Schizophrenia and the trip

This is probably a good time to express the struggles I am going through in planning my visit to Israel. On Xmas morning the only place I found open was an interesting neighborhood Jewish bookstore and starting reading a book called Jewish Schizophrenia in the Land of Israel which seemed to capture much of what I was thinking. Some days I read The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, which is just mind-boggling, later in the day I was reading Eichmann in Jerusalem and when I took a walk I listened to The Lemon Tree, an Arab, a Jew and the Heart of the Middle East on my mp3. I feel like I have a Palestinian angel on one shoulder and an Israeli angel on the other. I recently watch a nice Lonely Planet Israel/Palestinian travelogue with Justine Shapiro, which was really good and then after a Google search discovered that she lives about 3 blocks from me. Watching the video I realized I liked being Jewish, but didn't especially like being around that many Jews. Didn't Woody Allen say, "I wouldn't want to be a member of a club in which I was a member", or some such thing.

I think the bottom line is that I like the idea of taking a small area and filling it with interesting, intellectual people talking about and experiencing meaningful things. (isn't this Berkeley?) While this might sound like Israel (thank god it wasn't Uganda), the problem is that this "small area" was already inhabited and even owned by someone else. I think it was Hertzl who said, "a country without people, for a people without a country!" It was nice to read in the Schizophrenia book that most Israelis spend some of their time wrestling with all these questions, which certainly can not be said of Americans and their relationship to Native Americans. The only evidence that Berkeley has of its "Indian" past is that the "Dog Experimental Yard" (first in the country where dogs run freely) is in the middle of Ohlone Park, named after the Indian tribe that used to live here.

In any case, I've never heard someone say, "I'm conflicted about visiting Berkeley because the 49er miners disrespected women." Actually, I have heard someone say that once, but in general Berkeley is a big tent where conflicting opinions flourish and I expect the same can be said about Israel, or so I hope.

Howard's Israel Blog

This is the start of Howard's Israel blog and is a work in progress.
The trip starts on April 25, 2008, so not much "real" action to report until then, but for those of you who are interested in the mental preparation I've written down some thoughts along the way.

שלום

Howard