Cultural Learnings 8.0

Hello, my thousands of loyal readers. This entry is divided into six wildly insightful, deeply provocative, and intriguingly fascinating—or fascinatingly intriguing, if that suits you better—sections. They alternate between joyous and horrifying, so you will be left emotionally devastated and desperate for stability by the end. Enjoy.

8.1 Two days after I was groped by a haredi kid, Maliya had her crotch grabbed on a bus by an Arab kid. He and his friends started “flirting” with her and being inappropriate, and then one grabbed her as she was getting off. I am so sorry that I have someone who understands exactly what I felt.
As if this wasn’t enough to make her hate men, her Israeli boyfriend acted really shitty and then they broke up. He was being moody, and she didn’t know what to do. He kicked her out of his house, and then didn’t call for like 4 days. He said his phone broke. (And even though she was friends with his friends, none of them had her number, and the Internet hasn’t reached the Israeli Army. That coward didn’t even try!) Then they broke up. I cried! I also have been treated like shit by someone I just wanted to make happy. I’ve also been the only one putting any effort into the relationship. It fucking sucks. They’re good friends now, and that just makes me more bitter that John never grew the balls to explain what made him turn into an asshole.
Our hostility to men has really increased over the past weeks, and I miss when I liked men. I liked men a lot. On a good note, I think my birth control Lutera (which I got for free at Planned Parenthood, G-d bless ‘em!) is making me crazy. My mood and body are off balance, and I think I’ll be back to normal if I go back on Mircette the Wonder Pill. Figuring that out was the highlight of the past two weeks.

8.2 My program had a Religion and State seminar day in the gay community center in Tel Aviv—which got gayer, by the way. A man from the Reform movement spoke, as well as a haredi man. He had interesting things to say and was respectful of other Jews, but opted to play semantic games rather than concede a small point to an audience member. We heard from a woman from Women of the Wall, a group that is seeking one hour a month to pray out loud, wear talit, and read from the Torah at the Kotel. She was an excellent speaker, but she was very one-sided. She came down hard on the segregated buses in Israel. (Some bus lines in haredi neighborhoods have separate seating for men and women. The women are in the back.) First off, they’re surprisingly pleasant. Second, Egged runs the same lines non-segregated. Attacking everything that religious people do that makes you uncomfortable is a losing battle. It’s best to stick to demanding your own rights. Segregation suits the community that lives along those bus lines. Zeh lo big deal.
What I found most interesting was that she learned to speak English without an accent by using a machine which would show her the wavelength of her speech, compared to how it should sound. When the wavelengths match up, you don’t have an accent!

8.3 Anna was absent from the seminar. I got a text around noon saying she had stomach aches and she was going to the hospital. She’s still there. I didn’t hear any more until we were heading back to Jerusalem in the afternoon. They thought it was appendicitis. Then they found that her right side was inflamed, and they said she had colitis. I went to bed under the impression that she had a serious but curable condition, and she would be fine in a week. But then they found that she had an auto-immune disorder. Her mom flew in from New York, and Anna spends most of the day sleeping. They have to clean her blood. Her extremities are numb, her vision is blurred, and she is very weak. Her mom answers her phone. I called to arrange a visit, but her mom said there was no point because she was too weak, but I could try again next week. Today’s news is that she is depressed and may be hospitalized for a month. I’m just glad we live in the 21st century.

8.4 A number of people from my program attended the MASA MegaEvent. MASA is part of the Jewish Agency, and it gives scholarships for long-term Israel programs. They gave me $3000 to come here. Benjamin Netanyahu spoke first. (That’s the Prime Minister.) His speech was kitchy and somewhat bizarre. Some quotes:

“Israel is your home—make aliya.” Roaring applause. (Would Obama tell a group of foreigners that America is their home?)

“Next year we’ll be celebrating in Jerusalem our capital—our UNITED capital!” More roaring applause. (We celebrated in Tel Aviv for its 100th birthday, so he said.)

“It’s the one place where every Jew can find a home and every Jew can FEEL at home.” Anyone boink an Israeli and have their mom cook you shakshuka in the morning?

“This is YOUR country.” Again, said to a group of foreigners. How are Israeli Arabs supposed to feel about this?

Bib has so far refused to admit that there will be a state of Palestine. He won’t say “two states.” He just won’t.
Bibi: “I have one message for you,” (pause)
audience member: “TWO STATES FOR TWO PEOPLE!”
Bibi: (telepathically instructing his guards to liquidate this intruder) “Have fun!”
It was so brilliant! Completing people’s sentences when they pause is one of my favorite amusements. It’s really an art for me.

It was a wildly corny night. After a while a bunch of us left to get sushi.


