A weekend in the Golan Heights

Some of the rubble left over from bombings during the 1967 "six day war". Most of the houses were riddled with these bullet holes and had graffiti written on the walls in both Hebrew and Arabic.

This is partly why the Golan Heights is such disputed land. (It's also militarily strategic land.) Even though all you initially see may be flat, dry plateau, there are canyons full of surprises like lush green jungle and waterfalls.

































Taking a break and catching the breeze.



















Overlooking the Israel-Syria border. The village in the distance is in Syrian territory.














I love these signs. Damascus was only 40 miles away from us. Too bad I can't get into Syria (along with several other countries) unless I conveniently lose my passport. :(

Where's the line?

Religion and culture-where does one draw the line here in Israel?

Does the line even exist?

I find myself struggling to gauge the diverging point between Jewish culture and Judaism because often times they almost seem interchangeable, but other times, their fluid substitution is not appropriate to me.

For instance, I will be studying in Ulpan for almost two months before I actually start my university classes in October. Ulpan is basically intensive Hebrew language classes designed for foreigners and immigrants making Aliyah to Israel, so that they will be able to better integrate into Israeli society. *Making Aliyah is when people of the Jewish diaspora immigrate to Israel.*

So far, learning Hebrew has been pretty easy for me since I use the same methods of learning it as I did for Arabic. And despite the long and many Ulpan school days, I guess it's pretty cool that I will be able to read, write, and speak Hebrew by the end of this semester.

Like any other language class, we also learn about Israeli culture. The manner in which we do that is by learning colloquial Hebrew phrases (many of which come from Arabic too-like "sababa", which means "cool") and we also sing national Israeli anthems and the book often makes references to historically religious figures and biblical stories.

Mostly, I really enjoy learning about the culture behind a language because a lot of times you can tie certain cultural aspects back to the language, which makes the language much richer within the context and moreover, it helps you remember words and phrases that may initially sound like gibberish by using mnemonic devices. This is why studying abroad for language immersion is so effective because not only are you surrounded by the language, but as cliche as it sounds, you're also experiencing it by seeing the way people interact with each other through the language in their daily activities.

Some examples of this include: the verb to sit "yoshev" in Hebrew; I remember this verb because I think of Yeshivas where students sit to learn, and I know the term Yeshiva from reading Philip Roth. Or in Arabic, I will always remember "yallah" because when I was in Morocco, everywhere I heard "yallah!" used to mean "let's go!", "hurry up!", "come on!", "come here", "start eating", etc. Pretty soon, it became a verb and I used to joke that all I did was "yallah around Morocco". Or how Japanese people always say "soo desu nee" and "soo desu ka?", which are phrases of polite agreement as an appropriate reply to almost anything (despite whether they agree or not), which reflects the legendary Japanese emphasis on decorum.

Back to the point-so yes, I fully appreciate and agree with learning a language by simultaneously learning the culture behind the language. But here in Israel, the culture seems so rooted in Judaism, and theAmerican obsession with separation of church and state does not exist. Furthermore, most American Jews I talk to tell me that being Jewish is more like being part of a culture embedded with religious traditions than being part of a religious group.

In class, I like reading about how a kibbutz functions and about famous Israeli historical figures, but I don't like when we read about Bible stories and my teacher doesn't understand how everyone isn't familiar with them (I mostly am because I grew up going to Bible study in church, but other non-Jews in my class mostly look around blankly). I don't like going to the auditorium to sing Israeli national anthems that my Jewish friends learned by heart in their American Hebrew schools. I don't like that our tour guides tell us that the Druze communities up north in the Golan Heights are better off being part of Israel than Syria because not only is Israel more modern, but it is also more tolerant. I find that hard to believe when the Israeli government is finding new excuses to discriminate against Ethiopian Jews trying to make Aliyah to Israel while embracing American and Eastern European Jews with open arms and free birth right trips. And I don't want to listen to Hebrew school rock on the bus during field trips with songs about Samson and that devil-woman Delilah.

I respect the traditional breaking of the Challah on Shabbat, but I don't want to be handed a sheet of paper to follow along with the prayers and chants in phonetic English-Hebrew before I eat dinner, not because I don't like things that are different than what I'm used to, but I don't feel comfortable even just humoring people and mumbling prayers I don't understand. I liken all these things to going to Catholic or Protestant school because when I went to St. James elementary school, we did all these things like good Christian lambs. We went to chapel and prayed and sang hymns; we had religion class and prepared for the annual Nativity play. But I feel at this age I shouldn't have to be put in these situations where I feel like the religion is being imposed on me because the majority of the students are Jewish. I understand that these are supposed to cultural experiences, and I really want to learn about Judaism because I don't know very much about it, but I want to be able to do it on my own terms without feeling like I'm going to traditional Hebrew school without my expecting it. And I know I'm not the only one who feels this way because sometimes in class, the other gentiles will ask the teacher, "Is this religion class?".

