Israel

I never thought I would appear suspect to airport security personnel, but Israel runs a tight ship (plane). And I suppose my story was a bit strange: Canadian citizen living in Athens, traveling to Israel to visit the mother of a friend from college in the United States. The whole questioning process took about 40 minutes – they called Toby, mother of my friend Noa, to confirm my story, and spent a long time looking through everything I had with me – so I was glad I’d showed up the requisite three hours before flight time. Luckily, once I’d explained that although I was on a student visa, I was also helping teach classes at Athens College in exchange for free housing and a stipend, (which was, well, kindof illegal) I was allowed through.

I arrived in Tel Aviv on Thursday around 1 pm. After shrugging off a young Israeli at baggage claim who insisted on writing his phone number on my hand, I took the Sheirut (a shuttle van), sandwiched between a terrible smelling young man and an old woman who couldn’t stop coughing, to Toby’s house in Jerusalem’s German colony.

Toby spends half the year in Jerusalem, half in New York, and works as a freelance filmmaker/writer. Her work focuses on Jewish life, everything from Israeli slang to the kibbutz movement. She knows a TON about Israel, so it was great to have her around to explain everything. She’s also fucking awesome (as is her daughter). Noa had another friend, Erika, there as well. We really hit it off, and I was glad to have another nonjew there with me to see the place with fresh eyes.

Because Jerusalem is one of the oldest cities in the world (first settled in 4000 BCE), and is a holy city to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, it has a very different character than any of the European cities I’d visited this year. The population of the city is increasingly orthodox, and you can see this orthodoxy in the way people dress. It was incredibly hot while I was there (mid June), yet men wore black coats, long pants and hats and women donned long dresses and some covered their hair, too. You can feel the religion. The architecture is also very uniform in appearance – city law requires that all buildings in Jerusalem be faced with “Jerusalem stone,” various types of pale limestone taken from the highlands of Judea and Samaria, so all the buildings are beige.

That afternoon, Noa and Erika took me to the old city. It is divided into four quarters, by religion – Christian, Jewish, Armenian and Muslim. The streets are tight and windy, but many are also packed with touristy crap. Lots of kipas for sale. If it had been available to be bought, I would’ve bought an Israeli soldier uniform – it looks good on pretty much anyone who wears it.

Army Uniform

I wanted to be sure to see all the main tourist/religious sites in the old city. One of, if not THE most important religious site in the old city is “Temple Mount,” which Judaism regards as the place where God chose the Divine Presence to rest. From this site, the world expanded into its present form. God gathered dust from this ground to create Adam.

The famous “Western Wall” (or wailing wall) is located at the foot of the Western side of Temple Mount. Over half the wall dates from the Second Temple period, constructed in 19 BCE as a wall to surround the Second Temple. It has been a site for Jewish prayer and pilgrimage since the 4^th century. With the rise of the Zionist movement in the early 20th century, the wall became a source of tension between the Jewish community and Muslim religious leaders, who worried that the wall was being used to further Jewish nationalistic claims to the Temple Mount and Jerusalem. Today it is just, well, crowded. The area in front of the wall has the status of a synagogue and thus must be treated with proper respect: Men and married women must cover their hair, and women have to cover their legs completely to approach the wall. A woman stands near the wall on patrol and hands out shitty blue fabric for onlookers to make themselves modest. It is custom to walk backwards when leaving the wall so as to not turn your back on it, though I’m not sure why.

The Western Wall

For us Christians, the spot to visit in the old city is the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. This site is venerated as Golgotha, where Jesus was crucified, and is also said to contain the place where Jesus was buried, and resurrected. It is also an important Christian pilgrimage site. Although it was an impressive structure, I’d say many of the churches and mosques I’ve been to in other countries were much more exciting – for example, St. Stephen’s Basilica in Budapest, or the Aghia Sofia in Istanbul. And there was hardly a soul (except Jesus’s) in there!

Inside the CHS

Unfortunately, the Dome of the Rock is only open at odd and very short hours for non-muslims, so I only got to see the golden dome from outside.

