These are all pictures from a hike we did called the Jerusalem Trail. It runs right past campus and up to the Jewish Cemetery. It was pretty awesome. The trail goes through the valley that separates Hebrew University and the Mount of Olives from the Old City and the Dome of the Rock. I love walking around Jerusalem because it really brings into perspective how dense the city is. Its actually kinda an eerie experience, because no matter how many times you have been somewhere, there is always the chance that there will be some little side-street that you hadn't seen before leading to a different universe. You just never quite feel like you are standing on solid ground here. Anyway, the hike was really interesting. We got to see the Jewish Cemetery, some kids having a picnic and making flower chains, the Garden of Gethsemane, horses, camels (You are beautiful. Do you want to ride a camel?), and the gate that the Messiah is supposed to come and break down. I'd say that's pretty good for an hour-long walk. The graveyard was pretty amazing. Except a lot of it had been destroyed during the Jordanian occupation. It's unbelievable how many important sites have been destroyed throughout the history of Jerusalem, and how resilient the three major faiths have been. For example, the Kotel, currently the holiest Jewish site, is just a wall that used to surround the actual Temple. No wonder there is so much resentment around here. The longer I am here, the more confused I get about what a lasting peace in Israel would entail. It's not that people don't want it, it just seems unbelievably unattainable. At least from the Jewish side, it seems less like hatred and more like exasperation and frustration. I made friends with a soldier the other night (pretty easy to do considering every Israeli my age is one) who just got back from Gaza. He very logically explained to me why there wasn't ever going to be peace for Israel. I'm constantly amazed by how willing people are to talk logically and calmly about all this. Coming over here, I had the idea that everyone was at eachother's throats, but in a lot of ways, people just want to live their lives. I haven't had much chance to understand the other side of the conflict. The only Palestinian I have really come into meaningful contact with is one of my professors, Nafez Nazzal. There is a little about him at http://www.jewishjournal.com/community_briefs/article/gathering_for_peace_20020830/  . He is really an incredible guy. He tells amazing stories about his life and the time he has spent trying to bring the Israelis and Palestinians together. I'm really excited about his class, because we are so sheltered where we are. Its really hard to get an accurate grasp on things. 

Anyway, those are just a few of my thoughts at the current moment. Don't place too much stock in them, as I can't imagine they will weather this city unchanged for long. Love.

Walking the Jerusalem Trail to the Mount of Olives

MY FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL!

Technically yesterday was my first day of school, but the only class I had was something that is supposed to go along with my internship and its pretty silly. We learned that you should get to know the people you work with and understand the expectations of your boss. You should also know practical things like where you computer is... real insider stuff. Maybe when I'm feeling generous I'll share some more tips.. maybe. Anyway- even though the class is a little ridiculous, I'm really excited about my internship. It's at the Truman Institute for the Advancement of Peace (http://truman.huji.ac.il/about.asp) and is with Professor Ruth Roded who heads the Institute's division on "The Gendered Other: Muslims and Jews in the Middle East". She is doing a film project, workshops and a research project titled, "Muslim Women Transformed: Disseminating Islamic Gender Messages through Modern Perceptions of the Prophet Muhammad's Life." I think I'm going to learn a lot, to say the least. I'm really excited. 

Then today I had Hebrew, which I really like. I still feel like I am writing in code or something, so that's fun. I also had Psychology and Religion which I am dropping. It was the most ridiculous class- it only focuses on Judiasm and on psychoanalysis, and our first homework assignment was to get in groups and talk about how religion and psychology are important in our lives- I'm not really doing the ridiculousness of this class justice, but we had to draw a picture about what we see as the relationship between psychology and religion- I think this is an interesting subject and I'm sure there is good literature on it, but COME ON (I think I'm just going to get the reading list and go it alone). It's the type of class where you study yourself... and learn how to look at the world in new ways (by looking at yourself?). Anyway- needless to say everyone here was quite enamored by it and couldn't understand why I would rather take Perspectives on Islam. Oh well. 

The other class I had today was Archaeology. It seems so cool. We go on a field trip about every day. And the content is really cool- I mean it's Jerusalem, so... Archaeology is just like a fun puzzle. I'm really excited to try it out. 

