Day 5

Heroism

This morning something flickered and then filled my closed eyelids with an uncomfortable white light. I didn’t know where I was for a second, and then I realized that I had fallen asleep in the Redpath library in Montreal, and it was time to start reading again, so I tried to roll over but I felt like I was stuck in Tar. Wait. Israel. Oh it's a Bedouin tent, that's where I am, but the lights. A Bedouin tent with bright fluorescent lights to wake us up. Bedouin tent. It was 4 am, time to go hiking. Casey turned to me in a stupor and joked that it was a good thing I slayed that beast last night or else we'd all be dead. Now I was reminded of noises I heard at around 2, yelping sorts of sounds, and thinking that the Russians outside were the source of the commotion, got up without my glasses shoes or a shirt to inform them of the Bedouin barracks full of 80 sleeping people they were disturbing. On my way over, I realized the noise was coming from a bush, so I kicked some dirt into it and in a pitiful looking, dirty stray cat hobbled out. I felt sorry for kicking dirt at it, so I gave it some beef jerky I had in my pocket and told it to quiet down. It did. When I got back in the tent people asked me what it was, what happened, were the Russians drinking? Do they have enough for us? Nope, I told them it was a cat, a ferocious one, as big as a German Shepherd, foaming at the mouth with red eyes and it came right at me, so I had to wrestle it, scuffling in the dirt, trying to avoid its claws until I finally pinned it down, then kicked it, letting it retreat cowardly into the desert. Someone said that there are leopards that live in the Negev, maybe it was leopard…I said yeah definitely, it was leopard for sure.

So now, it was still 4 am. Time to go hiking. Hiking at 4 am, after maybe 2 hours of sleep. We gathered our gear, and boarded the bus for the short drive to Masada. We weaved in and out of the barren hills, and eventually, to our left, rose a particularly impressive giant plateau, beyond which was a drop of unimaginable height, and then the dead see far down the valley below. The sun had not yet risen, but the glow of the horizon over the Jordanian mountains was enough cast the Masada plateau in a silhouette. We could barely make out an unnatural looking sand ramp leading to the top.

Masada was an ancient fortification throughout the Jewish Empires. Under the Romans, King Herod built a palace there, the remains of which can still be seen. In the year 66 the first of three Roman-Jewish wars took place after an altercation between Jewish priests and Greek Pagans who were sacrificing birds outside of a synagogue. Jerusalem was placed under siege and the temple was eventually destroyed. Masada was the last holdout of a particularly radical splinter group of Jews called the Sicarii (daggers in latin). These Jews did not recognize Roman rule of Israel, refused living at peace with the Romans and refused to negotiate with them. Unfortunately, they were in the minority, and many Jews living in Palestine argued that there was much to learn from the Romans, that there was much good in Roman culture and that it would do the Jews good to maybe even become a little more Roman themselves. The Sicarii killed many high profile Jewish leaders, making it look like Roman persecution. They also killed many Jews who urged cooperation with the Romans. The Talmud states that during the siege of Jerusalem, they destroyed the city's food supply so that the residents would refuse to negotiate a peace treaty with the Roman's and would fight them instead (it seems to me that destroying the food supply would expedite surrender rather than prolong it, but whatever).

Eventually the Sicarii wound up at Masada, under siege again by the Romans in the year 73. The Romans decided to build a ramp to the top, where they would eventually massacre the last remaining insurgents of the first Jewish Revolt. Knowing that their deaths were imminent, the Sicarii chose to die with honor instead of surrender to the Pagans. All of the men killed their wives and children. Then a lottery was held. One man was chosen to kill all the rest. The last man then fell on his sword to kill himself.

When the Romans completed their ramp and arrived at the summit they found nothing but dead bodies and a burning fortress. However, they found that all of the food was left untouched. There was enough food left to last the Sicarii another 4 months if they had wanted. Today the remains of the Roman camps as well as the Ramp can still be seen around the mountain. IDF soldiers come to Masada when they are Drafted to swear: Masada will not fall again.

Aaron, another Aaron than the one I've mentioned that is, brought up an interesting point. He has holocaust survivors in his family and they always told him that the most important thing for any Jew was always to survive, to keep living, to keep Judaism alive, in some form, all the time without ever giving up. Self preservation was always the most important thing. It was an interesting contrast with the Masada story that tells of a group of Jews who did exactly opposite. I also pointed out that the Sicarii were not regarded in very high esteem by religious Jews in the Diaspora at all for hundreds of years, and that most Jews today are descendents of the more moderate Jews who favored reconciliation with the Romans. Masada, it seems, has only taken on its mythic significance very recently and its lessons are still somewhat in tension with some very common themes of survival and perseverance prevalent in the European Jew's narrative. Of course, this is not to say that its Mythic status is itself insignificant or wrong, it means exactly what people say it means simply because they believe it does. It is not altogether dissimilar with the myths in the Palestinian narrative that assume continuity and a collective group consciousness with the Arabs who lived in Palestine during the 1920's and 1930's. Nonetheless, Masada is particularly telling of the historical revisionism wielded by Nationalism because of its direct contradiction of the very ideals which preserved Judaism for centuries and eventually facilitated the creation of Israel.

We spent two hours on Masada and watched the sunrise. The temperature was still cool, and the Dead Sea was gleaming below. It was all very nice. Then I realized that I was in the desert without any sunscreen and it was about to get extremely hot. Luckily I found some and I was able to enjoy the rest of the time on the mountain. Roni showed us all the old fortresses, Herod's palace and the Old Synagogue. He was very informed and had a lot to say about the place. In general he's a really good tour guide.

