Israel Journal January 2011

ISRAEL January 2011

I arrived in Tel Aviv as do all international travelers to Israel by plane. My trip would start and end here going to Jerusalem, Eilat, Petra (Jordan), followed by a quick stop in the Negev Desert to see where Ben Gurion, the first Prime Minister of Israel, is buried, and a race up the coast to Acre (Akko).

I asked the immigration officer not to stamp my passport so I could visit a friend in Lebanon and he proceeded to stamp a clean page in my passport right in the middle of page to add a big, "f you, welcome to Israel bitch." A later immigration officer suggested I get a new passport, “you have no pages.”

I did not have some connection to Israel like I thought I might. I don’t see it occuring over time either. I wasn't moved by anything except this one girl and all her bouncing parts in Eilat, she was spectacular. Many Jewish people, especially American, come here and volunteer for the army for a couple of weeks at a time, sometimes for a couple of years, others pack up and move to Israel, and others choose to support Israel through financial instruments. "The Right of Return" allows Jewish people all over the world to return to Israel as it is their "homeland," acquire residency and citizenship. There is only one requirement, you have to be Jewish and prove.

My former colleague when I worked at the library at my graduate school just spent a few weeks in the military in Israel volunteering, she is probably in her late fifties and I met people easily in their seventies doing the same. I met one boy straight out of the Yeshiva in New York City doing two years in the military as a matter of duty. He thinks the universe is 5700 odd years old. This was a reoccurring thought among the religious people I met. We didn't have much in common.

Even Petra was something of an overpriced, overhyped let down. The challenge is, how do you put a price on something like that? I have found over the years that the landscape is the thing that moves me the most. The people are the most interesting, the things that make us the same and the things that make us different. Major landmarks of the ancient kind rarely interest me. "Look at this old ass rock, it was used by (fill in the blank) to do (fill in the blank)." It is basically the same everywhere, but some people had more materials to choose from. Cultural artifacts got more interesting, in my opinion, when people started using metal, colors, different fabrics, and some advanced techniques in manufacturing.

The most impressive thing for me in Egypt a few years back wasn't The Pyramids at Giza; it was talking to our tour guide as Canadian Catholics (my sister and I) with a distaste of American foreign policy. He really opened up and gave us some insight into how some people really feel not just about Israel and America but about President Mubarak (read: democratic dictator) and how the government has sold out (read: Camp David Accord, 1979) its honor and country for greed and never-ending dictatorship disguised as democracy. He lectured us all while sitting on some stones outside the wall at the Temple at Karnak in Luxor, probably the same place working thousands of years ago sat to take a break from the sweltering desert sun. That is perspective you can’t get from a lecture hall, ancient history and modern geopolitics colliding.

I am spoiled. I seem to have to go farther off the grid to find those spots where you cannot buy anything resembling a trinket or souvenir. In addition to my changing attitude, my funds are starting to take a hit as global travel has become much more expensive partly due to oil prices, price gouging, inflation, the weakening dollar, and the overall hike in prices for the backpacking traveler. There are still $10 a day places, but getting there can be pricy. Even visas are absurdly priced now, $30, $60, and upwards of $100 in some places.

Tel Aviv (incorporating interactions throughout the trip)
Tel Aviv is progressive, easy to navigate and quite a nice place to live. Lots of freedom, dreadlocks, and yuppie meets hippie meets banking meets beach bums meets healthy types meets alternative lifestyles. It reminded me of a less dangerous version of Miami with a real city atmosphere to it, not just a South Beach. Nothing historic stands out, even though the ancient port city of Jaffa lies to the south and is walking distance from the city center.

I couch surfed (couchsurfing.com) the first two nights in Israel with a gay couple. At this point I knew very little about Israel. My plan was to couch surf with different types of people to get different perspectives. This would be the progressive Tel Aviv talking and it was an introduction to the realities of the religious communities influence on policy more than in view into the world of modernization, progress, and acceptance in Israel's second biggest city.

