, but 350 Jewish residents of Hebron were saved by Palestinians in Hebron. Somehow we don't tell their stories, and there's no plaque for them in the Garden of the Righteous Among the Nations.

I could write about this experience for pages, and pages, but it's 2:30AM, and sleep beckons before the Center for Jewish Non-Violence trip starts tomorrow.

Other things: On Sunday I walked the 11km from Fira to Oia on Santorini, along the Caldera edge. At one point,  the wind was going to knock me over. On Monday I hiked on Neo Kameni, ghe largest volcano in the Meditarranean. Still active, dormant sincd 1950, you can still see steam, and smell pungent sulphur. This was followed by swimming hot springs, and exploring Thirassia, the only other inhabited island in the Santorini Caldera.

I arrived in Israel very early on Wednesday morning. On Thursday, I took several busses to Yaffo, where I met my cousin Tal for brunch, and got to meet her new baby, the adorable Itamar. This was at least the third long conversation with a relative on the Fishman side which descended into psychoanalyzing our parents, aunts, uncles and cousins.

On shabbat afternoon I lead shacharit at Sod Siach (no one sang with me--sad!), and then hosted 6 IfNowNowers for shabbat lunch--three of whom are staying with me tonight before CJNV starts tomorrow.

More soon!

*Title is from Deut. 31:18 meaning "I will hide my face". Check out the full context

פשט, רמז, דרש, סוד

Samaria Gorge: 530 AM wakeup call to catch a 6AM bus. Mind you, this is the day after I hiked the Imaros gorge, and didn't go to sleep until after 11, when I had finished my last blog post. I stashed my 13.5 kilogram backpack underneath the bus, with the assurance that it will meet me in Sfakia, on the southern coast of Crete. We hit the trailhead at 8AM, and started descending. Nice thing—there are freshwater hoses every 1-2 kilometers, so I only carried a half liter water bottle. Seven kilometer descent before actually entering the gorge. At that point I’m already feeling blisters on my toes which have been hitting the fronts of my hiking boots. The gorge itself is 6 kilometers of rocky bottom followed by one more kilometer to the exit. Add in the two kilometers at the end to the village of Agia Romeli for a 16km day. I realize that my round-trip hikes to Segulah were longer, but this was certainly steeper, even though it was all downhill. Post-hike, walking upstairs was fine, but going downstairs made my knees feel like I was eighty years old. Also, I need better-fitting hiking boots.

From Agia Romeli, we caught a ferry to Sfakia, where our bus, including my backpack met us for the trip to Hania. After arriving in Hania at 845 pm, I caught the last bus of the night to Iraklio, where I don’t have a hotel reservation—this part of trip was a last minute change of plans. I get off the bus at 1230 AM. The first hotel that I find wants to charge me 150 euros/night. Um, no thank you. The next hotel is full. The third hotel doesn’t have 24 hour reception. I start to contemplate sleeping on the streets. Fortunately the fourth hotel has a receptionist, and availability for 50 euros per night, which is still twice what I would normally pay, but I realized is inline with on-season, prices in Iraklio. Plus desperation is setting in. I think I fell asleep at around 2AM.

The next day, after sleeping in a bit, I went to both the newly renovated Archaeological museum of Knossos and to the site of Knossos itself. At Knossos, I wanted to do a group guided tour, and waited over an hour for even one other English speaking tourist to join my group and make it financially viable for Maria, my late-50s tour guide. While waiting, I learned that pre-crisis Maria had been a teacher, but since she already has training as a guide she quit teaching to save the jobs of one of the younger teachers. Now she gets guide work with an agency roughly twice a week, and waits at the entrance to Knossos in the hopes of finding interested tourists the rest of the week. There are 90 guides at Knossos, and they have a schedule to attempt fairness for each guide, but oftentimes guides return home empty-handed. Maria was particularly angry at a guide who managed to cheat the system, and “steal” customers from her. During my hour of waiting, I even offer to translate for an Israeli couple, if they’ll join Maria’s tour. No luck.

