Category: Current Affairs

JERUSALEM DIARY 2.0: DAY TWELVE TEL AVIV DAY TWO

Tav_breakfast_cafe_4
Breakfast in our little cafe surrounded by locals with dogs and newspapers.  This is a wonderful neighborhood – the kind people move into until those who created it have to go someplace else because it’s become too expensive.  You can see it happening all around us.  But it’s fun for now and the Mediterranean is literally five or six blocks away. 

On our way out we passed this noodle stand  — I guess these people want fresh ones for Shabbat soupNoodles_for_shabbat_vertical

Recruiting_organ_donorsThese kids in the Carmel Market are canvassing to get people to sign up as organ donors.  In Israel it is still difficult to convince people to participate because of Halachic rules about burial.  Much has been done to change the rules, but the squeamishness has not abated.  They were charming kids, and very committed to this issue –  and they had quite a stack of cards of new registrants to the organ bank here.

It’s almost Shabbat so my post for tomorrow is written and ready; this is the last one from here.  I’m hoping we can go tonight to the beach for the drums that welcome Shabbat then to our friends for Shabbat dinner.

JERUSALEM DIARY 2.0 – DAY NINE — PHOTO ALBUM DAY

Today was our last day of classes – thrilling both at Pardes and the Ulpan.  We got a funny little certificate from our Ulpan teachers – here we are with Shira – who taught us most of the time.
Graduation_photo_1
I was really sad to leave; it’s been so exciting for me to finally at least understand the alphabet and a flash card pile of new words.  I never thought it would happen and am enormously grateful – I never thought I’d do this — but also very fond of the crew who taught us.

After class we went down to the Old City.  Here’s some of what we saw:
SUNSET AT YEMEN MOSHE, OLD CITY ROOFTOP EFFORTS TO QUIET A FUSSY BABY, FINDING THEIR WAY – NEAR JAFFA GATE, FINDING THEIR WAY NEAR DAVID’S TOWER

Sunset_over_yemen_moshe_2

Fussy_baby_3_tall  Fussy_baby_2_tall_4

Lost_pilgrims_in_the_old_city_8

Tourists_lost_near_davids_tower_2

OK.  More tomorrow – onward to Tel Aviv – the Blue State to Jerusalem’s Red – at least 15 degrees warmer and the mirror opposite of this. 

JERUSALEM DIARY 2.0 DAY SIX: LEARNING HEBREW ON A SUNDAY IN JERUSALEM

Cafe_hillel_security_1_blurHere’s your security photo for today – a little blurry-artsy because I took it through a window at Cafe Hillel on Emek Rafaim late Saturday night.  Most of the men who do restaurant and store security prefer not to be photographed so I’ve been shooting through windows while at a table inside. A friend who reads this blog has, a couple of times, emailed me to remember that the guards are here to keep us safe.  I think she believes I’m complaining by posting these daily photographs.  On the contrary – I just want to show you what it is like to be an Israeli in 2007.  This is the least of it but it’s so universal and so visible that it seems a good example.  So.
Now on to today.
OrlyThis is Orly Ganor, the founder of Ulpan-Or, the extraordinary school where we’re learning Hebrew.  A charismatic visionary, she’s created a very exciting way to learn the language (that includes audio – and a very positive attitude) and we’re really benefiting from it.  We’ve worked with her and several other young women who are stunning as people and teachers. 

Today Shira Carmel, who will be the Ani deFranco of Israel very soon, taught both Rick and me. She demonstrated that in the right hands, even the alphabet can be fun. It’s difficult to learn a new alphabet at my age, but she showed me something quite valuable about learning to read and although it’s been partially debunked, most of it emerges from "urban legend" to probably true.  If you read a paragraph where only the first and last words are accurately spelled you still make sense of it intuitively because you know the words.  When you learn a new alphabet you can’t skim along like that or you make mistakes (which was what I was doing, big  time) because you can’t trust any of your assumptions of what the next word, or even letter, will be.  She convinced me to really sound out each one.  I discovered that after several tragic failures at trying to learn to read this ancient language I MAY actually do it!  I’m irrationally excited about it.

ONE MORE THING – Because – as usual on this trip – I’m really really (really) tired!  I’ve written quite a bit here about Mea Shearim and forgot to post this picture of a sign in the window of a tiny story there.  So here it is.  More tomorrow.
Mea_shearim_sign

JERUSALEM DIARY 2.0: DAY THREE ***EMERGENCY CORRECTION *** SOTAH AND PUNISHMENT***

Images1_2In yesterday’s post I wrote, about the trial and punishment mandated for the wife suspected of adultery, "Basically,it seems that asking a woman accused of adultery to stand before God to be judged (the only time God concerned Himself in this way with the laws of men), to drink water mixed with dirt from the Temple floor and the ashes of the burned paper accusing her, and then to wait to see if her belly swelled up or not (yes was a sign of guilt) seems to subjecte her to something both terrifying and humiliating.  But once past that, even if she was guilty, there was no physical punishment, only a mandated divorce – and her lover was also punished." 