8.5 I babysat for two British kids and their two gigantic cats. I had planned to meet up with a friend at the mall afterwards and get kosher KFC and then go to my favorite pilates class. Midway through this exercise in containing my allergies and irritation at small children, I got a text message saying, “Currently a threat for a terror attack in Israel in an unknown location. Until further notice, there shall be no travel to malls or open markets anywhere in Israel.” No mall, no KFC, no adorable pilates teacher. I didn’t feel comfortable riding the bus, so I asked for a ride home. Both kids wanted to come along, so both parents went as well. The five of us sat in the car for half an hour as we slogged through afternoon traffic up hill into East Jerusalem. Fuck that. There has been no further notice, and the flakiness of the terror warning system concerns me. (Also, a good babysitting rate here is 25 NIS, which is about 6.25 USD. fml.)

8.6 There were two holidays in the past two weeks. Yom Yerushalaim (Jerusalem Day) was celebrated with demonstrations of uber-patriotic, flag-waving Jews who happily disregard the Arab third of Jerusalem. As I was waiting for a bus home in Katamon (where this huge cat family lives), a procession of black official sedans and armored vehicles came up the street. They stopped, with the last army vehicle swerved into the middle of the street right in front of my bus stop, and two bulky men with very large guns (even by Israeli standards) jumped out and looked around, gauging the likelihood of each pedestrian being a terrorist. The procession pulled up a few feet, and the guards walked after it. I asked another bus-waiter if this was normal (in Hebrew.) She said no, “sheh Bibi ba”—when Bibi comes. He was on his way to giving a Yom Yerushalaim speech. This country is tiny.
Shavuot also just passed. That holiday celebrates the giving of the Torah at Mt Sinai. We celebrate it by eating cheesecake and other dairy products. The Torah is like milk given to us by a benevolent and sustaining Mother. It is also traditional to stay up all night studying. I’m sure I could have found a place to do so (in English and friendly to women,) but I really didn’t have the ko’ach. I went on a long walk with some friends around our neighborhood, with splendid views of the West Bank and security fence. We are so close to it! A friend and I went to Chabad to hear the 10 Commandments. We were the only women to come along, and we were left behind the potted plant mehitza to our own devises. It was awkward, and the only person who talked to us was a horny yeshiva kid who clandestinely watches The Simpsons. I say he’s horny because there’s no other reason a yeshiva boy would talk to females.

Operation Moses

One evening I was preparing to see a movie with my girlfriend. Just as we were heading out the door, the phone rang. I didn’t want to get it, but girlfriend said it might be important. I answered the phone. “Goldman,” the voice on the other line said. It was my commander in the Israeli Defense Force. “Goldman, report to my house in one hour. Bring all your socks.” And that was it. I began packing socks.
“Are we seeing the movie?” asked my girlfriend.
“No,” I answered.
“Where are you going?”
“I don’t know.”
”When will you be back?”
“I don’t know.”
After a pause, “Who is she?”

I found a few other men from my elite unit at our commander’s house. He showed us a map of Ethiopia and explained the precarious political and humanitarian conditions there. He finished with “The Jews are Ethiopia have been living separate from their brothers for thousands of years. It’s time to bring them home.” Uh-oh.

Ethiopians told a legend that 12 angels would come from the sky and deliver them to redemption. When the migratory storks would fly through their villages they would cry, “Stork, bring us good news from Jerusalem!” They thought they were the only Jews left in the world. As I parachuted down with my 12 men at dawn, I began to realize the significance of this mission. We could see tiny huts, and one big hut. On its roof was a Star of David! We were not met warmly. We had the good fortune of bringing an Ethiopian translator with us, and we slowly tried to explain our mission: we’re going to take all of you to Israel. They had never heard of Israel, but their big Ethiopian eyes lit up when we said Jerusalem. We made some headway, though. Life is bad here. Yes. We come from Jerusalem. Jerusalem! We will take you there. No.

Our mission was to take 400 people out of this village, but we could see that the children had to go first. Their little Ethiopian bellies were starting to swell, and flies were landing around their big Ethiopian eyes. After three days, the elders of the village allowed us to take 400 of their children. On the day we were to leave, the elders brought me into the main hut, and they told me I would partake of the transmission ceremony. I had no idea that each parent would come to me, shake my hand, and kiss me on both cheeks. I stood there for hours as each parent spoke jibberish to me, and I thought something would start growing on my face. I am 25 years old. I am not married, and I have 400 children. All of them are black, and I don’t know any of their names. We promised to bring the parents as soon as possible.