Dome of the Rock

Food!

Being the secular person I am, the thing I got most excited about in Israel was not religious – it was the food. Actually, the food has everything to do with religion, because it’s all kosher. Because the Book of Exodus says: “Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mothers milk,” it is not kosher to eat dairy and meat together. Thus falafel (entirely plant based), which can be eaten with either meat or dairy, is very popular, and is considered a national dish. From falafel to Israeli salads to the fresh squeezed juices to sample at the “Shuk”– a vibrant maze of fruit and vegetable stands, fish on ice, candies, pastries, you name it they got it –  I think I had the most delicious food in Israel of all the foods I’ve experienced over this past year. It was a really nice break from the greasy, meat-heavy foods of Greece. 

At the Shuk

In the West Bank

Toby’s sister, Bonnie, lives on an orthodox Kibbutz, named Tirat Zvi, in the Beit She’an valley, just west of the Jordan River and the Israel-Jordan border. On Friday, after dressing ourselves up appropriately (long dresses and cardigans), we drove up the West Bank to the Kibbutz for Shabbat (day of rest). 

This was one of the most interesting (2 hour) drives I’d ever been on, because it was right through the desert. As we passed camels and herds of goats, we could see across the sand, past the Dead Sea, to Jordan. I was struck by the difference between the Palestinian vs. Israeli sections of the West Bank – the Palestinian parts are dry, desert, while the Israeli parts are green with fig plantations.

Desert

Kibbutz, in Hebrew, means a gathering or clustering. Before the state of Israel was founded many of these agricultural communes, known as “Kibbutzim” (“im” in Hebrew means plural) were established in Palestine. Many idealistic young Jews came to work on the kibbutzim with visions of a utopian, socialist Jewish state. There are about 270 kibbutzim in Israel. Only 19 of them, including Tirat Zvi, are orthodox. Toby’s sister moved here in 1968 from New York when she was only 18. Today, many of her children and grandchildren still live on the kibbutz, if not on other kibbutzim. The Kibbutz is very, very family oriented. The kibbutznik begin their families early, and often with people they knew all through grade-school.

On the Kibbutz

The Kibbutz kindof reminded me of the community where “the others” live on “LOST.” There is lush, green grass, the houses all look roughly the same, there is a very tranquil feel about the place. The kibbutz operates a meat processing factory, and nearby is a fig plantation and a tomato field. There is even a zoo! Around 700 people live there, so everyone pretty much knows everyone. People need not lock their doors or bring their wallets about. It was also very HOT – and in 1942, the highest daytime temperature ever recorded in Asia (128,7 degrees Fareinheit) occurred here.

As an orthodox kibbutz, the kibbutznik follow the rules of Shabbat very closely. I was blown away by how rule oriented they were. Essentially, they aren’t allowed to lift a finger from sundown on Friday to sundown Saturday. No writing, no using any electronics, no shower, no turning lights on or off (many houses have timers to switch the lights on and off automatically on Shabbat). I felt like I should offer up my services as a nonjew to turn the lights on and off so that they wouldn’t have to break the rules. Erika made a major faux pas while trying to do the dishes by putting dishes that had had meat on them in the dairy sink (they use separate sinks to wash meat and dairy dishes). I guess they did all the cooking beforehand, and the food was delicious. I enjoyed playing with the little kids because the language barrier was not as troublesome when you aren’t really speaking any language anyways. Hebrew, in my opinion, is not an attractive sounding language.

On Saturday night after sundown, we went back to Jerusalem and then went out on the town. Jerusalem was actually a surprisingly fun city to go out in. And then I got a taxi at 3:45 am to the airport for my 7 am flight (which was not very pleasant).

Because I was only there for such a short time, I didn’t get to see nearly as much of Israel as I would’ve liked, including the Dead Sea, Tel Aviv, the Negev, etc. The next step will be to fake my Judaism (I think I could pass) and try to get myself a spot on birthright.