The other day I heard a man blow himself up.
I didn't want that to be what I wrote about first thing in more than a month on this. I was planning on writing about how I voted in the Israeli election. Then I was planning on writing about Christopher and my trip to Sinai. But I just hadn't gotten around to it. Then there was the bombing at the Old Central Bus Station. Nine people killed, not including the 18-year old suicide bomber. His final pictures were set in front of a peaceful, autumnal New England landscape, the type of landscape I get more homesick for than I do for the streets of Jersey City. C and I watched "Paradise Now," the Palestinian-made movie about two suicide bombers, some weeks ago. We were thinking about it the other night when we walked up to the park at the top of our street, where Christopher likes to skateboard and we sometimes throw the frisbee around, to watch the sun set over Tel Aviv. We can see the whole city from there, glittering in its disco lights. It's quite a different view from what the two men see, their town of Nablus in the West Bank. The most affecting moment of the movie is when they get dropped off in Tel Aviv and look at the super-modern white-stone architecture, the women in bikinis rollerblading at the beach, the happy families with their dogs. This place is so small, it's hard to believe how many people can't and don't ever leave their hometowns, or home refugee camps, and never see this metropolis maybe 15 miles away.
Anyway, the bombing happened right as I ran out of the New Central Bus Station, where we've been having rehearsals, to meet Christopher for lunch. He was inside looking for me. I heard a loud, clumsy-sounding, as in, it had a couple parts to it, boom. Now, whenever I hear a boom here my first thought is, bomb. This time, after less than a minute, sirens filled the air and ambulances and all sorts of police vehicles filled the streets. C and I went to get sushi at a place in our neighborhood we'd never been before. My cell phone, which I'd had on silent for the rehearsal, was full of calls and messages from the girls in the quartet, who'd heard about the bombing while they were still in our rehearsal room. They knew that where it happened is on the way to my place, and that I was biking home as usual, and wanted to know I was safe. So that was when I heard what happened.
I miss baseball. I miss my cats, all the comforts of my parents' house. I miss the subway and the people I love to see in New York. I miss not having to worry about the people I love being hurt.
Nightmarish visions of the future make every city like this. Maybe this is an escalation, and maybe soon many more places will be. It's not all of Israel that you feel this immediacy of danger, that you feel yourself always at the middle of someone's bulls-eye. I'd say a majority of it, you still feel that magic of a just-discovered Eden. It's easy to forget here that it was settled through colonization. I'm not saying -AT ALL- that I agree or even sympathize with people who blow themselves up to hurt Israel, or with people who say this place shouldn't be here. Everybody needs a homeland, that should be the lesson of this place, and the history that led to its founding.
I'm probably not making any sense. It was an interesting experience leading up to voting. There are a lot more choices here than in the states. I wanted to vote for Hadash, the only party in Israel that is both Arab and Jewish. It's a communist party, at that. Ultimately, though, it was like choosing Gore over Nader. the coalition government means that smaller parties have almost no voice, even though their appeal is so great to us idealists. The pensioners' party, founded and peopled by all retirement-age people, ended up doing well among young, artsy people like me, and doing far better than expected. They benefited in a way from the low turnout. A lot of people who hadn't planned on voting, when they heard late in the day that Avoda, the Labor Party, had secured a strong place in the coalition, decided they could afford to vote idealistically, and threw their support behind this admirable cause: raising the average pension from Israel's current abysmally low 1,500 shekels a month- about $300. But I didn't think that far ahead, or wait that long, and decided to vote Avoda, both to support their frontman Amir Peretz, whom I like, and to make sure there was a strong left next to Sharon's Kadima, which was certain to win the most seats. The voting place, a school, was surrounded by banners and flags, with people for all the right-wing and religious parties like Shas, Likud, and the new ones, Israel Beiteinu ("Israel Our Home") and Zazim Yemina ("Moving Right"), many of them blasting dance music from boomboxes. It was a very funny scene for me and C, a circus to Americans used to the dignified silence that surrounds voting stations in the states. Inside, I gave my Tehudat Ze'ut, my national ID, to some people at the front desk, and they told me to which room I'd been assigned. They asked why Christopher wasn't voting, and I said, "Next year! He hasn't made Aliyah yet." He waited with his book as I went to my assigned room, where a row of four people sat at schooldesks, checked off my name, and held on to my Tehudat Ze'ut, I guess as collateral that I would vote correctly. I sat behind a desk with a large posterboard blocking me from their view. In front of me on the desk were about thirty stacks of pieces of paper, each emblazoned with a powerful, short word. On the posterboard was a key to what each word stood for: Power for Likud, Yes for Kadima, Truth for Avoda... That was easy, since Truth starts with an Aleph and they were arranged alphabetically. I put the paper in the blue envelope the folks at the desks had given me, sealed it, left my little hidden desk, and in front of the four of them, put the envelope into a big cardboard box. I felt like I was acting in a classroom play about the democratic process.
As Christopher and I rode our bikes away from the school, people still tried to give us fliers convincing us to vote for whatever. One religious man, a Dosi in the Israeli-Yiddish parlance, shouted at me, "Return to the Answer!" (the Hebrew naming of people who've become religious, like borne-again for Christians) "Stop wearing pants! Stop riding a bicycle! Observe the Shabbat!" I laughed as I pushed by him, thinking about how C and I had bought candlesticks at the Flea Market in Jaffo just the week before for our own Friday night observance. He probably wouldn't believe me.
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
the news
So. I haven't written in a while. And here I am, sitting in Ben Gurion airport, surrounded by stressed people with luggage, and this is the most time I've had to type in my computer since... since the last post I think! Definitely since before Christopher came to Israel. The quartet was gearing up in preparation for this trip we've been working towards for months now, and meanwhile I had my love here, first time in the country, doesn't speak Hebrew (then again, neither do I, almost) and so so exciting. He loves it here, and for the first time, the place feels like home to me! Well, he was here for a month. And during that time, it's hard to write about since now we're on to a new phase- but it was pretty incredible the level of connection. I mean, that was already clear in Mexico, when we met. Anyway, I'll get to the point: we're engaged! I've been looking forward to finding a way to break the news up here, but this stream of consciousness ramble will have to do for the time being. On top of having my Quartet in my Home, and the whirlwind of concerts and auditions, meetings and lessons we had, the real impression from this 2-week (!!) jaunt is the amazing love our parents and families showed me and Christopher. There's nothing I can compare to meeting someone and knowing they are GOING to be your father-in-law! Or brother in law, etc etc. I'm returning to Israel a new person, strengthened by all this new family. Also by all the love our friends have shown us, too, but unfortunately we barely got to see any friends on this trip, since meeting the families was the priority.
sigh. Living so far away really sucks sometimes.
Maybe I'll be able to give more specifics when I next write. For now I'll just include some pictures from our wonderful little trip up north. These of us were by the falls in the Yehudiyah Forest, in the Golan Heights, easily (by my lights) the most beautiful corner of Israel. The Landmines sign was not far from there, outside a field that seemed to be swallowing, or drowning, some old rusty farm trucks. The sunset was the night before, when we drove up to the extreme north to check out Mount Hermon, the only place in Israel where people ski and ice-skate.
I'll put up some more pictures soon. It's been a whirlwind back here in Israel, too, since two good friends came and stayed with me during the time before and after Christopher came. I'm dying for an Afooch, though, Hebrew (or, in this case, maybe I should say Israeli) for cappucino. Means literally "Upside-down." Sort of describes my state of mind right now! In a good way.
Sunday, January 15, 2006
Oaxaca pics, 3
shots of Elisa and Christopher with adorable stray dogs. We were suckers, even after a (domesticated) dog, saw me as a walking T-bone steak.
The beautiful and singular John Altieri. So glad to catch up with such a dear Eastman friend on this trip...
Christopher's stupendous one-hand-stand.
me+ elisa.
Oaxaca pics, 2
These are from the beach and New Years' Celebration.