I guess having grown up in the States (meaning Los Angeles and going to Wellesley), I'm so used to people always being politically correct and especially sensitive about civil rights and liberties that translate into cultural and religious tolerance. Sometimes, I feel like this cultural and religious tolerance are so sacrosanct and placed on such high pedestals wrapped with miles of caution tape, that often subjects like religion are not even breached, while difficult and loaded questions are altogether avoided for the sake of not being flamed as a bigot and racist. But this is problematic too because instead of creating an embracing form of tolerance, it creates more feelings of "the other", which is both unquestionable and ultimately misunderstood.

I keep telling myself to take all this with a grain of salt. So what if they have you pray with them before eating on weekend trips? So what if you can now sing along to Hebrew school tunes? I keep telling myself to keep an open mind, and to relish every experience whether I want to be experiencing it or not. I keep reminding myself that this is how it is here, and I can learn to accept it. But this line has been a hard one to straddle because I can't find it, and I don't even know if it exists.

Do I even need to find it?

Can I just accept it for the way it is and stop questioning and fighting it?

What do you think?

I need to think up better titles for these posts.

There's nothing like seeing another people be so proud of its own culture to make one reach deep inside and search for her own roots.

Israeli nationalism is very peculiar and unique. Sure, there are the conventional Israeli flags draped over balcony terraces or hung like curtains in apartment windows, but also, as a proclaimed Jewish country, Israeli nationalism is manifested in the tensions between religious tradition and secularization, Palestinians and Israeli Jews, and darker Mizrahi Jews from Morocco and other places in the Middle East and the lighter Ashkenazi Jews mostly from Russia and France.

The recurring symbols of the kippah clipped neatly in a man's shorn hair paired with jeans and stylish Chucks or the pregnant young women pushing along a baby stroller jostled by four other young wearing matching outfits and close in age or the Israeli army soldiers on and off duty in or out of their clean-cut uniforms and always slinging a kalashnikov over their soldiers or casually, not inconspicuously fitting a hand gun in the back of their pants or the security guards at every entrance holding a metal detector and checking your bags with a cursory glance while you wonder how the guy with the gun hanging precariously out of his back pocket got in remind you just how badly this country wants to exist, and just how much it fears for its existence. Desire and fear together usually don't make for the best pair, but it does make for strong nationalism. Whether this is good or bad, I have yet to decide, but I think that if anything, the country is in danger of fostering a radical or fundamentalist mentality in the pursuit of stability while in the process excluding and angering many.

Ever since I've been here, I've felt this really strong urge to seek out any links to my Korean heritage. I've never really felt that I belonged to the Asian (azn) pride mentality that many Asian-American first generation kids feel, and I've always been a "banana" who couldn't really speak Korean slang or get into Korean dramas. It's really a curious phenomena that here in Israel, I'm feeling so much Korean pride, and I find myself searching for fellow Korean students or looking up Korean restaurants in Jerusalem (of which, there is only one) or listening to Korean music because its comforting to hear my own language (anyone have any suggestions for some good songs?) or talking to my mom on the phone in Korean when I rarely bust it out for shame.

Seeing Israelis and their overt nationalism makes me want to feel the same way about my dual nationality. Listening to Michelle Obama's and Hillary Clinton's and Ted Kennedy's speeches at the Democratic convention reminds me of the greatness America can foster amidst the States' growing unpopularity around the world and especially in the Middle East. Finding a Korean cultural center in the heart of Ben Yehuda street in Jerusalem makes me proud to be able to say that yes, I'm American, but my origins are from Korea.

Anyway, I was going to write more, but my computer is being really difficult with me and lagging insanely while making weird whirring noises like it's about to blow up. I have so much to write about especially after a long phone conversation with some sage words from a wise friend, but it's 2 am here, and I have to wake up in three hours because I'll be going hiking in the Galillee region in northern Israel tomorrow at the crack of dawn.

I'll also update some photos from a night perched on a wall in the old city (check out the red sultan pants!) and tonight's venture to the Jerusalem Beer Festival that felt more like a sedated rave with more drunk people than high people where I tried the strangest beer called "Leche del Diablo" from a company called the Dancing Camel. Can you guess why I tried it? Something Spanish and something Middle Eastern, what could be better?





















Two days later...
Tif, I mean to post this before I left for the weekend, but my computer was acting up (per usual), and I didn't have the patience to wait for it to restart again. I just got back home from a weekend trekking around the Golan Heights, and I will post about that tomorrow. I have Ulpan tomorrow morning, so for now, I'm just posting what I mean to post before I left.

