Beach Weekend March 30, 2008

This weekend was basically the most relaxing weekend ever.  Last Monday we just sort of decided we would go to Tel Aviv for the weekend, and it was amazing.  Four of us left campus early Friday morning.  It was even early enough that the bus stations was pretty empty.  We had timed our leaving perfectly to be able to arrive in Tel Aviv exactly at 12:30, check in time at the hostel.  Of course our room wasn’t ready yet.  So we walked to a little cafe which we had eaten at last time we were in Tel Aviv, and it was just as good as we remembered.  We then returned to the hostel, got our room, got ready for the beach, and then walked the one block (!) from our hostel to the beach.  We spent the rest of the afternoon at the beach until the combination of the setting sun and the ocean breeze made it a little too cold.  We headed back to the hostel to shower and then all ended up taking naps because we were so tired from the week and the sun at the beach.

 

That night we went to dinner at this little bar/cafe.  It was a really great atmosphere.  It was, of course, recommended by my guidebook, and it was just as fun as promised.  They were setting up for a live music performance right as we were leaving, but at that point we were ready to just head home.  We ended up taking a walk all the way up and down the beach (about a mile each way).  It was just a really nice stroll, very relaxing.  Then we returned to the hostel to prepare for the next part of the day.  We went to the Max Brenner’s in Tel Aviv.  For those of you that don’t know, Max Brenner’s is a chocolate restaurant (although they’ve begun to serve a bit of real food too).  It is so amazingly delicious and I would definitely recommend a trip to one of the restaurants in America.  We shared a sampler plate, but we all agreed the warm crepe filled with loads of chocolate was the best.  We were planning to go out after dessert, but we were just so full and tired we went home to sleep.

 

We got an early start on Saturday because we had to check out of the hostel at 10:30.  We went out to the beach by our hostel until about 2pm.  Then we walked a little farther north along the shoreline to a restaurant on the beach.  It was so fun to sit in beach chairs under an umbrella and eat lunch, while being able to squish your toes in the sand.  Afterwards we headed out to the beach right by the restaurant and just lay on chairs until it got cold again.  At around 5pm we brushed off and headed towards the mall near our hostel (since we had already checked out).  We sat around for a while, sort of all staring off into space and then we headed back to the hostel to change out of our swimsuits, get our stuff, and head to the bus station.

 

By the time we were at the bus station, the relaxation portion of the weekend had already started to wear off.  We were all getting nervous and antsy about the immense amount of work we have.  But it was still a really great weekend.

The Supreme Court and Random Pictures March 27, 2008

In my Israeli Legal System Class took us on a short field trip to the Israeli Supreme Court. The trip was kind of cool, there were some highlights, but for the most part, it wasn’t that exciting. On the other hand I know a lot about the architecture of the building. The building has three contrasting themes, which were actually visible to the normal visitor (me): inside and outside, old and new, lines and circles. The Supreme Court of Israel has fourteen justices and justices sit in a panel of three for most cases, or larger panels for more complicated or important cases. A cool thing is that any Israeli can just walk in and sit for as long or as short as they want to view a case. We got to see a case that the President of Court was presiding over and one of the other justices was the first Arab justice.

A view from the window of the building:

The smallest of the 5 courtrooms

An inner courtyard (with lines and circles & old and new)

Some pictures from my daily walk to campus:

British World War I Cemetery

Lookout over the Old City

Cool purple tree in the cemetery

Road to campus

Israel’s endangered flower…grows best in dry dirt (so the whole country, and it’s illegal to pick them)

Some pictures from the Old City on Purim

Purim Extravaganza March 24, 2008

Last week began with a really great visit on Sunday with my grandparents. They are in Israel for an elder hostel and I had lunch with them and then spent time with them before the program began. I really enjoyed the visit and it was nice to be able to tell someone about the goings on of my semester in context.

It’s important to preface this with the fact that it is a commandment to get so drunk you can’t tell the difference between the phrases “blessed is Mordechai” (the hero) and “cursed is Haman” (the antagonist).