Finally, Maria decides to give me an individual tour, as, clearly, no other tourists are coming. Knossos was the economic, political and religious center of the Mycenaean kingdom, until 1450 BCE when an earthquake struck. The earthquake both caused a tsunami which destroyed the Mycenaean navy, and also led to a fire at Knossos, where huge jugs of olive oil were stored. The myth of Theseus and the minotaur represents the outcome of this earthquake: The Minos kings (like the Pharaohs, Minos wasn’t the name of an individual king, but of a dynasty) wore a bull mask during religious ceremonies (hence, the half-man, half-bull Minotaur), and used a double-headed ax called a labyris to sacrifice bulls, hence the word labyrinth (also the palace at Knossos certainly has labyrinthine rooms). There are labyris drawings visible in the ruins. Mycenaeans taxed the Athenians (mythologically represented by sending Athenian boys and girls to feed the Minotaur), and Theseus, the patron of the city of Athens, killing the Minotaur symbolizes Athens breaking free from Mycenaean subservience.

Other fun things from Knossos: I saw the world’s first board game at the archaeological museum, and the Minos’ mikveh. The museum had a poster describing how Mycenaean myth affected contemporary culture, and while they mentioned The Shining, there was no Hamilton reference (“You have married an Icarus. He has flown too close to the sun”). Suggestions for the next renovation…

On Wednesday I took the ferry to Santorini, and then got on a shuttle bus to Kamari, the beachtown where I’m staying. On both Thursday and Friday mornings I caught the bus to Fira, so that I could go diving. Highlights include a really big octopus, several starfish, a family of barracuda, and lots of rocks from the volcano. George, one of the instructors I dove with, is a Cypriot, and was pushing diving in Cyprus pretty hard. We shall see!

I spent some time on Thursday wandering around Fira. It is very touristy, but the white limestone houses are beautiful. I’m planning on hiking from Fira to Oia (pronounced ee-yah) this afternoon, and watching the famous Oia sunset.

*Title refers to the four traditional means of explicating a Jewish text: Literal, Hints, Midrash, and Secrets

והאבן להם חומה, מימינם ומשמאלם

Apologies for missing last week’s post—I will make it up in a few weeks with extra posting. I just returned from hiking the Imbroe Gorge in Crete, hence the title. Yes, hiking between two solid walls of rock makes me both feel very small, and overwhelmed with the power of tectonic plates. The plan is to hike the Samaria Gorge tomorrow—hopefully I’m not too sore!

Last week, I (finally!) got to go scuba diving in Greece. When scuba diving in Thailand, you get to see gorgeous marine life. When scuba diving in Greece you get to see complex geological formations, like caverns and stone chimney stacks, 2500 year-old pottery, and a 2000 year-old anchor. My dive master is part of the Antikethyria project, which returns to the wreck site where the Antikethyria mechanism, a 2^nd century B.C.E computer-like device, was found. He and a team of other technical divers join with archaeologists to explore the wreck, and recover artifacts, including human remains from 2200 years ago. I was pretty impressed.  This was my first ever cold water dive, and I was pretty proud of myself for diving in 18 degree celsius water in only a 5mm wetsuit (everyone else had on a minimum of 7mm or a dry suit)

I also visited Etz Hayyim, the one remaining synagogue in Henia. There is, quite literally, one Jewish Cretan who survived the Holocaust, and he dedicated himself to preserving this synagogue. It’s quirky, with a chandelier loaded with tchotchkes in the middle of the sanctuary, and a mikveh out back with stagnant water in it. The backyard has the remains of a few communal rabbis. They have what they call a Havurah, composed of both Jewish and non-Jewish community members, which meets every Friday night. Apparently the local NATO base provides many of the Jewish congregants. I had been planning on going there Friday night, but was too exhausted after a day trip to Elafanisi beach.

 Elafanisi is gorgeous and huge. It’s consistently ranked as one of the top ten most beautiful beaches in the world. There is both a beach and an island, connected by a narrow strip of sand. The island is big enough that I got lost on it (then again, that may not be saying much). The trip also included a hike to the Agia Sofia cave (stalactites!) and sampling of locally made honey from thyme plants.