Tomorrow is Peace Building and Perspectives on Islam. Hopefully I will have it all figured out by then. 

Oh- also today I found out we are moving in the 7th!! Yay! 

A Room of My Own... or a closet

(my street)
For those of you who don't know, the past week and a half or so, I have been apartment hunting. This has been a really interesting/stressful/funny experience: I'm sure a lot of you can relate, just with less Hebrew. Anyway, it has been really hectic with a lot of calling and calling back and finding friends who speak Hebrew and wandering around town and being told we we crazy. There was even one guy who had an apartment IN THE MARKET. Like you had to walk past a bunch of dead chickens to get to our door. We were supposed to have moved out by today, to avoid paying for the entire semester (classes started today! - more about that later), so we were getting more and more desperate as the weekend wore on. By Saturday afternoon we had one more place to see, and the chicken guy was our best bet- even though to live there I would have had to sleep in a closet- anyway, not important. So we go to see this one last place and it is BEAUTIFUL. Its in this incredible neighborhood on this amazing street next to the most adorable coffee shops you can imagine. And although it is listed as a 1 bedroom, it has two covered balconies, two sofas, a kitchen, a dining room- basically just a lot of space: enough that it is actually feasible for three of us to sleep there. SO- we were all really excited and told him we wanted it. The only problem was that the current resident didn't leave until March 17, but as the landlord- Yonatan- informed us, we could figure something out. He also told us he could lower the price because we are students and said even though he had another couple coming right them, he would tell them that we had priority. His generosity was all a little out of place until he told us that he was a professor at Hebrew University (and liked to help out students when he could) and his wife was a print maker (just like one of the girls I am going to be living with). So we scheduled to meet today and work out the final kinks. HOWEVER. There's one problem. Because of the gap in time between when we can move in and when we have to move out, we had to go talk to the university about extending our contract in the dorms without committing to the whole semester. This presented a HUGE problem because the university has been incredibly unhelpful in regards to our living situation: this is partially their fault, and partially the fault of the dorm authority who is a separate company entirely than the university people. So anyway, we went into see Yonatan today, and he takes us to his office and offers us tea and tells us about how he persuaded his wife to lower the price for the semester and how the washing machine is broken but he will fix it right away and how he can store any of the furniture we don't want, etc etc NICE NICE NICE. THEN he goes- well I can ask my guy to move out earlier and we can go talk to the school right now and try to figure out the difference. Umm, thanks random landlord who we just met two days ago. So he marches with us all over campus, cutting through red tape right and left talking about how we are his family and he doesn't want to have to get his father involved (someone high up in Hebrew U). So we get to talk to the main guy and he promises that he will take care of it and call us back tomorrow. And then about 15 minutes ago Yonatan called to check in on us and make sure things were working out ok. I still can hardly believe it. There is no way we would have been able to figure this out by ourselves. The first thing I'm doing when we move in is learning how to cook so we can invite Yonatan and Co. over to an awesome Shabat dinner. 

So, the conclusion to this story is: Although its not 100% entirely positive, I am probably going to be living here for the next months: http://jerusalem.craigslist.org/apa/1031743736.html

Everyone please send good thoughts to Yonatan, and all the other wonderful people I have met here who have gone out of their way to help me- there have been a lot. Its really amazing to live in a place where everyone looks out for eachother so well. 

Classes

So... here is my tentative class schedule for this semester. I have to drop one or two. I don't want to be too busy to do cool stuff. On my current schedule I do have Sunday off, so its a three day weekend- very conducive to trips and such.

1. Peace Building and Conflict Resolution in a Divided Society: This course will focus on different peace building strategies utilized in the context of deep rooted conflicts and divided societies. Students will learn to identify and understand the characteristics of these conflicts and the nature of ethnic relations in divided societies; examine theoretical frameworks with underline certain peace building strategies and approaches and understand the complexity and challenges involved in implementing peace-building strategies and the context of the conflicts.