The next stop was Ein Gedi. There is not much to say about Ein Gedi except that it is amazingly beautiful, and well worth a trip for anyone who enjoys hiking, rock climbing, swimming, photography or any combination thereof. I got to see Rock Hyraxes, which was awesome (I don't really know why). There were lots of natural pools that formed at the bottoms of huge waterfalls and we got to go swimming. I don't think the convert Margot got in. Everything along the river is green, which is a great contrast to the crazy desert that surrounds the place. There were tons and tons of great looking trails and rocks faces to climb, but we weren’t allowed. Roni sensed my restlessness at not being able go off the main trail, so he told me to call him next time I'm in Israel and we'd go for some real hiking. This is a good Idea, I will certainly take him up on it. We talked a bit more about some politics etc, he told me his wife is 9 weeks pregnant and that it is his first kid. I congratulated him. Good stuff. He met his wife on a trip to Germany, and I believe she converted to Judaism. He speaks German with her and now they both live in Israel.

Next was Dead Sea, something I'd been looking forward to for a long time, considering I didn’t get to swim in it last summer. It lived up to the hype (including the stinging). It was great and very surreal, but you know words don't quite suffice.

After the Dead Sea we had a long bus ride to the North. We were staying at Kibbutz Degania. I was excited because I knew this was the very first Kibbutz in Palestine founded by Jewish settlers in 1910. Turns out we were staying Degania Bet, part of the same expanded compound, but founded in the 30's I believe. It was still really nice. Jesse and Diane split us into groups and had us draw what we thought Israelis were like because we were meeting the 8 soldiers who would accompany us for rest of the trip tomorrow. It was very fourth grade, but entertaining. Liron helped us draw ours. It was just a girl, but she had stubble on her legs, cigarettes sticking out of her ears nose and eyes, and she held an M-16.

At dinner Casey and Aaron and me sat with a Josh from the other group. Josh told us about the Convert, Dario, was getting more and more intense. He was wearing slacks, a tucked in collard shirt and a kippa all the time now. He was also getting very confrontational with anyone who openly questioned the historical accuracy of the stories we were being told. More disturbingly, he was becoming even more confrontational with anyone who even mentioned the presence of another set of claims to the land. Josh reported that he was using the phrase "our people" excessively.

So far my experience in Israel is the polar opposite of last year's. Last year, everything was strange, and different, and people were rude and the food was bad, the music worse. This year, the food and music have stayed the same, but I'm having a much better time. This is understandable and the reasons are obvious. What I am most struck by is the effective way Roni's storytelling evokes a very real emotional response in the group and even in me. Everything is set up in such a particular way, a particular frame through which to view the land, to provoke a very specific response that gets mixed up in thought and leaves everyone with a real, if not somewhat manufactured, emotional and psychological attachment to everything they see. Not even I can resist becoming extremely enamored with Israel.

From what I can tell, this can be a good and a bad thing. It's good to the extent that it does get people involved and interested in a very important place, one that I found great pleasure in getting to know at school and here now. On the other hand, it's bad to the extent that that same one sided interest that is being built up here may blind others to the difficult reality that exists within Israel between Jews and Palestinians, and between Israelis and Arabs in the Middle East. It is just as if not more likely to create a blind support for Israel as it is to create a greater genuine objective interest in the place. I told this to Jesse and he agreed with me, saying that one thing he couldn't stand was the kind of "blind Israel cheerleading" that some American Jews tend toward. That is why, he said, Kesher has tried to do more to engage everyone in debate rather than just taking them throughout Israel. That debate is yet to come, but it will in a few days I'm sure.

Day 4

Morning

From now on, each day has a theme. Today's theme was pluralism. And so, we came to Jerusalem, "the eternal and undivided capital of the Jewish People" as the J-post likes to say, as well as a city of great significance to Christians and Muslims. What better a place to experience the vibrant multiculturalism of Israel than the very point where the world's three great monotheistic religions have mingled for tens of centuries?

Personally, I was extremely excited for Jerusalem. I was in Jerusalem last year, but this trip did a very good job in building up the collective anticipation of the group. I was excited for three reasons. The great political and spiritual significance of place is riveting and I don't think it really requires further explication. Second, it seemed as though the trip would actually explore some dimensions of Israel that are usually not included in the Jewish narrative. Finally, I was extremely curious to witness the varied reactions among the different members of the group to the holy places like the Kotel. I have become increasingly interested in one particular subgroup within the larger group: the converts. I'll digress a bit to explain their current situation.

There are two converts in my group that I know of, and one in the other group that is following the same itinerary on a slightly different schedule. In my group, there is Margot and Amanda. In the other group there is Dario(I think). I met Amanda in the airport in Newark. She was engaged, 24 years old, wore thick black glasses and had some Hebrew tattooed on both her wrists. She explained that she was brought up Lutheran, but that she had struggled with the concept of a God who would be so cruel as to throw people into hell for all eternity if they misbehaved. She said that it sounded very "juvenile" and that the Christians conceived god "like a toddler who would throw temper tantrums all the time." Her father was quite religious and never understood why she failed to pick up the mantle of her faith with the same enthusiasm that he had, and so there were many tensions between them. In college she took a religious studies course and after learning about Judaism, she decided that it was in line with everything she personally believed, so she converted.

Dario is about the same age as Amanda. He is the son of Catholic African woman and Persian Shi'a Muslim who moved to the U.S. from Tehran. Dewon did his undergrad at Princeton and is now at the University of Detroit for law school. |From what I gather, he had lots of issues with his father throughout his young life, the least of which was the religious one. I'm not sure if they are still on good terms or any terms at all. Like Amanda, he decided to convert to Judaism in college. As for Margot, I'm not too sure about her because she got sick and hasn't really been with the group the whole time.

Now the converts must be asking themselves some vexing questions. I first wondered about their state at the independence hall lecture when the speaker laid heavy emphasis on the ethnic character of Judaism and Israel. She made constant mention of "our ancestors" both ancient and modern who all contributed to the eventual redemption of the Jewish people that culminated in the declaration of independence of the Jewish State in 1948. She also spoke at length about the role of the Holocaust in the Jewish mind. She explained that it is extremely pertinent to all Jews to think very carefully about the implications of the holocaust, not only because of its objective horridness, but because of its role in our own family histories. All of us had family who were somehow connected to this tragedy.