Graduation from quizdiva

So in my spare time here, when I'm not writing a new blog entry or doing my Hebrew homework or eating pitas and hummous or running up and down the hills just outside of the dorms or trying in vain to watch scrubs and Family Guy episodes online or looking up scrumptious recipes for things I won't be able to make here because my kitchen is pitiful, I spend my idle time that I would normally spend flipping channels by reading the popular articles and blogs in the New York Times.

Remember those stupid (yet addictive) online quizzes on quizilla.com and quizdiva.com about who your perfect man is or whether you're a jealous ex or not? I used to spend valuable hours procrastinating on those websites finding out things about myself I already knew and taking quizzes that didn't even apply to my life like "Which Naruto character are you?"- I don't even watch that show for goodness sake.

Anyway, here's a bunch of links to some really great and insightful online quizzes that unfortunately will not be able to tell you what kind of flirt you are, but they're pretty valuable in their own way. Seriously, try them out: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/20/best-online-psychology-tests/?em

I took the "You just get me-self test", which did tell me mostly what I already knew about myself, but with a wittier perspective. And I'm about to take the personal biases test. I'm a little afraid to take the worst sounds test, but I'll let you know what happens if I can muster up the courage to hear fingernails on a chalkboard...oh God, I can't do it.

I'm also going to attach some more pictures because they spice up the text, and you can enjoy some of the sights to go along with the textualized experiences. The first is in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher of the tomb where Jesus' body lay. The second is self-explanatory. The third is of a taxi that looks like at some point in its tender life, was near the detonation of a bomb. Just a guess.

Finally, poll: Sean was complaining to me that my blog is not aesthetically pleasing. Does anyone else feel this way? Is my blog ugly? Is the color-scheme bothersome? I know Denise and I spent quite some time deciding on the colors, but I'm up for any suggestions. If I trash the blue background, what color should the background be? Don't say black-it's too azn.







Suggestions to my blog are greatly appreciated! Please comment! Even though I know all of four people read it.

My education really begins

I hope you've been enjoying my picture updates. This one's a doozy.

Tonight I will have been away from home for three weeks. I will have:

• done two loads of laundry
• eaten six falafel sandwiches, three shawarma wraps, around 150 calcium gummy bears (the recommended amount is two/ day-that should be only 42 since I’ve arrived, but I pop those things like candy)
• felt occasional bouts of homesickness
• experienced Tel Aviv nightlife
  
• swam in the Mediterranean twice
• gotten a tan I doubt will ever go away
• bought a pair of bright red and gold sultan pants that feel like a gauzy diaper (FINALLY!!!!)
• been frustrated by the lack of public transportation and nearby open grocery stores through three Shabbats
• learned basic conversational Hebrew “Mah nishmah?”
• finished two books (Stolen Lives by Malika Oufkir and Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortensen and David Oliver Relin, both of which I highly recommend)
• and generally, I’ve come to really enjoy being here-going to Ulpan, meeting new people, traversing into downtown’s fresh produce shouk in the chaos right before Shabbat, and discovering each quarter of the old city by stumbling into narrow alleys and suspicious archways.

I feel like these past three weeks have really flown by. Even though this place doesn’t really feel like home yet, it’s a strange, yet comforting feeling to know that I’m not just a temporary tourist, but I live here, and I have the next five months to make it my home.

After my post several days ago, I realized that what to me felt like an innocuous diary entry was actually very alarming to my family and close friends. I got several phone calls from various family members and worried friends and some really sympathetic emails reassuring me that I had all the support in the world, and that the loneliness and homesickness were easy hurdles to overcome, and nevertheless were all a normal part of being a new place. Thank you for all your concern, and thank you for the kind emails. Thank you for all the calls and for pledging to send me ramen. They’ve all really helped me remember why I’m here, and they’ve encouraged me to climb out of this rut and take this experience, all the good and the bad, head on.

So, I’ve been thinking a lot, why Israel? The overall reason why I wanted to come to Jerusalem in the first place was to experience life in the holy city; were the tensions really there? In fact, Israel was never on my list of places I wanted to go to; as a Middle Eastern studies major and a lover of Arabic, I thought I would be studying abroad in Cairo or in Amman or Beirut. Israel never even crossed my mind, until my mom’s friend suggested it, and I looked into the Hebrew University program. Even then, I was still unsure, but I decided it would be the most interesting choice because I would be able to hear the perspective of the Middle East’s social pariah and underdog. I wanted to hear its take on the development of modern Middle Eastern history and try to understand this side’s bias on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

The few Israelis I have talked to have been adamant-you do not enter the Arab areas including the Muslim quarter in the old city and the highly concentrated places in East Jerusalem (where the university campus is actually located-we’re right next to the West Bank) unless you are Arab or Muslim. When I ask why, they shake their heads in disbelief and say it is dangerous. I wonder how they can say this when they walk through the same university halls as Palestinians and Arab-Israelis, take the same classes, and drink coffee in the same university cafes. Maybe the university is a utopian no-fire zone for intellectual liberation, but otherwise an unrealistic bubble to a world where Muslims and Jews can co-exist but don’t dare intermingle.

