11.25.06

I'm Back

Here I am earlier today while playing conquistador on Mt. Carmel (I think), which extends all the way down from Haifa. It was a really nice Shabbat hike, with great views & company alike. Here’s a shot of the kibbutz’s banana fields, through which we had to traverse to reach the mountain base. This place produces a ton of bananas… big ones.

I have no good excuse for neglecting to update this site for… two months? Please have some patience as I attempt to reform my ways. As far as events go, there’s still not much new to report, except that I’ve started looking at pre-med post-bac programs. But that’s boring.

Hebrew classes are OK. Still uninspiring. That said, I’ve gotten into some outside studying that seems to help, at least for vocab. Part of the kibbutz ulpan deal is that we write a test at the end of the course… The Jewish Agency owns this ulpan, it turns out, and demands results. My teacher’s started making a fuss about it, encouraging us to prepare, etc, but most of us ulpanists could care less. Almost everyone (including me) sounds ready to move on from this place come the end of December.

And I have some great things to look forward to. My parents will be flying in from Turkey about the time we finish the kibbutz ulpan, along with my old friend Aaron, and I’ll get to show these folks around a bit (as far as my Hebrew / geography skills will let me). Vanessa comes next, and we’ll be touring around together until mid-Jan, at which point I’ll get to travel solo until I begin volunteering for Magen David Adom – the Israeli Ambulance Corps – about four weeks later. I think that my brother Ed may also visit during all of this, thanks to the BirthRight program.

Incidentally, my friend James and I took a really nice trip down to Jerusalem last weekend to visit some friends on Shabbat. Somehow most of the folks we met up with are studying at a liberal yeshiva called Pardeis, where they can study anything Jewish they want… as long as it’s Torah or Talmud. So conversation with these people, esp. when they’re all together, tends to revolve around things I’ve never heard of. But that was OK, and James & I spent most of our time consuming tasty Shabbat meals anyway. Seriously, we ate a Ton that weekend.

While in J-town I also attended my first Sephardic service in a hole-in-the-wall synagogue perched a few hundred yards from my friends’ place. I observed Shabbat last weekend probably more conscientiously than I have ever observed it before. Definitely couldn’t have done it without at little help from my [Pardeis] friends, though, and probably won’t repeat it until their help returns. The final highlights of the weekend were running into two old friends – Julie Nemerovsky and Nicole Luna. Nicole, I can’t believe you’re engaged… and that you’ll be a rabbi in two years. Engaged. Yikes.

So I can beat my computer in chess, almost every time. I’m resisting dropping $20 for the upgrade I need to play on harder levels. This isn’t the only example of my latest stinginess: Before setting foot on USA soil, I already feel the expenses accruing. I am trying to prepare, mentally, for being in debt for the next decade or so. It will be a bitch.

A short reflection on Israeli politics. Everyone here is tired of the government and everyone in it. That includes more than just PM Olmert and Defense Sec Peretz (who has no business serving as Defense Sec). In the old days, PMs resigned if they failed to perform in times of crisis. See Golda Meir after the Yom Kippur War. Menachem Begin resigned even after forging peace with Egypt. Yitzhak Rabin resigned (to end his first term in the 70’s) after a scandal emerged around his wife. The current government contains at least two high-ranking members under investigation for sex crimes, an incompetent Defense Secretary and a PM who appears to be stuck in the mud. And people are hanging onto their posts desperately, as if stepping down would be a major faux pas. There are a thousand questions are being asked in this country, and no one in government can provide an answer that people will stand behind. Meanwhile, check out the wall that Israel’s building around the West Bank…

Maybe we’ll live to see images of Israelis and Palestinians tearing down this wall, someday. But I’m not counting on it.

On a final note, Shawn of the Dead is hilarious – at least, the 2/3 that I saw are. I recommend it to everyone who can stomach uproarious geysers of fake zombie blood splurting in a thousand directions, all the time. Peace.