Words

I now give you a break from our regularly scheduled broadcasting to bring you some thoughts on religion and politics. Studying abroad is not all fun and games (although a lot of it is). A lot of it is about meeting new people, and examining your own thoughts and beliefs. I have been challenged on all accounts here. Not only am I in the minority, as I have mentioned before, because I am not Jewish. I am in the minority, because I am not Christian, or religious at all for that matter. In fact, here, I am almost alone.

My Christian friends here consider themselves socially liberal. However, they exclude in this issues that they consider religious issues. These religious issues (gay marriage and abortion, for example) are very much ones that I would include as social issues. As it turns out a lot of these differences in opinions are simply a matter of twisting words. I consider it a vote "for the women's right to choose" whereas others consider it a vote "for abortion, for murder." I think of marriage as "legal rights granted to two people who love each other and want to spend the rest of their lives together" while others see it as "a union between a man and a women under God." It is all nit-picky definitions. I am not going to go extensively into my views and reasons now as it is emotionally wearing for me. Who can look at my two friends who are completely in love, and tell them they should not/cannot be together? or that it is a sin to love someone?

As far as foreign policies go, I have always been on the fence. Obviously genocides and oppression are never okay. But on less severe issues, I feel like a government is often reflective of a culture. Can we ever really tell a people to change a culture we do not understand?

Words are so important to any politician. They can make or break a campaign. The words "Yes We Can" have made all the difference for Borack Obama. And I'm not going to lie, they are extremely inspirational. Although he was not my first choice, nor my second for the democratic nomination, his speaking skills are phenomenal. This (apart from his politics) is one of the reasons I detest President George W. Bush. I believe a president should be a great speaker (even if it is just presenting speeches written for them). I personally want a President who can express himself eloquently, and much better than I can.
Despite the ambiguity of words, and being challenged on the beliefs I currently stand alone in, I have learned how passionately I feel about issues and people. To the point of tears. It is not easy to be alone. But if we don't have strength, what do we have?

Under the Desert Sun

February 15-16, 2008
Large group trips really aren’t my thing, especially when the crowd resembles that of freshmen during New Student Orientation (NSO). That said, I can’t complain too much for another free trip, this time for a whole weekend to Mitzpe Ramon.

The original itinerary of a 4 hour hike was adjusted due to risk of floods in the desert. I for one was extremely disappointed, but I can’t say the same for most of the girls on the trip. Instead we rode the buses from site to site, got out, wandered around, listened to the tour guide say a few words, and got back into the bus. Enjoyable enough, just not what I had anticipated.

We checked into our hostel (which by the way I was very impressed with for a hostel - Each bunk room had its own bathroom and shower). While most people went to Shabbat services a small group of us decided to explore. The town of Mitzpe Ramon is located right on the edge of the cliff of the crater. It is absolutely breathtaking. We climbed up a hill with a camel shaped viewing area on top and watched the sunset over the desert.

Saturday was much more enjoyable. We woke up bright and early to head off into the desert for archery. Not the typical archery, but a sport closely resembling Frisbee golf. It is actually quite ingenious. As the owner told us, he wanted to replace golf with this form of archery. It takes the same skill, concentration, and focus, but you can play on the natural terrain. Golf wastes so many resources solely trying to maintain the grass. Good luck actually making that happen. It was a great experience and we all had a blast briefly learning technique and then just trying over and over with different distanced targets hiking across the desert.

A bathroom break led us to discover that this archery place was a hidden gem. Inside the fence was an open air shelter with a kitchen, and an abundance of mattresses and blankets. Inside were students just sitting, smoking hookah, drinking tea, and playing the guitar. It costs 80 shekels to spend a night on the floor, which is a little expensive seeing how the hostel was 90, but the atmosphere was amazing. We sat and chatted for awhile before returning to our group to carve sandstone.

After lunch 2 of us decided to diverge from the group “hike” and go for a real hike of our own. The view from the top of the crater was amazing, but we wanted to find a way to get down into it. After a little exploration we found a trail leading down the cliff. Hands down this was the highlight of my weekend. Nothing compares to the desert. It is the most relaxing, serene experience. It was the sound of utter silence. A picture looks as if you cut out our heads and pasted it on a background. You feel insignificant as the cliff walls surround you and you are in the middle of a vast open crater. The joy and awe I felt at that moment is inexplicable.

Pinch Me

February 7, 2008
Who does this? This is so unreal. Every once in awhile it hits me “I am here, in Jerusalem, traveling, seeing new things, and not at Penn spending all my time studying, doing the same old same old.” Granted we had 6 days of school this week rather than the usual 5, to make up for those snow days last week. But school is hardly a burden when you are done at 1:15pm and travel afterwards.

The Office of Student Activities organizes various free trips throughout the semester for international students to experience Israel. Today I went on the Caesarea trip where “archeology and history meets in one of the most romantic places in Israel Caesarea – Harbor, neighbor to the splendid Caesarea National Park learn about the periods, the places, and the people that have made Caesarea what it is today.” Sure, why not? I’ll go. And I was glad I did.