We went to the landing strip to be taken out. It was destroyed. The nearest airport was very far away, in Sudan. Our orders were to walk. So we walked. We left on the fist night of Passover, with a full moon. We climbed down cliffs and across the desert eat night, and each day they slept. I did not sleep because I had to take my turn guarding. Like manna from heaven, our food was parachuted to us.

The thing about full moons is that they quickly wane into new moons. On the night of the new moon, we were covered in darkness. And we were surrounded by hyenas. I could not see immediately in front of my face, but I could see their glowing eyes. If we made a sound, we were likely to be discovered. I faced these hyenas, and 400 scared children cowered silently behind me. I shot the leader of the pack, and the other hyenas took a hint. But because of the delay, we had to be 10 kilometers away in just a few hours, before daybreak. I told the oldest children to feel the earth, to feel the heart of Jerusalem. And we ran. The older ones carried the younger ones, and the younger ones carried the youngest ones. We ran in complete darkness for hours, not making a sound. Not one child complained.

Another night, we came upon four Ethiopian soldiers. We heard them open beer after beer after beer, as we lay crouched in the grass just a few feet away. Four hundred children sat like that- no crying, no talking, no farting. One soldier came towards us to take a leak. I don’t speak any Ethiopian languages, but I’m pretty sure he called to his comrades, “I’m drunk, but I’m not that drunk. There’s 400 children here!” In a moment he and the others were gone. We hid the remains of their truck.

We reached the airport in Sudan 17 days later. George H. W. Bush had secured a plane for us. Now it was only a matter of hours until we reached Israel. But 400 Ethiopian children had never seen a plane. Four hundred Ethiopian children did not want to get into a giant metal bird. Luckily, we had anticipated this. I made a trail of M&M’s into the plane. Those greedy bastards at them all and then went back outside! We reminded them of their saying: “On the wings of eagles he shall carry you to Jerusalem.” The oldest ones went on first, and the younger ones followed them.

The mission was named Operation Moses.

When I got home 3 weeks later, my girlfriend was not mad at me. She told me there is no way any woman would tolerate the way I stank.

The LA Times ran an article about the mission a few days later, and we were unable to rescue the parents. Operation Solomon was delayed by 7 years.

I was forbidden from speaking about the operation until recently. Years later, when I was a teacher, I took my students to the first kosher McDonalds, and there was a stunning Ethiopian girl. We looked at each other, and she floated over to me. The whole restaurant fell silent as they watched this incredible girl come up to me and say “We were many, you were one.”

There are now 100,000 Ethiopian Jews living in Israel.

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This is a retelling of an account given by a soldier on Operation Moses that I heard a few months ago. I cannot account for its factual accuracy or its adherence to its original telling. The 100,000 figure is a combination of wikipedia’s 127,000 and IAEJ’s 85,000. Also on the internet were figures of 36,000, 50,000, 65,000, 70,000, and 80,000, 100,000, and 110,000. The story of the Beta Israel is the most inspiring story I have ever heard, and I have a fascination with Ethiopians that sometimes brings me to tears if I think about it too much.

Cultural Learnings 7.0

This is a long one! In this post: Trips to Tel Aviv, dialog seminar in Ein Gedi, Lag B’Omer, the Pope, traffic circles, an old friend, and finding a new feeling.

7.1 There are two traffic circles where I live in California. One is called “The Circle,” and the other is the Kensington Circle, because it is in Kensington. Most intersections are circles here. Probably a few have stop signs somewhere. Major intersections have lights, which are also different from the US. Traffic circles are better for the environment because you don’t have to come to a complete stop and then accelerate again. Israelis just go for it. I’ve definitely spent a solid minute or two waiting for space to go in The Circle. Israelis would never do that. The way they see it, if their car is in front of another car, that car will avoid hitting them. The circles in the middle are often landscaped nicely. There is a brick slope between the flowers and the street, because the city was planned based on the assumption that people drive like psychos and will inevitably go up on the curb. Likewise, many of the sidewalks have a metal fence at the edge.

7.2 Career Israel had a dialog seminar in Ein Gedi with Israelis. In classic Israeli style, our bus left 45 minutes late. We drove through the West Bank. It was desolate. There were clusters of shacks on the side of the road. We stopped at a truck-stop which offered camel rides. I had one of those “holy-crap-I’m-in-Israel” moments. Three soldiers patrolled the spot. In America, I thought riding on public transit was dangerous, and the West Bank was some kind of a black hole. But I take buses all the time, and there I was, right in the middle of the West Bank.