Now the converts must have been confused. Sure they were Jewish now, but they weren’t always Jewish. Nor were their families Jewish. The converts couldn’t really point to anyone in their family tree who had been affected by the holocaust. They were also converts to type of Judaism that does not place a lot of emphasis on its ethnic character. There is still an ongoing debate in Israel as weather or not converts to Reform Judaism in North America and Europe should even be considered Jewish at all. The orthodox, predictably, say no. However, most people in Israel want to see the Jewish population of the state go up to safeguard against higher growth rate of the Arab population. I predict that in Israel, most converts will find that reform is simply not enough. By converting to Reform, they have become Jewish in name only while their substance remains unchanged. How must they feel being told about ancestors that they never had? How will they react to the very center of their assumed religion at the Western Wall?

I think that many converts to Reform find themselves forced to become much more religious after visiting Israel. Others might find themselves somewhat alienated from what they thought was really who they were. They might drop out. I don't think that a lot of reform converts stay as mildly observant as most reform Jews who were born into the religion after visiting Israel. The orthodox line is that a convert did have Jewish blood and just didn't know it. The decision to convert is directed by God so that the unaware Jew can be redeemed. For a religious reform convert, that solution seems to be much more attractive. We'll see what God tells them when we get to Zion.

Afternoon

Our first glimpse of a sort of pluralism occurred on the way into Jerusalem. On the hill outside of the western part of the city and to the side of the main highway that leads from Tel Aviv through the Jerusalem corridor (a natural valley through the surrounding hills that leads from the coast to the Old City) lies an Arab village. It is empty and the stone houses don't look any different than ancient ruins from a thousand years ago would. But these ruins are from 1948. You can still see the path, now overgrown, that wound up the hill from the valley bellow, criss crossing in front of the houses and then disappearing slightly above the last one, directly beneath the mammoth Jerusalem Stone apartment buildings of the New City that sit atop the hill. My good friend Rick pointed these houses out to me last summer on our way into the city, but they have not been pointed out to me since. I have always wondered why they remained standing, in such a visible place for so long. So many of the same sorts of village were simply destroyed after they were emptied (either by flight or expulsion), so why not this one too?

When we got inside the city, Ronnie had us put on blindfolds until we got to a special place. Now I had already seen the old city, but I played along just to get the experience. We eventually stopped the bus, held hands and slowly got out of the bus, milling around in some unknown place, totally blind and completely aware of exactly what was going on. Everyone was excited. This was the first time in Jerusalem for most people on the trip. They knew there were about to see what most of them had only heard about in prayers or seen in stained glass in their synagogues. We took the blindfolds off, and there it was. Most people said it still looked like a picture, and that they wanted to get closer. Everyone was taking pictures, but Josh was taking pictures of people's faces. Aaron seemed somewhat indifferent but still impressed and Casey was having a moment. The converts were fixated, and Margot was standing off to the side alone, standing perfectly upright and breathing in deeply. It was a sunny day so the dome of the rock was glowing. Everything around the old city sort of funnels in towards it. The surrounding hills are covered in houses, yeshivas, churches etc all facing the temple mount.

Ronnie pulled out what he called his PowerPoint, which was really just a connected series of laminated cards illustrating the different periods in the history of Jerusalem, and briefly explained what we were looking at. He told us quickly about the Jewish temples that stood there, that at one point it was a trash heap in the crusader era, and that the Muslims had built the Dome of the Rock and the Al- Aqsa mosque and invited Jews to come back to the Old City. He also told as about the liberation of the Old City from Jordan in the Six Day war and mentioned that were were standing on land that had also been captured in the war. I asked him on the way back to the bus how close we were to the green line and he pointed about 20 feet in front of us and said "right there."

Next we went to the Cardo. Ronnie pulled out his PowerPoint and explained that when you are in Jerusalem you have to ask three questions: 1-Where am I? 2- When am I? and 3-Where are the toilets? Nuck nuck nuck. Anyway, the Cardo was the main street in Jerusalem during the Roman era. It now runs through the Jewish quarter of the city. The streets are paved with New Jerusalem stone but there are patches where the roman road was still good enough to leave bare. There lots of roman columns too. At one point, we saw an excavated section of the city walls to the ancient Jewish city that King David built after entering the Land Of Israel and slaying all the Jebusites who were living there.

I started talking to a girl in my group, I forget her name, but she was an interesting character. She lived in Oklahoma, was 20 years old and had been married a few months ago in Vegas. I have heard of assimilated Jew before but man, this took it to the next level. She had a southern drawl, bad teeth and an almost meth head like franticness and jerkiness to her movement. She told me she had spent a year in community college in Oklahoma, but that she had just transferred to Carnegie Mellon to finish her Degree in Biochemistry. I was very impressed and made it known. She was happy but said that she hadn’t really ever even heard of the school and still didn’t know much about it. I didn’t really know what to say, this girl flabbergasted me. I told her that it's a very prestigious place and she replied, "aww yeah, that's awesome!" in a thick…thick accent. She went on to tell me about how people treated her in her town. She was married to a non-Jew from her town, but she said most of the people there were extremely racist and extremely anti-Semitic. She was the only Jew around, and she constantly faced the kind of hateful invective that I have only read about or seen in movies. Of course it's even worse because her best friend is an Indian, also the only one in town. She even told me that one of her public school teachers was a holocaust denier. She loved Israel and was considering making Aliyah with her husband.