Tuesday was the beginning of the crazy Purim extravaganza. The Office of Student Activities hosted a Purim party. There were people on stilts, belly dancing and one dancer who had a baton with fire. It was a pretty cool night. Wednesday was a bit of a break from Purim as I have class the entire day. Thursday night we went to a Megillah reading in the Great Synagogue. It was okay, nothing too special considering how immense the synagogue is. The congregation appeared to be almost all American immigrants. Thursday night we went out to Ben Yehuda street for a truly Israeli experience. People were just out in the street with a bunch of bottles of alcohol, serving themselves. It was absolutely packed with people just standing around, enjoying Purim. In one area there were a bunch of religious Jews with a speaker system and DJ and they were attempting to get people to dance with them.

Friday night was much more relaxed. My friend and I had a low-key Shabbat dinner. Saturday was also really relaxed. I thought about doing homework, but took a nap instead. Later I gave my room a much needed cleaning. Saturday night two of my friends and I went out to a late dinner to get sushi. We were going to check on this street party downtown, but instead we decided to go back to the dorms. The campus bar was hosting a party just in the courtyard between two of the dorm buildings. It was absolutely crazy.

Sunday was again pretty low-key. Classes were canceled for Purim. We went to a Purim meal in the Old City at 4:30. The meal was completely insane. It was hosted by this guy who runs a bunch of religious programs for college students throughout the country. My friends and I stayed pretty sober, but most of the guys there were definitely fulfilling the commandment.

All in all it was a pretty fun weekend. It’s kind of sad that we are now back in classes and back on a normal schedule. Also a note, this weekend was a crazy heatwave in Israel. Even in Jerusalem (which is in the mountains) it was 96 degrees on Saturday. Yesterday and today are both highs of 90. Luckily the high is supposed to go down to 80 tomorrow.

Shabbat, Tsfat, and the Mystical Kabbalists March 17, 2008

This weekend, I went with three of my friends to a secret Chabad house in Tsfat.  The hostel didn’t outwardly advertise it’s connection to Chabad, but as the lectures began it was clear that it was basically a Chabad house in hiding.

 

We began the weekend with the usual bus trip.  The bus was supposed to leave at 3:12, but it didn’t arrive at the stop until 3:55.  Then we stopped twice at rest stops.  We didn’t get into Tsfat until around 8:00pm.  By then we were all starving.  Luckily, the hostel put some leftovers from dinner out for us toi eat.  It wasn’t my favorite food but at that point we weren’t really in a position to complain.  Afterwards we went to our first two lectures on studying Kabbalah.  They were actually really interesting, and I didn’t feel my usual annoyance at religious lectures which manage to offend people.  The main point which I took out of those two lectures was that a sense of entitlement deprives us of joy we might receive every day. 

 

The next morning we were scheduled to go on a nature hike.  I was already planning to skip because I wanted to do some shopping in Tsfat.  My friends weren’t initially sure what they wanted to do.  But that morning it was rainy, cold, and pretty gross out.  So everyone decided to join in on the tour and shopping trip.  We started out by going to an artist specializing in Kabalah art, then to a Judaic bookstore.  We saw a Davidka mortar left from the war in 1948.  The mortar doesn’t shoot anything, but it makes a lot of noise so the Arabs thought the Jews had way more firepower than they did in actuality.  Then we walked down this crazy long staircase in order to get the synagogue district.  The staircase was built by the British as a definite separation between the Arab and Jewish sides of the city.  We went to the Tsfat candle store, just to make sure we fulfilled the tourist quota for the weekend. 

 

Davidka Mortar

 

 

Grossest day of all time

 

 

Staircase

 

 

After we tried to visit a bunch of synagogues, but only one ended up being open, the Ha’Ari Ashkenazic Synagogue.  The synagogue is named for Rabbi Isaac Luria, given the nickname Ha’Ari.  Luria was a rabbi in the 16th century in Tsfat and was considered the foremost scholar on Kabalistic thought.  The synagogue is located on a former apple orchard he would visit with his disciples.  There are really only two interesting features of the synagogue.  The first is the ark, which took sixteen years to hand-carve in Italy and then was shipped to Tsfat.  The second is more exciting.  At one point during a war (I forget which), shrapnel was continually being blown everywhere.  During one prayer service, someone bowed and a piece of shrapnel flew right over his head.  The hole was never repaired and serves as a reminder of the miracle.