Ein Gedi is a spring next to the Dead Sea. The stream has a series of waterfalls and pools, with lots of vegetation and mountain goats. It’s one of my favorite places in the world. The Dead Sea is the lowest place on earth. I also love it there. In our youth hostel we were roomed with Israelis. Some people had no Israelis, and a few of us were the only holnikim in the room. I was with three Israelis. I think they paired me with them because they are religious. Normally I enjoy being with strangers, but I really missed my friend Anna. We were really hoping to room together. I felt so isolated from the group. First I didn’t live in Beit Leni in Tel Aviv, then I move to Jerusalem, and now I don’t even get to spend time with my favorite friend on our trip, or even get to know one of the girls I’m not friends with. Anna is getting closer with all sorts of people on the program, and I’m not. I don’t get to spend my nights on the disgusting roof of Beit Leni. Compounding everything was my Shabbat observance. Carrying is forbidden on Shabbat, so I couldn’t take a towel to the Sea or a water bottle on the Ein Gedi hike. I stayed in the hostel and chatted with people. I very much want to return under my own conditions, when I am not observing Shabbat and I can take my favorite people.
This is the Dead Sea, with Jordan in the background.


The dialog seminars we had were somewhat interesting. We discussed what a Jew is in one. The one I liked best involved the madricha saying a word, and everyone saying only beseder or lo beseder—ok or not ok. Gay marriage, circumcision, an Arab prime minister, making aliya, McDonalds, dating a non-Jew, and marrying a non-Jew were some of our prompts. Coming up with an answer for some of these made me see where ideology and reason conflict for me. I was one of the only ones to say beseder for an Arab PM, and I explained myself at the end of the game. Even the most progressive American abolitionists in the 1800’s probably couldn’t see a black man being president. But things change. I said that sooner or later Israelis were going to have to deal with democracy. Will an Arab be PM in the next 50 years? No way. But at some point Israeli Arabs will have to be incorporated into society. They’re not going to tolerate being treated as unfortunate baggage forever. And I don’t think Israelis will view them as threateningly forever. I asked if it was possible that an Arab could represent the best interests of all Israelis, and I was met with comments suggesting Arabs are more loyal to other Arabs, and other Arabs hate Israel. I let ideology prevail when I said circumcision is beseder, but I listened to reason when I said moving out of Israel is also beseder. The only mother in the group said circumcision is lo beseder.

I met a cute, clever boy, but I stopped talking to him because he doesn’t brush his teeth. He was also a little annoying with teasing/flirting. I decided I wasn’t interested in him sexually, and I ignored him the rest of the day. I realized that I have been looking at guys as potential conquests for a long time now. It saddened me. I would like to see guys as humans, but I have this crazy sex drive. It’s been feeling lazy lately, but I don’t know if that will hold. I think I’ll take a break from being on the prowl. It seems to always end in speedy disappointment. As they say in the movie “Saved!” “The muffin factory is closed!”

I sat alone on the bus ride back, after briefly saying goodbye to Anna. I was rather despondent until I saw fireworks on the other side of the Dead Sea. A Jordanian wedding!

7.3 The Pope was here this week. I could hear his helicopter landing on Hadassah hospital while I was at work. Sara saw him get out of it from her dorm window. He made hardly a ripple. He managed to piss off both Palestinians and Jews. And he made traffic suck. My friend who works at the Jerusalem Post said she was so bored moderating comments on articles about the Pope because no one was posting anything. Other than giving people the privilege of saying “I saw the Pope,” that guy is pretty useless.

7.4 A friend I made at camp in 2003 is here on the Otzma program. I called him and we met up. He was just like he was at 17. I saw him for a day in 2004, and we didn’t really keep in touch after that. I was delighted that we could see each other again after all this time. I made friends from all over the country, and the best chance I have of seeing most of them again is in Israel.

7.5 America goes crazy for its holidays. Each holiday has a sale. Everyone goes to Union Square to light a giant Christmas tree. The pharmacies play season-appropriate muzak. Everyone is aware of the holiday, even if they don’t observe it. I have gone through life having no part of these holidays, and having to explain my own to stupefied professors.

Here in Israel, I get to see what it’s like to be normal, in the mainstream. I didn’t have to miss work for the holiday, I didn’t have to explain it to anyone. The whole country knew what was up. For Lag B’Omer, the national bus company ran hundreds of special buses from all over the country to a small town in the rural North. They made a special rest stop. My school was closed. There were extra firemen in case of unruly bonfires. The whole country was aware of this holiday, even though it’s Hasidic and most people don’t observe it. I was filled with a kind of jealous glee at being able to have meaning in national holidays, and knowing that I’ll eventually return to my minority freak status.