Next we stopped for shopping in the market section of the Cardo. However, they wouldn’t let us go in the cheaper Arab section of the same market, and they placed guards at the entrance to prevent anyone from trying. While I can sort of understand this (the Arab section of the market is much more mazelike and so much difficult for the group leaders to keep track of 40 people) it would have been nice to seem maybe some of that isn't so crammed, after all it was pluralism day. We were also told we would not visit the Arab quarter, or the Christian quarter. Some people complained, but there are some good reasons for this policy. First, expanding the area in which we are allowed to move greatly increases the chance that someone is going to do something stupid and cause trouble. With such a large the group, the chances again rise. So they have to constrict the space and make the rules the same for anyone. Some people here, Josh included, are trying the "the come on you can trust me" line but seriously, it's not that hard to figure out that they can't make exceptions. Secondly, allowing a group on a Zionist trip into the Muslim quarter is completely disrespectful to the people who live there and the trip organizers know this. Not all of the boundaries here are recognized and many of them will still be the subject of future negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

Josh was convinced it was nothing but racism and so he sort of flipped out and got in one of the Guards' face. This upset Casey and me and we told him that he was out of line. Sure the trip has an agenda, but he chose to go on it. He's not going to change anything by badgering the 22 year old kid with the rifle. I'm here to observe, it seems as though Josh has decided he's here to cause problems, but he's wasting his time. I have spoken with Ronnie and Jesse at some length about the issues that are facing Israel and about the nature of the trip in general, about my expectations, about how I think the trip will affect the minds of those on the trip and what I think is important for everyone to consider outside of the sheltered birthright experience. These discussions have been far more constructive than accusing everyone of racism or fanaticism (even though I do think Jesse is somewhat of a fanatic, I'm not going to throw it in his face). There are far more nuanced things happening in birthright that it would behoove Josh to observe. Casey and I agree that Josh is being abrasive and somewhat offensive, and that he has completely lost the objectivity that we thought he might have. And anyway, we are going to an Arab village in a few days to talk with the residents there about the challenges facing Israel. Most birthright trips don't do this, so I'm excited to see what sort of discussions we will have. People just need to cool down and wait before they start pointing fingers and screaming about propaganda.

After the somewhat heated experience in the Cardo, we were off to the Western Wall. When we got there Jesse told us that we have a half hour on our own. Most everyone walked across the shiny stone surface towards their respective sections for men and women and straight to the wall. The experience of being bothered for change by some orthodox Jews at the wall was a little Jarring for some. Some others went to the Chabad cart set up in the men's section to put on the Tefillin and recite a prayer. This is a big mitzvah for the Chabad Jews. It's funny that the real big and meaningful experiences on birthright happen more subtly and at unexpected times. What is meant to be the most moving sometimes falls short, and the Kotel, in the grand scheme of the birthright trip, seems a little less impressive when it's considered only one part of the process. I think it's hard for the people on the trip to really come to terms with the spiritual nature of such a place when it is presented to them in such a crude and entirely physical way. The wall is just an old wall, there are plants growing on it, and there are Ultra Orthodox Jews, nearly as alien to the Reform Jew as a born again Christian preacher, all over the place. It's weird and really hard for me to put myself in anyone else's shoes at the western wall.

I saw old Orthodox Jew with a group of children at southern portion of the men's section. The children all had Yarmulkes on slightly to the side and they were repeating, with great enthusiasm, all of the lines from the prayers the old teacher was reciting. He was no doubt raising up the next generation of religious Zionists, as one can tell from the position of the Yarmulkes. These are the people that have the "Messiah Now" bumper stickers on their cars, and the same people who see the complete settlement of the West Bank as God's will and a step in the direction of complete redemption of the Jewish People. They are the counterpoint to the uncircumcised and tattooed Tel Aviv artist. My friend Yahel from Montreal once Joked that if there were no Palestinians there would be a war between the religious and the secular in Israel. We'll see.

Evening

The next step in the pluralism theme was a trip down to a Bedouin camp in the Negev, complete with a night in the tent and a ride on a real live camel! How rustic! How romantic! A true Orientalist fantasy! Everyone was very excited to get an up close and personal Glimpse at "real life Arab Culture." Of course, the whole experience turned out to be more like Disney Bedouin Theater than anything that even closely resembled any sort of authenticity.

We were treated to a lecture on Bedouin life by a man who was dressed like a desert dweller. You could tell that he was wearing slacks and a collard shirt under his galibiyah, which he informed me, was actually made in China. He had a doctorate in Musicology from the University of Haifa and lived in Tel Aviv. He showed us the traditional way of making bread, and coffee and the different customs of hospitality necessary for survival in the desert. Then he played the guitar like oute for us.

We went out into the desert that night right outside of the camp. Jesse asked us to walk off a bit on our own to reflect on everything about the trip. I walked a bit off, walked over some trash some beer bottles. The desert quietness was somewhat ruined by the noisy generators at the "Bedouin Camp" and the lights cast a very unnatural halogen glow over the whole area. I thought that at this point, people on the trip are starting to get really hooked on the country. We came back together to share some thoughts. Most people said that they were taken aback at how familiar the place seemed, how everything was so different yet they felt so much at home, in the land of their ancestors. Some expressed an interest in coming back to "work the soil" and contributing to their homeland. No one really mentioned that the only people we had been exposed to were other Americans and no one had yet to deal with the language barrier because everything was done in English. Obviously everyone is going to feel at home if they are shepherded around, fed for free, and interacting only with English speaking Americans and Canadians. More on this later.

We all stayed up a bit later to sit around and talk. We finally went in at around 1am. Tomorrow's theme is Heroism and we are getting up at 4am to go to Masada for sunrise.

Day 3

"How lovely are your tents,. O Jacob, your dwelling places, O Israel!”

This morning we got up to go to morning Shabbat services. We had the option of doing yoga services on the beach or a more prayer and study intensive program in the hotel synagogue. I went to the latter because I knew we would be on the beach the rest of the day and I knew that Jesse would lead the services so I was curious as to what he would have to say. Casey, Aaron, Josh and another guy Dave who was in on the conversation last night chose to come too.