 

    

 

After we headed to a little cafe in the old city for lunch.  The cafe was in my guidebook (of course) and it was absolutely delicious.  It was literally three little tables and two women and in regular house-sized kitchen.  While we were eating lunch they were even baking muffins, which we then were forced to have for dessert.  We then wandered around the synagogue quarter a bit more, going into a bunch of stores when the rain got heavier.  After it got nicer, we headed down to the Tsfat cemetery.  Ha’Ari is buried there, as well as Shlomo Alkabetz (the writer of the prayer Lecha Dodi).  Also buried there are students who were massacred by the PLO after a hostage situation (which we learned about in another class).  After, we had to hike all the way back up to the top of the hill, only about 260 steps to the top.  Then back to the hostel for a quick nap before Shabbat.

 

Cute little kitchen

 

View of the cemetery

 

View half-way up the mountain

 

Another view up the mountain

 

 

Shabbat was pretty relaxed.  We went to services friday night.  They somehow lasted over 2 hours, and the pulled us out early to take us to our families for shabbat dinner.  My friends and I got placed with this really nice family.  We ended up staying until about 11:30pm just sitting and talking.  After there was a bit of a lecture with a “famous” rabbi.  It was a bit offensive, but they fed us, and we left early, so it was okay.  The next morning we slept through services and got up for lunch at noon.  Lunch was of course accompanied by another lecture with the offensive rabbi.  Again, we left early and took a great Shabbat nap.  At 4:00 we went on a tour of Tsfat with the same person who gave the lectures Friday night.  The tour was very interesting, but it was really windy out, so we were all freezing.  We then rushed back to the hostel for a light dinner.  Afterwards, my friends and I packed up and went to the bus station for the trip back home.

Contact Info March 12, 2008

I realize I’ve forgotten some very crucial information, my contact info.  My address in Israel is:

 

Amanda Rudman c/o One Year Program

Rothberg International School

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Office of Student Activities

Boyar Building, Mount Scopus

91905 Jerusalem

ISRAEL

Weekend in Tiberias…Away From the Madness March 10, 2008

After a brief delay Thursday afternoon, two of my friends and I headed down to the central bus station to get the bus to Tiberias.  The bus was no where near as crowded as the bus to Tel Aviv had been, so already the weekend started off much more relaxed.  Of course there was some sort of traffic (rumored to be caused by a soccer game) so it took us over an hour just to get out of Jerusalem.  The whole trip is supposed to take about 3 hours normally, so this was not a welcome delay.  We finally got into Tiberias at around 8:20.  So we ran to our hostel, checked in, threw our bags down, and ran out again in order to make a 9:00 dinner reservation.  We had dinner at Pagoda, a Kosher Chinese/Thai restaurant.  The food wasn’t as good as American Chinese food, but it’s still really exciting to be able to eat meat out. 

 

Of course, as soon as we ordered our food, one of my friends called to tell us about a shooting that had happened in a yeshiva in Jerusalem.  Immediately, we all got out our phones and called our parents to let them know we were alright and we were away from Jerusalem for the weekend.  About fifteen minutes later I got a call from a Cornell staff person in Jerusalem saying there was a bombing in Jerusalem.  And about five minutes after that one of my friends got a call from the US saying there had been a shooting at another yeshiva.  By this point the three of us were starting to get pretty nervous.  It wasn’t until after we finished dinner and got back to the hostel that we were able to watch the news and see that there had been only one attack.  Either way, the news was incredibly difficult to deal with.  First of all, this attack was completely unexpected.  Usually, when something like this happens, there’s already been a warning sent out by the Israeli Government (sort of like the American color-coded alert system).  This time there was no warning.  Second, everyone was expecting unrest from the protests scheduled for Friday, so no one was prepared for something Thursday night.