You may have heard of a country being an "Islamic" state before and I believe for many Americans this translates into something not safe and open to the freedoms we take for granted. American is basically a "Christian" state, but it isn't what defines us as a people and certainly not policy. America is a very free place even if it feels like a police state. A handful of other countries, usually rich and usually with small populations are the only other places in the world where you can do just about whatever you want religiously, politically, sexually, and socially.

Israel is a "Jewish" state and not unlike its Islamic state neighbors in all directions they have some pretty archaic laws. Tel Aviv might be secular, but the country is not. People identify with being Jewish first here. In the last fourteen years of travel, I have never been asked what my religion was before what my name is. When I lied and said no, I was treated differently instantly just like in Egypt those few years ago. When I was Jewish, I was instantly appreciated as a member of something that unites us all together. I was part of a family and some united struggle to refrain from becoming extinct. Israel was my home with having ever been there before.

Following Jewish law even if you don't agree with it is seen as a cause for the greater good and the protection of the Jewish people from another holocaust. The spread of Islam, the explosive reproduction rates of Muslims and Hassidim (Jewish Ultra Orthodoxy) infiltrating the land and laws has become problematic for more secular and modernized people in Israel. People are generally not pleased with the state of things, especially the ones who came to Israel in the late 40's to the early 60's. They feel that religious extremism, the collapse of the Kibbutz (collectives in rural areas to settle land) system, and a general disagreement of the way Israel treats Ethiopian Jews, people of color, and Arabs as real disappointments in Israel's evolution. The people in their sixties (mostly women) I met who told me these things all have children and at least one of them is living overseas.

Being a proud Israeli is commonplace as nationalism is instilled at a young age. Everyone has to enlist in the army, girls for two years, boys for three years. The few dozen younger people I met would be just fine leaving Israel behind for a new place to live, not quite with the urgency of Africans and some Asians, but you can see it in the body language and in the words. Israel is a good country, but why not somewhere else, we will probably get kicked out of here anyway is an unspoken undercurrent of some of my conversations here.

"We cannot coexist together. It hasn't worked in the past and it isn't working now. In time there will be a major war and it will be religious in nature, but about water in political circles" said a western educated Armenian Christian I met in Akko. His friend, educated in Israel, but well traveled believes that most people want to live in peaceful coexistence but the religious groups throughout the country and in the region will never allow it to happen. After taking a drag from his hash pipe, he looked up at me and said with glazed eyes, "Never!"

The first Armenian man got animated after a few minutes and asked me if I had heard of the Armenian Holocaust. I hadn't. He went on to explain how after World War One the Ottoman Empire systematically killed between one and one and a half million Armenians. He brought this up to bring to my attnetion not so much the plight of Armenians, but how the Jewish Holocaust is constantly something the government wants the Jewish people to remember. In back to back to back succession Israel has a holiday for the holocaust, Memorial Day, and Independence Day. It is a long few weeks of getting that nationalist spirit reawakened. He wasn't suggesting that this is a bad thing, but this constant reinforcement reminds the people of Israel that everyone wants us elimination or at least gone. Getting more serious again he said, "That is part of why people are so angry and suspicious here. There is this constant reminder that we are wanted dead not alive. Peace is not possible."

As for my couch surfing hosts, they can't get married, they can't adopt children, and they are only welcome in progressive cities like Tel Aviv. In fairness, Islamic States wouldn't tolerate these two at all. A country on red alert at all times has time to discriminate people on race, religion, and sexual orientation. There is always time for discrimination, historically when people aren't fighting outside influences (subjective) they are killing each other. There is always time to discriminate, especially when it comes from the mouth of God. According to a Rabbi I talk to, being darker I skin color was a punishment from God for doing wrong. Is it any different today? Americans would say blacks are animals let them kill themselves. Israelis wouldn’t say this out loud about Arabs, but when I said, people didn’t disagree with my words, just eye contact, a pause, and a shrug.

Jerusalem
Jerusalem is hectic, crowded, and full of tourists. You walk around the Mountain of Olives (Christian sightseeing area) and people are dressed in the traditional garbs of the Greek / Russian Orthodox variety. Men have long beards, rounded bellies shufffling along in long black robes with the cross of their savior around their necks. The head is covered in a combination black doo-rag and baseball cap without the lid, just go with me. It is important to note that men of God all shuffle along, most of the time walking with their hands behind their backs as if contemplating everything and always in deep thought. Asian religious leaders do the same or hands in front interlocked. The women are basically dressed like nuns.