Notice I forgot my camera for all the "important" moments: the wedding. Visiting Monte Alban, this amazing flattened mountaintop that's home to incredible ancient Mixtec ruins. The New Years Eve dinner. The little town we stayed in, Puerto Angel's city-wide dance party, which began at 2AM on New Years Eve and featured about 3 stories worth of speakers blasting Mexican dance music... but I still managed some entertaining shots. Impossible not to considering the landscape and the phenomenal people I met. Up top is me and Rebecca. That cactus-topped house overlooked the cove we all swam in- where some of the guys got stung by black Urchins when they tried to climb onto the rock ruled by Rebecca, Elisa and myself. The punishment of Sirens Rock, we figured. Then you see the bride and groom in all their blinding hotness. The beautiful Banjo performed handstands and other yoga moves on the beach (I didn't just take this shot cause of his cute bottom! I swear). And those crazy partiers are all from the magical land of Kennebunk, which both Rebecca and Sol call home.
Oaxaca pics, 1
(out of order! but oh well)
to bottom:
view from the backseat.
An Xmas angel who caught my eye on Av. Indepencia.
truck-riding champions, hanging on like it was nothing through the craziest roads I've ever been on.
(We went to the beach 2 days after the wedding. 6 hours through the mountains. I took these 2 shots from the car Sol- groom extraordinaire and debonair- drove like a Formula 1 pro through the hairpins, steep up and downs, sudden stops and one-lane surprises. I was pretty doped up on Dramamine. It was a blast.
from after the ladies breakfast, my first morning in Mexico. Can you believe I got to spend it with these beauties? The stunner in yellow scaling the building is my bestest girl Erica. The brunette in shades is Rebecca, the most ravishing, brilliant bride.
Christopher. You'll be seeing more of him.
woken up
Love that delicious long moment, turning the corner from sleep to awakeness. My pillowcase and blanket are yellow, and my bottom-sheet white, so I emerge into the illusion of sunlight, or the middle of an egg.
I thought we had rehearsal this morning, but turns out it was moved to the evening, and since I left my planner in Jersey City I missed it. But nice to wake up so early to a free day. I have a nutty, messy collage I made in a quasi-ecstatic, exhausted, homesick fit last Thursday, hung next to my bed, so it was the first non-egg-colored thing I put my eyes on this morning. Immediately made me hungry to look at Marianne Brandt and Hannah Höch, the two collage-artists who most directly (as in, if you were to look at my collage, you'd think, "This girl likes those ladies a LOT") inspire me. I googled them, and here are some works of theirs I have to show you.
from the top, those pics are:"Me" by Marianne Brandt, collage by Hannah Höch, a poster for "Ce Qu'il en Reste" ("What Remains") choreographed by Louise Bedard, and based on Höch's collages, and two untitleds by Brandt, from 1924
Also in the googling, came up a very cool blog/website of a gallerist and artist living in Portland, Or. Check it out for beautiful visuals and thought-provoking words on looking and meaning.
I realize I never wrote anything about my time in Mexico. It's hardest to write about the things you feel strongest about, isn't it? Especially in a public place. It was the most beautiful wedding. I'm so lucky to have witnessed these celebrations of truly awe-inspiring love. Tali and Daniel's last June on the beach in Jaffo- so much love exploding everywhere, at some point (midnight?) a big group of us couldn't hold ourselves back from running straight from the dancefloor into the ocean, where we gambolled (is that a real word? Or Louis Carroll creation?) in the waves like we were golden retrievers.
Rebecca and Sol had the presence of mind to realize that everyone would need days of wave-playing to feel sated in our celebration of their marriage. And the New Year. And the fact that we were all together in *Mexico*!!!
Oaxaca is the most richly colored, pungent-everything, corner of the world I've seen since India. Actually, I kept thinking of India during my time in Mexico. Something in the richness of life, the direct and tangible line of thousands of years connected to this moment, the poverty, but also this potential I could feel for continued and accelerated movement forward. Oaxaca's not a "tourist town" at the same time that it's been colonized by tourists. It almost feels like people come there to be colonized by the town instead. You want it to stamp itself into you permanently like you're a piece of soft tin, ready to have the birds and hearts and skulls of Oaxaca pressed into you.
you know what? I'm stumbling on this. Maybe I should have written about it right when I came back, when the lack of sequence of my memories would be redeemed by the vividness of the colors, which would have bled inexorably into my language. Now it's all tainted by my week back here. I'll paste some pictures from the trip and give you the two most important facts you need to know, aside from the perfect union of Rebecca and Sol, and that their Catholic ceremony was done in Spanish, next to the largest (in circumference) tree in the world: the 3,000 year-old el Tule just outside the city of Oaxaca:
1. I got bitten in the ass by a dog.
2. I fell in love.
Sunday, December 25, 2005
eeeeeeeeee
that's the sound of my giddiness
tonight is our second concert, Tel Aviv Soloists lead by Tabea Zimmermann from the principal viola chair- or, in the case of these two incredible elegies, Britten's Lachrymae and Odeon Partos' Yizkor (Remembrance), as a soloist up front, conducting with her scroll dipping up and down even as she plays the most flawless, flowing lines. Since so many violists wanted to be in this concert, Barak, the conductor, rotated us, so I don't play in those two. I appreciate that- it's much more fun to get to play in a section with her, even play solos just the two of us, in the case of Veress' (mid-20th century Hungarian) 4 Transylvanian Dances. The section is divided most of the time, and there's only 4 of us so a good amount of time, it's just me and her on the 1st part. Terrifying at first, and now just a total blast. That piece was a bit shaky last night, in Haifa, but we've all decided it's going to be incredible tonight.
so many other things to be giddy about. The guilty, evil, intense pleasure I get out of Johnny Damon being a Yankee. Amazing going-away party for my "caparra" and soul-sister Melissa, for which all the bright lights of Jerusalem showed up and turned on. Such a good party, I completely forgot it was for such a sad reason! Hannuka tonight, I'm going to light red and green candles in the menora my folks gave me a couple years back. Then I'll pack said menora into my bag, cause tomorrow night, after our last concert, in Jerusalem, I'm flying to Oaxaca!!!!
But most immediately, and most wonderfully, I just got this year's Hannukah present from my Dad in the mail: Urtext editions of Beethoven's quartets Opp 127, and the 59's, 74 and 95. Along with them, these words from him:
DESTINATION OP. 127
The sun is down when I get back. Sometimes
It sits tomatolike athwart my rear-
View mirror on the Bruckner, or it climbs
The Empire State, Bridgewards throwing a flare.
It rises when I leave- it's red behind
Me when I take the Turnpike south, but weak,
Trembling and listless, hungover and blind:
"Don't kid yourself," it says, "the future's bleak."
It leaves no light to check tomatoes by,
Or green beans, but attacks me when I drive
The Garden State, morningwise against my eye,
And night surrounds the house when I arrive.
No matter- I light the stove, put upon the set
The evening's pleasure, Nature's Light, the 12th Quartet.
Charles Hollander
October 1974, Old Greenwich, Ct.
and...
Op. 59, #1, the lyrics:
Pack my suitcase tight,
I'll be going home tomorrow night,
I won't have to wait,
Cause the train I take is never late.
see you on the other side. Happy everything, and let's all enjoy 2006 when it gets here.
tonight is our second concert, Tel Aviv Soloists lead by Tabea Zimmermann from the principal viola chair- or, in the case of these two incredible elegies, Britten's Lachrymae and Odeon Partos' Yizkor (Remembrance), as a soloist up front, conducting with her scroll dipping up and down even as she plays the most flawless, flowing lines. Since so many violists wanted to be in this concert, Barak, the conductor, rotated us, so I don't play in those two. I appreciate that- it's much more fun to get to play in a section with her, even play solos just the two of us, in the case of Veress' (mid-20th century Hungarian) 4 Transylvanian Dances. The section is divided most of the time, and there's only 4 of us so a good amount of time, it's just me and her on the 1st part. Terrifying at first, and now just a total blast. That piece was a bit shaky last night, in Haifa, but we've all decided it's going to be incredible tonight.
so many other things to be giddy about. The guilty, evil, intense pleasure I get out of Johnny Damon being a Yankee. Amazing going-away party for my "caparra" and soul-sister Melissa, for which all the bright lights of Jerusalem showed up and turned on. Such a good party, I completely forgot it was for such a sad reason! Hannuka tonight, I'm going to light red and green candles in the menora my folks gave me a couple years back. Then I'll pack said menora into my bag, cause tomorrow night, after our last concert, in Jerusalem, I'm flying to Oaxaca!!!!