2. Perspectives on Islam-Religion, History and Culture: This course in an overview of Islam in its religious, historical and cultural context. We will focus on the beliefs, practices, sects, family organization, the status of women, and the relationship between religion and politics, the concepts of war, peace and human rights We will also examine Islam's encounter with the West, the impact of modernization and the rise of revivalism, fundamentalism and terrorism.

3. Psychology and Religion: This course will focus on the interactions between two major expressions of the human spirit, which are also two different attempts to understand the place of human beings in the world. Within psychology, our course will focus on psychoanalysis and other personality theories, while in the field of religion we will focus on Judaism and Christianity. During this course we will take a look at several meeting points between the two fields, stressing their common historical roots and philosophical underpinnings, as well as pointing out their distinguishing features.

4. Archaeology of Jerusalem: Jerusalem is a major center for the religious civilizations of mankind, possessing long and varied history. Through archaeological study and exploration, this history is revealed. This course deals with the development of Jerusalem from the Canaanite Periods through the First and Second Temple Periods to the Roman, Byzantine and Early Islamic Periods. The course traces the evolution of Jerusalem into a holy city for three religion, and how this was reflected in the shaping of the city.

5.Hebrew- maybe the intensive course- an extra two hours a week...?

6. An Internship at the Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace (I don't know if I have gotten this yet): The one I tried for was... Interns will work closely with me on my research project of "Palestinian youth culture in Jerusalem". This project examines Palestinian youth culture, from clothing, musical tastes, personal internet sites, dating and so forth as an expression of political, religious, social and gendered identities in a city fraught with nationalist and religious conflict.

I would love any and all input. They all sound too good to drop. Love!

I just found out that I got into the Peace Building and Conflict Resolution Class that I really wanted to take (and that you had to submit an essay to get into)! I'm really excited for classes to start. But first I have to do two oral exams in Hebrew and a written final. (Keep in mind that I don't know how to speak or write Hebrew). 

To relax this weekend I think we are going to go to the Jerusalem Book Fair and maybe the Dead Sea. 

Also a funny tidbit: Everyone in my hall is trying to move out of our dorms into the new dorms (ours were recently offices that were quickly renovated to accommodate the overseas students they didn't have space for, and the new ones are apartment style with your own room/television/etc.). I have never seen so many people so upset about anything. Everyone's parent's are calling and people are crying. Two girls have gotten moved. One said her two year old ankle sprain was acting up and she couldn't climb the stairs to our hall. The other had her parents write a letter that said she was having mental issues from living in isolation from all the other overseas students. These kids are nuts. But they sure know how to get what they want. 

(Don't worry- I'm managing to keep my psychological issues at bay, although having a bed and desk and heat and water and a kitchen is pretty unbearable. My sanity is defiantly solidified by the Israelis I meet every day- e.g. my substitute Hebrew teacher who had approximately the same hair cut I had when I was 10--mullet/rat tail/something? or the cleaning lady at the gym who I made eye contact with after we were both abruptly confronted with an older gentleman coming out of the locker room in a speedo)

Life here is good- Less balancing and more living. Hope the same is true for all you- love

A few random pictures..

this is me on the ramparts of the Old City. You can walk around it for about 2 dollars. The guy who we paid had a very strange affinity for the word lovely. "You are students? Lovely" "Eight shekels, lovely lovely." And then as we turned the corner and started walking up the stairs we stopped to take a picture and from around the corner comes, "ah, lovely". 

this is from Tel Aviv. Its like one of those claw machines that have stuffed animals in them, except that it has cigarettes in it. Something is wrong with this picture, I just can't quite decide what it is.

"....then I won't have to walk no more."

The Day to Day

Here is a list of things that I might not have mentioned quite yet: 

1. My roommate abbreviates Shalom to "sloms!" Taking into consideration that shalom is hello AND goodbye, I have already far exceeded my cute abbreviation quota for the year.

2. I can buy an artichoke for 1 NIS. For all you keeping score at home, that's twenty five cents. 

3.  Today in Hebrew my teacher asked what the family in the picture was doing at the picnic. I wanted to say drinking (shotim) but instead I said going the the bathroom (shirutim). And then I accidentally apologized in Spanish.

