Hooray for Politics! And Debbie. And Maybe Life Too.

Israeli elections happened last week. The powers that be divided our class into groups and sent us to various cities. My group went to Bat Yam, which is a beach town that is sort of near Tel Aviv, but way more impossible to get to. Then, we had to make a video about it and put in on Youtube. Here's ours. It's about half English, half Hebrew. The part where I explain how the elections work is in English, so even if you don't understand a word of Hebrew, you should watch it.

Now, people keep asking me, "Who is this Yair Lapid guy we keep hearing about?" Well, he is an Israeli talk show host and newspaper column writer (journalist?). He started a new centrist political party called Yesh Atid (There Is a Future), and he won 19 seats in the Knesset (Israeli parliament), which put him in second place, a big achievement for a brand new political party. It remains to be seen whether Yair Lapid and his party would be willing to join in Bibi Netanyahu's coalition and become part of the government. A lot of people seem to think that he will, since it is in his best interest if he wants to have a shot at winning the next election. The last centrist party that won a lot of seats, Kadima, did not join the coalition and is now more or less irrelevant.

These last couple of weeks have honestly been a bit stressful. Just have had a lot to think about. We have a Debbie Friedman memorial concert coming up. I was asked to give a speech on behalf of the students, probably because of my Hava Nashira-ness (i.e. I actually got a chance to know Debbie). I was reluctant. I was in Israel leading a Birthright trip when she died, and it was very hard to mourn for her properly. I reacted by locking myself in my room for the night, not really talking about it or anything, not knowing what to do while I was so far away from home and didn't even have very good internet access. It was honestly hard to write a speech. Most of my Debbie anecdotes don't really belong at an HUC concert speech. I have a lot of really funny ones, but I thought it was best to keep those to myself. I didn't really want to talk about the time that we had an argument over the merits of cantorial music versus congregational music. Or the time she complimented my political views as expressed through my rain boots, which totally cracked me up. Or countless other stories that are better kept in my memory. (Hey, remember that time we were singing Oseh Shalom, and Debbie stopped us to correct us?) And I'm really not good at the sentimental stuff. I'm not going to write here what I did choose to talk about in case some of my classmates are reading this; maybe I will later. The writing process turned out to be kind of cathartic. I guess it was a chance to finally mourn properly.

It is the middle of our mid-year colloquium, and all sorts of faculty from all of the American campuses are currently here. It's nice. The head rabbi of the New York campus met with all of us who are going to New York and brought us American candy. In a CVS bag. Rock! We've had all sorts of lectures and discussions on the topic of "Jewish Peoplehood." Not even going to start going into that because it's super complicated and doesn't make any sense, but it's been interesting. We heard from an Orthodox comedian tonight who had converted to Judaism through three different movements. I am usually wary of standup comedy, but this was the funniest thing I've ever seen. His name is Yisrael Campbell. Go hire him.

Well, I'm off now. Here's to the start of a great semester!

Normalcy

I think after a half a year of living here, Jerusalem does feel like home. I know that I'm going to leave at the end of the school year, but for now, I've very much come to terms with the fact that I'm living here. I'm on winter break right now. I was almost going to plan a last-minute getaway to some sort of exciting European country. Why didn't I? Mostly because my wallet disappeared. It was the same day that my good friend lost her keys. We scoured HUC for our stuff and got everyone we could think of to help. No luck. I even checked the refrigerator. So, with my cards not having arrived by the time break started, I thought it might be nice to chillax in Jerusalem. It has been nice. Some of my friends are still here, so it's been nice hanging out with them. It's also been just nice catching up on sleep. And I finally organized my room today. And tomorrow I have a shopping date. And I'm finally getting my hair done later this week, which I should have done three months ago, and I really don't want to start looking like Einstein.

Anyway, I wanted to write a post because friends from home keep asking me what I do in Jerusalem. The truth of the matter is, I really have no idea what to tell anyone, because I often do just what I do in LA, with maybe a twist. Here are some examples.
1. School. It eats my life, but I love it.
2. Extra-curricular activities. This includes things such as being on the Va'ad Tefillah (prayer committee). We're in charge of planning all ritual activities outside of the normal weekly HUC services.   Like on tiyulim or if there's a holiday or something. I also have this thing called a Trumah Project, which is a volunteer project that everyone has to do. Mine is songleading at an elementary school with friends Dan, Max, and Alex. When we walk in, kids give us high fives. They are all so adorable. Also, Israeli schools are kind of awesome because instead of bells, they play music. If they were to do that in American schools, maybe kids would like school more. Also, there's a cuddly cat that lives at the school. If you can't tell, I'm slightly obsessed with cats.
3. Run errands. See? Not much different from home. Like in LA, I live a block from the market, which makes things easy. Though, sometimes I like to go to the shuk, which is like a farmer's market but bigger and more Israeli. "What do you mean by more Israeli?" you may be asking. You just have to go there.
4. Hang out with friends. We do normal friend stuff like hanging out, eating dinner, going shopping, and spending nights on the town. See? Just like in LA. But with new friends. (This is in response to people asking me what I do for fun. I don't know? Normal fun things?)
5. Going to shul. I think the main difference here is that I don't often go to Reform services in Jerusalem. I like the Reform congregations here, but I also want to have new worship experiences.
6. Potlucks. Enough said.
7. I fed my friend's cats while she and her husband were away for the weekend. I cuddled with them.

I don't want to make it sound like my life in Jerusalem is completely mundane; in some ways it is, but in some ways it's really not. First of all, the city just looks different. It's so full of history. I don't really get into the Old City much, with the very notable exception of Rosh Chodesh, but when I do, it's kind of awesome to think that people were living there in the tenth century BCE, and how much it's grown and changed. Even my neighborhood has some interesting history. It was established in 1921, and it was a place where Zionist gentry would sip coffee and talk about Zionism. It is also home to many government officials and has been historically. I mean, what ever happened in my neighborhood in LA other than a couple of teenagers digging a pool and finding a caveman who looked like Brendan Fraser? (If you're younger than I am, you probably have no idea what I'm talking about. Don't worry about it.) And the city just looks kind of old, yet still modern. There's something about a light rail going up a street filled with only stone buildings. And there's one huge difference here from life at home: Even though I grew up in a neighborhood with a heck of a lot of Jews, Jerusalem seems to have a heck of a lot more Jews. And they speak Hebrew, which is amazing, because only in Israel do I ever have the chance to see Hebrew as a real, living language. Hebrew was actually the second language I learned, and then Spanish much later, but it sort of seemed like Spanish was my second language and Hebrew was my third because so many people speak Spanish, which means I actually have a chance to speak it (even people here speak Spanish, it's kind of awesome), whereas few people outside of Israel speak Hebrew (thank goodness for my Israeli camp friends or I would have forgotten it all before I came here). But now I have a chance to really speak Hebrew too! I don't know if I'll come home fluent, because Jerusalem is pretty touristy and also filled with olim, but I've already gotten so much more confident in my speaking abilities since I've been here, and I can only get better from here.

Anyway, I've got a long day of shopping ahead of me tomorrow, so signing off! In the mean time, here's a Jordanian cat for your oggling pleasure.