Backing up to Chios and Athens…

When I took the overnight boat from Ko Tao, I did not know what to expect, and walked into a room filled with rows of bunk beds, clothed in orange sheets. When I walked onto the overnight boat from Chios to Piraeus, I once again didn’t know what to expect. The experience could not have been more different. Above a large storage room for our luggage, there were luxury escalators to take us to the seating compartments upstairs. There, were room after room of  lounge chairs and couches surrounding coffee tables. In the middle of the boat was first a gift shop, which even had some English language reading material, followed by a café. Deck numbers two and three had theater-style seating around televisions. And there I was concerned that there wouldn’t be any heat on the boat. Ha! This is superior to an Amtrak train--it’s like a cruise.

I packed a lot into my one day in Athens, including getting to the Acropolis half an hour after it opened, and avoiding the crowds, spending several hours at the Acropolis museum, seeing Hadrian’s Arch (this side: the ancient city of Theseus. This side: the modern city of Hadrian) and Olympus’s temple, and visiting a museum dedicated to ancient Greek technology. Admiring Hadrian’s architecture truly seemed like the best way to intentionally avoid celebrating the Israeli government’s establishment of Yom HaShoah.

Unfortunately, my boat from Athens to Crete was not quite as luxurious. I wound up sharing a stretch of couch with some other twenty-something’s, and not sleeping particularly well. Ah, well.

Chios, which keeps getting autocorrected to chips or chaos, is about as adorable as isolated Greek island can get. First impressions: the air is clear, the Aegean Sea looks calm and inviting, there is greenery and wildflowers everywhere. Two houses down from my AirBnB was the Pinaleon Taverna that could have fallen off the pages of Eat, Pray, Love: stone and plaster wall around the edge, bamboo ceilings, woven wooden baskets hanging from the bamboo, potted plants and seashells decorating the outer windowsill, and iron pots and forks around the inner wall. A large old-school iron furnace in the center of the restaurant, which was only necessary at night, red wooden chairs with woven straw seats, and the owners schmoozing with some locals on the front steps. I got my first Greek salad and spanakopita, and immediately considered dropping out of life, and permanently moving to Chios. The only thing holding me back is irregular internet access, and the difficulty of getting around without a car.

As I wandered around the island, I noticed a few interesting things. The first was an abandoned military installation near Karfas, the beach where I was staying. I was tramping along through someone’s property, and noticed some barbed wire. I looked behind me, and there was a gunnery sticking out of a covered base. I walked around it from the other side and saw a bunker behind it. It looked like it was from sometime between the 40s-70s, but I’m not so good about dating military equipment. I also saw my first ever Syrian refugee camp from a distance, as I was not permitted to enter.

*Title comes from the Song of the Sea, Exodus 14:22. Except that my walls are rocks.

ואפילו כולנו חכמים, כולנו נבונים, כולנו זקנים, כולנו יודעים את התורה, מצוה עלינו לספר

A few vignettes from my ten days in Israel:

On Categorization: I went to Sod Siach on Shabbat Chol HaMoed, wearing my one short-sleeved dress. There I noticed a woman wearing a sleeveless top. Great, I thought, now I can avoid repeating outfits for the last day of chag. Shevi’i shel Peach, I wore my sleeveless dress. A taxi driver stopped to see if I wanted a ride, because, obviously, sleeveless dress = secular.

When I get to Sod Siach on the last day of chag, the doors were closed, so I start chatting first in English, then in Hebrew with the guy my age sitting next to the building, who winds up being ba’al shacharit.

“So,” he asks, “you’re a rabbi, or studying to be a rabbi?”

“Chas veShalom!” I respond. “You assume that all American women who come to daven at Sod Siach are rabbis?”

“Biderech klal, kein.”

Later, when the two of us get chastised for chatting outside of shul during Yizkor, and urged to come back in for the prayer for victims of the Holocaust who “belong to everyone” I remark to him “except for the Mizrahim.” He adds “and the Americans, and the Australians.”  I decide that we can be friends.

On Yichus: On Shabbat, I do Gelila. No one comes to talk to me after shul. On last day of chag, I do Shlishi. By Kriyat Yam Suf, someone has already come over to ask if I’m Eliana Fishman.

“Nu, how do you know my dad?”

“I also know your mom! We stayed with them in New York. How’s her health?”

That he asked about my mom’s health and not my dad’s health means that I can pinpoint when, approximately, they saw each other last. Needless to say, I’m quite social post-shul. Drishat shalom to Imma and Abba from Elchanan and Vered Noam.