After we read through a few prayers, Jesse established the theme of the morning. He asked to find all mention of Israel in the passages and to think about what that means for Jews and Judaism in general. He asked the group what the modern day implications of these passages were and what it means to have a people and religion tied to a specific piece of land today. Josh raised his hand and said "war." Jesse disagreed and said that in fact, the passages were only the first step in establishing not only the religious, but cultural and national attachment to the land of Israel. He made a distinction between Political Zionism, which only began in the 19^th century, and Zionism which had existed since 70 AD when the Romans destroyed the second Temple and especially after 130 AD when they expelled all the Jews from what was then called Palestine. Traditional Zionism was the yearning for Jerusalem among all religious Jews since the destruction of the temple. It was uttered every day in prayers and was said to have been on the mind of all devout Jews at all times: " If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither, let my tongue cleave to my palate if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy." (137, 5-7) Political Zionism was only the transformation of this yearning to fit into the framework of states and politics that had become paramount by the late 1800's.

Jesse's points all make sense because for him, there is still a very strong religious aspect to Zionism. Interestingly, he combines a lot of the ideas the secular nationalist Zionists with some of the mainly orthodox Zionist attitudes toward God and his relationship with the Jews and the Land of Israel. Jesse looks at all of Jewish history sees some basic cross cultural and religious similarities that bind all Jews together. Although Jews never all lived in the same region, state or continent or spoke the same language, they all had the torah and they all shared the liturgical Hebrew in which they prayed and studied.

These two facets of Judaism were evidence enough of an unbroken and continuous history that linked all Jews together as a nation. The secular Zionists of the 19^th century were mainly atheists and communists who saw the same things. They argued that the religion was only national self worship and that the real ties between the Jews were cultural (in the form of shared traditions such as keeping the Sabbath, Motza, dress etc) and linguistic. They lived at a time when European ethnic national movements were in full swing, defining the Jewish reality from the outside and forcing them to consider themselves part of the same global tapestry of nations with its own right to its own land. For the Jews, the answer was simple: their land was Palestine. The religion wasn’t true, but they knew that their ancestors came from Palestine and that is where they needed to go because Europe was not theirs…it was for the Germans or the French, English, Spanish, Italians etc. However these nationalisms tend to assume a constant linkage between all people within the national umbrella throughout all time. They do not take into account, however, what the people of whom they speak actually thought of the national connections the modern day nationalists are trying to prove. This is especially true of European nationalisms like Nazism, and all the other ones inspired by 19^th century romanticism.

The Jewish case, however, is different and somewhat of a problem for those who insist that all nationalism are purely modern and mostly based on historical exaggerations or mistruths. At the very least, the idea of common ancestry, a shared language and a connection to a specific piece of land has existed in Judaism since well before the modern era. This idea was, of course, reinforced by Christian societies who never really accepted the Jews until after 1789, and even that was short lived. Nonetheless, these commonalities which supposedly bound together Jewish communities everywhere were not always as strong as modern day Zionists would have you believe.

Back to Jesse, he does accept some of the limitations of secular Zionism mentioned above, mainly that it assumes a continuous and deeply felt connection among all Jews throughout time. This sort of deeply felt connection was not always the case and in fact, it varied over time and place. This is when Jesse reverts to his faith and asserts that regardless of these variances, God has always had the Jews and Israel in mind and that he always knew that he would eventually lead them back to Israel. Even secular Jews who do not believe in God are always carrying out his will, they just don't realize it.

This sort of position is very typical of North American Jews in general and Particularly Canadian Jews. Jews in North America can be religious, but on their own terms. The plethora of Judaisms in the Diaspora allows the Jew in these liberal societies to choose the way in which he wants to practice his faith. This is not so in Israel. If Israelis are religious, they basically have to be orthodox because the orthodox have a monopoly on all religious matters within the state. So most Israelis are secular, and so they have a more difficult time coming to terms with sketchy historical credentials of secular Zionism.

Canadian Jews are particularly prone to this sort of thinking because of the nature of their national identity. As opposed to Jews in America, Canadian Jews live in a country with a mostly vague and indistinct identity. In the U.S. there was a distinct ideology and distinct breaking point separating the period of Colonialism with sovereignty. Lincoln wrote that this breaking point defined the U.S. not only as a sovereign state but also that it marked the birth of a new Nation. Canada, on the other hand, has not experienced such a history. Canada has only gained its independence gradually, and Anglo-Canada still maintains distinct cultural and linguistic ties to the United Kingdom (the queen is still on the money!) There is no distinct historical episode to which Canadians can point to and say "that is when we became Canadian." Also unlike the U.S., Canada has had to deal with a very deep linguistic and cultural cleavage within its own borders between the Anglos on one hand the Quebecois on the other. That a large portion of Canada has always embraced a distinct national identity is a confusing issue to all Canadians. What does it mean to be Canadian when other Canadians don't even think of themselves as such? How can a national identity exist in Canada if there is no real consensus on what that means? Thus, most Canadians have to try much harder than Americans to really get a sense of who they are. Some Anglo Canadians just consider themselves Anglos. The Quebecois have it all figured out. Others do it with Beer commercials or by simply asserting their Non-Americanness. The Jews, unable to find a stronger discourse of national identity, simply find it easier to embrace their Jewishness. I would bet that on average, Canadian Jews are far more Zionist than American Jews. This is all of course very arm-chairy, and I would have to conduct a lot of surveys to really figure out if it's true, so don't take my word for it.

Dave raised an interested question at the services. Realizing the relaxed approach Jesse took to the letter of the law in the Torah despite his firm faith in God, Dave asked how reform Jews are to determine which parts of the Torah to accept and which parts to ignore. He pointed out that if so much of the Torah and the Talmud is called into question, why are none of the passages which link the Jews to Israel questioned as such? He explained that the notion that certain gods ruled over specific patches of land was widespread in the ancient near east, particularly in the Mesopotamia, the land from which Abraham is supposedly to have come. I would also point out that the Egyptians held a different view of divine rule. In Egypt, certain gods ruled of specific domains of life. If these two lands are in someway related to the Jews, it seems as though the ancient Jewish conception of God, Israel and the 12 tribes was perhaps a combination of these two explanations of a god's role in the world. Jesse didn't really answer his question. I would say that the parts of the Torah and the Talmud that are omitted by most contemporaries because they don’t fit into our modern notions of morality or because they hinder the economy. Thus they are assumed to anti modern. The idea of Land and a people, as I have already explained, did fit quite well into the common sense of the 19^th and early 20^th centuries and so it was never omitted. Nowadays, how well that notion fits into the norm is coming into question and so the passages about Israel and the Israelites perhaps seem a little archaic.