More than Israelis, I’ve been able to talk with many American-Jews mostly from the big cities like Los Angeles, Chicago, Pittsburgh, and New York. From them, I’ve learned the most. For instance, having grown up in Los Angeles and always hearing about the influence of the powerful Israel lobby in Washington, I thought I could always safely assume that almost every white person I met must have been Jewish. I forgot how big America is, and that there was a whole lot of land and people in between Los Angeles and New York. I forgot that most of those people have not met a Jewish person once in their life, and most of those people are why George W. Bush has been our president, twice.

To me, Jewish included the more orthodox Jews I saw walking every Saturday to temple in Hancock Park and in Encino, and it also included the mostly secular Jews only by culture and their bar-mitzvahs at my high school. I thought Jews were always a significant presence in any community not because of their “jewishness”, but because of their wealth and power. So when I interned at a Middle Eastern cultural center two summers ago and learned more about the Arab-Israeli tensions, I immediately sympathized with the underdogs-the Palestinians, being bullied by the Israelis and mostly by the rich Jewish Americans funding the strong US-Israeli "special relationship".

for more information about this, read: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/12/AR2006071201627_pf.html

I never knew that Jews make up less than 1% of the world’s population, but in retrospect, it makes a lot of sense because Judaism is not a religion that encourages conversion and missionary work. It’s a religion and a culture for an exclusive group of people born into the community-“God’s chosen people” or what have you. I didn’t know that Jews were still discriminated and persecuted against even in college campuses and more “cultured” metropolises like Los Angeles and New York. I heard personal experiences by American-Jewish students here about having swastikas drawn on their mailboxes and garage doors, being attacked by pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli liberal fanatics at school to the point that the United States Supreme Court had to intervene in the UC system (http://www.zoa.org/sitedocuments/pressrelease_view.asp?pressreleaseID=897 & http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/1184 & http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull&cid=1207238156184 ), and having rocks thrown at them while walking from the Student Village to the university campus by young Palestinian boys.

This gives me a whole different side and perspective to the issue. I have always been more inclined to the Palestinian side. I’ve read books sympathetic to the Palestinian plight like Road to Martyrs’ Square and am currently reading Dishonest Broker. But now, I am more able to sympathize with the Zionist dream to have a homeland for the Jewish community to feel safe in. However, I’m still unconvinced by the methods of bringing about this safety at the expense of the Palestinian livelihood and liberty.

One side of the argument is that Israel gets a lot of flak for its human rights abuses, but no country-including the United States (Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib) is perfect in that respect, so Israel should not be unduly condemned for its treatment of Palestinians, and pro-Palestinians should not accuse pro-Israeli Jewish-Americans of cruelty under the pretense of human-rights. The other argument is that the Jewish occupation is causing a Palestinian tragedy in a form similar to apartheid; this is not just a human-rights abuse, this is a mass scale atrocity that some say hearken back to Nazi treatment of Jews in Germany. However, moderates on both sides will agree that pro-Palestinians should not retaliate against the Jewish community through violent means with or without adequate knowledge of the situation, and being pro-Palestine does not mean antisemitism; anti-Israel does not mean anti-Jew. Ultimately, the line of violence should never be breached, and extremists on both sides are wrong.

I’m really grateful that even in this short amount of time, I’ve been able to hear the other side of the story, even if it is just the beginning. It’s really surprising to me to hear that Jewish people in the states face hate crimes just like any other minority. But I think that even those hate crimes done to Jewish-Americans would have been done to any minority whether they be Muslim, Asian, Hispanic (even though they’re no longer in the minority in Los Angeles). Don’t get me wrong, I’m in no way dismissing or justifying these injustices. I still have to admit though, I think it’s far more difficult to be a Muslim or of Middle-Eastern descent anywhere in the world than it is to be Jewish these days.

A temporary distraction

I feel like my recent posts have not been very interesting or substantial, and I'm having trouble writing about things I hope will be entertaining or even worth reading. I have so much to write about and a million thoughts that I'm trying to keep track of, but I can't seem to get them into a coherent set of ideas yet.

So in the mean time, here are some more photos from yesterday's sauntering through the old city and today's Israeli museum exploration:

(ps. I can only seem to update 5 photos at a time.)

Here's that huge menorah I was talking about in my earlier post during the day time, and you can't see it in this picture's angle, but the kid in the blue hat has a gun in his lap.



















The next picture is taken in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher of the stone where supposedly Jesus' body was washed before his burial. The man bending over it was praying by it while rubbing his hands on it.