On Bashert: On the last day of Chol HaMoed I see a Facebook post from a distant friend who lives in Jerusalem that she is having a plumbing emergency, and does anyone have a place that she and her nine- month old son can stay for chag. I message her to let her know that I have two spare bedrooms in Katamon that she is most welcome to. Sarah, her husband Yehuda, and baby Akiva spend chag with me, on the same day that Big Akiva announces his engagement. The apartment had been feeling large and lonely, and it was wonderful to fill it, and catch up with Sarah, and meet her husband and son. They also helped banish my grandfather’s aura, which still lingers in the apartment.

On Avoiding the Occupation: Ruth, who was partially in charge of Seder at the Pollards, is big on doing “activities” during the Seder (having everyone bring an object that represents freedom to them, and talking about it, having the table debate the pros and cons of leaving Egypt, etc.) At one point, towards the end of Magid, she starts talking about what it means when an enslaved people becomes an oppressor.

“No, no, no!” interrupts her son, Gabe. “I’m going to talk about that for my freedom object.” 

During the meal, Gabe explains to his mother that he had printed out the NIF 50 years of Occupation pamphlet, and brought it as his freedom object, only it turns out that he left it in Jerusalem. Then Gabe decides  that he doesn’t want to talk about it. They debate back-and-forth about whether they should talk about it, it’ll make people uncomfortable, oy politics. I am watching the absurdity of Israeli society playing out before my eyes (they don’t talk about Occupation, they just fight about whether or not they can talk about Occupation). Finally, it is decided that Ruth will say something, with no discussion after it. To paraphrase her words “We need to be conscious of what happens when, through no fault of our own, an oppressed people becomes an oppressor.” Apparently, that’s what “talking about the Occupation” looks like in Israel.

Tuesday night, after a lovely dinner with some family members, I arrive at the apartment in Jerusalem at about 1 AM. I have an email from my friend Jon from DC asking if instead of grabbing breakfast on Wednesday morning, I would like to join him and his sister on a tiyul to the Herodium. I have no idea what that is, but sure, sounds fun. Great! They’ll pick me up in their car at 9. After a quick stop at the Palmach Super, I meet them. We’re chatting, catching up, when all of a sudden I see signs for Gilo and Bethlehem.

 “You guys aren’t taking me to the West Bank, are you?”

“Uh, yeah, actually we are.”

“Jon! You know I wouldn’t do that!”

“But aren’t you going to Bethlehem in a month?

”

“As part of a Palestinian solidarity mission! Not to an Israeli tourist site in a car with Israeli plates!”

We turn around and go to the Castel, which we thought was a Crusader fortress, but winds up being an ode to Israeli nationalism and military pride, built atop the former home of a Mukhtar. We also go to Gan Hemed, a park next to a former olive press with clear signs of Islamic architecture. At neither site is there any mention of what happened to the Arabs that used to live there.

Takeaways: When in Israel, Google before going. Also, in Israel, avoiding *talking* about the Occupation is easy. Avoiding the Occupation itself is harder.

On Surprise: I don’t consider myself to be an expert on Occupation—far from it. Despite that, I was consistently surprised by how little the American Olim that I spoke to know about the Occupation. Mind you, I only talked about it if someone asked why I was coming back to Israel in May, and opted to go with the true answer (CJNV trip) instead of the pretty answer, which is also true (my friend’s wedding). But those people who I spoke with had no concept of what a shetach tzvaee sagur/closed military zone is, or how it’s used to seize Palestinian land. They had not heard of the law encouraging border security to ban entry to those who support BDS/settlement boycotts. Admittedly, these are largely people who did not serve in the Israeli military, so I would not generalize this to anyone beyond American Olim (or even just the American Olim that I happened to talk to, though one of them was a Shatil staffer, who I really would have thought would know). Once again: the failure of the American Jewish educational system, and the failure of American Jewish institutions who ignore Occupation. I’m officially no longer buying into the narrative of “American lefties are less educated on the ‘matzav’ than American righties/centrists”.