I felt Zionist. This is what it means to have a national home. Here, no one can oppress or even inconvenience me for being as Jewish as I want. Oddly, I feel more compelled to assert my Judaism when I’m in gallus (Yiddish for exile.) I don’t know how I feel about that. But here I can be Jewish easily—there were whole pessadic grocery stores! There is a certain significance of being a Jew in a foreign land, but I can barely articulate what it’s like to be in the majority. It’s like if you wear glasses, and you go to a land where everyone is near-sighted. Signs would be bigger, eye care would be convenient and available, and glasses tans would be fashionable. It’s like that!

7.6 There are 7 weeks between Passover—celebrating the exodus from Egypt—and Shavuot—celebrating receiving of the Torah. The interim period is called the omer (which means barley.) Each day has a mystical meaning which I will not attempt to clarify. The 33rd day of the omer is Lag B’Omer (the letters lamed and gimmel representing 30 and 3, respectively.) The omer is considered a time of mourning in which we do not cut our hair or listen to music. The 33rd day is a holiday. We celebrate a number of victorious moments in Jewish history with bonfires, archery, weddings, and haircuts. Secular people stick to bonfires and barbeques, while Hasidic Jews delve into the mystical aspects of the day. We celebrate the death of a rabbi who wrote the Zohar, a book of Jewish mysticism. His grave is in a town near Tsfat called Meron. Sara, Maliya, and I went there.

Buying our bus tickets took an hour. Israelis don’t have lines, so you have to be constantly aware of who is cutting in front of you. They also don’t have personal space. A fight almost broke out. In front of us were two American seminary girls, fresh out of high school. One was batting her eyelashes, chewing gum, and constantly on the phone. She also spoke fast enough to tense my shoulders. Her friends were trying to get her to get them tickets, and she was willing to even though it made things more difficult for all of them. Sara said she was stressing her out. We got McFlurries in the bus station. I hadn’t had one for 10 years. There is a separate McDonalds for dairy products. Our bus actually left on time. Men sat in the front, and women in the back. It actually didn’t bother me at all. People pray and sleep on the bus, and it’s not proper in that community to do that in mixed settings. We drove along the West Bank, possibly inside of it at times. I could see shepherds with flocks, donkeys, and even a camel. The separation wall blocked the view for part of it. The hay had just been baled. The Arab cities were beautiful. I was nervous about having to pee during the 3-hour ride. But midway through, we turned off onto the road for Jenin and came to a rest stop that Egged made just for us! There were separate entrances for men and women. Each side had Porta-Potties, and there were concessions in the middle. Sara said she’d never seen me more happy about anything. We could see some giant bonfires when the sun set.

There were separate entrances when we arrived in Meron. A tent was giving out free food to women who gave tsedaka to the men out front (or not.) We got salads, cookies, and berekas. I saw someone with a noodle kuggle, so we went to that tent, too. You really have to fight for everything here. Pickle juice dripped into my shoe. I got my damn kuggle. We found the two Chabad boys who were at that Shabbat dinner we walked to that one time. They were dressed casually! The cute one was wearing a cadet hat and playing guitar. Sara also spotted the sister of someone we knew from college. I had never met her, but he had told me I’d recognize her from facebook. And I did. She was probably creeped out. We walked through the women’s section, and it was jam-packed. They were praying around the building which houses the rabbi’s grave. There were plenty of bathrooms around, but they were all full of women. Men’s restrooms turned into women’s. An estimated 400,000 people were there. While women got free food, we found beer when we wandered onto the men's road.

For how religious most of these people were, they sure touched me a lot. Even taking the crowds into account, there was still unnecessary touching. I saw a guy walk directly into Maliya even though there was plenty of room around her. She and I were standing together behind a frum man and his sons in a place that was not crowded. When he turned to go, he brushed against me to the point where I was thrown off balance. Not necessary!


Israelis touch way too much, and sound really hostile when they’re not. They don’t form lines, they’re often homophobic and racist (afraid), and they drive like maniacs. I am having a wonderful time here, and I feel magically included in this Jewish nation, but I don’t like Israelis. I could never be Israeli, and I would never want to have Israeli children. I have many Israeli friends, but the problems I have with their personalities can all be traced back to being Israeli.