Through the cemetery across the street lies the Wailing Wall and Dome of the Rock, the holy Jewish and Muslim sites, respectively. Islam is a boys club so I do not have a lot of information to provide here. If you aren't Muslim you cannot enter mosques. Police presence is higher at the Dome of the Rock then at The Western Wall.

In Ethiopia during Ramadan many years ago, my friends and I were walking in a more run down part of Addis Ababa. Being the holiest of holies for Muslims, this time of year the mosque gets crowded to the point where people had to pray outside on the mud and sewage infested streets of this particular slum. People humbly grab cardboard boxes, make a makeshift prayer rug out of it, and get busy with the bowing, kneeling, and praying. It was quite a sight and within ten seconds we were angrily told to get a move on by some guy just standing on the corner, "this is not your place" looking at the two girls we were traveling with with disgust. Boys club!

The Hassidim, are easy to spot. In many ways they look like their Orthodox counterparts across the cemetery and street over by the Church of Mary Magdalene. Black hats with a rounded trim, half cowboy hat and half gangster hat, long black coats, long beards, long hair, rounded bellies unless you are young in which case an eating disorder on par with anorexia is the standard look underneath the same clothes. All that contemplation requires fasting. I think they are all on drugs, but who am I to judge. Change the clothes and they look JUST like the drug addicts you see on a Grateful Dead or Phish tour. The women even dress like they live in Northern Cailfornia on a farm exclusiviely devoted to growing organic high grade cannibus sativa. They look like gypsies, long shirt or dress, upper body covered, shmatas (sp: Yiddish for head rag) on their heads. I fit right in except when I go to the airport where in I look like a terrorist. Long black dress slacks complete the look with additional cloth tied around the waist like a small towel covering the private parts and buttocks and black shoes. Black and white seems to be en vogue these last few thousand years. The one thing that really separates the hardcore from the extreme hardcore in fashion is that the latter have two pony tails curling down from just above the ears, think long side burns. They look like floppy ears on a cute big dog like a Labrador Retriever or donkey.

When my siblings and I were kids our mom used to tell us to go bang our heads against a wall when we were bored. It was her way of saying go find something to do on your own. It never made sense to me, I never banged my head against a wall, I just went and played like all kids do. When I saw what takes place at night at the Wailing Wall, especially on Shabbat, Friday night, I think I learned the origins of my mom's advice. The Wall is packed, seventy-five percent sectioned off for men, the rest for women, always separated, as God intended. Lined up along the wall at least twenty deep banging their heads against a wall or what is called Davoning (sp: Hebrew word) are the religious Jews going through prayer. Davoning looks like you are screwing in a stand up position with the ass in front of you only you are enjoying yourself so much, you shake your head up and down as if saying yes yes yes over and over again except you are facing a wall the whole time. The Muslims and Buddists (it varies) get on all fours and the Christians kneel. And they say white men ain't got no rhythm. Religious Jews boogie, albeit in a circle, usually kicking legs, and never individually like modern dance. They started dance unless you ask the Chinese who invented everything in case you didn't know, but that is another cultural distinction and generalization entirely.

I sat for a smoke and engaged these two really cute twenty year old girls in a conversation. The prettier one spoke better English. I have this thing about looking people in the eye. It helps me process the truth from the bullshit. She had a pretty face, but her eyes were amazing. The kind if eyes you can get lost in. Her pupils were so dilated I wasn't sure if she was on acid or if I was. It was night time, but there were a lot of lights on.

Anyway, I went through my usual, simple question to gauge the temperature, followed by some easy conversation, leading questions to gather information, and then bringing my stuff over after getting a sign that you can enter our world for a short time. People want to talk, but they just need the right conditions. My ignorance was a chance for them to teach me about their beautiful world, the daughters of Ultra Orthodox Jews. I didn't notice it at first, but the long skirt was a dead giveaway that they were religious. They didn't wear head coverings because they weren't married. They had traveled from an hour away to pray at the Wall, would spend the night in Jerusalem because driving is forbidden.

