Exploring Religion

So last Tuesday I had some religious experiences. Being in Israel, Judaism is very second nature. It is everywhere, especially during the holidays. The busses all read 'happy Hannukah' , everyone wishes you happy holidays in the supermarket, there are Hannukiot lights on the street lamps and Sufganiot being sold at every corner. It isn't any doubt that it is the holidays or that everyone around is Jewish. It is no myth that when people move out of Israel they become more religious because they have to prove they are Jewish. I have not gone to services or kept separate dishes while I was here because being Jewish is so much more natural than it is in the US. Anyway, on tuesday I got more religious than I have in a while.

My friends Agostina, Aliza and I went to Mea Shearim to check it out. Mea Shearim is a super ultra, ultra orthodox neighborhood. Basically the people there believe that no one should live in Israel until the Messiah comes, yet they live in Israel. There is a bus line from the center of town to Mt. Scopus that goes through this neighborhood and I literally gawk at the people walkign through. It is a completely different world. Black hats of all shapes and sizes, dressed to the nines in black suits, all of the girls wear black pleated skirts to their ankles, blue colored button-down shirts and sweaters. And this is all in the heat of summer as well. I would sit on the bus in my shorts and a woman would come on and stare at my bare knees. Agos said someone had talked to her about the reasons she should cover up more because it was not appropriate to wear what she was wearing while even passing through the neighborhood.

I have a lot of issues with the strict nature of their lives and the inferior status women have, the fact that religious men will not acknowledge a woman's existence (like when i try to talk to them when I volunteer at the hospital and they avert their eyes and ignore me, or that I will be sitting on a full bus and a man would rather stand the whole way rather than sit next to me. I know that their are rules that I cannot understand and that a lot of people are very content in this lifestyle but it baffles me. I also hate the way that religious people feel fine in Israel to have neither parent unemployed and live off the government, especially because in any other country this would never fly, and that our religious second cousins who live in Israel never spoke to us all those years because since we are not haredi (super religious) we do not count as Jews. Anyway, clearly I have issues with this neighborhood but I was so fascinated with it. It is a completely different world.

So we made plans and planned outfits. I thought we should take off all of our jewelry (I took out my nose ring) and put our hair in a plain ponytail. I wore the longest skirt I had- thank god ima made me buy a Kotel skirt, and a button down shirt and a sweater, i felt very appropriate. We were so excited to go on the bus and see how people treated us. People sort of give you these looks like you are from a different world, like "I would not want to be wearing that".

We tried to be very inconspicuous walking around. It was very interesting because as a woman you have the tendency to want to flaunt yourself and be noticed and here it was the opposite. Although we didn't feel like we had to be invisible but there was definitely a sense of blending into the crowd and trying not to be noticed for any reason. As a woman and as outsiders. As outsiders we did well because although we did not make a scene of any sorts we would always squeal with excitement at all the strange things we saw:

the separated buses- men in front, women in back

stores that only sort the various hats or framed photos of rabbis

strange toys- rabbi matching games, kids doll with peyot and a talis

millions of buffet restaurants that look like Boca Raton

wig styling salons

and the like

WE LOVED IT

The only disappointment was that we thought we could get really cheap groceries but we were wrong.

Later that day we went to Nachlaot, a really really cute neighborhood and looked at all the chanukiot. It was amazing, we had gone their to see all of the sukkot but at night seeing in every window a chanukiah made me feel really happy to be jewish. That was really corny, but it really made me so happy. They even had all these tours walking around to stare at the windows.

Then Agos and I went to the kotel because I had not been there yet. They had a huge chanukiah there which you are supposed to go see being lit. We had been to the Jewish quarter like 6 times but not to the Kotel (who know why) so we came prepared with pens and paper. The last time I went to the kotel was the day we got to Israel and I was really jetlagged and not in the mood because the lady at the entrance yelled at me because I was not appropriately dressed. I just laughed at all the women praying and crying at this old stone wall. Today I felt a lot better about it, partially because we had been having such religious experiences that day and because I understood how important this place was to so many people and we had the privilege of being right there. I don't often appreciate that I get to spend so much time in Jerusalem, a place that is so holy and so special because I don't consider THAT important to me on a regular basis, but that night it was really nice that we could just take the bus and arrive at the Kotel.

We wrote our notes and walked up to the kotel but we had to wait a good 15 minutes in order to touch it. Partially because the women's section is tiny and partially because all of the women insist on praying right at it so that no one can get near the wall. So we waited and waited and finally squeezed up to the wall and then struggled to get the note in, because boy that is a full wall.

