the best way to reach the western wall is through the shopping mall

yep - that's the case. in the ten years since i last was in the old city of jerusalem, the mamilla promenade leading from west jerusalem into jaffa gate has become a shopping mall, touted by some as jerusalem's rodeo drive. it is being built using aged-looking jerusalem stone, giving it an old-looking facade.

previously, mamilla was part of the no-man's land between jordan and israel between 1948 and 1967, and then home to jewish immigrants from mostly arab countries, until they were evicted to make way for the new development.

i'm not sure why this particular mall bugs me so much. in some ways it's just a modern version of the arab shuk (market) that you have to pass through to get to the various historic and religious sites in the old city.

but instead of spices, cheap t-shirts and menorahs, in this new mall we can drink gourmet cappucinos, buy nautica shirts and castro jeans. maybe it's because it reminds me too much of the gift shops that you're forced to walk through after exiting the rides at disney world.

i also discovered that the historic hurva synagogue, which was destroyed in 1948, and then only rebuilt as one symbolic arch after 1967, is nearing complete reconstruction.

i guess the old city is where the old becomes new and the new becomes old all over and over again.

prayers for new orleans

as the mother of all storms now approaches new orleans, my thoughts and prayers are with the people of louisiana and the gulf coast.

now that i'm here, i wonder if praying in jerusalem works any better than philadelphia? (interestingly, the "kotel cam" below only shows the men's side, so maybe it only works better if you have a y chromosome?)



how can we connect to the power that makes for salvation, especially in times of potential crisis, and when we're so far away? right now, hopefully it'll be found guiding everyone's efforts, ensuring a successful evacuation ...

jerusalem beer, בירושלים הבירה

last night was the jerusalem beer festival, held at the old train station. what could be better way to celebrate the move from tel aviv to jerusalem (and the arrival of a special someone) than homemade oatmeal beer and beer tasting contests?!

mmmh... בירה ...

beer on the roof = good times

bauhaus architecture in tel aviv

on friday, i went on a walking tour of north tel aviv, looking at the many buildings built in the 1920s and 1930s in the bauhaus style. in 2003, unesco declared tel aviv's white city a world cultural heritage site:

the white city (hebrew: העיר הלבנה, ha-ir ha-levana) refers to a collection of 4,000 bauhaus or international style buildings built in tel aviv from the 1920s by german jewish architects who immigrated to pre-state Israel after the rise of the nazis. tel aviv has the largest number of buildings in this style of any city in the world. in 2003, unesco proclaimed tel aviv's white city a world cultural heritage site, as "an outstanding example of new town planning and architecture in the early 20th century." the citation recognized the unique adaptation of modern international architectural trends to the cultural, climatic, and local traditions of the city

click here to view a slideshow of my photos. many of the buildings reminded me of fallingwater and other works designed by frank lloyd wright, who preceded and was contemporaneous with this movement.

the responsibility of the artist in society

the responsibility of the artist in society is like an educator, a thinker, a rabbi, a father, a preacher, a prophet at the gate. it is his duty to preserve the things that have taken place. the artist must raise ideas, point out the direction, and continually flow like a stream within society.

i encountered this (slightly paraphrased) quote by the israeli sculpter, yitzkhak danziger, last week at the tel aviv art museum. it originally appeared in hebrew, in the july 22, 1977 edition of haaretz, explaining some of the philosophy behind a new wave of israeli artists trained at the betzalel academy, whose art was becoming increasingly political.

this quote continued to float through my head today as we went on a day-long field trip, meeting with israeli artists (jewish and arab) in tel aviv and the galilee, who all address issues of coexistence in different ways within their body of work.

• we visited orna lutski at her studio in tel aviv, and saw slides of her many outdoor sculptures, other more controversial exhibits, and her recent project consisting of photos depicting the flags of mediterranean countries using fabric and women's hands. (e.g., see the israeli flag photo below):





• we visited the umm el-fahim art gallery in the arab city of umm el-fahim. the gallery was established in 1996, and works to bring art to the residents of the city, and also build connections between jewish and arab artists, thereby also bridging the gap between umm el-fahim and neighboring jewish cities and kibbutzim. their current project is a fascinating photography exhibit, attempting to document the social history of the many arab towns in the region, some of which were destroyed and/or abandoned in 1948.