But most immediately, and most wonderfully, I just got this year's Hannukah present from my Dad in the mail: Urtext editions of Beethoven's quartets Opp 127, and the 59's, 74 and 95. Along with them, these words from him:
DESTINATION OP. 127
The sun is down when I get back. Sometimes
It sits tomatolike athwart my rear-
View mirror on the Bruckner, or it climbs
The Empire State, Bridgewards throwing a flare.
It rises when I leave- it's red behind
Me when I take the Turnpike south, but weak,
Trembling and listless, hungover and blind:
"Don't kid yourself," it says, "the future's bleak."
It leaves no light to check tomatoes by,
Or green beans, but attacks me when I drive
The Garden State, morningwise against my eye,
And night surrounds the house when I arrive.
No matter- I light the stove, put upon the set
The evening's pleasure, Nature's Light, the 12th Quartet.
Charles Hollander
October 1974, Old Greenwich, Ct.
and...
Op. 59, #1, the lyrics:
Pack my suitcase tight,
I'll be going home tomorrow night,
I won't have to wait,
Cause the train I take is never late.
see you on the other side. Happy everything, and let's all enjoy 2006 when it gets here.
Monday, December 19, 2005
in the studio
We just finished our second day of recording. Finished Death and the Maiden, which simply blows my mind. Three weeks ago I hadn't done more than sightread through the first and second movements at music camp- years ago. Today, on some umpteenth run of one of the variations in the second movment I almost had a breakdown of the frustration from not really knowing the piece yet, while having to devote so much extreme concentration to it. concentration. It's been numbing and exhausting, but after these two days I feel like I've just seen, learned another aspect of string quartet playing. And I love it. Almost as much, or maybe as much, but in a different way, as performing. I'm lucky, though, that we all get along so well, because any tension- interpersonal, or arising out of not being able to express my surprises and frustrations at this process- would have been the straw that broke me. Instead, we kept cracking each other up, and I'm telling you, I have no idea how I would have survived it without that laughter.
I guess there wasn't anything really that surprising to it. I've recorded before, and for days at a time like this, too. Never in a quartet, though, and never a piece I've had this practically lifetime attachment to. If I ever show signs of thinking myself worthy of playing Death and the Maiden, promptly bite me, pinch me, smack me. Wake me up. Despite the frustration with myself, I could have done with days more of that in-detail focus on that piece and still not get bored, and still find things to play differently.
In order to have use of this great space to record for free, the conservatory where the hall is asked us to do a short kids' concert the other day. Small price, huh? We prepared the first and last movements, and Hilla did all the talking. Or, really, the kids did all the talking. We would play, literally, two bars at a time, then Hilla would ask them for some responses to the music. She couldn't get to half of the kids who had their hands up each time, and we ended up scratching the last movement, and doing an impromptu cut of the first, they all had so much to say. I understood bits and pieces, but didn't need specifics to get that the kids each had completely different reactions. It was so much fun! made me want to treat every concert as a kids' concert. Not in this outreach-"condescend to the audience" kind of way that's so big now. In the way that we weren't going into it hoping to have more fans at the end of it, to come to our next show, or whatever. Hilla forgot to even tell them our names, and it barely registered when she remembered at the very end. They asked us questions like "why do you move like that while you play?" and "how come you don't take a time-out in the middle? we do that in basketball." they were so psyched to see how into it we were, and how music this great is so *worth" being into, gives so much back. There's something about Schubert; his music can be angry, furious even, but even then everyone still wants to give him a hug, to empathize with him. (reminds me of a little story: I was upset with an ex of mine, but didn't want to tell him right then cause we were with his friends, so he took me to the bathrooms of the club we were at, grabbed my shoulders, and said, "You can talk to me! I have empathy!" like it was a new addition to a detergent. Now with empathy!) Anyway. yeah. I'm tired. I had other smartypants things to say about Schubert, but.. . All that time in the studio, and then when I came home my roommate and his friend were about to watch "The Longest Yard" so I joined them, which killed an innumerable amount of braincells. Adam Sandler, Burt Reynolds, Tracy Morgan in a skirt doing cheers, and lots of guys hitting their heads against each other. I never thought I'd ever sit through that much American football, much less in Israel.
On top of the days in the studio this week, we're also playing with the Tel Aviv Soloists Ensemble, the chamber orchestra we play with every time they have projects, about once a month or two. This is by far the best. Tabea Zimmermann, the violist, has come from Berlin to lead us from the principal viola chair! I'm going to write more about this at the end of the week, because I'm about to be late for our 3rd rehearsal and I can imagine if the rehearsals have been this amazing, the concerts will be huge fun. But if you haven't heard of her, or don't own, like everything she's ever recorded, look her up now and buy everything!
I guess there wasn't anything really that surprising to it. I've recorded before, and for days at a time like this, too. Never in a quartet, though, and never a piece I've had this practically lifetime attachment to. If I ever show signs of thinking myself worthy of playing Death and the Maiden, promptly bite me, pinch me, smack me. Wake me up. Despite the frustration with myself, I could have done with days more of that in-detail focus on that piece and still not get bored, and still find things to play differently.
In order to have use of this great space to record for free, the conservatory where the hall is asked us to do a short kids' concert the other day. Small price, huh? We prepared the first and last movements, and Hilla did all the talking. Or, really, the kids did all the talking. We would play, literally, two bars at a time, then Hilla would ask them for some responses to the music. She couldn't get to half of the kids who had their hands up each time, and we ended up scratching the last movement, and doing an impromptu cut of the first, they all had so much to say. I understood bits and pieces, but didn't need specifics to get that the kids each had completely different reactions. It was so much fun! made me want to treat every concert as a kids' concert. Not in this outreach-"condescend to the audience" kind of way that's so big now. In the way that we weren't going into it hoping to have more fans at the end of it, to come to our next show, or whatever. Hilla forgot to even tell them our names, and it barely registered when she remembered at the very end. They asked us questions like "why do you move like that while you play?" and "how come you don't take a time-out in the middle? we do that in basketball." they were so psyched to see how into it we were, and how music this great is so *worth" being into, gives so much back. There's something about Schubert; his music can be angry, furious even, but even then everyone still wants to give him a hug, to empathize with him. (reminds me of a little story: I was upset with an ex of mine, but didn't want to tell him right then cause we were with his friends, so he took me to the bathrooms of the club we were at, grabbed my shoulders, and said, "You can talk to me! I have empathy!" like it was a new addition to a detergent. Now with empathy!) Anyway. yeah. I'm tired. I had other smartypants things to say about Schubert, but.. . All that time in the studio, and then when I came home my roommate and his friend were about to watch "The Longest Yard" so I joined them, which killed an innumerable amount of braincells. Adam Sandler, Burt Reynolds, Tracy Morgan in a skirt doing cheers, and lots of guys hitting their heads against each other. I never thought I'd ever sit through that much American football, much less in Israel.
On top of the days in the studio this week, we're also playing with the Tel Aviv Soloists Ensemble, the chamber orchestra we play with every time they have projects, about once a month or two. This is by far the best. Tabea Zimmermann, the violist, has come from Berlin to lead us from the principal viola chair! I'm going to write more about this at the end of the week, because I'm about to be late for our 3rd rehearsal and I can imagine if the rehearsals have been this amazing, the concerts will be huge fun. But if you haven't heard of her, or don't own, like everything she's ever recorded, look her up now and buy everything!