"There are strangers in the land of Israel"

Next we read a passage that was supposed to be a transition into what Jesse thought would be the more "liberal" and "moderate" section. After "proving" the unbroken uncontestable connection of the Jewish people to the land of Israel, it was time to approach a more sensitive topic. The passage implored us to " Let the stranger in your midst be to you as the native, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt." Jesse concluded by telling us that there were indeed strangers in the land of Egypt and that we need to understand that. While his implied sentiments of tolerance and respect are nice, this sort of attitude is still condescending and somewhat sick. Sure Jesse own views on them matter might not be considered extremely radical, but at heart they are no different than the self righteous disregard that so many religious and secular Zionists have for the Palestinians.

"That's the Tel Aviv bubble…you're in it"

That night we went to see a play in a hip theater somewhere in Tel Aviv. We entered the place and walked through a hallway that was lined with crazy photo artwork…pierced punks on the streets of tel aviv, naked women with their heads in toilets and an old guy with a beard and a vagina. Everyone was freaked out by this, not least of all myself. It was a little too Greenwich Village for me, but my friend Alana, a girl who was going to art school in NY loved it. While it was somewhat shocking, some of it was still interesting, particularly the closeup of an uncircumcised penis with a Star of David tattoo on the stomach above it. It's a little raw, but you know, it makes some sense for Israel today especially in Tel Aviv.

The play we saw was a rendition of the biblical story of Tamar. Pretty much, Tamar is to have a child with Er, but Er is slain by God so Er's brother Onan has to have a kid with Tamar to preserve his brother's line. However, Onan doesn't like this arrangement so he "spills his seed on the ground" to avoid impregnating Tamar. God is angry and so he slays Onan. Onan's father, Judah, has one more son for Tamar but he is young and so she is commanded to wait until he is old enough to impregnate her and to preserve Er's line. So Tamar is sent away, to live with her family, she can't do otherwise and she cannot marry another man unless Judah releases her. So she dresses up like a prostitute and seduces Judah, who gets her pregnant. When Judah finds out that Tamar is pregnant, he is angry and brings her forth so that he can command her death, which he has a legal right to do. However, Tamar reveals to Judah that she was the prostitute and that she is pregnant with his child, thus preserving the family line. It is later revealed that this began the line which eventually led to King David. The story is traditionally interpreted to show the way in which God used the imperfect Tamar to turn Judah from his (apparent) wickedness to righteousness. Tamar forced Judah to face up to his responsibilities (to keep his line alive) instead of passing them off to his sons. Tamar is imperfect because she is a Canaanite, but she has a firm sense of her duty as a wife and for Judah's duty as a Jew. Accordingly, she is always firm of mind, and takes matters into her own hands to fulfill these various obligations.

The play we saw presented this story by using two ballet dancers who attached these puppets to their torsos. The puppets upper body and head was a puppet, but the hands and legs were the dancer's. The heads could also come off the body and could be used for some interesting effects, like when Tamar and Er were falling in love and the heads were swirling around in the air etc. The faces of the puppets were unchanged the entire time, but the actors' expressions and body language ranged from tortured, to jubilant, to somber throughout the play.

In this version though, the focus of the story is no longer on Judah and his transformation, but on Tamar and her own personal experience which is completely rethought. Central to the play and its reinterpretation of the Biblical story was this separation between the actor and the puppet that only this medium seems to provide. With the puppet, the actor was able to portray the deep sense of obligation and duty which is very prevalent in the biblical story. With their own bodies, though, the actors were able to bring out the feelings and emotions associated with these acts which are unaddressed in torah. This is particularly true of Tamar who is visually the most tormented by the various events and their implications for what she has to do. This distinction is central to modern Jewish life in Tel Aviv in particular and in Israel as a whole. These Jews are caught between a world in which they are told that they have an obligation to their ancestors and to their history and a world in which they only want to live as human beings, unbound by such regulations that constrict them physically and emotionally. This is what the director was trying to show us, I think, and the story and the medium were really a perfect choice for doing so. Like Tamar, Jews and Judaism face a tug of war between the modern world in which their own desires and emotions should have free reign and a long history of tradition to which they are expected to adhere. I anticipate that this question, how Jews reconcile their history and modern world, will be approached quite differently in Jerusalem. Maybe ill see some of this when I go there tomorrow.

After the play we went to a mall, like any other mall, for some food. I ate at Sbarro. On the bus, Ronnie the tour guide told us a little more about the City. That it is constantly moving and that people often seem unconcerned for what is happening in the rest of the country. "business as usual in tel aviv"

Josh had some things to say at the mall. After the Independence hall experience yesterday, Josh told me that he was starting to have an identity crisis. He never considered himself particularly Jewish, he was just a guy who lived in NY, a musician and no different than any other New Yorker. Yesterday he was becoming confused. He was being told about his Judaism and what it means, and what sorts of things are required of him because of that identity which he cannot shed. None of these ideas ever factored into his life. Tonight he seems to have taken a step towards resolving the crisis. He asked me "what has Israel ever done for the world?" I said, well they have their place in the global economy, and they seem to do their part. He said that that's all bullshit and that he was starting to think that the state should never have even come into existence and that maybe it shouldn’t even exist now. I said there are lots of people in this country who are just trying to live their lives and that that sort of thinking can only be destructive in the end. He's started to decide that the whole thing is bullshit. He's very uncomfortable with the fact that there exists a place that has some role in his own identity that he can't control. He has nothing to do with Israel, why should Israel have anything to do with him? I would agree that people should be able to choose who they are, I wouldn't go so far as to say that logically leads to us saying that Israel has no right to exist.