As the conversation drew to a close, I was asked if I believed in God. "I don't know." Do you believe in anything? "I don't know." What do you believe? "I don't know, it all seems like a bunch of nonsense to me. We don't know and that is just how it is. Subscribing to a religious belief seems too easy. You get to ask impossible questions and religion gives you an out by saying, "God talked to this guy or it is written" and that seems suspect to me. Her English wasn't that good; I simplified it with a shoulder shrug and an "I don't know." We parted ways, they went to the Wall to pray and I missed my chance to bring home a nice Jewish girl to my parents.

I learned a few other interesting tidbits and saw the tourist attractions but the Shabbat dinner was epic, coming up in a few paragraphs. I learned that girls get Bat-Mitzvah'ed at twelve not thirteen as is tradition in America. "Girls mature faster than boys you know," the pretty girl on the bus told me. The Holocaust Museum was the most comprehensive I have ever seen. The Museum of Israel was surprisingly good, a French collection, historical treasures of Jewish history, and the most surreal, four actual synagogue interiors from India, Germany, and two other places, hundred of years old reassembled inside the museum. The differences were subtle, but for the most part they could have been synagogues from the same places.

The family I couch surfed with in Jerusalem consisted of a married couple who emigrated from France in the sixties. The husband is frail looking, short, all of one hundred twenty pounds. He has the shakes but his mind is rock solid. He is one of the leading historians on Jewish history and works at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Museum's official name. The woman is a social worker and as I would learn through conversations throughout Israel, very open about her opinions and those of her peers when it came to Arab / Israeli relations. They have three children, one of which is living at home for a few months before he starts military service, they kept kosher, observed the Sabbath, but as I would learn in Israel, there is religious and then there are the rest.

This family didn't go to temple often, but considered themselves religious. It was made very clear to me that the American concept of reform and conservative was not socially acceptable. Orthodox or bust baby! This family had lights on timers, so they didn't sit in the dark, they just couldn't push the button. Regardless, they were very nice and accommodating. If anything, they followed the rules, but didn’t necessarily subscribe to the dogma.

My second night there I asked if this middle upper class neighborhood would be welcoming if an Arab of equal or greater educational, social, and / or economic status moved into the area. I asked her to speak for the neighborhood as not to single her out for her own prejudices if any. She said, in short, it didn't matter, the family is Arab and that is the problem, Arab first, everything else second. Switching the conversation around it became clear that a Jewish family living in an Arab neighborhood was not a good situation either, but it was suggested that violence was more likely in an Arab neighborhood. I didn't get the chance to heard an Arabs side of this scenario, but two Arab taxi drivers I met made it clear to me that the Israelies shit on them constantly and that, "the government is a Mafia controlled by the Jews.". Similar themes about Jews controlling the media, banking, Hollywood, and the American government also rained down periodically, even without a leading question or a prompt.

Jerusalem - Shabbat Dinner
This guy approaches me in the street and asks me about my Mets hat. He is 20, but looks older with his long beard, hat, and long black coat. He is a promising future Hassidim in the making, but for now he is a well spoken nice Jewish boy from New York who can talk religion and history very well. Occasionally you meet people like this, the kinds who go to the best school in the world, speak like they are reading from a textbook, and never miss a beat, highly evolved brains for remembering things and formulating complex thoughts, but perhaps not socially comfortable. This kid was one of those kinds of people without the social awkwardness; he would have made an amazing lawyer if he didn't decide on Jewish law as his life's work.

We talk for two hours in the street, kid doesn't miss a beat, and he gave me a tour of the Hassidim ghetto area. These people are basically cut off from the rest of the world or at least in theory. Other stories lead me to believe that men of the cloth like to make sexy sexy with the prostitutes from Ukraine, Russia, and other former Soviet States, but I will save human trafficking for another time. Let’s assume that religious people are all good folks. They get married, have a million kids, get a little money from the government to live, are exempt from military service, study Jewish law, pray, and go about their lives. You might know them as fundamentalist.