Thursday, December 15, 2005
peaces
Wow,
living here I've become a connoisseur of glimpses. There are so many stories that you couldn't hear anywhere else. They become disembodied in my head from whoever it was who told me them. The latest to become a free-floating mental picture is this (I have absolutely no clue who told me this!): Three Russian men, obviously drunk, were accosting a window on Allenby St, one of Tel Aviv's more commercial thoroughfares. Behind the glass was one of those dancing Santas we're so used to seeing in the states around Christmas- looks like he's doing an invisible hula-hoop to inaudible music. Apparently they were trying to get it to stop. To the point where they looked ready to break into the shop.
I love that. I want to hang out with them.
Sigh. I don't even have time for a glimpse of Christmas. I have Christmas envy. I always have, always asked my parents for a tree. In high school, freshman year, a friend of mine, Eli, who'd just come back from some years living with her family in Japan, invited me to their annual tree-decorating celebration. This year it was different because of all the amazing ornaments (not necessarily xmas-themed) they'd brought back from Japan. In their beautiful Park Slope townhouse, all of us framed by the big old windows that faced President Street, we took turns climbing high up to find the perfect place for this origami or that gilded angel. I'm connecting these two fixations of mine right now: Christmas and things Japanese. I can't go to Bethelehem to witness what sounds like the most beautiful holiday in the world; Christian Palestinians and tourists parading slowly down the sunset-lit slope with candles and songs. It's warm here. It would be a Christmas I couldn't imagine. I've always thought of it as a pagan holiday, or at least national like Thanksgiving. And the story of Eli's tree came to mind because I just caught the end of "The Last Samurai" and was reminded of the glimpse of Japan I got last year on the Verbier tour, when our last stop was Tokyo. There's a wonderful couple who rent an apartment in my parents' house: Mayuko and Takaji. Mayuko is this beautiful embodiment of fascination with Japanese tradition, even so far from her home. I mean, she's traveled as widely as anyone, and as independently, but now that she's settled down, you can see she's found this amazing dedication to where she comes from. She plays Koto, and we've given each other lessons on our respective instruments and talked a lot about some form of collaboration. She also studies the traditional Tea Ceremony, even devoted a room in the house (which was my first bedroom in the house!) for the practice of it. Last year, for my birthday, she gave me two sets of the most beautiful origami paper I've ever seen. I spent every night at Kneisel (the music festival I was at last summer) practicing difficult folds- clumsily- instead of reading myself to sleep.
Takaji's a wood-sculptor, and likes to tell me of all his adventures from his time as a student at Pratt in Brooklyn. I think he thinks that because he and Mayuko are so beautifully.. Japanese.. to such ignorant and fetishizing eyes as mine, he wants to make sure I know that he's lived a vagrant's life among the motley crew. He tells me about his best friend from Pratt, a graffiti artist, and all the adventures he went on when he first came to NYC.
When I told them I was moving to Israel. Mayuko and Takaji asked me to send them Halva! When I asked them how they knew about this Middle Eastern sweet, they just shrugged and said, "It's our favorite!"
Listening to Reflection Eternal. I know one of these days I'll learn to listen to the music I love from home without identifying to it in this very patriotic way, but more as just, like, this is good music. I could be from anywhere and love this. But for now... reminds me of home. All those friends from high school who lived in "Dark" Slope, how when I walked to the 7th Avenue Q train from their houses I'd walk by Inkiru Books, which I'd heard was saved and bought by Mos Def and Talib Kweli (from Reflection) and feel this shiver of recognition and love. Oh my goodness, I totally forgot to write about what I did last Thursday!! I saw De La Soul- alone! It was expensive and I couldn't find anyone into it enough to go with me. But I mean, De La, I've been into them since, like, 8th grade. There was no WAY I could miss that show. They opened!!- for Lee "Scratch" Perry. Completely fell in love with De La all over again. I told my (male) friend Eli the next day when I saw him in Jerusalem about the show. He loves them, too, and said the sweetest things about them- "They're family men, you can tell!" so true. Even though they brought tons of cute, mini-skirt-clad girls on the stage (sadly I was not called up. but you know, I'm a pants girl) they barely looked at them as they kept up the amazing connection they had to the HUGE audience. I got love from my favorite of the group, Trugoy, aka Dave, as I sang along, and he blew me a kiss and even leaned over from the stage to sing "with" me. I lasted through about half the Scratch Perry set, enough to get love from his guitarist, too- that's the great thing about being alone, you can be totally shameless about wanting to be right next to the stage and the performers and just yell right out to them- till I figured I'd gotten a glimpse enough, gotten my money's worth.
"I'm a peace-loving decoy ready for retaliation." (my favorite line from the rap by Booty Brown, from the Pharcyde, in the Gorillaz song Dirty Harry)
You can take the girl from the Street but you can't take the Street from the girl.
living here I've become a connoisseur of glimpses. There are so many stories that you couldn't hear anywhere else. They become disembodied in my head from whoever it was who told me them. The latest to become a free-floating mental picture is this (I have absolutely no clue who told me this!): Three Russian men, obviously drunk, were accosting a window on Allenby St, one of Tel Aviv's more commercial thoroughfares. Behind the glass was one of those dancing Santas we're so used to seeing in the states around Christmas- looks like he's doing an invisible hula-hoop to inaudible music. Apparently they were trying to get it to stop. To the point where they looked ready to break into the shop.
I love that. I want to hang out with them.
Sigh. I don't even have time for a glimpse of Christmas. I have Christmas envy. I always have, always asked my parents for a tree. In high school, freshman year, a friend of mine, Eli, who'd just come back from some years living with her family in Japan, invited me to their annual tree-decorating celebration. This year it was different because of all the amazing ornaments (not necessarily xmas-themed) they'd brought back from Japan. In their beautiful Park Slope townhouse, all of us framed by the big old windows that faced President Street, we took turns climbing high up to find the perfect place for this origami or that gilded angel. I'm connecting these two fixations of mine right now: Christmas and things Japanese. I can't go to Bethelehem to witness what sounds like the most beautiful holiday in the world; Christian Palestinians and tourists parading slowly down the sunset-lit slope with candles and songs. It's warm here. It would be a Christmas I couldn't imagine. I've always thought of it as a pagan holiday, or at least national like Thanksgiving. And the story of Eli's tree came to mind because I just caught the end of "The Last Samurai" and was reminded of the glimpse of Japan I got last year on the Verbier tour, when our last stop was Tokyo. There's a wonderful couple who rent an apartment in my parents' house: Mayuko and Takaji. Mayuko is this beautiful embodiment of fascination with Japanese tradition, even so far from her home. I mean, she's traveled as widely as anyone, and as independently, but now that she's settled down, you can see she's found this amazing dedication to where she comes from. She plays Koto, and we've given each other lessons on our respective instruments and talked a lot about some form of collaboration. She also studies the traditional Tea Ceremony, even devoted a room in the house (which was my first bedroom in the house!) for the practice of it. Last year, for my birthday, she gave me two sets of the most beautiful origami paper I've ever seen. I spent every night at Kneisel (the music festival I was at last summer) practicing difficult folds- clumsily- instead of reading myself to sleep.
Takaji's a wood-sculptor, and likes to tell me of all his adventures from his time as a student at Pratt in Brooklyn. I think he thinks that because he and Mayuko are so beautifully.. Japanese.. to such ignorant and fetishizing eyes as mine, he wants to make sure I know that he's lived a vagrant's life among the motley crew. He tells me about his best friend from Pratt, a graffiti artist, and all the adventures he went on when he first came to NYC.
When I told them I was moving to Israel. Mayuko and Takaji asked me to send them Halva! When I asked them how they knew about this Middle Eastern sweet, they just shrugged and said, "It's our favorite!"