It was absolutely breathtaking. We took a walking tour through the ruins along the Mediterranean Sea, with the sun shining we didn’t even need coats. Normally I’m not a huge fan of guided tours, but this one was a wealth of interesting information. King Herod wanted a port where there wasn’t a bay, so somehow they constructed one. There was an amphitheater and hippodrome where there was free bloody entertainment for the male citizens of Caesarea, because, as King Herod figured, if they were happy and busy then they would not try to kill him. He had a fresh water pool where he poisoned his enemies and could pass it off as them drowning. He was so paranoid, in fact, that he killed his two sons so they would not steal his reign. When his wife was mad at him for this action, he killed her too. Then had an extravagant funeral for her, completed by covering her in honey. Yeah, no one really knows.

After the tour we were able to wander around on our own, and we caught the sunset over the Sea. While sharing coffee and conversation with a friend in a café overlooking the water at the end of the day, I realized why this place was considered romantic.

Mini NYC

February 3, 2008
After class on Sunday we spent the evening in Tel Aviv, an hour bus ride, on Egged, from Jerusalem. It was a short trip, but long enough to let us know that we must go back. We met one of the Penn Nurses’ roommates at the bus station and we continued to walk around the city. Tel Aviv is known in Israel to be a miniature New York City. It attracts a much younger crowd than Jerusalem, and is more hip and modern.

We walked along, what I understood to be the first road in Israel. The walkway was wide and ran up the middle of the street with trees lining each side. It was beautiful. I love when nature and cities come together. Part A of our walk ended at Max Brenners, a chocolate café. There are now other locations across the world, but I was told it originated in Israel. We made the mistake of filling up on the dinner portion. It was delicious though. The side salads are not made with cheap ice-berg lettuce, and have an abundance of toppings. My friend tried the traditional Israeli dish, Shakshuka, for her main portion. We ordered hot chocolate in “Hug Mugs” for our drink; shaped like a raindrop you cup it in your hands and drink from the spout. Being at a chocolate café we convinced our stuffed selves that we needed to order a dessert to share. We decided on the ice cream with various chocolate toppings. Delicious.

Having officially become pregnant with food we felt the need to walk it off. Part B of our walk took us to the Mediterranean Sea. It was dark by now, but it was still beautiful and exhilarating to walk along the boardwalk next to the sand, even briefly. We hurried to catch the bus back to Jerusalem; after all, we had school in the morning.

The Outcasts

February 1, 2008
Today we took a tour of Old City and the Jewish Quarter. We stood in the room where Jesus supposedly had his last supper. The tour ended at the Western Wall. It is divided into two gender sides with the much larger division being the men’s. I overheard other girls on our tour expressing their anger at how much smaller the women’s side was, but my friend turned to me and said they are lucky the women even have a side. Here Jews were praying, reading their Torah out loud, swaying up and down, burying their faces in their Torah, pressing themselves against the wall. There are pieces of paper stuck in the wall that have people’s prayers written on them. It was a really interesting place to observe and people watch. Old City is a historically significant place for many different religions; however, I feel like a lot of the meaning and history is lost on me as I am not religious.

Some people might refer to it as culture shock. I’m not sure if that is exactly what I am experiencing, but it is different being in Israel without being Jewish. They have such a strong community that everyone studying abroad here knows each other through someone somehow. All except our little group of Penn nurses. The topic comes up somehow in every conversation where I hesitantly admit, “no I am not Jewish”, and the response is usually something like “oh.” At least we have each other.

Being an outsider in this particular region is not necessarily a bad thing. We have a whole different perspective on the whole Arab-Israeli conflict. It is really quite disturbing the little derogatory comments we hear in everyday conversation. But we are having difficulty with what we can do with those comments. We are outsiders, so on one hand, do we even have a place to say “this is wrong”? But on the other hand we have a valuable unbiased perspective. Will our views impact any one person and make a difference? Or will we lose friends by opening our mouths? We feel like we have gone back prior to the Civil Rights Movement in America. It is a frustrating situation.

Symbolic Snowballs

January 31, 2008
The second snow day finished off our first week of school with two days of Hebrew and 4 days off. The sun (shemesh!) came out today and I peered out my window to discover that I can see the Dead Sea and all the way to the hills of Jordan! We decided to go for a walk around the rim of campus.

Groups of kids and whole families drove out to the top of the hill to play in the snow. I’ve decided that the city of Jerusalem does not shut down because they can’t handle snow, but because they don’t find it necessary to continue on with daily life and business when there is snow. Especially since it is so rare, they might as well enjoy it when they have the chance. What a concept.

On our walk we met a group of 10-13 year old boys throwing snowballs at passing cars. The girls that crossed to walk on the other side of the street were left alone, while a friend and I who stayed on the same side got pelted with snowballs. But really, what did I expect? We threw some back in good fun and moved along. What I did not expect was to be followed by a few of these boys trying to put their arms around us and kiss us. Repetition of “No! Lo! La!” finally warded them off. My friend explained “American tourists/Israelis never interact with Arabs, and so there are no definite rules for that kind of interaction.” I will address this concept more in depth later.

We continued on our walk to pass by two older boys, I cringed as one walked toward me with a snowball in hand, anticipating being pummeled in the face. To my surprise and delight he just placed the snowball in my hands, as if it were a gift. This brightened my spirits and I decided to attribute the previous behavior simply to them being obnoxious 12 year old boys.

With every step around the rim we exclaimed “this is such a beautiful view” and stopped to take pictures. We threw some more snowballs with eager kids and adults, and were victims of a drive-by snowballing. One car that drove past had a mini snowman sitting on the top of the hood complete with a scarf while the driver had a huge grin behind the wheel. Once the fun turned into cold we headed back to the Student Village to warm up with some tea.