4.  I have been proposed to at least five times since I have been here. One guy even gave me his card.

5. The pilates teacher stopped the entire class to tell me do to something different (in Hebrew). So i smiled and nodded and moved my legs a little. Then she said some more stuff to me and I smiled and moved my legs a little more. And then she came over to me and physically raised my arms up and rolled her eyes. All the middle aged women in pilates seem to think this was one of the funnier things they had ever seen (maybe it was- the people who go to these classes aren't exactly a barrel of laughs).

6. Somehow I am the "kid who matches his kippa to his tshirt every day" 's new best friend. (he even has pink and purple).

7. You can get a lot of peanut butter out of a jar that is "empty"

8. My class, the "you have never seen Hebrew before in your life" class is somehow passing the "I learned how to read Hebrew for my Barmitsva" class. It's causing a lot of tension (and confusion on my part)

9. One of the three showers on our floor doesn't have a shower head, so its basically like using a hose to shower. Admittedly, this is kinda a pain in the butt, but no enough to not use it. Especially when everyone else would rather wait for the other two showers than just deal with it. So I use it. And some one asked me how I could do such a thing. I said it was like taking a shower in a waterfall. And then everyone present stared at me like I was crazy and spent the next fifteen minutes telling me all the ways in which it was NOT AT ALL like a waterfall.... Yea. I know. 

10. Jerusalem is awesome.

I'll write more soon, but I have a Hebrew test tomorrow and have to study. Love you all.

The Weekend

Sorry its taken so long for me to write. My internet has been really spotty and I haven't really done too many interesting things lately.... Ulpan is starting to take over my life. Next week it goes from eight to one every day of the week (and i thought it was overwhelming now), so that should be interesting. 

This weekend has been my first to just relax and stay in Jerusalem in quite awhile. It has been really nice. Friday we went to an English-speaking rally for one of the candidates for Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu (right-wing). I think we were the youngest people there by about fifty years- I’m not exaggerating.  He talked a lot about how he was the only candidate who would not give try to make friends with terrorists and keep Israel strong. It was pretty convincing, I thought. It was funny though, because he was the most stereotypical politician you can possibly imagine. Huge fake smile and fist pounding. He even said, “and I promise to lower taxes” with a completely straight face. But however suave he was, he was also extremely candid. He didn’t read his speech and people from the audience shouted things out and he would respond to them in the course of his speech. It was so different from what we are used to seeing in the US. I guess in the states you just assume that the people running for President have some secret way of figuring out how to best solve all of our problems. The whole bit becomes really abstract. But here you get the feeling that everyone knows that no one knows what to do, so the politicians have to reason with people a lot more. They are much more humble and tentative about their policies, but at the same time much more egotistical and overbearing in their personalities. It makes for a very strange mix. At any rate, he was from the conservative party so we got a very interesting viewpoint on what the best way to solve Israel’s problems is. He wants to be hard on terrorists and not give any territorial concessions to the Palestinians- the only way to reach a peaceful solution is to stop looking weak by giving away territory.  Although a lot of what he said made sense, it also seemed a little unreasonable. Yes, everyone here wants terrorism to stop. But the problem is how to make that happen. He didn’t really go into that much.

After that we went and got waffles at a waffle bar. They were pretty delicious. Mine was topped with cinnamon cream cheese. Then we went and saw some live music- a Balkan folk band with an accordion and flute among other things. It was pretty fun.