Listening to Reflection Eternal. I know one of these days I'll learn to listen to the music I love from home without identifying to it in this very patriotic way, but more as just, like, this is good music. I could be from anywhere and love this. But for now... reminds me of home. All those friends from high school who lived in "Dark" Slope, how when I walked to the 7th Avenue Q train from their houses I'd walk by Inkiru Books, which I'd heard was saved and bought by Mos Def and Talib Kweli (from Reflection) and feel this shiver of recognition and love. Oh my goodness, I totally forgot to write about what I did last Thursday!! I saw De La Soul- alone! It was expensive and I couldn't find anyone into it enough to go with me. But I mean, De La, I've been into them since, like, 8th grade. There was no WAY I could miss that show. They opened!!- for Lee "Scratch" Perry. Completely fell in love with De La all over again. I told my (male) friend Eli the next day when I saw him in Jerusalem about the show. He loves them, too, and said the sweetest things about them- "They're family men, you can tell!" so true. Even though they brought tons of cute, mini-skirt-clad girls on the stage (sadly I was not called up. but you know, I'm a pants girl) they barely looked at them as they kept up the amazing connection they had to the HUGE audience. I got love from my favorite of the group, Trugoy, aka Dave, as I sang along, and he blew me a kiss and even leaned over from the stage to sing "with" me. I lasted through about half the Scratch Perry set, enough to get love from his guitarist, too- that's the great thing about being alone, you can be totally shameless about wanting to be right next to the stage and the performers and just yell right out to them- till I figured I'd gotten a glimpse enough, gotten my money's worth.
"I'm a peace-loving decoy ready for retaliation." (my favorite line from the rap by Booty Brown, from the Pharcyde, in the Gorillaz song Dirty Harry)
You can take the girl from the Street but you can't take the Street from the girl.
Monday, December 05, 2005
Barbara Kingsolver and Cameron Crowe
... and Johnny Cash, and Martin Scorcese, and Alfred Kazin, and Ralph Ellison, and Albert Murray, and Elliott Smith, and the White Stripes, and my friend Jared Horowitz's songs, and the dear departed Dusky Silo...
whenever I'm away from home for a long time I get so attached to sincerely American art. My rehearsal ended early today so I went to an 11:30 AM showing of Elizabethtown. By technical standards a pretty bad movie, but everyone in it is so likeable, and the music's so good (headline from The Onion: "Cameron Crowe to release only soundtracks from now on") and it has the BEST roadtrip idea ever in it, and it's such a satisfying girl flick. sigh. Whenever I see Kirsten Dunst in a movie I don't want to be here so much as have her wardrobe. Why is she always the best costumed actress?? Wanted to run immediately and get her magenta sandals. Or maybe it was just the super-girly feeling the movie gave me. Cameron Crowe movies always make me feel afterwards like I could be a heroine in a Cameron Crowe movie. As i rode my bike home, viola on my back, huge grocery-store crate teeter-tottering on the back, with my Kirsten-inspired purchase in a plastic bag below my music stand (they were on sale! undies with pictures of mopeds all over them and the words "My Vespa!" on the front) I imagined making mix CD's for all the guys I've ever had crushes on.
There's not enough time in the world for that!!
I should amend the sentence "our rehearsal ended early." Actually we decided this morning to postpone the premier of our Elvis Costello "Juliet Letters" project from January till April. We've been running ourselves ragged accomodating the needs of the director, a famous fringe-theater dude and professor here, and the singer, a TV comedian famous for the Israeli version of "Whose Line is it Anyway?" And we were just getting sick of the music. We've done more than 30 (!!!!) rehearsals since July, and they started demanding even more time leading up to the premier. And kept using my trip to Mexico at the end of the month against us, even though I told them about it in August. It's such good music, and we've done some really amazing things with it, but if we were going to do it in January, I'd be hating it, we all would in the quartet, and Tomer, the singer, wouldn't be ready. Anyway, it's good news cause we're getting Death and the Maiden ready to record for auditions for residencies in the states, and I've never played it before.. enough complaining.
I'm listening to Johnny Cash's version of "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear" and I feel like I'm in the movie White Christmas, it's so warm here, I feel like I can't even remember what snow feels like. It's a million miles away.
Oh, I titled this also with Barbara Kingsolver's name cause last year when I left school to try out living with my friend Aurelie in Bruxelles (you'll have to ask for that story another time) and everything sort of went wrong really quickly, I fell deeply in love with Kingsolver's book "Prodigal Summer" and eastern Appalachia along with it. I would read for hours at a time, listening to the CD by Dusky Silo, country-ish music by guys from NEC which I'd never even gone to hear while I was in school there. I started writing Mike, DS's lead singer and songwriter, and we had a fun, short-lived very talkative email friendship. The twang of Dusky Silo's guitars, Mike's mellow voice, and Kingsolver's green lushness... she describes beautiful women like noone I know, and there's no doubt about her sexuality, she just gets what makes some women amazing.
Earlier this year, when I first got to Israel, the equivalent obsession of the DS-BK combination was Scorcese's "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore." I even met someone in Tel Aviv by seeing on Friendster who else in Israel liked that movie! I figured anyone who was into it was worth knowing. Turned out to not be so exactly true.
whenever I'm away from home for a long time I get so attached to sincerely American art. My rehearsal ended early today so I went to an 11:30 AM showing of Elizabethtown. By technical standards a pretty bad movie, but everyone in it is so likeable, and the music's so good (headline from The Onion: "Cameron Crowe to release only soundtracks from now on") and it has the BEST roadtrip idea ever in it, and it's such a satisfying girl flick. sigh. Whenever I see Kirsten Dunst in a movie I don't want to be here so much as have her wardrobe. Why is she always the best costumed actress?? Wanted to run immediately and get her magenta sandals. Or maybe it was just the super-girly feeling the movie gave me. Cameron Crowe movies always make me feel afterwards like I could be a heroine in a Cameron Crowe movie. As i rode my bike home, viola on my back, huge grocery-store crate teeter-tottering on the back, with my Kirsten-inspired purchase in a plastic bag below my music stand (they were on sale! undies with pictures of mopeds all over them and the words "My Vespa!" on the front) I imagined making mix CD's for all the guys I've ever had crushes on.
There's not enough time in the world for that!!
I should amend the sentence "our rehearsal ended early." Actually we decided this morning to postpone the premier of our Elvis Costello "Juliet Letters" project from January till April. We've been running ourselves ragged accomodating the needs of the director, a famous fringe-theater dude and professor here, and the singer, a TV comedian famous for the Israeli version of "Whose Line is it Anyway?" And we were just getting sick of the music. We've done more than 30 (!!!!) rehearsals since July, and they started demanding even more time leading up to the premier. And kept using my trip to Mexico at the end of the month against us, even though I told them about it in August. It's such good music, and we've done some really amazing things with it, but if we were going to do it in January, I'd be hating it, we all would in the quartet, and Tomer, the singer, wouldn't be ready. Anyway, it's good news cause we're getting Death and the Maiden ready to record for auditions for residencies in the states, and I've never played it before.. enough complaining.
I'm listening to Johnny Cash's version of "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear" and I feel like I'm in the movie White Christmas, it's so warm here, I feel like I can't even remember what snow feels like. It's a million miles away.
Oh, I titled this also with Barbara Kingsolver's name cause last year when I left school to try out living with my friend Aurelie in Bruxelles (you'll have to ask for that story another time) and everything sort of went wrong really quickly, I fell deeply in love with Kingsolver's book "Prodigal Summer" and eastern Appalachia along with it. I would read for hours at a time, listening to the CD by Dusky Silo, country-ish music by guys from NEC which I'd never even gone to hear while I was in school there. I started writing Mike, DS's lead singer and songwriter, and we had a fun, short-lived very talkative email friendship. The twang of Dusky Silo's guitars, Mike's mellow voice, and Kingsolver's green lushness... she describes beautiful women like noone I know, and there's no doubt about her sexuality, she just gets what makes some women amazing.
Earlier this year, when I first got to Israel, the equivalent obsession of the DS-BK combination was Scorcese's "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore." I even met someone in Tel Aviv by seeing on Friendster who else in Israel liked that movie! I figured anyone who was into it was worth knowing. Turned out to not be so exactly true.