I get invited to the Western Wall on Friday night to see the praying, maybe have a prayer myself, wrap a little Tfillen (sp: Hebrew word for long leather straps you wrap around your arm), and enjoy a Friday night Shabbat meal at someone's house. Why not right? It is everything I want, the full on cultural / religious experience.

I show up at the Wall, meet some people, all long bearded black coat wearing religious tough guys. About twenty of us go to this Chabbad Rabbi's house where his wife has prepared a meal for all of us. She has a one and two year old in toe and is six months pregnant on the third. She will probably repeat this process until 8-10 pop out.

The other foreigners at the table are all religious leaders from America, Australia, and New Zealand. They don't look any different from you and I and can speak, read, and write Hebrew fluently. I am the only one there who can't.

After three long hours of prayer, singing, and toasting, I get impatient. Let's get the main course over with so I can respectfully leave is what I am thinking. The Rabbi who founded Chabbad apparently died on this day, so the "party" is longer than normal. He is considered the Messiah by this group and when he returns to earth, we will all return to Israel. Passover also has a Messiah. Jews leave a glass of wine on the table for him and leave the door open for him. Every year he doesn’t come and we usually shut the door because of the air conditioning or mosquitoes. So, I am done. I want to jump out the window. It is just like Church, by the third hour you’ve had it. I am sitting inbetween three American twenty year old men who all went to Yeshiva and think the world began 5700 years ago. I can’t talk sports, girls, or lighter subjects with them.

After the chicken, I make my toast and do the usual thank yous, use words like "nice and interesting" to describe the experience and then drop the bomb by letting them know it has probably been close to two decades since my last Shabbat dinner. Collective shock, a collective exhale, and a collective pause suck the air out of the room. I say “Le Chaim (To Life!)” and get escorted out the door where Rbbi walks me to the stairs with the hands behind the back like a man in deep though. The boy from New York who originally invited me to Shabbat dinner while walking the streets of the Jewish Quarter in the Old City escorts me to the street where I would eventually hitchhike to get to my couch surfing hosts home in the suburbs since public transportation shuts down for Shabbat, wished me well, gave me some more history lessons, and shook my hand. It was very interesting, but so boring, the appetizers salads were tasty as are all salad dishes in Israel, the soup gross, and the chicken dry, but plentiful.

Massada
Massada is a place near the Dead Sea where Jewish rebels setup a fort to live in isolation from the Romans in the early first century. It sits on a plateau in an arid scrub land, has little access to fields and water, and was impossible to invade as it was. The Romans wanted to kill the Jews or take them as slaves, so for three years they built a ramp of earth and a battering ram to eventually get to the Jews. The Jews decided to commit mass suicide in the final hour.

Massada is interesting historically assuming it is true. The historian who wrote about Massada was a Roman soldier with Jewish heritage. Food, water, time, and place leave one to question the validity of the story. The views were spectacular and it is one of those things you should do in Israel.

Dead Sea
Floating in the Dead Sea is kind of neat. You can sit Indian-style and your chest floats out of the water. The water is slimy and the beach small and rocky, but well worth an hour of your time.

Backpacking / Couch surfing
Couch surfing has been great, but you don’t run into backpackers often. To be frank, Israel isn’t really a backpacker kind of country anyway. Group tours are the thing to do here and there are some things you can’t do as a solo traveler like visit the Herzl Museum. As things get more expensive, the backpacker world has shrunk. Europe started it all, but now you have to pick and chose your spots with a limited budget. When I think backpacking I think SE Asia, Central more than South America, and a few places here and there. Sure, Zambia is cheap for the basics where Europe, the Middle East, and other places are not, but it will cost you a few thousand dollars to get there and $50 to enter the National Park a day. I miss the backpacker scene at times, random friends, random hookups, and a chill atmosphere. I need to do that again before hooking up with 23 year olds is creepy.

Brief Descriptions

Eilat
Staying at Aya's place in Eilat is sweet. I have a whole apartment to myself with a view of the downtown and sea. Aya is 62, mother of three grown children, been in Israel forever, loves her country, but is disappointed in the collapse of Kibbutz, the religious extremist going on, and how the economy is fairing for the future kids.