Tals/ Kibbutz II/ family

So, since the last post I wrote about was really only about a sandwich and that was 3 weeks ago, I would say I was due for another writing, and this time I'll try to talk about real things?

I have learned somethings since that weekend, and that means going away for the weekend. The social scene in Israeli universities is very different. Namely, people go home for the weekend. It comes from 2-3 years of being in the army where you go home for the weekend and in a country where everything is close. Still, though I find it a little odd, maybe not odd, but, well, different. I go to college 2 hours from home and I only go home for holidays and vacations. My friend goes home every weekend on a 5 hour bus. Plus she travels down thursday night and back on the 5 AM bus every sunday. It's great dedication.

Now, this creates a very interesting dynamic. On the family unit it keeps the family unit together for much longer. There are graduation parties and everyone cries and the child leaves the home but then they come back on thursday. Or better yet, they have a day job and they come home every night. The children don't leave the nest really until they go to college or maybbe just when they get married. I think it keeps families closer but at the same time it doesn't force the kids to become more independent which I think is a big benefit. I certainly feel that being so far from home, although I miss the family so much and how much i wish I could just go home for the weekend, it has forced me to make very independent steps.

Anyway, what I am trying to stay is that people don't stay in the dorms or in Jerusalem on weekends. I don't know how it would be to stay in town, because people do live in the city, but Mt. Scopus is very lonely and isolated as it is and on friday/saturday when there are no busses we cannot do anything, so I make plans.

So I went to the Tals family home who were our neighbors on kibbutz and I grew up with their daughter Mika. Mika could not come home from the army but they have 2 other daughters and i really had a great time. i felt really comfortable just to hang out and be a little weird. it made me realize that there is a very difference between Ima and Abba's friends who I could call if i had an emergency and people i can just go to hang out with. Since i have no family here (except for really religious third cousins somehwere who wont acknowledge my existence) and no one i can bother each weekend i need to find those hang-out people- those are the people who become your adoptive families in the end. in the end it is the people who know me best and in israel it is the families of the 2 girls i grew up with, Mika and Yahav- the Tals and the Erez-Slotts.

So the next weekend I went to visit the Erez-Slotts and the rest of the kibbutz. Now this is a very different experience- for one, Yahav does not live with her parents. Although they live about a 3 minutes walking distance every kid on kibbutz after 11th grade gets their own apartment in a pseudo-youth village in the corner of the kibbutz. This certainly creates a very interesting familial dynamic but that is for an entirely different sociological research study. Anyway, the kibbutz is very layered. For one, it is the place I grew up in so I can pass my old house, kindergarten, dining room, etc and have all of the nostalgia, but it is nice that they all live in the kibbutz and not just an empty place in some neighborhood. Second, its the family thing, all the people who watched me grow up are there and certainly many of those families and Ima and Abba's friends i could go to to hang out, but since this is kibbutz its entirely different. Third, there are the people I grew up with. Going to visit Yahav means I follow her around a little and sleep in her bed, but visiting the kibbutz means i am part of the youth village. I was very very surprised and pleasantly I should add that I felt very welcome there. People seemed to know I was showing up and people acted like I had just been there even though a lot of people were not home when I was there before so I hadn;t seen them in 5 years. No one was unwelcoming or acted like 'why are you here?' People also asked me about my life and if it was weird that i was back. it made me feel very nice because i tend to feel that kibbutz people are so entangled in their own lives and in the kibbutz that they dont notice other people's lives as well. Anyway, I felt a little strange and there were lots of volunteers and people i didnt know but i ended up having a really good time. i hung out with people the entire weekend and went to "cool" bars in other kibbutzim (no comment) and the famous Ketura pub, but i really got a sense of their lives and felt like i was a welcome visitor.

I did not feel like i could have been living there or that i wanted to, but i took the 6am bus with my friend Yasmin back to Jerusalem and i was sitting in the bus stop, me in my MASA backpack (the organization that funds and creates trips to israel) and her in her army uniform and i thought, if things were different i would be sitting here in my uniform going to my base as well. I know that things would have had to be A LOT different and who knows who i would have been (and believe me i have spent a lot of time pondering this) but if i still lived on kibbutz one thing would have been for sure, i would also sit in the bus stop sunday mornings in a uniform waiting for a bus to go back to my base.