Thursday, December 01, 2005
Talking Heads
So I was waxing my legs today (I always wanted to start a book with that!) listening to the Talking Heads' "More Songs About Buildings and Food," which I listened to in another uncomfortable aesthetic procedure years ago: when I got braces in the summer before third grade. Before going to the orthodontist, my mom and I stopped at a little music store and she bought me a Walkman- remember when those were the coolest ever??!- and that tape. That was before the gorgeous era of Auto-Reverse, and the only moments of pain I remember were when the music would end and I'd have to flip the tape, barely able to see my hands and the machine beyond the orthodontist- whom I called the Dragon Lady for her ferociously painted long fingernails, which of course you could feel clearly through those nothing latex gloves! Sometime in late high school or early college I found that tape, and it was in perfect condition. The good thing about our madcap house, where nothing ever leaves, but that doesn't mean you can find it when you want it necessarily. When I moved to Israel I didn't miss my car so much as the tapes that were fixtures on the stereo's rotation, and more than anything "MSABAF" so I downloaded it from Itunes. I recommend it highly for the next time you're trimming your nosehair or bleaching your stache or doing anything more or less uncomfortable or embarrassing and need some light bubbly music with lyrics about things nobody else ever sings about.
Sunday, November 27, 2005
pictures from Bethlehem
here are some shots from the Bethlehem trip: an example of some of the devastated looking shacks we saw on the side of the road; a group shot of me and Olivia with our wonderful host-mamma Linda and her son Basel, and a couple of the house that was our last stop: a peace center built on the site of a home that has been demolished four times by the Israeli army. the man who built it talked to us about his trials, trying to build a home for his large family and having it repeatedly knocked down, once a year after it was built but only a night after he finally moved into it. His courage is amazing, as is the compassion of a number of Israelis who've joined him in fighting the unjust policies of their own military, and in helping him to build the house over and over again. I'm embarrassed I'm forgetting his name. Anyway, the place was beautiful in spite of the abject poverty all around it, in the edge-of-Jerusalem neighborhood Anata. Just across the deserted, rocky valley, the main view is of a large prison which houses Palestinian men- another place, by the way that had been made forbidden for Palestinians to build on for it's being "environmentally protected," like a national park, only to see Israel building something monstrous on it...
anyway. sort of out of the mood of all these Thanksgiving pics, huh? that's life here, I guess, but I think things are- slowly, slowly- moving in a good direction. Amir Peretz and Labor, Sharon leaving Likud, Europeans condemning the annexation of lands in East Jerusalem (came out in yesterday's NY Times). We just all have to have patience and compassion for this process.
Mommy, Hadas, Baby, Yosefa
I've decided I'm not having a party without a baby present ever again. Omri and Itamar just made everyone so happy!
The funny thing is that Hadas makes that face at all of us many times during rehearsal. Today she stuck her violin scroll almost entirely in her mouth. And she always finds just the right time to do it, too! I was almost crying this morning, I felt so homesick (seems to always happen in our Juliet Letters rehearsals! I don't know why, the music is so good... maybe it's cus of all the jokes in Hebrew getting tossed around. anyway...) but Hadas just opens her eyes like that and goes "la la la!!" or sticks her bow in Tali's ear... and I lose it. I like imagining us teaching a class full of conservatory freshmen, being like, "you know what would make that measure in the Haydn so much better? If you just went like THIS at the second violin," making a face like a 4-year old about to eat a piece of chocolate cake.
father or baby?
That's Alex, Hilla's husband, with Omri's pacifier. Thinking this should be our official quartet headshot.
thanxxgiving madness
These would be some Israeli crazy people who showed up at my house begging me to explain to them just who the pilgrims were, and why April showers lead to Mayflowers... well, anyway us americans made a brief attempt to act like it was thanksgiving, but really it was just a raucous fun party. with children!!! (That's Itamar, Hilla's 5-year-old) at least we all ate ourselves silly, like a real thanksgiving.
Wednesday, November 23, 2005
Catshow
I tried to make a link to the Catshow Snapshots page on myspace, but I think blogger and myspace must be enemies, cause just like it did to me when I tried to make a link to Marc Riordan's trio page on myspace, no dice- won't take you there if you ask it to. So here they are, in case you want to see the band that made me so super happy in Boston, one of the toughest things about not being in the states:
www.myspace.com/catshowsnapshots
and while you're over there, check out the trio. Marc and I played together at NEC in Joe Morris' ensemble and in other groups, and he's a really awesome drummer:
www.myspace.com/marcriordantrio
I'm trying to start a page for the ICSQ but I put our birthday as Feb 14, 2005 and now it won't let me no matter how many times I try to tell it I'm older than 9 months! It keeps saying Myspace is for users 14 and over, and it thinks I'm trying to scam it. grrrrrr. Well, once I get through there will be a place you can listen to us until the website is finished (which I'm seeing being done in, oh, 2008 or so)
www.myspace.com/catshowsnapshots
and while you're over there, check out the trio. Marc and I played together at NEC in Joe Morris' ensemble and in other groups, and he's a really awesome drummer:
www.myspace.com/marcriordantrio
I'm trying to start a page for the ICSQ but I put our birthday as Feb 14, 2005 and now it won't let me no matter how many times I try to tell it I'm older than 9 months! It keeps saying Myspace is for users 14 and over, and it thinks I'm trying to scam it. grrrrrr. Well, once I get through there will be a place you can listen to us until the website is finished (which I'm seeing being done in, oh, 2008 or so)
Saturday, November 19, 2005
Bet Lechem 1 (Bethlehem- two days there)
So far since making aliyah, I've had a real hard time feeling "Israeli," to the point of blowing off the question when people ask me how it feels. I'm american, a Jersey girl, a New Yorker, a musician, a traveler, anything but Israeli! I'm here for the work.
But.
I feel it now. I just spent two days in Bethlehem on an Encounter trip with 50-something other American Jews, and I see how Israeli I am. I live here, and there's so much work to be done, and me with my special privilege: and American passport, I'm perfectly situated to do something, any thing, even while I'm so frustrated that Israelis just don't see how much work there is, the gaping whole that needs to be filled in, completed and explained to their children. I'm devastated but I'm also ecstatic that I'm HERE! That I know people I want to spend time with on the other side of the wall, that I have family there who were almost waiting for me, and whom I'm dying to host in My home in Tel Aviv, to return the favor, but of course they're stuck there, with absolutely NO freedom of movement, and that's not going to change for a long time. so I have to go back.
We started off at the Hope Flowers school, in Area C (=Israel-controlled) part of Betlehem. Our bus drove on a bypass road, normally used by Israeli settlers, and we walked up a hill, over a huge dirt-pile roadblock, to get in via back way into the city. The school specializes in non-violence and conflict-resolution training. There are students- 4th graders!- trained to be counselors and mediators within their own class to resolve the fights that arise from tense, traumatized children who are not unused to soldiers waking them in the middle of the night. We heard plenty of stories about this kind of trauma. The head of the school, Ibrahim Issa, spoke to us about the hard going since the second Intifada began in 2000, how while they used to have sister cities in Israel, now Israeli children aren't even allowed anywhere near it, so their sister city is Frankfurt. We heard things along these lines many times- how Frankfurt (as an example, since they often have to fly through its huge airport, via Jordan and then via Egypt, to get BACK to places they want to visit, places like, oh, say.. Gaza!) is closer to tham than places 10 km away. Issa spoke to us about how much money they need, how none of the teachers have been paid in a while- but when he spoke numbers, we all were shocked at how small they were really. One woman said she paid more for 4 years of college than the school's operating budget.