Maliya and I decided to back to Jerusalem around 12. Sara had met up with another friend. We asked the guards where to go, and we got pointed in various directions. We spent 15 minutes walking up and down the crazy street with the entrance, until I finally asked a guard to explain to me in English where to go. He said go down to the intersection (I had to supply the word,) make a right, then a left. OK. So we went to the intersection and started walking up hill. We asked each guard if we were going the right way. We walked for half an hour in the dirt up this freaking hill! The women rushed the back of the bus, but the woman with the double stroller knew she wouldn’t get a space. Maliya and I conked out for the 3 hour ride. The bus station was closed, so the driver drove around Jerusalem letting people off wherever they liked. I asked if he was going to Har HaTsofim (Mt Scopus), and he didn’t seem to know what that was. A passenger nodded at me as if to say he would go there. One by one or in groups, the bus was soon emptied of young, frum Jews. He pulled into a neighborhood called Har Hotzvim and told us to get off. What. None of us knew where we were. It’s an industrial neighborhood, where cars speed past factories and warehouses, and no one would hear you if you screamed. There were 4 of us girls from the Student Village, and a religious dude. We tried to convince him to just go up Kvish 1 a little, but it was 4:15 am and he was not interested. So we got off and started walking. I said we should just take a cab, it couldn’t cost more than 40 shekels. “No way,” said one of the girls, “I never pay more than 30 shekels anywhere in Jerusalem. No way.” Really? Really? Just for the record, 40 shekels is $10. In US dollars, she was saying that she wouldn’t pay her share of $2.50, but rather would insist on paying $1.85 for a ride home at 4:30 am. We got a cab, and we paid 35 sheks. So you WOULD pay more than 30 shekels within Jerusalem, you JAPy little skank! I fell asleep to the first call of the muezzin.

7.7 I surprised my friend Anna in Tel Aviv for her birthday. We got Thai food with a bunch of people. Birthdays suck.

The next week Maliya, Sara, and I were going to meet up with our friend Miriam in Tel Aviv. I called one of my good friends there to see if I should come in early so I could see him and Anna. He said yes. When I called him two hours later upon my arrival in Tel Aviv, he said he was going to Ulpan at 7. So was Anna. “Why didn’t you tell me that before I left? I could have come with Sara and Maliya instead of alone!” He didn’t seem phased. I went to Beit Leni, and spent 15 minute with him and Anna. They pay 20 shekels per class. But they both went, with the parting remark of “You’re not mad, right?” I saw some of my other friends, but they were going out to dinner. I went to the bus station to meet Sara and Maliya at 8, as they had instructed. But when I called they said they would be 40 minutes late. I was so unhappy!

Eventually we all met up, and we sat around with two other people from Santa Cruz, and Miriam’s hot cousins. We got jahnun and berekas on Alenby St. Jahnun is a Yemeni bread made of thin dough rolled up with butter. A bereka is a flaky pastry filled with potato or cheese or mushrooms. They’re served with harif (spicy,) crushed tomatoes, and a hard boiled egg. We met more Ethiopians. It was a nice evening. Four of us slept in a bed together.

In the morning Sara, Maliya and I got Benedict, a great 24-hour breakfast place. I went back to Jerusalem alone. I bough challas, veggies, and pitas in the shuk, and the rest of my dinner at Yesh in the religious neighborhood by my house. I made the mistake of hitchhiking, because I was so hot and thirsty. A religious boy picked me up, and proceeded to make inappropriate comments and touch me. He shook my hand, which is fine with me, but not if you’re Hasidic. Men and women don’t touch outside of family and marriage in that community. But let the kid get his thrills, right? He drove past my village and pulled into a parking lot across the street. He got out and shook my hand again, then opened his arms for a hug. I had been talking about Shabbat, and saying he was doing me a mitzvah for taking me home, but he grabbed me. If he had known what to do, I’m sure he would have tried to do it. I pushed him away and walked off. I wish I had scratched his face open. I wish had said in Hebrew that he has no G-d, that there is no Messiah for him, that he must honor women, that he is the son of a whore. I looked him in the face and told him to go fuck himself, which I think is pretty clear to most Hebrew-speakers.

I’m so tired of men treating me worse than garbage. Sara said frum boys are told that secular girls just have sex with everyone all the time. Does that matter?

I’m still sad about being disappointed by my friends, and almost getting raped by a religious boy.

Jack and Jill

[warning: contains spoilers]
On a first reading, Louisa May Alcott’s "Jack and Jill" may seem either sweet or disturbingly wholesome, depending on your level of cynicism. Best friends Jack and Jill hurt themselves sledding, and become better people over the course of their recoveries. Jill and two of her friends decide to be “missionaries,” and learn to improve the world around them, while bettering themselves. One of her friends is a mother to her baby brother. The whole book is one sappy story after another—the children put on a play and let Jill be Sleeping Beauty; Jack and Jill get to recuperate together in a beautifully painted room; Jack devises a communication device to Jill’s house, etc. One of the friends gets sick and dies in one of the chapters, and instead of being racked with grief, they all realize how special he was, and what true friendship means. Jill’s mom (who is poor) gets to move into Jack’s house and be their maid so that Jack’s mom can have more time to take walks and read, and everyone is excited about that. Jack’s mom takes him and Jill to the beach, and Jill’s mom stays back to keep house while they’re gone. Everyone goes on as if poor mothers deserve to be maids for rich mothers. Then they both get better! In the end, Jack and Jill get married, two of the group marry each other, and one of Jill’s friends is happy as a spinster, raising her little brother and living with cats for the rest of her life.