I am not just saying this about the army, but it is strange to think about Yahav, a girl who was born 13 days before me and until i was 9 we shared the same life and while my life has taken so many turns i can see what it could have been like by looking at her life. I know this is oversimplifying everything, but from a physical standpoint i kept thinking that weekend, if we would have stayed on kibbutz, this is what my weekend could have been like. I think there are few instances where we can say that about decisions: if i would have made a different decision it would have come out liek this. sure who knows who i would have been but since the kibbutz seems to be something you can count on to stay more or less the same- that could have been my life.

My last point after all of this was the people- Mika, Yahav, will always be in my life. I spent alot of time at Mika's house looking at photo albums and watching home videos and hearing stories. And the funny thing is that 80% of their videos and pictures we have almost duplicates in my house. And while their video of out move from the baby home to the toddler home has the dad's voice and is pointed on mika and mien has abba and focuses on me, they are all the same. We had the same memories and significant events of our early childhoods. Every time they are ever in the US or I am here we make special special efforts to see them. Not just because we are still friends but because they are my constants. No matter what i know i will always see them and we'll be at each other's weddings and all. I don't know if many people have this with people they are not related to but its this weird bond. Even if i didnt like them i would always have to see them and i would have to drag my butt half way across the world to see them.

Israel is really inescapable to me. I thought earlier this trip that it was just the place i was born in- not really different than France if i were to have been born in france. And yes, it is a lot alot about that- the kibbutz, the places that hold memories, the people- they will always draw me back here. But it is ISRAEL and well, the fact that i am expecting visits from friends going on birthright and can see people who i worked with at camp because they were on the israeli delegation and the obsession american jews have with israel and the fact i speak hebrew and the fact that my name only makes sense here (although i start to not like it in hebrew because its so commonplace) and the fact that israel has so many issues and cannot stay off the news and people ask me my opinion from the "israeli voice"- well that makes Israel be layers and layers for me.

Now i will go to bed because tomorrow i am going to natanya for the weekend, because although it is certainly not the most glamourous place in israel, lets face it, i cannot be home alone with a sandwich again.

Noa on her own

So today I'm on my own. Sometime I get to be on my own; when everyone goes to Ulpan and I have quiet time, when I was sick all week and I had to stay in my room all week- that was fun!, or now today all weekend alone. Miriam was supposed to come if she didn't make it to Syria but she did yay! for sucks for me because everyone else went up to Tel Aviv and Haifa, but oh well, I did get to spend a few great hours with an amazing sandwich that somehow I have become obsessed with- my only friend in the cold dorm complex. Actually, Yulia, my Russian roommate who speaks no English or hebrew is here, but she hasn't left her room in 10 hours- she is a strange one.

Anyway, I watched some Friends episodes, cleaned the whole apartment, did laundry, reorganized my class registration- exxxxccciiiitttemmment. Ya.

I just felt I should write SOMETHING- so there you have it, the boring drivel of a friday night- wow it's friday night, i feel lame.

Oh, to cheer you up: THE SANDWICH:

ROLL- no sliced bread, that sucks

MUSTARD

ROAST BEEF/ CORNED BEEF/ SALAMI

PICKLES

LETTUCE

TOMATO

PICKLES

PICKLES

yum.........

Patterns 101

Well today made my life. I wiggled into the Basic Patterns class and today we spent 4 grueling hours of measuring, exacting, and cutting out a pattern onto fabric so now my feet hurt and are smelly, but i have begun my blazer!

The whole thing is cut, and in 5 short weeks it will be finished. I am very very very pleased. This is exactly what I wanted to do.

Wednesdays in the morning 10-2 we sew and 3-7 we learn patterns. Its a long day but I am enjoying so much. I feel lucky that I can understand hebrew because there is a girl on my program also in fashion classes and she is very lost. I also made friends! I felt very isolated from the rest of the Bezalel students, but the fashion department has only 33 students so they are very welcoming and interested in everything USA and American fashion, college, culture, and obsessed with New York.

So now I am stretching my legs, eating hummus and enjoying the quiet time because everyone else has gone to Ulpan.

I HATE ISRAELIS, for now

So i know you arent supposed to write bad things on the blog, just all the amazing things that are happening, but ill just keep it real because i am not one not to say what is on my mind.

So being here is a little difficult in some aspects- mainly the culture of city israelies (i am trying not to generalize too much).