Here I am on the roof of the shouk/souk in the old city. You can see the Dome of the Rock and the Mount of Olives in the background. And check out all those satellite dishes! It's just like in Morocco where it's so bizarre to see ancient buildings adorned with the modern trinkets of satellite television.














We spent saturday afternoon at the only open museum in Jerusalem-the Israel Museum, and saw the Dead Sea Scrolls in the Shrine of the Book. The scrolls were in an underground cave sort of structure, and the white fountain behind us is the roof of the construction. The atmosphere of the museum exhibit is supposed to mimic the inside of the pots where the scrolls were found.














Have you ever seen those LOVE sculptures? This one is by the same artist with love in Hebrew. The placement of the sculpture against the blue sky and Jerusalem in the background reflect a spiritual, celestial love as well as the more earthly love. It's also cool because read from right down to left down, it says, "Ab" and "HaHa", which are also both names for God.

A quick photo update

Today I went hiking in the Judean mountains and explored some tombs and caves where in ancient times, people bred pigeons.








































Here we are catching the hazy sunset after battle crawling on our elbows and knees through the underground guerrilla tunnels used by the Judeans in the Second Revolt (Bar Kokhba revolt) against the Romans in 132-135 CE.

After a scrumptious dinner of shawarma in lafah and rugulah (which is this amazing chocolate pastry type dessert) on Ben Yehuda street, I took a midnight stroll to the old city around the Armenian and Jewish quarters. At the end of the night, I ended up at the Kotel-the Western/ Wailing Wall with hundreds of other people and families mostly there to pray and also walk around late at night.

The first time I went to the Kotel a few nights ago, I weaved my way through the crowded women's side of the wall (made even smaller by the placement of the bridge) to touch the stones worn smooth by so many pleading and awed hands. I saw various colored notes jammed into the nooks between the stones, which I later found out are people's notes to God or notes that one day a family member might find, if she were ever to come visit Israel. I stood amongst women mumbling their prayers and bobbing their heads in earnest and other women crying silently as they placed their foreheads on the stones. It was a very humbling sight and a manifestation of the beauty and comfort of faith.













This time, I sat far in the back facing the wall, and I observed the whole scene. The proximity of the Kotel and the al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock are surprising every time I see it.

It's unbelievable almost how close the religious sites are to each other-often times overlapping, like: the Dome of the Rock and the Temple Mount. There's even a huge menorah (ready to be placed in the Third Temple at the destruction of the Muslim holy sites) lit up in a glass case overlooking the hill directly across the green glowing minaret of the mosque.

Finally, after almost three weeks here, having navigated my way a few times around downtown and the old city, and having bought maybe one too many shawarmas and falafels, I feel like I'm finally here. By actually seeing soldiers in the streets toting around big rifles and guns like you wouldn't see a more normal sight in the world, and experiencing the city's history through it's atmosphere and sites and even the marks in the stones of the walls that were once bullet holes, I feel like the glass wall separating me on Mount Scopus and Jerusalem is finally vanishing.

Weekend in Tel Aviv

This first picture is actually the international arts and crafts festival in Jerusalem that featured artists from Indonesia to Madagascar and Korea (Fighting!) to Argentina. At the Korean booth, I found out that there's a Korean cultural center here in Jerusalem-visit their site at www.kccil.org. I also found this other blog, which is super interesting: http://www.filination.com/blog/2007/01/18/the-korean-center-in-jerusalem/. I'll have to contact the blogger soon.














Here we are at dinner at Benny the Fisherman's restaurant in Tel Aviv.

This was a really bizarre experience because this is the first time I ate like a true Israeli. We walked a good 45 minutes to the port from our hostel-in heels-to find this restaurant recommended by Lonely Planet as the best fish and seafood restaurant in Tel Aviv. (After having eaten there, I have great faith in Lonely Planet's recommendations and tips.) We arrived at 9:30 pm, which is normal for Israelis to eat dinner and were seated outside on the pier. When the waitress came and asked us what we wanted to eat, we had barely sat down and asked if there were menus. Her answer was a confused no as if she'd never been asked that before. Basically, if you want fish that night, you get whatever fish they caught that day, and so forth. I would definitely recommend the calamari, but everything they served that night was so fresh and minimal, though it felt like a feast.

Meanwhile, the many delightful servers came swooping around and dropping off huge baskets of rolls, 18 mini dishes of dips like three different kinds of baba ghanoush, tzatziki, and various pickled veggies, huge plates of salad, and these giant grilled eggplant doused in warm tahini. One server even came around dropping off random pieces of candy and sprinkling flower petals over our heads every time he came around. It also turned out that last night was the Israeli valentine's day, and goodness knows what five women out to dinner without boyfriends looked like.