On American Identity: David, my good friend from DC who I haven’t seen in 8 years, is married to Margo, a Russian Olah, working for Hiddush, a religious pluralism org, and is raising his two-year-old daughter in English, Russian, and Hebrew. He and I hung out on Saturday night until 1:30 AM, and then I had lunch at his and Margo’s apartment on the last day of chag. He thinks that American olim are treated better than other olim (like Margo) because they are seen as “having giving something up” to make Aliyah, and having done it for the “right reasons” (Zionism instead of economic opportunity). This kind of put a spin on many of my interactions with Israelis who were so kind (cashiers calling me neshamah, free samples at the takeout place, a response of besimcha/bikeif whenever I thanked someone for anything).   As a Jew and as an Ashkenazi, I am aware of my tremendous privilege in Israel, but I hadn’t considered the ramifications of my Americanness. I have always been intentional about speaking Hebrew with an American accent, both because I’m proud of my American identity, and because I reject the notion that Israelis “own” Hebrew/the Israeli way of doing things is better than my way of doing things. Something to think about.

Currently in the Athens airport, waiting for my flight to Chios. More next week!

*Quotation from the Haggadah: Though we are all wise, all discerning, all elders, all know Torah, we are commanded to tell

When Gregor Samsa Awoke One Morning...

Welcome to my last post from India! We are staying with our fairy Mumbai parents, Max and Eve. Eve is a consular officer at the American consulate in Mumbai, and without her help, I may never be allowed to leave India. Let me tell you that story...

Our AirBnB host in Amritsar informed me that my visa, which I thought was a 90-day visa, expiring on May 30th, was in fact a 30-day visa, expiring on March 30th, and the guy who wrote the visa just has horrible handwriting, leading me to think that an r was a y. AirBnB host insists that we go to the Foreign Regional Registration Office (FRRO) in Amritsar, to get the situation sorted out (apparently, if he is found to be hosting someone who overstayed her visa, he gets in trouble). On Monday afternoon, we head to the office, where the FRRO folks inform me that since I have flying out of Mumbai, I have to obtain my exit permit from Mumbai. Otherwise, I won't be able to leave the country.

On Tuesday, we flew to Mumbai. Wednesday morning, bright and early, Ashoke, Max and Eve's driver (they have both a driver and housekeeper. It's a pretty sweet life. More about that later.) drives me to the FRRO in South Mumbai. After waiting on a whole bunch of lines, the receptionist informs me that in order to obtain an exit permit, I have to fill out an online form, bring a copy of Max and Eve's passports including their visas, a request letter from them stating that I'm allowed to stay with them, a copy of their electricity bill, a request letter in which I detail all of the places that I have stayed in India, and a copy of my passport and visa. Mind you, Eve and Max don't pay their own electricity bill--the consulate does. Also, the consulate is a bit uncomfortable giving out copies of diplomatic passports, so we need approval from the consulate both for the passports, and also for a different form of proof of residency, which is what we think the electricity bill is getting at.

While all this is going on, Leanne, who had been feeling sick for several days is getting a fever and muscle aches. She and Joanna head to a consulate-recommended hospital where she gets IV fluids, a prescription for rehydrating solution, and some blood work to test for Dengue Fever. More on that later.

I spend Wednesday night filling out forms and writing the request letter (no template to copy from online). Thursday morning, Max harasses the consulate to get them the paperwork that I need. Ashoke takes me down to the FRRO office, arriving about 45 minutes before they stop taking new cases. I'm assigned to an office, and a counter, and told to wait. Minutes later, someone comes out and asks why I'm waiting, and then ushers me in. Dude goes through my paperwork, and instructs me to buy one of their fancy folders for my casefile for 30 rupees. Then he tells me if I come back at 3 and pay $90, I'll have my exit permit. I return to the office at 2:55, and no one's there. Apparently, my dude's lunch order never came, so he's still on break. At 3:30, a different officeworker comes by, hands me my exit permit, tells me to review it, pay at the cashier, and then she'll sign it. Cashier doesn't want to give me change, but at this point I am unwilling to give the Indian government a single cent more than I have to, so I insist. After two days, I leave with an exit permit. Hopefully, I'll actually make it out of the country in a few hours.

Other interesting stories from Mumbai and Amritsar....