We heard a lot of speakers on Thursday. The point of the trip was to listen. If it were to engage in discussion, it would have needed to be many days longer. A lot of the people had problems with what they heard, not on an emotional level, because you couldn't argue with the fact that their situations suck and they have plenty of horrible devastating stories to prove it. But with some of the speakers' use of Holocaust stories and terminology, as if that was the only thing we'd understand as Jews. Things like, "we're the victims of the victims," or "We're the indirect victims of WW2" or "Israel is building walled ghettoes of its own after Jews were made to build their own ghettos in Warsaw and elsewhere..." I didn't feel the same way as those who were offended by these statements, though. I mean, I'm sorry, but we tell these stories many, many times, and loudly, as defining moments for us. The Palestinians, if anything, I thought, were trying to show that THEY have compassion for what WE went through, not to throw it in our faces in an attempt to elicit guilt. The need for a safe place for Jews was clear long before 1939, as were Zionist efforts. The fact is that hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were displaced in 1948, and for them the Hagana (the freedom fighters, precursors to today's Israel Defense Forces, or IDF) isn't something to name a street in every town after. Our speaker after Ibrahim Issa was Zougby Zougby, at his Wiam Center for Conflict Resolution and Mediation on a main street in Betlehem, and he spoke to us about how whatever the history and the painful gaps in our respective narratives of the conflict, neither group is going anywhere, so resolution has to be inevitable. But he was the first to say what we would hear many times over on this trip: "The problem is the Occupation."
I saw firsthand, from looking out the window and from looking at maps, how right he was. On land that used to be the only forested part of Betlehem, which Palestinians had been kept from building on because it was "environmentally protected" rose the fortress-looking identical white buildings of Har Homa, an Israeli settlement. It was cleared during the famous Oslo peace accords in '93, and by looking at it, you could forgive Palestinians for accusing Israel of talking out of both corners of its mouth. All around Betlehem (and all of the West Bank) writhes the Partition Wall, usually hundreds of meters from any buildings, often cutting into land owned and harvested by members of the town in surrounds. "See? They want the land and they don't want us," Betlehem residents pointed out over and over. It's impossible, utterly impossible, not to see the blatant land-grab in the twist-turny path of this Wall, which when you stand near, you get a very, very different, yet almost as powerful energy from as when you stand near our beloved Kotel (Western Wall) in Jerusalem. Wow. It's ugly. I'll put some pictures up so you can see. Zougby Zougby rode with us for a little while after his speech to point out some of the newer areas. For example, on November 15- Palestinian "Independence Day," (really made me wonder, the optimism of that holiday!) the checkpoint through which we were planning on passing had been closed, forcing more and more people to use fewer and fewer cross-ways to get to work, family, school, or wherever. Next to this former checkpoint were huge fresco-like graffiti art, with slogans like "To exist is to resist!" which, Zougby told us, had been painted by a group of Mexicans from Chiapas!
The next panel of speakers we had included a woman named Teri, and we all fell in love with her. She was a smart, outspoken heroine out of any number of hard-scrabble movies we've seen, but she's been working tirelessly at her cause since she was 13, and her anger is real. Chairman of the board of the Palestinian Womens Organization, she outlined for us the personal affronts of this wall- how it helped in ruining her marriage, how she had to run after this event to pick up her daughters, whom her husband would have to pass through a small hole in the wall they found so she could get them to their music lesson on time (I asked her afterwards what they played: one plays violin, the other a- shoot I forget the word- a Palestinian instrument with lots of strings that you pluck I guess)...
I'm getting tired of writing. I'll skip to the end of Thursday, the most fresh and meaningful part of this Encounter for me. We drove to "The Tent" restaurant to meet the host families we'd be staying with. I was staying with another girl from Tel Aviv (yay!! we were the only ones- everyone else lives in Jerusalem or studies at Yeshiva), Olivia, a med student at TA University. Linda, our host momma, greeted us with huge, enveloping eyes, and an immediate eagerness and happiness that "we were hers." We sat at the table with her sister and her two sons, and chit-chatted. She loves to party, knew everyone in the Tent (which really looked from the inside like a real Bedouin tent)... when the waiter came to take drink orders, she looked at me conspiratorially and said, "you want a beer, right? I want a beer. Let's drink together!" And as he went away to retrieve them, she held her two index fingers together and said to me, "You and me, I can tell, we're like this... we're the same in here," and then she touched her heart. "We like to enjoy life." The only way I could answer was to hold up my hand, and say, "Linda, we really need to high five right now. Do you know what that is?" "Like what you do with little kids?" "Exactly," I said.
Linda's a nurse, and teaches health classes to schools all over Betlehem and Bet Sahur, the adjoining village where she lives in an apartment building (owned by the Greek Orthodox Church, she told me- I never asked which sect of Christianity she belonged to) with her two sons, Ouhad and Basel. Her mother's name was Amelia!- she was born in Santiago, Chile! Linda's sister, Lemya, sat to Olivia's right, and Linda to my left, so we were bookended by them, and on either side of them by their sons. At one point a drum started going around, and Lemya picked it up and just rocked out on it. It was.... a mazing!!!! Olivia and I were dancing in our seats, our booties moving as much as they could as we chowed down on a rainbow of salads. Linda and her sons chanted songs, and soon had our whole corner of the Tent singing too, then Linda herself took the drum from Lemya, and rocked my world even harder!! Noah and Yedidya, two guys from our group who were staying with Lemya and so were also sitting at our table, shouted to everyone from the group to come over and check it out, bragging, "We're staying with the rocking Bubbe's!! We've got the coolest families." the chanted songs everyone was singing reminded me of that great scene in Monsoon Wedding when all the women sit together having their hands painted with Henna, singing and chanting call-and-response hilarious tunes. After a while, I couldn't take it anymore and had to stand to dance. Linda shouted at me that when we got home she was going to teach me how to REALLY dance, that hip-shaking bellydancer thing that 8-year old Palestinian girls all around me were executing with house-bringin-down spirit and precision, and I felt like Mr Rogers trying to hula-hoop imitating!
When we got to her place, though, the mood was much more somber. Well, no, there was still dancing. Basel, who's eleven, whispered something to his mom, and she translated that he wanted to show us the four traditional Palestinian dances, which he did. At 12:30 at night in his kitchen. I was most definitely mentally photographing that moment! All over the apartment were huge paintings of a man with a mustache, most of them with Arabic at the bottom of them- clearly tributes. I haltingly asked, "Is that your husband?" (Later, Olivia and I shared with each other that we both were afraid that maybe he was a victim of the Conflict) Yes, it was: Elias Jeraysay. He died in 1999, but not in the Intifada or anything conflict-related. It was a flash flood that took him, and two Jewish friends he was hiking with in Ein Gedi, that beautiful oasis we visited on the Livnot trip. She pulled out a yellowed newspaper: and there, on the front page of "Le Monde," was the story. Olivia and I sat and read it, she helping me with the French I didn't understand. They all had been members of the Alternative Information Center. He'd been in government- and in jail. For seven years. She tells her sons stories about his life all the time. And as of this May, she's in government, too. She ran for "the municipality" (I think it's like City Council) and won.
I'm going to write more about Linda. I promise. She's deep in my heart and clear in my mind. But I'm written out now. I need a break. So... more to come.
But.
I feel it now. I just spent two days in Bethlehem on an Encounter trip with 50-something other American Jews, and I see how Israeli I am. I live here, and there's so much work to be done, and me with my special privilege: and American passport, I'm perfectly situated to do something, any thing, even while I'm so frustrated that Israelis just don't see how much work there is, the gaping whole that needs to be filled in, completed and explained to their children. I'm devastated but I'm also ecstatic that I'm HERE! That I know people I want to spend time with on the other side of the wall, that I have family there who were almost waiting for me, and whom I'm dying to host in My home in Tel Aviv, to return the favor, but of course they're stuck there, with absolutely NO freedom of movement, and that's not going to change for a long time. so I have to go back.
We started off at the Hope Flowers school, in Area C (=Israel-controlled) part of Betlehem. Our bus drove on a bypass road, normally used by Israeli settlers, and we walked up a hill, over a huge dirt-pile roadblock, to get in via back way into the city. The school specializes in non-violence and conflict-resolution training. There are students- 4th graders!- trained to be counselors and mediators within their own class to resolve the fights that arise from tense, traumatized children who are not unused to soldiers waking them in the middle of the night. We heard plenty of stories about this kind of trauma. The head of the school, Ibrahim Issa, spoke to us about the hard going since the second Intifada began in 2000, how while they used to have sister cities in Israel, now Israeli children aren't even allowed anywhere near it, so their sister city is Frankfurt. We heard things along these lines many times- how Frankfurt (as an example, since they often have to fly through its huge airport, via Jordan and then via Egypt, to get BACK to places they want to visit, places like, oh, say.. Gaza!) is closer to tham than places 10 km away. Issa spoke to us about how much money they need, how none of the teachers have been paid in a while- but when he spoke numbers, we all were shocked at how small they were really. One woman said she paid more for 4 years of college than the school's operating budget.