It’s wholesome and moralistic to a disturbing degree. I couldn’t help wondering what kind of adult could write such a book. Like really, what’s wrong with Alcott? Does she really think life is like that, or that it should be? How did other adults take her seriously? I looked her up on Wikipedia, and it turns out she was somewhat of a radical. She was friends with cool dudes like Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Her family lived in a utopian community for a while. She was an abolitionist and a feminist. She was in a group of radical female writers. All of this makes her seem pretty legit.

At the end of the Wikipedia article, it mentions an interview in which she was asked why she was still single. Her answer was, “…because I have fallen in love with so many pretty girls and never once the least bit with any man." Holy crap she was a lesbian! That is so cool! Why didn’t anyone ever tell me this? No, seriously. So many children grow up thinking of gay people as freaks like Elton John and Brian Boitano. I think people would be a lot less homophobic if they were less ignorant about gay people. We live in a society where gay people are still considered perverted. That’s a hard argument to make when you have a wholesome children’s author carrying the rainbow flag. The fact that she was gay (and someone open about it, apparently) in the Civil War era gives her so much more street cred. Coupled with her radical roots, she must have been writing with some degree of social commentary, which would go over the heads of most children (and adults.) Only two or three of the reviews I read of Jack and Jill mentioned that the work was meaningful in any way; the rest were from readers who either enjoyed it or didn’t. It’s interesting to see how her main characters end up married, while she herself knew she never would. What kind of happy ending is that?

Cultural Learnings 6.0

6.1 The past two weeks held three holidays. The first was Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day. An air-raid siren sounded at 10, and everybody took two minutes to reflect. My school held a tekes. I don’t know that word means, but they the principal gave a very somber speech and there were skits, music, and dances. I had to leave because I would either cry or fall asleep. I was the only one who ignored the instructions to wear white.

A week later was Yom Hazikaron, Remembrance Day. In honor of this, my program did a day-long seminar at the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum. We didn’t actually go inside. Instead, we walked through a giant stone maze in the shape of Europe, with the names of destroyed Jewish communities engraved in the walls. We saw a real boxcar from the Holocaust. We learned about the Righteous of the Nations—non-Jews who saved Jews during the war. They are allowed to immigrate to Israel, a right normally reserved for people of Jewish ancestry. We walked along Har Herzl, where fallen Israeli soldiers are buried. There are some truly amazing stories under those flower beds. There was a stool at each grave, but most of them were too old to have people visit them. The soldiers are buried in order of their deaths, and we saw all the soldiers killed in Gaza within three rows or so, with photographs and patches from their army unit. We saw army units touring the site, and it was insane to think these kids have to sign up for a job which may land them a plot on that green hill. The land where the next 20 soldiers will be buried is covered in fake grass; they don’t bother tending real grass there, as there’s a fair, morbid chance it will be dug up soon.


When Yom Hazikaron ends at sunset, Yom Ha’atzmaut begins. That is Israeli Independence Day. There was a party in Rabin Square with two fireworks shows and very lame music. Kids sprayed each other with foam and shaving cream. Clubs had drink specials. The next day everyone goes to the beach and barbeques. There was a modest air and boat show in Tel Aviv.


6.2 I cut my friend Lucky’s hair off. She came with scissors, and I hacked away. I didn’t use a comb or any products. I just held out her hair and snipped. And it looked ok! I’d never cut hair before, and it was truly a process of trial and error—on someone’s head.

6.3 My sister came to Israel with her 8th grade class, and I got to hang out with her a few times. Being with middle schoolers reminds me how miserable it is, and how glad I am that I can go more than a week without weeping. She’s really becoming a person, and I feel sad that I missed so much of her life while I was at college and in Israel. I hope to not live at home again, but I don’t want to leave here there with Mom and Dad! Her friends treated me like a rockstar. They were shy to approach me, they excused themselves embarrassedly if they’d spent more than two minutes in my presence, and they asked my sister about me. When she is 18, I will be 27. I feel so much closer to 27 than she does to 18. That is horrifying.