Twenty five kilometers from Amritsar is the Wagah-Attari border between India and Pakistan. Every day at sunset they have a ritualized ceremony where they take down the flags and close the border. Doors open on the India side at 3 PM, even though the ceremony won't start until 5:30. We're advised to get there early to ensure that we get seats--the stadium which probably seats about 4,000 fills up daily. By the time the performance actually starts, its standing room only, and there are easily 5,000 people in the stadium. As soon as we exit the car, touts grab our hands to paint Indian flags on the backs of our palms (40 rupees for two hands). More touts sell orange baseball caps with Indian flags on them. There's a one kilometer walk between where the car drops us off and the stadium itself, which includes a security checkpoint, where once again we get to experience some good ole pushing-and-shoving. We see several additional sets of bleachers under construction, which will probably fit another 2,000 people into the stadium. Our foreign passports (actually, our white skin) entitle us to the best seats in the house, adjacent to the border itself. Unfortunately, we are still sitting in the oppressive Amritsar heat, and even underneath some shading it's still pretty hot. Vendors sell sodas, ice cream and chips, but we found ourselves longing for hot pretzels and Cracker Jacks. At around 4:30, the music starts. First India starts blasting music, and in response Pakistan starts blasting their music.  Oy.

First activity: A 60 women arrange themselves in a line, and the emcee, dressed in white, has them take turns parading up and down the center of the stadium while waving said flags. Second activity: dance party! Again, almost entirely women, who are able to distinguish the beat of the Indian music from the beat of the Pakistani music. Due to some well-positioned trees, I can't quite make out what is happening on the Pakistani side. I do sneak some peaks through the sparse leaves of one of the trees--it seems like their emcee is just waving a flag solo. Their stadium is also less full than ours. At the appropriate time, the real ritual starts. Pakistani and Indian soldier, who are both dressed in colonial-era headdresses start symmetrical routines of high kicks, frog marches and fist-pumping, directed at their counterpart dancer. It's clearly perfectly coordinated. The one difference is that India has two female soldiers start off the ceremony, and they lack counterparts. Because feminism, or something. A perfect nationalist pissing contest. Better this than nuclear war?

The US consulate provides Max and Eve with a gorgeous three-bedroom apartment less than a kilometer from the consulate, with a pool and gym in the building. In addition to a housekeeper and a driver, they have daily deliveries of dairy products, and a dog-sitter for their dog, Porter, when they go out. On Friday I both got to cook shabbat dinner for the first time in three months, and I didn't have to clean up after myself, because their housekeeper did it 😊. Max and Eve have a floor-to-ceiling chest full of board games, so I got to have the best kind of shabbat--a board game Shabbat! Unfortunate'y, Leanne, who had been feeling better on Friday, got sick again on Saturday. One of her Dengue tests came back positive, so she was hospitalized, and I didn't get to say goodbye before I left :(  Saturday night we went to "A Lil Flea" which is a cross between an NYC street festival and an open air concert, with food from all over the world crossed with Indian food. Truly the only place in the world where you can get paneer tacos.

Postscript: I arrived in Israel last night, via Ethiopia. My flight from Addis to Tel Aviv included 30 Ethiopian-Israeli teenagers on מסע לאתיופיה 2017. It was kind of like being on a flight with a USY group. Oy. Despite my politics and the damage that Holi had done to my passport, I got through customs easily, met Tzvi, and am now typing this update from Kfar Sabba. Chag Sameach all!

האי דוחקא דהוי בכלה מנייהו הוי

Greetings from Amritsar, the most sacred city for Sikhs. I was excited about coming here due to my teenaged obsession with Bend it Like Beckham, a movie featuring the expat Sikh community in the U.K. Joanna was excited because of her fascination with the efficiency of Sikh volunteerism, and their model of feeding community members, visitors, and the poor together, strengthening inter-class ties. At the outset of our trip, Joanna gave the percentage chance of Sikh conersion at 50%. After two days here, I am absolutely convinced that I am opposed to religious pilgrimages, and that divinity cannot be found in mad crushes of people. I may stop praying for Bayit Shlishi.