Then again I used to think that Jews who didn’t at least nominally embrace their Judaism were being a little silly, as they really did have a lot to be proud of, so why not buy in? After that I thought that people were most influenced by their environment and that if they didn’t embrace their Judaism, it's only because they had found another way to define themselves that better suited their preferences. This trip is interesting though, because in showing everyone this big powerful and dynamic state, it really is providing some real incentives for all of the Jews who go on birthright to buy into their Jewish identity. It's hard to say objectively whether these incentives really do outweigh all others in any other environment anywhere else. My intuition tells me that they don't but it's really hard to say, and I guess it's up to everyone to decide on their own. Who knows.

Tomorrow in Jerusalem

Second Day

Birthright Day 2

"Some have left...some are dead"

Today we woke up and went to Jaffa. We stopped at the shore and Ronnie read a first person account of a member of the 2nd aliyah's arrival in the Mandate of Palestine. It was a very sentimental piece, about the mustachioed Arab sailors with Turkish hats, pulling them off the boats into the warm Mediterranean waters, seeing the orient for the first time etc etc. Ronnie went on to talk about how Jaffa was an Arab town. He said it "was very different then, sewage was flowing through the streets." Somone asked what had happened to the Arabs who used to inhabit the old city. He quickly replied that "some left, they went to the West Bank, Gaza or Lebanon, some are dead." I'm not sure if any Arabs were forcibly expelled from Jaffa, but if they were, Ronnie didn't care to mention it. We toured the old city and walked around on the plane between Tel Aviv and Jaffa where intense fighting broke out between the Jews and Arabs in 1948. The plane used to be covered in Arab homes. All but one is bulldozed and we got a chance to see it and go inside.

"Don't You Dare"

Later we went to Independence hall in Tel Aviv. This is the building in which the state of Israel was declared in May of 1948. It is very non-descript, small, with very few windows. A woman came out to give us a speech. It was very emotional. She said that our state was born in this room. That the declaration of independence was ours too, that we are all connected to this land. She told us about the UN sponsored 1947 partition plan. That the Jews had reason to Reject the plan, namely because it did not make provisions for security and left the state with very vulnerable boundaries, that Jerusalem was surrounded by Arabs, and that most of the land in the proposed Jewish State was in the Negev and bereft of fertile land or resources. Nonetheless, she pointed out, the Jews accepted the plan and were dancing in the streets while the Arabs rejected the plan. While it was infused with emotion and holier-than-thou tone, she made the very important point that the Jews did accept the plan and were forced by the Arabs to fight a war that they did not want to fight. Some people tend to forget this in their criticism of the state, and it's important to keep in mind. I'm surprised that she didn't also mention the partition plan of 1937 that gave the Arabs even more land than the 1947 one. Once again, the plan was accepted by the Yishuv and rejected by the Arabs.

She went on to speak about the aftermath of the failure of the plan. She said that the Americans told Ben Gurion "'don't you dare declare a state'" and instead asked them to propose an immediate ceasefire with the Arabs. "'If you declare a state, you will not have our support.'" As far as I know, this is grossly inaccurate. Along with most nations who would have liked to ensure the survival of the Jewish Community in Palestine, The U.S. was concerned that the fledgling Jewish State would not have the capability to take on the much larger Arab Armies in a war for survival. Thus, the U.S. suggested that ceasefire be proposed so that a diplomatic solution could be found. The U.S. never said "don't you dare" they were only saying that if you do, you might not survive. Secondly, the U.S. never told Ben Gurion that he would forfeit U.S. support if he declared a state and that this woman said they did is completely ludicrous. In reality, the U.S. recognized the State of Israel just hours after Ben Gurion declared the state's independence. Another fact this woman forgot to mention was that the U.S. actually sent a little over 200 military advisors and special forces to assist in the war that broke out immediately after the declaration.

Clearly this woman was distorting reality in order to shift our loyalties away from the U.S. and toward Israel. The first step in the process seems to be an attempt to sever our ties to the U.S. by making us feel some antipathy towards it. So she tells us that American didn't want to see the Jews succeed, that American could care less about the Jews in Palestine. She doesn't mention that Truman had a deep sympathy for the plight of the Jews, especially after the horrors of the holocaust were revealed to the world, and that he resisted the anti-Zionist pressure within his own administration that only sought to appease the Oil Dictatorships set up in the Gulf. This seems somewhat manipulative to me, but people are already starting to buy it.

Another thing the woman said was that everyone in Israel wants peace. Everyone. Ask anyone on the streets, and what will they say? We want peace! She didn't' mention the terms of this peace, nor did she go into the fact that no one in either Israel or the Palestinian territories can agree on what peace will finally look like. I sensed some frustration in her voice, because right now, any sort of peace looks extremely distant considering how fragmented both the Israelis and the Palestinians are. There is no strong leadership on either side, and thus no possibility for any sort of meaningful progress.

Eventually she had us stand up while Hatikvah played through some speakers on the walls.

"Look into the pewter pot"

We returned to the Hotel and got ready for Shabbat services. It was nothing special…just some songs in Hebrew with an acoustic guitar etc. We were on holy time now.

Later on in the evening almost everyone gathered in the lobby bar area and out on the back porch of the hotel. There was some wine, beer and some other stuff. The frat and sorority people couldn't wait to crack open the Vodka and the Whisky they bought.

I got a chance to talk to Liron, our IDF guard a bit. She told me about how unfriendly people were in NYC and that she loves Israel because it feels like a family. Then she told me not to believe anything I see on CNN or the BBC about Israel because it's all lies. I asked her why and she told me that people don't understand what it's like to live in Israel and that they can't say anything meaningful about the place. She went on to tell me that she supports settlements in the occupied territories because the land being settled was unused. During the Gaza pullout she refused to take part in the expulsion of settlers. Luckily her unit commander liked her and stationed her elsewhere instead of sending her to jail for a month. I asked her if she thought it was far to the people who lived in occupied territories and she shrugged. "I don't give a shit about the Arabics, I don't care if they all drown."