We heard a lot of speakers on Thursday. The point of the trip was to listen. If it were to engage in discussion, it would have needed to be many days longer. A lot of the people had problems with what they heard, not on an emotional level, because you couldn't argue with the fact that their situations suck and they have plenty of horrible devastating stories to prove it. But with some of the speakers' use of Holocaust stories and terminology, as if that was the only thing we'd understand as Jews. Things like, "we're the victims of the victims," or "We're the indirect victims of WW2" or "Israel is building walled ghettoes of its own after Jews were made to build their own ghettos in Warsaw and elsewhere..." I didn't feel the same way as those who were offended by these statements, though. I mean, I'm sorry, but we tell these stories many, many times, and loudly, as defining moments for us. The Palestinians, if anything, I thought, were trying to show that THEY have compassion for what WE went through, not to throw it in our faces in an attempt to elicit guilt. The need for a safe place for Jews was clear long before 1939, as were Zionist efforts. The fact is that hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were displaced in 1948, and for them the Hagana (the freedom fighters, precursors to today's Israel Defense Forces, or IDF) isn't something to name a street in every town after. Our speaker after Ibrahim Issa was Zougby Zougby, at his Wiam Center for Conflict Resolution and Mediation on a main street in Betlehem, and he spoke to us about how whatever the history and the painful gaps in our respective narratives of the conflict, neither group is going anywhere, so resolution has to be inevitable. But he was the first to say what we would hear many times over on this trip: "The problem is the Occupation."
I saw firsthand, from looking out the window and from looking at maps, how right he was. On land that used to be the only forested part of Betlehem, which Palestinians had been kept from building on because it was "environmentally protected" rose the fortress-looking identical white buildings of Har Homa, an Israeli settlement. It was cleared during the famous Oslo peace accords in '93, and by looking at it, you could forgive Palestinians for accusing Israel of talking out of both corners of its mouth. All around Betlehem (and all of the West Bank) writhes the Partition Wall, usually hundreds of meters from any buildings, often cutting into land owned and harvested by members of the town in surrounds. "See? They want the land and they don't want us," Betlehem residents pointed out over and over. It's impossible, utterly impossible, not to see the blatant land-grab in the twist-turny path of this Wall, which when you stand near, you get a very, very different, yet almost as powerful energy from as when you stand near our beloved Kotel (Western Wall) in Jerusalem. Wow. It's ugly. I'll put some pictures up so you can see. Zougby Zougby rode with us for a little while after his speech to point out some of the newer areas. For example, on November 15- Palestinian "Independence Day," (really made me wonder, the optimism of that holiday!) the checkpoint through which we were planning on passing had been closed, forcing more and more people to use fewer and fewer cross-ways to get to work, family, school, or wherever. Next to this former checkpoint were huge fresco-like graffiti art, with slogans like "To exist is to resist!" which, Zougby told us, had been painted by a group of Mexicans from Chiapas!
The next panel of speakers we had included a woman named Teri, and we all fell in love with her. She was a smart, outspoken heroine out of any number of hard-scrabble movies we've seen, but she's been working tirelessly at her cause since she was 13, and her anger is real. Chairman of the board of the Palestinian Womens Organization, she outlined for us the personal affronts of this wall- how it helped in ruining her marriage, how she had to run after this event to pick up her daughters, whom her husband would have to pass through a small hole in the wall they found so she could get them to their music lesson on time (I asked her afterwards what they played: one plays violin, the other a- shoot I forget the word- a Palestinian instrument with lots of strings that you pluck I guess)...
I'm getting tired of writing. I'll skip to the end of Thursday, the most fresh and meaningful part of this Encounter for me. We drove to "The Tent" restaurant to meet the host families we'd be staying with. I was staying with another girl from Tel Aviv (yay!! we were the only ones- everyone else lives in Jerusalem or studies at Yeshiva), Olivia, a med student at TA University. Linda, our host momma, greeted us with huge, enveloping eyes, and an immediate eagerness and happiness that "we were hers." We sat at the table with her sister and her two sons, and chit-chatted. She loves to party, knew everyone in the Tent (which really looked from the inside like a real Bedouin tent)... when the waiter came to take drink orders, she looked at me conspiratorially and said, "you want a beer, right? I want a beer. Let's drink together!" And as he went away to retrieve them, she held her two index fingers together and said to me, "You and me, I can tell, we're like this... we're the same in here," and then she touched her heart. "We like to enjoy life." The only way I could answer was to hold up my hand, and say, "Linda, we really need to high five right now. Do you know what that is?" "Like what you do with little kids?" "Exactly," I said.
Linda's a nurse, and teaches health classes to schools all over Betlehem and Bet Sahur, the adjoining village where she lives in an apartment building (owned by the Greek Orthodox Church, she told me- I never asked which sect of Christianity she belonged to) with her two sons, Ouhad and Basel. Her mother's name was Amelia!- she was born in Santiago, Chile! Linda's sister, Lemya, sat to Olivia's right, and Linda to my left, so we were bookended by them, and on either side of them by their sons. At one point a drum started going around, and Lemya picked it up and just rocked out on it. It was.... a mazing!!!! Olivia and I were dancing in our seats, our booties moving as much as they could as we chowed down on a rainbow of salads. Linda and her sons chanted songs, and soon had our whole corner of the Tent singing too, then Linda herself took the drum from Lemya, and rocked my world even harder!! Noah and Yedidya, two guys from our group who were staying with Lemya and so were also sitting at our table, shouted to everyone from the group to come over and check it out, bragging, "We're staying with the rocking Bubbe's!! We've got the coolest families." the chanted songs everyone was singing reminded me of that great scene in Monsoon Wedding when all the women sit together having their hands painted with Henna, singing and chanting call-and-response hilarious tunes. After a while, I couldn't take it anymore and had to stand to dance. Linda shouted at me that when we got home she was going to teach me how to REALLY dance, that hip-shaking bellydancer thing that 8-year old Palestinian girls all around me were executing with house-bringin-down spirit and precision, and I felt like Mr Rogers trying to hula-hoop imitating!
When we got to her place, though, the mood was much more somber. Well, no, there was still dancing. Basel, who's eleven, whispered something to his mom, and she translated that he wanted to show us the four traditional Palestinian dances, which he did. At 12:30 at night in his kitchen. I was most definitely mentally photographing that moment! All over the apartment were huge paintings of a man with a mustache, most of them with Arabic at the bottom of them- clearly tributes. I haltingly asked, "Is that your husband?" (Later, Olivia and I shared with each other that we both were afraid that maybe he was a victim of the Conflict) Yes, it was: Elias Jeraysay. He died in 1999, but not in the Intifada or anything conflict-related. It was a flash flood that took him, and two Jewish friends he was hiking with in Ein Gedi, that beautiful oasis we visited on the Livnot trip. She pulled out a yellowed newspaper: and there, on the front page of "Le Monde," was the story. Olivia and I sat and read it, she helping me with the French I didn't understand. They all had been members of the Alternative Information Center. He'd been in government- and in jail. For seven years. She tells her sons stories about his life all the time. And as of this May, she's in government, too. She ran for "the municipality" (I think it's like City Council) and won.
I'm going to write more about Linda. I promise. She's deep in my heart and clear in my mind. But I'm written out now. I need a break. So... more to come.
Wednesday, November 16, 2005
Haley (also my niece!)
And the other was "hotel dress." these were presents from my mom for the twins' fifth birthday last month. The sandals were from me (from Israel- yeah, I'm patting myself on the back!) and I'm just so psyched that my sister sent me these pics I had to put them up to show them off.
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