6.4 I have been to a gym three times—with my friend at our university. The walls are glass and one can see over Monterey Bay. There are little decks where you can do yoga outside. It’s modest, clean, and safe. That was my only experience with gyms. I’ve decided to be a burlesque dancer, so I went gym hunting here in preparation. A friend and I spent six hours going all over Jerusalem. We first went to Studio 6, in Talpiyot (which is in the boonies.) It’s an all-women’s dance studio. A crude papier-mâché statue of a nude obese woman stood on the desk. Next we took a bus to the bus station, and tried to find Jump. It was located under the parking lot of the Jewish Agency Archives building. It was a bomb shelter, so it had no windows. It had some women’s only areas and classes. We took a tour, then were lead into the commitment room. Upon asking for a student discount, we were lead further into the commitment room, behind a door with shuttered windows. We were offered the one-time low, low price of 920 shekels for 3 months, which they were only offering to us. They also sold Hydroxycut there. I want to look and feel healthier, not have a stroke at 23, thankyouverymuch. We called the bus company a number of times to figure out which buses to take during this saga. I pushed the button for English, but was met with mixed results. We figured out to take the 17 but to Rehavia for the third gym. We asked the bus driver to let us know when we got there, and he mumbled in Hebrew “if I remember.” He did remember, and he gave us some directions to our street. We kept asking people we met, and they all told us different things. But we made it! Razim is a women’s gym, also in a bomb shelter on the -7 floor of a building. The walls were wood-paneled, and they didn’t have good classes.
After a few days, I chose Studio 6 even though it’s a shlep, and I’ve loved it. Yoga classes in jeans, glasses, and Hebrew—so hard! But I am committed to not making a complete ass out of myself when I make my stage debut, so I keep going.

6.5 I guess the point of me being here is my internship, right? I work 4 days a week, about 3:30 hours a day. I help in 7 classes. In Sarah’s 3rd grade I help one American boy. He is a chatty motherfucker. When he makes mistakes, he says he did them on purpose. When I point out that his handwriting is illegible, he shows me how it is, in fact, legible. When his sentences are ungrammatical, he reads them back with a few more commas and words to show that they do make sense. There is one American girl in Sarah’s 4th grade who I have worked with, but she is usually in Ulpan, so I go to the English library. The English library has a graceless layer of dust coating it, and hundreds of mostly useless books. I have been cleaning and sorting the picture books according to difficulty for a non-English speaker, but that is not the same at all as for a native speaker. There are a few dozen editions of nursery rhymes, which are extremely difficult if you don’t speak English. In addition to all this, there are young adult novels, like Babysitters’ Club and such. As if that isn’t enough crap for me to deal with, there are also teacher editions of books from the 70’s, a few magazines, dictionaries, non-fiction works, and whatever other crap people leave in there. Perhaps because the library has been in disarray for so long, or perhaps because they are Israelis, books end up everywhere all the time. Students take them out and put them back wherever they like, or just leave them in a pile. I like working in the library because I can be anal-retentive and alone. In Sarah’s 5th grade I work with the sister of my 3rd grader. They both love to read. She is chatty, but not to the point where I want to break her teeth. I actually write lessons and assignment sheets for her. In Sarah’s 6th grade I work with a bad boy who has an English parent. He’s nice to me, but that’s because I don’t put many demands on him. We mostly play hangman. He starts each class by saying “I hate Sarah.” He said she’s weird. I said I’m weird, and he agreed, but said it’s ok. I don’t do much in Tali’s 4th grade, so I usually work in the library. Her 5th graders are my hardest class. She gave me 4 of them, and they can’t read English. One class I have them with another tutor who is great, and one class I have them by myself. It was a lot harder before they had books. They won’t stay in the classroom! The one girl is scared to read in front of the boys, and she always tries to impress them by being aggressive. One boy doesn’t have his book, one boy is wild, and one boy is somewhat sweet and studious when he wants to be. They are learning how to write letters and a few simple words now. I work with one girl in Tali’s 6th grade. She also is on the most basic level. We work in the hallway, and other kids come and chat with her on their way to the bathroom or after they’ve been kicked out of class. One girl from her class gets kicked out every day. She sits by us and sometimes tries to speak English to me. She talks about me in Hebrew in front of me. What hasn’t dawned on her yet is that speakers always have higher receptive abilities than productive. So while I may sound absurd when I talk, I can still understand most of what she’s saying. She tells other students that I wear my sweatshirt because I’m poor. (It’s old, and I altered it and sewed it up with dental floss.) One time she mocked me and then got embarrassed. She turned to her friend who told her to say “I no smile you,” meaning that she wasn’t mocking me, I assume. It made me laugh. The thing is, my Hebrew is where it is (surprisingly not bad) because I mocked my Hebrew teachers as a child. The syntactical mistakes they make in English are not mistakes in Hebrew. The way they pause and inflect becomes an accent in English, but it’s true Hebrew. My 6th grader and I always have a few moments each time where we can’t understand what the other is saying, and we slow down and use easier words and gestures, and still stare at each other blankly until we laugh and give up. She gave me attitude at first, but now she works willingly. That gives me satisfaction.