Later I went inside and sat down with my group leader, Jesse, and some others. Jesse just graduated from York University in Canada with a degree in Near Eastern History. He was talking with some other people about Arafat and Camp David. He was throwing down the Usual Arafat was a coward line, he ruined everything, she should be ashamed, he had no right etc etc. He also said that he was extremely anti-settlement and that he believes that they should never have been built. Nonetheless, he claimed, Arafat should have come to terms with reality in 2000 and accepted the fact that some of the largest settlements in the West Bank just would not be removed period. Sure Arafat might have been stupid for not realizing the power realities, but it's hard to call him a coward when all he did was constantly refer to the article 49 of the 1949 Geneva conventions which explicitly states that "The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies." Israel has not Annexed the West bank (except for parts around Jerusalem) and so all those settlements are illegal. Arafat therefore had grounds to call for the complete dismantlement of every settlement in the west bank.

So Jesse's thoughts on this topic are interesting. He represents a confusing mix of moral certainty and an almost nihilistic acceptance of power politics. Here in Israel, it's very hard to mix the two without being inconsistent. Basically, most people like Jesse hold opinions implying that Arafat was a fool, but that he had every right to be.

This sort of thinking came up again when Jesse started talking about who really had the right to the land. On the one hand, he said that God promised it to the Jews and that God does have something in mind of the Jewish People. On the other, he acknowledged that that argument wasn't strong and that the Jews had rights to the land simply because they were there first and that the Torah is as good as a deed. I asked him about all the people the Jews killed after they left Egypt. He simply stated that they weren't around to complain anymore. So why not just expel or destroy all the Arabs? "Well", said Jesse, "there are human rights now, we have can't do that. If one day, God forbid the Arabs win a war, take the land, and kill all the Jews, fine…they won and I won't complain."

Later on Jesse asked me and some others who we would fight for if there were ever a war between the U.S. and Israel, assuming that both sights were relatively equal militarily. He said he would fight for Israel. Some other people did too. Some said they wouldn't fight, and some said they would fight for the U.S.

First Day

Pre Birthright

So I’m at the Canadian U.S. Border right now, waiting to get back on the bus. There is a Haredi couple here and they have two children. I’m half tempted to tell them I’m going to Israel in a week, but they have already rebuffed several attempts by others to speak with them about their beautiful young daughter who is looking around at everyone and blinking slowly. I wonder if they have been to Israel, or if they plan on going anytime soon or even if they support the state at all. Whatever they think, their dress tells me that it’s not usually up to debate. I think that I’ll just let them be.

Birthright Day 1

"Orthodox's Stranglehold"

So far the most rhetoric to which we have been exposed has been of a slightly different sort than I expected. We received a packet at the Airport in New York containing information about the trip, the trip organizers and Israel. I am on a trip for reform Jews and the packet contains articles about the place of this strand of Judaism in Israel. It includes an article called "Rabbi: Reform Worse Than Muslims" by Neta Sela. It is about an orthodox Rabbi, Dov Lior of Kiryat Arba, who claimed that Reform Jews, particularly in America, are more of a threat to Judaism and the integrity of Eretz Israel than Muslims. This article was included to prepare the Jews on the trip for the possible attitudes toward their religion they may encounter in Israel, and maybe fire them up a bit to fight against what they will come to see as the Orthodox Hegemony of religious life in Israel.

The next article was printed in the Jerusalem Post on October 16th, 2006 and is by David Forman. I'll quote a section of the article entitled "Orthodoxy's Bigotry"

"How long will we Reform Jews allow the Orthodox rabbinate to deny us the right to choose alternatives for our Jewish Identity? How long must we acquiescence to this contemptible assault on our dignity?...Are we furious enough at their spitting in our faces since the establishment of the state? Are we prepared to take on the rabbinical establishment and by extension the government, not exclusively for ourselves, but for Conservative Jews, Ethiopians, Agunot, single mothers and even Palestinian farmers who come under attack from "religious settlers?"

The first day consisted of lunch at a Kibbutz and then an Archeological Dig. The lunch included a speech by a guy from New Jersey who had mad Aliyah years ago. He said that we won't tell us why we're in Israel, but that we are here to figure that out ourselves. I wondered if anyone else would try and tell us why we were there, if he wasn't. Maybe they would take us around, show us the sights, bring us to an Arab Neighborhood, the Wall/Barrier/Fence and Jerusalem and let us figure it out ourselves.

The rest of the day we were digging. None of us had slept for over 26 hours, and yet we were at the bottoms of caves in the Judean Hills digging up Edomite pottery from 1122 B.C.E. Sure it was fun, but it was tiring. I met Josh Hahn in one of the caves ( a musician from NY going to Bard University and studying musicology), Aaron (Penn State undergrad in Accounting) Liron (our IDF Guard) and several others. I have sort of forgotten the order of events, but we eventually ended up at the hotel where our tour guide Ronnie and our group leaders, Jesse and Diane, spoke with us about our expectations from Israel, what it meant to us now, what it we think it will mean to us after the trip, and how we plan on getting there. Here they started talking about "your land and your people" and "the connection that you all have to this place." They asked us to share some of our initial thoughts. Everyone was still timid, barely knowing everyone in the group, so very few out of the 40 raised their hands to speak. Some did however. Thoughts ranged from "I’m curious to see what religion means to both secular Israelis and the more religious Israelis" to "I want to know what is happening in the government." Everyone at this point seems a little unclear about what they are doing in Israel exactly and what sort of connection they should feel as Jews to the land. Most of the people here are American college students between 19 and 21 years old. Some are in Frats and sororities, some know each other, and some don’t. No one speaks Hebrew and I don’t think most are very religious but I’m sure I’ll learn more about that. We’ll see what these people are saying about Israel by the end.