We ordered one bottle of wine to celebrate a birthday, but after three hours, we somehow ended up with three empty bottles of wine on the table, two waiters joining us at our table trying to talk us into some hashish on the beach instead of salsa dancing, heart shaped balloons festooned on our chairs, two tastefully devoured desserts we never ordered, around seven unnecessarily large candles, and a red rose for each lady who was all of a sudden fluent in Hebrew (and/or Arabic).

We spent the rest of our weekend in Tel Aviv on the bustling beaches, lounging in the luscious sand and frolicking in the Mediterranean. But now I'm back in Jerusalem and am about to start my Hebrew homework because tomorrow another week of Ulpan awaits.

"Exotic is relative" - TJ

I've thought long and hard about whether or not I should write this post since it is a very personal subject.

I wasn't sure if it would make me feel uncomfortable that as a public blog, people I do not even know may be reading about my personal battles-something that I'm not usually inclined to publicize. But, I feel that despite the personal circumstances of this internal turmoil, this feeling and problem is universal, and I hope if anyone comes across this post during a similar feeling of unrest, that he/she may find comfort if only in the fact that someone else has felt and feels the same way.

Do you remember getting your license? Do you remember turning eighteen? Do you remember your high school graduation?

These phrases should automatically provoke feelings of joy, accomplishment, happiness, relief, excitement, what have you. Instead, I remember getting my license was not a big deal since I'd been driving around with my permit for a while . I remember turning eighteen was kind of cool just because I could legally buy cigarettes even though it was almost embarrassing showing my ID because I had barely turned eighteen. But eighteen felt just like seventeen and nineteen and ten for that matter, and I've since quit. And my high school graduation felt exciting because the parents were so happy, and we had this huge celebration and grad night on a boat. But I also remember thinking, "What now?" I graduated high school and instead of being ecstatic, I was wondering, "I've worked my butt off all these years, and I got into college, and this is it?"

And here I am in Jerusalem. And oh my God. I am so homesick. I've been beating myself up about this ever since I got here.

Why am I not more excited?

Why am I not more happy when the only thing I've really ever wanted in my whole life, when the goal motivating me is being fulfilled right now?

Why don't I wake up every morning and think, "Holy shit. I'm in Jerusalem. I'm walking on ancient land. The land that makes up most of ancient history. The place I've only dreamt about and couldn't even try to imagine just a few days ago."

Instead, I wake up, and I don't really feel anything. No sadness or anger, but no excitement or happiness either. I wake up at around 7 am every morning and get ready to go to Ulpan Hebrew class. The walk there has some really spectacular views of the old city, but I don't often find myself lost in them. Already, the golden dome is starting to lose its shine, and it's becoming more of a fixture in my daily life. I feel like maybe I've hyped up these moments so much that my expectations were just so unrealistic and intangible that now I'm disappointed.

But really, I feel like behind it all, I now understand why this whole trip thus far has been one long anti-climax riddled with unspeakable thoughts of giving up and going home. (Listening to Imogen Heap brings about sad and profound revelations.)

Studying abroad my junior year of college has been my main goal in life. Sure, getting into a good college was also an important goal, but I really feel as though college was another step, albeit an indispensable one, like graduating high school. It was just another step of many to my finally being able to travel and try to be one of those cosmopolitan intellectuals. These were my two biggest dreams. And here I am. Dream fulfilled.

Yet, where is the celebration? My heart is not rejoicing. Instead, it's filled with nostalgia for the summer and a loneliness reminiscent of my first year at Wellesley. Both of these feelings make sense in any situation similar to mine for any student or person leaving the comforts of home, but I never thought they would hit me this hard.

I believe that studying abroad in my mind, equals the culmination of all that I've worked for all my life. It signals the next level of my life. Over with this era and on with the next. And that means that I really need to grow up and move on. As independent as I act, I'm not really as mature or as independent as I want myself to be. I'm still clutching to the last strands of childhood as they're being tugged back into my past to rest.

I can grow up and move on and let them peacefully float away as fond memories. Or I can run away from this uncomfortable and unfamiliar situation and give up and go home and let them haunt me as specters in my present limbo.

I know what I need to do, but the scariest part is that this choice is not as easy for me as it should be.

edit: note-I'm not jaded. I will not go slit my wrists in private, now. It's still pretty cool that I'm here especially because I get to hear loud Arabic music blasting from cars zooming by. These were just some of my thoughts on growing up. In retrospect, that's all being put in difficult and different situations is. It's being forced to grow up for better or for worse. Mostly better.

Jerusalem - the holy city of coexistence?

What do you think of when you think of Jerusalem?

When I think of Jerusalem, two very conflicting ideas pop into my head. First, I imagine it as the sacred center of the world's most prominent religions. Then, I think of the summer blockbuster of 2005, Kingdom of Heaven. The part of me that thinks of it as a holy city provokes thoughts of peace and coexistence. On the other hand, I know this city has seen too many battles throughout the Crusades and the more recent battles between those who follow Allah, Jesus Christ, and Yahweh. According to our trusty friend Wikipedia, Jerusalem "has been destroyed twice, besieged 23 times, attacked 52 times, and captured and recaptured 44 times".