So, i thought this was just in tel aviv, but in jerusalem too you meet the pushy, rude, unprofessional, stubborn, hard-to-deal with, thinks-everything-is-not-a-big-deal, Israeli. I know I am going to say all these things and offend people but from the people I have met and in the setting i am in i will jsut say this: I dont know how israel functions without falling apart

okay, so basically this all stems from signing up for classes at school. ill preface this by saying that I am happy with my schedule, just not the system.

So i am used to an orderly system where you sign up for classes online and you get a specific time where you rush rush rush to try to get into classes by the spots that are available. then the first 2 weeks of classes you attempt to get into classes you arent enrolled in by signing up for waiting lists, hoping someone has dropped that class and you by a stroke of luck were online at the same time, and occasionally pleading teachers for empty desks.

At Bezalel it is very different, or at least for us international students. what we had to do is go to the individual secretaries of each department and plead to get a spot in classes. The other students had already signed up for classes so half the classes I had pinned for were already full.

"Are there ANY spots?"

"No"

"Is there any way to get in, i'm only here for a semester"

"so, there are no spots"

"i dont understand, what can i do to get in? what if someone drops the class?"

"there are no spots"

Great, so basically in this world of art i am the bottom of the food chain. basically we were told we could only take fine arts, no other departments would be open sorry. hello? i was promised fashion design, ceramics, photography, why did i come all the way here?

Turns out in israel its not 'what you see is what you get' its very very different. i went to the fashion department and had a similar conversation and tried hard to convince the secretary that i should get a spot. nothing. i left politely cried for a while and vowed i would go home the next day ("this isnt worth my time") and called my counselor (who is a student there) for help.

"you cant be polite, noa, that doesnt work here, you have to push" she said to me.

so we went back to fashion and she pleaded with the lady and made her look at the class lists and somehow a magical spot opened in 2 classes. Thank god.

A similar story happened with ceramics. No spot no spot no spot. So i went to the class and pleaded with the teacher and as uncomfortable as i felt that i was inconveniencing her, i said "do i want to be here or not?" i could be polite and sweet noa and walk home with nothing or i could endure some discomfort and get into this class. and somehow there was an extra wheel and i got in..

SO, what i am saying is somehow after these 2 tumultous weeks i got the classes that i wanted, but boy, couldnt there have been an easier way? i was all under the control of these secretaries who never showed up and were always on break, and when they were there had to be convinced to open their books and not roll their eyes at me and say "no room for international students". now this isnt an affront to secretaries because i was one once, but this culture that i dont know how it stands on its feet.

THERES A BETTER WAY! i want to shout.

i love israel but i could do without people shoving me and not saying excuse me, class starting half an hour late because not everyone had shown up yet, and it taking 3 days for the internet to get set up, our studio keys to be handed out, our bus passes to be bought, things like that.

SORRY, THAT WAS MY RANT. just had to say it. maybe ill erase this now...

Identity Crisis Solved?

So I have been doing A LOT of thinking about Israel, me and Israel, Noa and Israel, lalalala. Basically like the last 2 years.

I realized early Freshman year that I should have probably gone to Israel that year. I came to college where I had to meet all these new people and try to define myself to them and I never was sure where to put in Israel. So i decided, ill go abroad there. I worked at TY that summer and met lots of Israelies and lots of ZIONISTS and got a little sucked into the idea and said junior year israel junior year israel.

So now I am here, obviously, but it is finally time to figure this all out. This whole identity crisis that is the Israeli/American Noa. Where do i fit in in israel? where do i fit in in america?

So lots of thinking. I went to the Kibbutz and that helped me a lot to come to terms with my childhood home and realized I still love it and will always want to go back.

But what about the rest of Israel? So Ariela helped me realize that i am very constrained by this American zionist idea that I have to FFFEEEELLLL something spiritual and fulfilling about Israel, this whole "coming home" "finally fitting in" "fill a void in my heart" idea towards Israel. and i realized that harbored a lot of my problems toward Israel that I just wasnt feeling these things. As much as i love israel i am not feeling this intense pull towards it. It was stressing me out that i wasnt feeling like i have to stay here the rest of my life, but that is okay.

It can be where I grew up, a place i know, and a place filled with interesting places, friends, and ideas but it doesnt have to be everything. I am happy with my life in America and expressing my Judaism in america, and israel may not hold a spot i am missing in my life, but I can still like it and want to visit it.

It definitely isn't like going abroad to any other country because it holds so much meaning in my life but it is also okay for me to say that I like my place in life right now and I am okay to return to america in a few months and not necessarily be counting down the days until i make aliya

Update!

I added photos everywhere, and I'm a brunette again!