• we visited ahmad canaan in the town of tamra, who showed us his sculptures and paintings, many of which express the feelings of diaspora, disempowerment and imprisonment that exist within the arab/palestinan psyche. the exhibit on display featured a recurrent image of a knight on horseback, reflecting, in-part, a looking-back towards the time of saladin, in the 12th century ce.





• finally, we visited with luis yeshurun, an artist who combines painting and poetry on found pieces of wood. examples of his work can be found here, and here.

all of the pieces that we saw today were products of the artists' creative inspirational moments. some were more overtly political. others were more reflective.

i wonder whether subtle observations reflected in a piece of art can be ultimately just as effective, or even more effective, in changing the status quo than a piece with a more obvious message.

moving beyond zodiac and yo-ya

israeli music ... there's so much to say. but first, i have to give a tribute to the classics of jewish summer camp and youth group israeli dances. while my zodiac's a little rusty, thanks to joel hoffman (a shout out to hill 5 - kutz 94 - wherever you are), i can do a mean yo-ya...

first - yo-ya - the lyrics, translation and video:



and zodiac - the lyrics, translation and video:



and as it gets transformed from a cheesy eurovision song (it was in the israeli national final in 1992), into a bad jewish line dance:



we have rhythm, yes we do, we have rhythm (oh, wait, no we actually don't...)

mmmh... max brenner ... chocolate

i just had a delicious פרפה של אספרסא ושוקולד חלב (a parfait of espresso and chocolate milk), which is a שייק של שוקולד קפוא (iced chocolate shake) made from טראפל שוקולד, חלב, ושוט אספרסא (chocolate truffles, milk, and a shot of espresso) from max brenner. they're also in the usa (new york), australia, singapore and the philippines, (in addition to israel) - so if you're in the neighborhood, you should definitely stop by. בתיאבון !

esa enai, and other things at beit daniel

last night i went to shabbat services at beit daniel, an israeli reform synagogue located in the north of tel aviv. the service was a mix of practices that you would find at a proto-typical reform synagogue in the states, e.g., standing up for the shema, and mourners kaddish, saying the "baruch shem" line of the shema aloud, debbie friedman melodies, guitar accompaniment, etc., but also had some unique elements. we sat after the barchu, and sat for maariv aravim before awkwardly being asked to rise again for the shema, psalm 121 (esa enai) was sung between the hashkiveinu and v'shamru, and all of the stage directions and speaking during the service was of course in hebrew. the service also featured a welcoming ceremony for a number of folks who had recently converted to judaism. i'm curious whether these conversions are being recognized by the israeli religious authorities.

the israeli reform prayerbook, ha-avodah shebalev (the prayer of the heart) has slightly different nuanced versions of the gvurot prayer in the amidah, and the aleinu. instead of praising god's power to resurrect the dead in the first line of the g'vurot (the traditional text is מכלכל חיים בחסד, מחיה מתים ברחמים רבים), it acknowledges god's ability to both humble (משפיל) a person, but then also raise them up (מרים). their aleinu is less particularistic than the traditional one; instead of being separated from the other nations, we've only been separated from the תועים - those who've strayed/wandered. i want to get my hands on a copy of one of their prayerbooks so i can remember the exact wording of these different variants.

the melody used for psalm 121 - esa enai - was beautiful. as its insertion into the service was codified in the siddur, i wonder whether this comes from a previously existing tradition of some sort. the melody is a recent israeli one, written by יוסף קרדונר, and has become fairly popular. two youtube clips and the lyrics are below:

שיר למעלות

שיר למעלות:
אשא עיני אל-ההרים, מאין יבא עזרי.
עזרי, מעם ה', עושה שמים וארץ.
אל יתן למוט רגלך; אל ינום שומרך.
הנה לא ינום ולא יישן שומר ישראל.
ה' שומרך ה' צלך על-יד ימינך.
יומם השמש לא יככה וירח בלילה.
ה' ישמרך מכל-רע ישמור את-נפשך.
ה' ישמור צאתך ובואך מעתה ועד עולם

what are the limits of dialogue?

what makes a community? who gets to define who's in and who's out?

every day in tel aviv, i walk through the neighborhood of shapira, on the way to the bina secular yeshiva. shapira is a working-class community, made up of mizrahi jews, some secular activist-types, foreign workers, and a recent influx of african refugees. last week, i noticed, and was bothered by this flyer posted on bulletin boards and cars:



(notice the nice silhouette of a happy nuclear family in the background).

the translation of the hebrew is:

an emergency meeting of the residents of the neighborhood shapira

we, the residents of the neighborhood of shapira have decided to call for an emergency struggle for the future of the neighborhood of shapira. during the recent time period, there has begun a massive entry of weak and accidental populations. the neighborhood of shapira is not the shelter for tel aviv and the state of israel. the social situation and demography is in danger. we are fighting for our home, and for the future of our children. if you do not come, you can not complain.

the profile of this potentially divisive community meeting (which i saw as a mix of NIMBYism, fear of the other, and the result of an overburdened poor community asked to shoulder more than their fair share of the load) was magnified by an article in both the hebrew and english editions of haaretz.

so what better to do on a tuesday night than go?

imagine a gym filled with plastic israeli chairs, all of them full. (over 200 attendees). three policemen there to keep the peace. two tv news crews. religious jews with black kippas, secular jews with dreadlocks (and apparently one activist wearing klu klux klan robes), a few african refugees, long time elderly residents with homemade signs - you name it, they were all there. it was a standing-room-only crowd.

a speaker started the meeting, asking for civility, but when he started passionately chanting his case into the microphone, israeli-style, other people's passions also awoke. i've never seen so much hand-gesturing in one room. people shouted and then came up to argue with the speakers while they were speaking -- at the same time that arguments broke out between other people in the various corners of the room (they never actually devolved into fist-fights, but sometimes came pretty close). to the credit of the meeting's facilitators, different opinions and point of views were represented by the speakers on the rostrum. too bad people weren't necessarily able to listen, especially when some of the bratzlavers started to sing and dance to drown out an opposing position.

as the issues were presented, especially by observing which attendees cheered which speakers, it became clear that the common enemy was the mayor of tel aviv, and the municipality, for not providing enough resources for schools, preschools, teachers, translators, etc., and that the more wealthy northern neighborhoods of the city should help with the care of the immigrants.

i didn't learn about the "klu klux klan activist" until reading the accounts of the meeting in israeli newspapers online. unfortunately, this seemed to have dominated the reporting in the articles.

i'm heartened by the fact that everyone was able to be in the same room together - it made for a fascinating meeting. however, there's a difference between being physically present and actually listening to others -- and unfortunately, i don't think that this goal was achieved.

שיפודים

we just got back from a bukharian שיפודים restaurant near our apartment. (click here to see their menu - with some pictures).

שיפודים (shipudim) are meat skewers, of either kebob (lamb mixed with beef), chicken, turkey, chicken liver, chicken hearts, beef "eggs" (use your imagination), fatty lamb, and some other things i had problems translating. there were also lots of bukharian dishes on the menu, most of which seemed to have been various combinations of meat and rice, some with carrots. (it's not easy to decipher the names of food written in bukharian with hebrew letters).

bukharian cuisine consists of:

many unique dishes, distinctly influenced by ethnic dishes historically and currently found along the Silk Road and many parts of Central and even Southeast Asia. Shish kabob, or shashlik, as it is often referred to in Russian, are popular, made of chicken, beef or lamb. Pulled noodles, often thrown into a hearty stew of meat and vegetables known as lagman, are similar in style to Chinese lamian, also traditionally served in a meat broth. Samsa, pastries filled with spiced meat or vegetables, are baked in a unique, hollowed out tandoor oven, and greatly resemble the preparation and shape of Indian samosas.