I hate to say it, but I definitely feel like there is a lot of censoring and self-censoring going on here. Sometimes I find myself goading people on and other times keeping my mouth shut because I don't want to say something controversial. I've been waiting for the politics to start coming out in conversations, and it's definitely there.

I found myself in the middle of an argument between a very pro-Israeli American Jew and another American Jew who was condemning the second-class citizenship of the Palestinians in Israel. I have yet to contribute to this conversation, and I think I will have a lot to contribute because I do know my history, but I only know it through books and not enough experience.

I've met people on this trip who swoon over and whip out their cameras every time they see an Israeli flag billowing in the wind, and other people who are here to get connections with NGOs and human rights groups to work for the Palestinian cause.

I've noticed that the cleaning and maintenance workers are only young Arab men, and I wonder what they think of the international students coming to study in Israel.

Yesterday, when I walked to the Arab area behind the Muslim quarter of the old city, my friend and I were the only tourists there, and I was surprised that everyone spoke perfect English. I thought that since it wasn't really a tourist spot, the merchants wouldn't have known as much English as they did. We were told by our madrichim not to venture that way, and to be wary of the Arab areas because the campus is located in East Jerusalem near the West Bank. It was also interesting because we never intended to find our way there, and it was more of an afternoon adventure made more exciting because going to the Arab areas is taboo. Also, after we came back and told our other friends where we'd been, they seemed disdainfully interested. And while driving with an Israeli tonight, he told me that it was not safe to drive the way I had walked to just the day before, and he said that as a Jew, it was prohibited. Then tonight, when I asked him to take me to the old city, he said it was dangerous because there were more Arabs in the old city at night. After my asking him why more Arabs meant more danger, he changed his explanation to the fact that we could get mugged because the streets are narrow and dim. Makes sense.

Most times, I feel like the terms of apartheid and segregation are exaggerated when it seems like Arabs and Jews and Christians and Armenians and everyone else living in Jerusalem are living next to each other and driving and honking down the same streets. It seems like the model of coexistence. La Convivencia of al-Andalus. Yet, at the same time, other moments like seeing the security fence or apartheid wall whatever you call it, make me seriously doubt this, and my own precautions in saying anything for fear of sounding ignorant or anti-Israel only exacerbate this confusion. And I wonder, how much propaganda am I being exposed to? Whose agenda am I falling into?

But, also, a friend of mine pointed out to me that pro-Israel does not mean anti-human rights. And I agree. One can be pro-Israel and still condemn discrimination against Palestinians. But, then that makes me wonder the expense at which Israel has been able to develop so quickly while the majority of Palestinians are mired in extreme poverty. I have so much to learn here.

Home Sweet Bomb Shelter

These are pictures of my room . Yes, I'm using my sleeping bag as my comforter-I figure I've been spoiled all my life with goose down and could use a little roughing it.





Here is my closet with a ton of shelves and a pretty decent mirror.

So, even though I'm living in the bomb shelter room, (the window and double doors are pretty intense), I'm not in some hole in the ground or a prison cell. I've tried making it more cozy with photos, but I think it could use more color.

Since I've been gone

It’s been almost five days since I’ve arrived in Israel. And even as I crane my neck out my window and see the holy old city spread out before me, it’s hard for me to believe that I’m actually here. Today, I followed the call to prayer out of the student village and spent the day walking through the Arab area behind the Muslim quarter in the old city and yesterday I pushed through the pre-Shabbat crowds to buy nectarines in the open market shouk. Right now, I can hear fireworks to celebrate the end of Shabbat. Every time I walk to Hebrew class and survey the view overlooking Jerusalem, the golden dome on the Dome of the Rock winks from the distance. Yet, I still feel as though I’m looking through a screen, and the whole experience is just surreal.

Getting here was more difficult than I anticipated, and I think it was my just desserts for being lazy and a procrastinator during my last days in LA. I hadn’t prepared myself mentally for a new, different experience as well as I usually do because I was busy basking in my lazy summer days.

As I did my usual last minute packing Saturday morning and afternoon and said my last farewells to friends and family, my mind wasn’t really ready to leave the comforts of familiarity, and I was so angry with myself. I sat waiting for my red-eye flight and wondered why I wasn’t more excited to go to Jerusalem, and why I had worked so hard all the past year just to feel such an anti-climax.

It got better. I flew to Las Vegas for my two hour layover and tried to read amidst a background cacophony of casino arcade game type brrrings and consequently tried to entertain myself by trying to distinguish the freshly arrived from the exhausted, debauchery-spent veterans by their glinting eyes and waxen, jaded faces. Las Vegas is clearly not my favorite place even if I’m just in the airport.