 

We were all sort of shaken up and went to bed pretty soon after we got back to the hostel.  The next day we woke up prepared for a relaxed day of tourism.  We started off heading towards Rambam’s tomb.  However we got distracted by the rows of stores we were passing and just had to go in and do some shopping.  We did finally reach Rambam’s tomb.  It’s a really pretty complex and includes a couple of other tombs.  One of them was Yochanan Ben Zakai.  He was carried out of Jerusalem in a coffin during the Roman siege in the first century.  Then there are some other parts of the story I don’t remember and he was able to found his own school.

 

Views from the porch of our hostel room.

 

The complex of tombs

 

Yochanan Ben Zakai’s Tomb:

 

Rambam’s Tombs:

 

Then we walked around to find a place for lunch.  We ended up a little Italian place.  We were able to sit out on their balcony because the weather was amazing.  It was about 85 degrees out both days.  After we walked around the by the water and found a cute little gelato place.  We then found a cab and drove out to the ruins on the outskirts of town.  The archeological excavations include the original hot springs of Tiberias, what is considered the original entrance to the city, and a synagogue from 3rd-5th c. CE.  The site was really pretty, and also included a bath house from Turkish times.

 

The old entrance to the city:

 

A bimah from the “new” synagogue

 

Mosaic from the old synagogue:

 

Complete view of the old synagogue:

 

Turkish bath for the public:

 

Private bath for the wealthy:

  

 

We would have walked back to the hostel, but because of the heat we took a cab.  We then waited to be picked up by my family friend who lives on a Moshav nearby.  We had a really amazing Shabbat.  We slept a lot, ate a bunch of real food, and just had a great time.  After Shabbat was over we took a bus back to Jerusalem.  The ride was much shorter.  Though the heat on the bus was broken and was cranked way up even thought it was 80 degrees out.  So it was a bit toasty.  But other than that, nothing too exciting.

It Just Got Real March 6, 2008

The second week of classes has been pretty boring.  One of my classes got dropped, so I had to choose another.  Now I’m in a class on the Israeli Legal System instead of Emergence to the Israelite Monarchy.  The class isn’t too exciting but one of my friends is in it.  On the other hand my class on Iran is already proving to be a pain.  The professor got confused what day the class was so he had to end the class 40 minutes early last week.  So now he has decided that he will add 10 minutes on to every class for the next 4 weeks until we catch up on our lost time.  Or he generously offered that we could skip our 15 minute break (in a 3 1/2 hour class) and make it up that way.  I’m not a fan.

 

Anyway.  As you may have noticed, violence is increasing in Gaza Strip and on the Israeli border.  I heard it isn’t getting much play in the American media, but it is all consuming over here.  On Monday there was a political protest outside the gates of the campus and they stopped letting people into the school at one point.  Although it was the most organized protest I’ve ever seen.  The Israelis were on one side of the street and the Palestinians were on the other.  Traffic was still inching through and there were police everywhere.  I stayed on the outskirts but I managed to get some pictures.

 

I was speaking with one of my Israeli friends, and he provided some insight into the current Israeli thinking.  His is only one opinion, but I’ve heard many others like it.  He was saying that many Israelis believe a full war will be declared soon by Israel.  As with any country, they cannot continue to have their citizens attacked daily by rockets.  This would mean that many reservists will be called up, including a lot of my friends.

 

The next day we heard that rockets had begun falling on Ashkelon.  One of my friends lives there and had gone home for the weekend so we called him immediately.  It turned out a rocket had landed under his family’s car while it was parked in front of the house.  No one was hurt, but it really shook everyone up.  That’s just not something that I’m prepared to digest.

 

Once he was back in Jerusalem he told us that a rocket fell about 15m from his brother while he was skateboarding.  He was really lucky because he was out in the open and there was nowhere to take cover.  Later so many rockets were falling the family had gone into the shelter nearest to them.

 

This whole thing is just really insane.  And even know Condoleezza Rice is here trying to discuss peace with both sides.  It’s just absolutely crazy to think about.  I don’t even have words to describe the whole situation because it’s just not something I know how to comprehend.