Plov is a very popular slow cooked, cumin-spiced rice dish, sporting carrots, and in some varieties, chick peas, and often topped with beef or lamb. Most Bukharian communities still produce their traditional breads of old: one being Leeployshka, a circular bread with a flat center, topped with black and regular sesame seeds, and the other, called Non Toki, bears the dry and crusty features of traditional Jewish matzah, but with a distinctly wheatier taste.

everything came with many different kinds of salads, some of which were very spicy. all in all, a good way to celebrate the 10th of av.

remembering communal tragedies

how do we choose to remember the past?

on the eve of tisha b'av, i visited kikar rabin, the square where yitzkhak rabin was killed in 1995. i was last there in early 1997, and i remember the extensive graffiti



and pilgrimage-like nature of the site. having been a freshman in college at the time of his murder, i remember being especially moved - being there, in that place, where it all happened.

revisiting it yesterday was somewhat of a disappointment. there was all kinds of construction near the memorial. most of the graffiti was gone (including everything in the above picture - all that was left was one small area behind plexiglass)



and the feel was like that of a bland, fairly industrial-like, unfeeling park.



my mind went to thinking of the collage of "missing persons" notices



and candle memorials that appeared all over nyc after september 11th, especially the spontaneous memorials in washington square park (i was living in brooklyn at that time) - as public shrines often serve the need for communal reflection and hopefully healing.

but as was even being pointed out in october 2001, these spontaneous outpourings of grief were by their nature, only temporary:

The last time I walked by St. Vincent's Hospital, the ''Missing'' posters were coming apart, punished by days in the sun and the breeze. Like candles and flowers, they were entering the important degradation phase where all true symbols of grief meet their end.

during the past several years, i've been especially struck by the potential smilarities between tisha b'av (with its dirge-like traditional chanting of איכה, the book of lamentations, expressing the intense emotion of the babylonian exile), and the involuntary exile of residents from new orleans after katrina, which now occured almost 3 years ago.

the stories and images from the survivors in spike lee's documentary when the levees broke can be placed side by side with the mourning of lamentations, tobit, and psalm 137, among other literature from the exilic period. these juxtapositions were first pointed out by anya kamenetz in by the waters of babylon in the village voice, and gail chalew in if i forget you, o new orleans in the forward.

last night i attended a tel-avivi tisha b'av commemoration, which included parts of a the traditional reading of eicha interspersed with songs, and brief talks, as the non-orthodox population of tel aviv struggled to make meaning from the day, while rejecting traditional perspectives that focus on the hope to rebuild the temple. one of the most interesting presentations was from a woman of ethiopian ancestry, who had assumed that the second temple was still standing until she was told otherwise after arriving in israel during the 1980s. her sense of history and mourning was very different that the assumed ashkenazi jewish narrative.

listening to chapter 5 of eicha evoked thoughts about the palestinians, and a questioning of whether roles are now reversed. have the israelis become the babylonians, with the palestinians lamenting by the waters of their refugee camps? or is there something about tisha b'av that belongs safely within the jewish narrative?

what aspects of the destruction of the temple, the death of my forebearers, the loss of a past system of judaism, do i want to mourn? how much do i allow myself to dwell in the sorrow of the past? at what point should i universalize its lessons (whatever they might be) to apply to the current tragedies of the present?

what is the meaning of the day?

protesting china in israel

on thursday, i stopped by a protest against china and the olympics by the youth of the meretz political party, held across the street from the chinese embassy in tel aviv.