I finally arrived in Newark early in the morning and skillfully maneuvered my way to the right gate like only seasoned travelers do. Imagine this: I was about to get onto an elevator, when I realized I was already on the right floor. So, as I tried to roll my huge bags in time to avoid being squished by the unforgiving doors, a rogue wheel somehow got stuck, and I watched, horrified from the bottom floor as one of my bags went up with the glass lift just in time to the overhead announcement not to leave any bags unattended. Was this karma? What had I done the past twenty four hours to deserve this?

I promise; it gets better. I found the group flight and introduced myself to several other Hebrew U students, as almost the whole flight was made up of students. I finally got my ticket and was then informed to immediately go to a different gate than indicated on my ticket so my carry-on bags could be inspected. Turns out, there were about 20 other students who were told to do the same. We all had neon pink bands on our luggage as opposed to the green tags, our own scarlet letter. We were all non-Jews. One of us was even interrogated as to what her favorite Jewish holiday was. She explained she was not Jewish. Then she was again asked what her favorite Jewish holiday was. Collectively, we delayed the plane about an hour, and as each lucky candidate was called to pick up his/her bags and get on the flight, the rest of us sheepishly smiled at each other and silently hoped that we just wouldn’t be the last one called.

I was the last one called. When my name was finally called, I was led into a room where I was asked to take off my sweater and slightly pull down my pants as my cuffs and seams were patted down and run over with a metal detector. I was in that room for 20 minutes with ten security personnel. They finally gave me my bags but told me that my computer was a security threat. I could not take it with me on the flight.

Here is an excerpt from my personal journal that I wrote soon after this incident:

“I was traumatized and upset and insulted and frustrated. I called my mom as soon as I walked on to the plane amid angry stares as I was the last one to board the hour delayed flight. I had bitten back my tears because I didn’t want to show the security guards that I was weak, and so with all the dignity I could muster, I walked out of the security room with my head exaggeratedly held high and dared anyone to approach me. But per usual, as soon as I heard my mom’s voice on the other end of the receiver, I started bawling, and the flood of tears just poured forward. I’m okay now. I’m excited again…I feel like despite this horrible start, I’ll be okay”.

Lessons learned:

1) From mom: this happens all the time to other people. Arab-Americans, Persian-Americans, Muslims in general. Random check is about as random as racial profiling. Now I have the experience to empathize. she told me to remember this moment and this awful feeling, and in the future, work to make sure no one has to suffer this injustice again.

2) It took a while for me to figure this out, but I think I understand why out of the hundreds of other students who had their laptops in their carry-on luggage, only mine was singled out as a bomb threat. Before you go on a plane, just as a safety precaution for your own sake and sanity, remember to turn off your wireless internet switch. I think this might be why my laptop was deemed suspect.

On the flight, a girl sitting next to me told me she was sorry that I had such an awful experience and that this experience wouldn't be indicative of the treatment I would receive in Israel. She told me that the worst was over, and I really felt better. I was on the plane, I was thousands of feet above the ground, and I deserved to be there as much as the next person.

It was already getting better.


next episode:
how can any country function without the organized systems and efficiency demands that are so prevalent in the United States? Has anyone else felt this way in their travel abroad experiences? Explain!

for you faithful fans..

hello friends!

this will just be a very quick update on things going on here in Jerusalem so your fluttering hearts will be put to rest. Yes, I am in Jerusalem. Yes, I have gotten here safe and sound. No, don't fly El Al. Yes, I have been happy, well fed on hummus and pita bread and relatively safe.

I only get sporadic internet connection outside of my time spent on the university campus, and I'm usually only on campus for my morning to afternoon intensive Hebrew classes. Most of the time, I am trying to connect to/ steal random wireless networks belonging to such characters under the names of: "mayoz144", "tzvika", "sheepcowpig" and my personal favorite, "RUSSIA FOREVER".

friends, I miss you all! I hope you're doing well and enjoying the last few days of summer.

I've met lots of really different and interesting people here from all over the states and all over the globe. In the past few hours alone, I've met a Russian from Moscow, a Canadian from above the Great Lakes, a girl from Utrecht, Holland (I have no idea what you call people from Holland, I'm so sorry for my ignorance) and a Palestinian Turk from San Francisco. I've heard conversations all around in Hebrew, English, Arabic, French, Russian, Spanish, Chinese, you name it!

This will be it for now because it's getting cold out and my butt is freezing under my shorts on this very uncomfortable metal bench. I have a lot to update you on, and I hope you'll be able to keep up once the floodgates are opened.

Also, please comment on my posts and tell anyone who might be interested this link because I want to know your reactions to my reactions, and we can discuss and debate and be multi-culturally sensitive together.

And don't take my phone message personally. MISS YOU