In 1978 with a one and three year old in toe, she bought a camper and did the national park tour in America, took her kids to Mount Everest Base Camp on a thirty-one day hike, and spent ten months in India after they were grown. She is kind of like an Israeli hippy.

Petra – Tour Groups
I went on a tour. Most of the people were dinosaur age. It made me reeally glad I am traveling while I am young. I don't know how some of these people do it, even with the nice hotels and shuttle services. Some of these places are taxing and you can't really see much more than the main sights when you travel at an older age unless you got the legs, heart, coordination, tenacity, and determination, to make it happen and still, there are unexpected things that happen which you have to adjust to. Regardless, I was a young pup, but it was nice, they were nice to me except one man who constantly criticized my look and habits. Petra was stupid expensive, $130 for ticket, $100 for transport, $50 for visas for a one day trip. It wasn't even that spectacular to be honest. It was a real cattle festival.

Petra smelled like piss when we crossed the border and it smelled like piss the rest of the trip at the park. When the horses ran buy with their carriages for the people who can't physically walk up and down the hill, it smelled like shit, horse shit to be exact. Basically I paid $300 to go for three hour hike surrounded by people, camera totting motherfuckeres taking picutres of everything, things of practically no consequence, smelling piss and shit most of the way and inhaling it when walking up hill, not to mention the noise and having to get out the way, and then there is only one cool looking place left and it is all fenced off and barely taking care of. The Jordanians are milking you and didn't even invest $10,000 into fixing the place up just the slightest bit. Seriously, shame on them! The one big carving, half a dozen other carvings, and the caves were cool though. How do you put a price on history like this?

A Bedouin who was born and raised in the caves at Petra told me that business has been suffering since 9-11. He made $10,000 a month before 2001, now he is reduced to selling bullshit trinkets because companies moved into the park to cater to tourists who do package tours so they don't eat or buy much in the park anymore and the government kicked them out and forced them into modern housing estates, so the Bedouin have been systemically isolated here and worse, have a limited source of income mostly related to NGO businesses and herding.

Midreshet Ben Gurion with Lucy and Uri and baby Ruthie
Near Sede Boker in the middle of the Negev Desert are Ben-Gurion University (BGU) and the resting place of his body. It is a beautiful site with cliffs and valleys running through the area. This whole region towards Jordan is the Great Rift Valley leading all the way to southern Africa. It is spectacular depending on the light. The air is clean, the sky is bright.

BGU focuses on graduate work and is one of the main centers in the world for research in alternative energy and climate change. The couple I couch surfed with were both academics, one in a political philosophy, the other in energy and climate, the husband a graduate of Oxford, the wife finishing her PhD . His body of work was about anarchy. He is one of those guys at WTO conferences boycotting something among other things. Really interesting people, but when you have children and responsibilities, you have to put food on the table. You don’t see many people beyond their late twenties fighting the man. Anarchy does however sound interesting in theory, but so did communism, feudalism, and one could argue, capitalism, but what we are really talking about it democracy.

Old City in Acre
Spent three days in Acre in the Old City where everyone is Arab and most are Muslim. It was the most relaxing part of my trip. Here is where I met the Arab Christian and Armenian Arabs. The market in acre as all markets in Israel had fresh beautiful foods. Hash was smoked more openly here and on Friday night I joined the hostel owner and his friend for a jam session.

Tel Aviv - Finish
I finished the trip where I began, in Tel Aviv. I met my first couch surfing hosts for dinner and told them about my experience in Israel. The only thing they asked was if I thought two weeks was enough time to really get a good idea about a country. I said no of course. What I did say in my defense of making my analysis, criticisms, and judgments is that whether traveling for a short or long time somewhere, if you meet the enough people and ask enough questions, you can only learn a lot about a place and its people, but you have to get both sides of the story. In the case of Israel there are more like four sides to the story, Jews, Arabs, Palestinians, and Christians.

Israel was an interesting place. It is one of those places you should visit if you can. What you see on television is practically nothing like the reality. It is a small country with a long history, lots of internal turmoil, and beauty.