The two slogans on the posters are:

להחרים את סין - "banish/shun china"

סין אלופת עולם בהפרת זכויות אדם
"china is the champion of the world in violating human rights"

they both rhyme in hebrew and make good group chants.



at the rally, there seemed to have been almost more reporters than protesters,




which seemed to lead to good press coverage in the israeli media. in fact, in one brief shot in the beginning of this web video, you can sort of see me on the side, wearing a gray hat and backpack), and can hear some of the chanting.

in contrast to the political chanting, afterwards, wandering by the frischman beach, i encountered a group of israelis doing some kind of aerobics/yoga/dance on the sand that included primal screaming.



to each his own...

african refugees in tel aviv

one of my volunteering placements has and will involve meeting with refugees from sudan, eritrea, and other african countries who have made their way into israel. their journeys through the egyptian desert are very difficult, needing to avoid mistreatment from the bedouins sneaking them through the desert, and the egyptians soldiers who often shoot to kill. once over or under the fence, they wait to be picked up by israeli soldiers, who often imprison them for a while. once released from prison, granted temporary refugee status, they're then "free" to live in the slums of south tel aviv.

i haven't taken pictures yet of the dire poverty that we've been seeing - but this photo album/slideshow on flickr gives you a sense of the living conditions. among other emotions, it brings up images of the devastation that i saw in new orleans after katrina.

this recent article from the jerusalem post, which is a heartbreaking read, tells the story of mulu, a shelter resident who i met last week:

In the south Tel Aviv hostel run by the African Refugees Development Center, there is one survivor's story after another.

On one of the bunk beds sits a pretty, pregnant Eritrean woman, Mulu Brahan. Her two barefoot sons, Natnael, nine, and Johannes, five, are playing on the other beds. Her daughter, Melat, 11, moves in and out of the room without a word.

Mulu, 31, made the journey here with Johannes a few months ago. Her husband, Michael Tustaselassie, 39, set out a few weeks later with the two older children.

He didn't make it.

"They were in the Sahara Desert for 50 days," says Mulu. "The Beduin kept the children with them in the front of the pickup truck, and they packed all the adults in the back. There wasn't nearly enough water for everyone, and they kept the water containers in the back, away from the children. They put a little gasoline in the water so people wouldn't be able to drink too much and it wouldn't run out so fast."

Along the way the smugglers would stop to rest or search for water, which isn't easy to find in the Sahara. "Whenever the stopped and people got out, Michael would take water from the containers when no one was looking and give it to Natnael and Melat," continues their mother.

Along the way Michael became ill. He stopped eating. On the last leg of the journey, when the smugglers let the refugees out of the truck to make the rest of the way on foot, Michael gave his son and daughter a container of water he'd hidden. He told them to go on ahead. "He died somewhere in the sand," says Mulu.

Melat and Natnael kept walking with the other refugees, and when they got near the border, the Egyptian guards began shooting. The brother and sister hid in the sand for three hours. When the shooting stopped and the troops were gone, they ran to the border fence, climbed over and soon were picked up by Israeli soldiers. Later they were reunited with their mother.

Says Mulu: "they saw their father die."

jaffa!

last night was spent in jaffa. first, a delicious dinner at dr shakshuka. i agree with the nytimes that:

with its long shared tables, great food and prices, happy customers, and helpful staff, this is one of the best ethnic restaurants in the country. shakshuka is a pan-fried casserole of poached eggs and spicy tomato sauce; dr shakshuka's many versions of this dish come from libya and have been the best in jaffa for two and a half generations.

the night's culinary adventures also included a stop at the aboulafia bakery. mmmh... aboulafia...

click the picture below for a great bbc video clip about the bakery.

said abulafia is the business development manager at the abulafia bakery - a jaffa institution, in business since 1879. muslims, christians and jews work side by side at the bakery and its customers are drawn from all parts of jaffa society.

the daily flea market in jaffa stays open all night on thursdays, and is transformed into

'pishpeshuk 2008,'an evening event, now in its third year organized by the tel aviv-jaffa municipality which has produced a charming local celebration where people come to enjoy musical performances in different styles, craft stalls, street theater, alternating art exhibitions, a yoga site, holistic treatments, seating areas and of course, all of the market shops offering furniture, clothing and food, in action until the dawn arrives.

there was a jazz funk band playing in one area, a juggling duo in another, 2 elvis impersonators, more musicians, and a great photo exhibit called רגעים של בית - feelings of home, showing israei politicians from david ben gurion and golda meir to shimon peres and ehud olmert at home, and interacting with their families.