LeahnachmanitovaMy wonderful teacher, Tovah Leah Nachmani, read my blog(!!!) and noted gently that:
you wrote that no harm befalls her if she is guilty, after drinking the waters.  but that isn’t the case.

1.  if she confesses guilt before drinking the waters, then no harm befalls her and her partner in crime, but she and her husband divorce. and she can’t marry the partner.

2. but if she drinks the waters and is found guilty, she suffers the deforming of her body, or- according to other commentators -death, and so does her partner suffer either deforming or death.
in addition (if she doesn’t die) she is divorced from her husband.

3. one last point: if her husband is also guilty of any sexual offenses, even if the wife is guilty, the waters do not harm her.

So.  I stand corrected and apologize.  I was so tired; she had indeed taught us about the deformity but I just plain forgot.  I’m grateful for the chance to fix it – it’s important.

Oh and here are your security photos for today:
Security_guy_lunch2At the place where we had lunch, and

Security_joythe place where we had dinner.

I hope you’re getting the idea; it’s a part of life here to guard against terrorism in a way that affects every person, every minute, every day.  It’s a brave place.

More trip diary tomorrow before Shabbat.  Erev Tov.

JERUSALEM DIARY 2.0 – DAY ONE: LIVING WITH SECURITY -EVERY MINUTE, EVERY DAY

Flowers_and_city_wall_2_9This is the Jerusalem we all love to imagine, and there’s plenty of it that’s just like that.  Usually, that’s where we spend most of our time — biblical Jerusalem.  It’s thrilling.

This time, though, we’re here to study, and for the first time, instead of staying in a hotel, we’re in an apartment in a real neighborhood (Bak’ah for those of you who know it).  We arrived this afternoon after flying from 5 PM Monday DC time through to 2:30 PM Tuesday Jerusalem time.  That’s a total of 14.5 hours with the layover in Frankfurt.  So, exhausted and eager to get to bed, we spent the evening wandering around the neighborhood instead of going immediately to the Old City as we have in the past.

Supermarket_securityWe needed coffee, milk and some other things so we stopped first at the supermarket just blocks from our "house."  But guess what?  Before we could get inside, we were stopped at the door, my bag was searched and we were sort of assessed before entering.  Nicely, matter-of-factly, but for real.  I took this photo of the security guys on the sly, that’s why it’s so blurry.  But there you are.  Need apple juice?  Prepare to have the diaper bag searched.

SaladsRestaurantBags in tow, we went on to dinner at a wonderful grill/salad place.  There are photos of both the salads and the place on the left, but guess what?  Before we could go in we had to check in with the guard at the entrance.  He asked me not to take his picture, but he was there.  Hungry?  Meeting friends for coffee?  Prepare to be checked out not by the cuties at the next table, but by the guard at the door.

Mall_securityWandering around after dinner, we found a sweet coffee place.  Everyone was sitting outside; the traffic was buzzing by beyond the sidewalk, the coffee was great and we were in a great place – living a neighborhood life in another country — one of particular importance to us.  But guess what?  The coffee place is part of a local mall, along with a drugstore and some not-very-expensive (almost cheap) apparel stores.  And guess who were sitting outside the doors, on stools, on the sidewalk?  Yup – security guards.  A quick check of our bags of coffee and bottled water, and of my back pack, and we were good to go.  But there you are.  Going for diapers or hand lotion?  Prepare to be searched at the door.

I’m not writing this to complain.  Today I just felt, in a different way, what it’s like to live here.  Whatever your politics, the idea of a people so under siege that no grocery store or bowling alley or retail mall can exist without security guards checking everyone who enters, is creepy and sad.  I know, I know, a grave portion of our globe is at some kind of risk. And I’d probably react the same way witnessing their struggles.  But this is where I am, this is where I’ve come to study, this is where I look into the eyes of mothers in the baby food aisle and old ladies squeezing tomatoes and crews of students buying up unthinkable quantities of fast food.  And as they move through their lives, relief from their sense of danger, of vulnerability, is possible, sustainable, only until the next time they walk out the front door.  And that’s a hell of a way to live.

AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH AND OUR FUTURE

ImagesOK.  So I’m way behind a lot of people – including the Oscars voters, in finally seeing Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth. It’s a horrifying presentation, scary and fascinating.  As a video producer I’m knocked out by the craft that makes such a dry topic so interesting.  As some one who’s always been politically involved, I’m mortified that this film still needs to exist and bewildered that I haven’t been more drawn into this issue.  It sounds crazy, but I’ve always been so obsessed with human rights and civil rights, education and integration, war peace and poverty, that I kind of left all this to someone else. 

You can’t watch this film, though, and remain untouched.  A friend says that the research is too new, that other "natural" phenomena come in cycles and that we haven’t had time to be certain that this is not just part of the next one.  I respect this woman enormously but I watched this film, thinking of her, and of the power of modern technology compared to the "natural" impact that generated previous cycles and I can’t make myself believe that this isn’t an emergency.

I read a lot of science fiction, and much of it is dark and apocalyptic.  Resource wars, water wars, data wars — it is the future that causes the pain.  But it’s also the future that’s made by us – and if even half of this film is true, we are permitting what appears to be a horrific future to emerge, despite our ability to prevent it.  I’ve followed Al Gore a long time.  I remember his honorable environmental advocacy all the way back to his days in the House.  He’s for real, using his position in the world to turn this huge air craft carrier of an issue around.  In his film, he uses the history of the smoking issue (More Doctors Smoke Camels ads that ran just after the first Surgeon General’s Report) ont he dangers of snoking, to prove that we can change minds. 

He’s won the Nobel Peace Prize for his commitment and impact.  Some say the Nobel committee is just poliical and that this is a lefty-gesture.  But I say hats off.  Where else do we have political leaders consistently leading on an issue that has no personal reward, where the only "up side" is that we might stop cooking our planet?  I haven’t seen any latery. 

FALL INTO THE GAP? ARE THOSE CUTE CLOTHES REALLY MADE BY ENSLAVED KIDS?

Gapsweatshop
I am still trying to get my mind around these child labor stories surrounding the Gap.  I understand about globalization and outsourcing or whatever we’re calling it now, but, for heaven’s sake, the Gap isn’t even CHEAP!  What kind of markup is involved here?  I also understand that the Gap says they didn’t know about the conditions these kids were facing, but with all the use of cheap labor in the developing world factories it seems to me extra vigilance is required- on the part of retailers AND consumers (that’s us.)

There are good arguments on both sides of the concept of paying less in countries where the whole economy requires less, but these children, if reports are to be believed, were all but completely enslaved. Slaves!  There’s no economic relativism that’s going to justify that.  Or any other ism.

Audrey_hepburn_gap_3
Somehow it’s worse when it’s the Gap — of the cool clothes and commercials.  And horribly ironic that they, who made such a splash with commercials by the late, wonderful UN child advocate Audrey Hepburn, are whether mindfully or just carelessly, part of what seems to be something that violates everything she (and we hope, most of us) stands for.  At some point we are going to have to decide how much we’re willing to compromise.  These stores have democratized taste and style but it may be that the tools to do that are, themselves, the most expensive thing of all.

IF YOU CARE ABOUT EDUCATION – OR THE FUTURE – OR TECHNOLOGY – WATCH THIS

This link arrived from someone I deeply respect as a person and an educator.  Remember that it was made by current college students.  What do we think?

CARE ABOUT 2008? READ THIS BOOK – THE ARGUMENT BY MATT BAI

Matt_baiI have three half-finished posts saved as DRAFT right now but Saturday, all day, I read this book and I want to talk about it.  You need to read it too.  Matt Bai, the very smart political correspondent for the New York Times Magazine, and author of my favorite piece about the 2004 elections, WHO LOST OHIO? writes about the Progressive wing of the Democratic Party in the period after the 2004 election.  He has a great narrative style – it’s like reading a novel.  There are real characters, and intrigues and hubris and everything.

I really care what happens to our country and am so often troubled by the way that those with whom I most agree chose to engage the rest of the nation (Yes Mr. Colbert, the nation.)  There’s so much at stake.  Our choice of things we want to happen — and how we propose and describe them – is critical to whether we earn the right to  make them happen.  Do we spend too much time thinking about the elections themselves– and not enough about the policies to be implemented if we win?  How do we talk to/with our fellow Americans and what do we say?  What do we know about what they want – and do we care enough?

Matt has provocatively portrayed a political dialog that’s doesn’t deal with these questions nearly enough — as well as the "adventure story" of how we got here.  I’m being vague on purpose — you really need to read this yourself.  It’s quick, fun, smart, useful and very important.