This morning we went to the Golden Temple. We got on line to see the Inner Sanctum at 8:17 AM. Shortly thereafter, Joanna and I got separated from Leanne. For the next three hours, Joanna and I played Geography while inching our way down the line. I had already accepted that Indians don't really value personal space--if you are not crushed up against the person ahead of you in line for the ATM, Indians assume that you're not waiting for it, and if you so much as pause to look for your wallet while paying at the store, someone else will come up next to you, and demand that the cashier ring them up before you've paid. But today was on a whole new level. Parents encouraged their children to push and shove their way past the bamboo sticks that served as dividers, so that parents could pass through, claiming they needed to watch their children. When we passed through the first gate into the temple, many pilgrims paused to kneel at the threshold. People jumped over them. I later learned that Leanne gave up on entering the temple after about an hour, as she was so tired of men touching her.

The one bright spot during the long wait on line was that we got to see some of the Sikh volunteerism in action. Volunteers were giving out water in tin cups to people waiting in line. After we were done with our cups, they were collected, and brought to a series of five bins filled with either fresh or soapy water. A group of women methodically dunked the cups in the bins, assembly-line style, and at the end they were refilled, and passed back out.

The Inner Sanctum wasn't really anything to write home about--it's a pretty temple, but nothing compared to some of the grand temples that I saw in Thailand, or the Taj Mahal. Certainly not worth the three-hour wait. The view from the outside is much more interesting. While there is some sort of museum within the Golden Temple complex, I was so exhausted after getting through the line, that I wanted to drink water, and then go straight back to the AirBnB.

Our lunchtime excursion involved the most intense maneuvering around rickshaws, hand-drawn carts, bicycles, etc. that I've experienced in India. At one point, my pants got caught on a passing rickshaw, and I had to scream to prevent the driver from inadvertently ripping my pants, and possibly chopping off my leg.

Tonight we saw Naam Shabana, our first Bollywood film. It's an action movie centering on a Muslim woman from Mumbai who gets recruited by India's security service following the murder of her boyfriend (and the inability of India's legal service to prosecute his murder). There was insufficient singing and dancing, and an American movie would have had at least three more plot twists to make you think that the good guys were actually the bad guys, but all-in-all it was a fun girl power movie with lots of fight scenes. I will admit to falling asleep for part of the second half, but anyone who knows me knows not to keep me up past 9 PM.

Backing up to Dharmasala...

Not sure who thought it was a good idea to build a city into the side of a mountain, but I loved Dharmasala. Thus far it has been the only city in India that I've seen with any degree of quiet or natural beauty. The downside is that going anywhere requires extremely steep walks--either uphill or downhill. On Tuesday, we attempted one of those walks before I had breakfast, which led to a very cranky Eliana.

After breakfast, we went on a tour of the Dalai Lama's complex, and a museum on the Occupation of Tibet. Like in Thailand, there weren't a whole lot of explanations of the symbolism or significance of many of the temples and ritual objects. I did learn that rows of massive cylinders contain texts of prayer, and spinning a cylinder gets you the same merit as if you said all of the prayers yourself. We went on a walk into the woods where Tibetan prayer flags hang from the trees, and there's a monuments that lists all of the names of Tibetans who have self-immolated for their freedom. On Wednesday, I got to eavesdrop on an Israeli explaining the Tibet situation to someone from home. The parallels between Tibetans and Palestinians (population transfer to decrease Tibetan political power, refugees who aren't allowed to return to their homes, Occupation, etc.) seemed less obvious to her than they were to us.

Tuesday evening we went to the movie theater, and saw the new live-action Beauty and the Beast for $3. Leanne and Joanna were totally enthralled, and initially wanted to commit to seeing the movie at least once a day, every day, for the remainder of our trip. I have gotten them to back down to seeing it only once more, with Max and Eve in Mumbai. There's a decent chance that we will karaoke every song in the movie (although, aside from the one song that Audra McDonald sings, that may not be such a bad thing. Seriously, if Audra McDonald is in your cast, just have her sing *all* the songs).

On Thursday, we hiked a Himalaya! We went on a half-day hike with Ajay, one of the owners of the AirBnB where we stayed. I loved it. Leanne loved it. Joanna hated it. I did, unfortunately, get quite sunburnt, which gave me a bit of a headache. We spent the rest of the day at Illiterati--an ironically named literary cafe.

*Title comes from BT Berachot 6a. Rava says that the crowding at the kalla, the gatherings for Torah study during Elul and Adar, is due to demons. Damn Demons.