 Yesterday we spent the day just walking around Jerusalem. We started out by having breakfast in this really awesome little hole in the wall restaurant in Rahavyia.  This is such a cool neighborhood. It is the neighborhood that was built once the Old City started to get too crowded, so it is one of the oldest places in Jerusalem and because of that, it has a lot of trees. It is so pretty. There are all these little apartment complexes with flowers in the window boxes and colorfully painted doors. There are little book shops and restaurants and tailor shops and things like that all over. There is tons of graffiti and art all over. It’s so awesome. I plan on spending a lot of time there this semester. Anyway we got breakfast and it was soo good. Lochs and homemade bread still warm out of the oven and Israeli salad (tomatoes, cucumbers, red peppers and mushrooms/olives) and scallion scrambled eggs and fresh squeezed orange juice and goat cheese. All for about 30 shekel. That’s like eight bucks. And I was full for the whole day. After that we wandered around for the afternoon and just watched people and sat in the sun downtown. We decided to go to the old city and the Kotel for Shabbat. That was pretty cool. There was this one group of kids our age who were just running around and singing and dancing and jumping up and down and they grabbed up and we got swept into singing and dancing and jumping around. It was so fun, even though I was a little confused about the hand motions to a lot of the songs. We also got to go up to the wall. Almost every women we saw brought two things: tissues and a prayer book. There were also a TON of men there who are the ones who actually get to sing and dance. Women are not supposed to. Some one told me that this is because women are considered closer to God so they don’t need as many physical reminders of their connection. Men have to dance and sing and do many rituals (like wearing kippas) to be reminded of their connection to God. So it is a sexist religion, but just not in the way you think. That’s also why men and women are separated at the wall, because the men are weak willed and easily distracted by the women. I’m not sure if this is exactly the truth, but its pretty interesting at any rate.

 Then I came home and fell asleep- my roommate is gone for the weekend so I can have my room all to myself- pretty luxurious. Hope you are all well- love!

I just went to salsa class and had the most incredible time. I got to dance with the advanced guys and get twirled and dipped.

 Everyone should go to a salsa class immediately. That's all that needs to be said. 

Arad

I just got woken up by some sirens. No one seemed too concerned. Last night there was a massive thunderstorm with hail and lightening. It made me feel like home. The morning sounds here are different. There aren't birds or someone making tea or something relaxing like in Portland/Csprings. Its always cars or my roommate shuffling through her makeup or someone banging their door shut on the way to the shower. But this morning- maybe because I'm up early and it rained so hard last night- there are birds. Its a nice way to wake up.

So, this weekend we went on a trip to Arad. This is a small, insignificant town in the Negev desert. We had to get on the buses at six (which was ok because they gave us chocolate milk in a bag) and to get there we drove through the West Bank. Its amazing how different the West Bank and Gaza are- before I came, I guess I just grouped them into one thing. The people who live in the West Bank don't even particularly like the people who live in Gaza, not just because of Hamas, but because they see themselves as two different peoples. Its pretty mind-blowing how complicated this conflict it. Anyway- once we got to Arad we drove to these bluffs that overlooked the Dead Sea and started the hike. Everyone thought it was going to be really easy and people were super unprepared (especially the girl who during an introductory activity where you were supposed to say something you brought with you and what it said about your personality, she said she brought her tan because she liked the beach and sitting in the sun). We started walking along this empty river bead but eventually we got down into this crevice that you had to ladder climb down and repel down using a sketchy rope that was attached to the rock. People lost it. I can't even keep track of how many people I told to put their feet where or how many cameras I climbed down with. That said, it was really fun. From the top of one of the bluffs you could see the Dead Sea and a lot of the desert. It was really beautiful. It made me redefine desert a little though. I have never seen anything so barren. Our trip ended at this weird compound with barbed wire around it that had a siren if you got too close- go figure.  

After the hike we checked into our hostels and did the shabbat thing. I was ALMOST as lost doing as the tan girls were climbing down the mountain, so I guess it evens out. Interestingly the two people in my room were both shommer shabbas, so they couldn't do any work. I didn't figure this out until after I turned the lights out in the bathroom and one of them went pee in the dark. I felt pretty bad. But they also couldn't ask me to turn the light back on so awkwardly tried to do it but they felt bad making me get up- I was so clueless-it could have been a comedy sketch for sure. But we had dinner and a service and sang lots of songs (which I am starting to pick up) and just relaxed. It was really nice.  I'm really starting to like this whole shabbat thing. What i'm NOT starting to like is that Sunday here is actually Monday. Meaning I have school in an hour. Shalom. I hope you are all well. Keep up the emails!

R

Ps. I forgot to mention that we drove past these huge factories which take minerals out of the dead sea water to use in beauty products. One of the byproducts is salt, so there were HUGE piles of salt all along the road- it looked like white sand dunes. Pretty cool. Oh. And I saw a camel. Also pretty cool.