PILLARS OF ZION: PART 3

Just when it seems like one is memorialized-out, the mood changes radically and we are into the 3rd foundation of the county-INDEPENDENCE DAY. As the last night of Memorial Day arrives I start to see teenage boys with shopping carts filled with wood for bonfires. At 8:00p.m. sharp the radio starts playing rock-n-roll, the candles disappear on TV and are replaced with comedy shows.



We go up to Mt Herzel, the Arlington Cemetery of Israel, to watch the fireworks which are pretty spectacular, although no Washington DC Mall on the 4th. After the big show, all around the city there are mini-shows. I think, "this must be what Gaza was like only from the top down and not the bottom up." (or is it the other way around) Next day, everything is closed (again) and the entire country is taken over by barbeque's. I ask if this requirement is found in the Bible, but Independence Day isn't a religious holiday (probably the only one) and its the seculars' day to celebrate. There is so much smoke in the area that warnings are given to people with lung problems.

Ah, and now the seamy underbelly of the holiday. Amidst all the jubilant Israelis celebrating their independence are the Arab Israelis who celebrate (on the next day) the Nakba or "catastrophe" Maybe this is like our Thanksgiving on an Indian Reservation. But the "good news" is that because all the Israeli car washes are closed, everyone goes the to Arab car washes so they can arrive at their barbeque's in style. Like going to an Indian Casino on Thanksgiving.Couldn't resist this image. An Israeli guy pulls up in a new Chrysler SUV with Independence Day flags. He opens the door, and quickly changes the diaper of his kid in the back seat and then throws the diaper on the street (behind the front wheel) He see me taking this picture and pauses, then reluctantly bends down, picks up the dirty diaper and takes it over the the trash. I feel like the morality police and the consciousness of my people.

BEITAR JERUSALEM: WE'RE NUMBER THREE

This is a big deal, I have FINALLY figured out what is so exciting about soccer; I won't bore you, but it has something to do with knowing the places on the field where goals are scored and then letting your mind wander until the ball gets to that point and then screaming hysterically. My team is Beitar Jerusalem which plays its games about 200 meters from my house in the 20,000 seat Teddy Stadium. I go all the time and come home smelling like cigarette smoke and hoarse from yell. I often cheer, "We're Number One" and Vardit corrects me and points out that Beitar is really number three, so I still shout "We're Number One" but hold up three fingers because everyone knows that Beitar fans can't count.

I have learned, however, that BEITAR (may God bless and keep them) are the bad boys of the soccer league; kind of the Oakland Raiders of Israel only worse. I have also discovered that the cheers "we" sing, are along the lines of "Kill the Arabs." Honestly, I didn't know this. So yesterday, the team was penalized 1 point for its fans yelling "Mohammad is Dead" (which is technically and legally correct) AND worse of all, they have to play their next home game WITHOUT fans. How mean is that. The game of course will be on TV but not only is it unsatisfying to yell at a TV, I'm sure Vardit has a NO Beitar TV rule in the house.
Just before I learned of the Beitar punishment I went out and bought myself a Beitar Wastebasket for my room. I actually bought it for the living room, but (as above) there is also a NO Beitar Memorabilia rule for the living room.

PILLARS OF ZION: PART 2

The second foundation of the country is Memorial Day which follows almost immediately after Holocaust Remembrance Day. These are the two days that the country memorializes the 23,000+ people who have died "for" Israel since 1860 when the first Jewish settlers came to Palestine. It includes everyone from soldiers, police officers, civilians on buses, accidental death from friendly fire, even the poor schmuk who falls off his tank and is run over. And of course they keep track of everyone's name and the circumstances of their death.

This video was shot in the middle of the busy Jerusalem open market at the moment the 11a.m. siren went off. It's 2 minutes long so if you can wait, at least look at the frames from about 26-30. You will see in the background 2 figures, dressed kind of like Ultra-orthodox, walking among the frozen crowds. Here is the deal: everyone in Israel stands motionless for 2 minutes on Memorial day except (me who is moving my camera, ugly American!) and a certain group of ultra-orthodox Jews. They are protesting the fact that Israel is so secular (think Sodom and Gomorrah) and has strayed too far from God. As a protest, they continue to walk around doing the siren, which as you can imagine REALLY pisses people off. Oh, did I mention that the Ultras get large subsidies from the government so they can study in the Yeshivas and not work or go into the army.


At night there are huge gatherings of people in parks all over the country with heavy memorial services. At a park near my house they put up a big screen and showed pictures of people who had died. Here is a picture of a girl who was killed on the #18 bus several years ago. All the media is given over to the memorial, the movie channels on TV just show pictures of burning candles, the radio just plays sad, sad Hebrew songs, the Malls close early (so you know this is a big deal.) The newspapers which just yesterday had wall-to-wall Holocaust stories now have wall-to-wall memorial/war stories.

In the morning of the second Memorial Day I went up to Ammunition Hill which was a critical battle for Jerusalem in June 1967. The speaker, one of the paratroopers, pointed out that armies throughout history have spent years, actually hundreds of years trying to capture Jerusalem (i.e. Crusades) and his group captured it in about 3 days. This is an enormous source of pride. I watched a fascinating, swoopy-duppy multi-media show of the battle with film, and a great interactive map, (the red is Jordanian forces, the blue Israeli forces) It was so cool!

SWINE FLU UPDATE

The big deal here is not that 2 people back from Mexico have swine flu, but the name of the flu itself. The question was raised, "What if an orthodox Rabbi, gets SWINE flu?" This would be a huge blasphemy and there were many cartoons in the paper on this matter of great urgency. So immediately the name of the disease was changed to something like D1D and the sanctity of the Kosher rules was preserved

PILLARS OF ZION: PART 1

This was a complicated week (actually month) for holidays. The double whammy of Passover and Easter had barely finished when we launched right into the three pillars of the Israeli's national psyche. Pillar One is the Holocaust Memorial Day


I am standing on a scenic promenade facing the Jerusalem city and valley. At 11:00 sirens go off all over the country for a 2 minute silent memorial. On my left is the end of the impressive Yad Vashem Museum which after a long tunnel of exhibits opens majestically on to a view of the city. Everywhere in the country people/cars stop and contemplate, its very heavy.

This is a huge metal tree sculpture at the museum, as best as I can interpret, it depicts people in free fall. I arrived at Yad Vashem at about 9 a.m. and inexplicably found myself completely alone on the grounds. All the dignitaries were up in the open auditorium and as I walked around there was nobody, not even soldiers. It was very eerie, I mean here I was in the middle of the biggest Holocaust Museum, on the biggest memorial day in Jerusalem, admidst empty freight cars and granite markers and I was completely alone.
I find this to be one of the more interesting exhibits: the Hall of Names. In these volumes are the names and Pages of Testimony of people killed in the Holocaust. Millions of people's lives have been documented and the 360 degree circular atrium of the Hall's bookcases contains thousands of binders all of which are now computerized. Keeping track of these names and their stories is one of the highest priorities of the state, soon in about 10-20 years there will be nobody lucid enough to remember what actually happened.

The huge conical ceiling is covered with photographs and each person/victim is catalogued on a Page of Testimony with family pictures and witness statements which must be verified before inclusion in the official record.

As I left there was a children's harmonica coral group. They were playing a haunting song which I am sure is the theme of a famous Holocaust movie, but I can not for the life of me identify which one. As you can see in the background there is an inspiring view of Jerusalem.

A WALK DOWN MEMORY LANE

This is probably the most bizarre image I have seen so far (I think I've said that before), but this time I mean it. I was standing on the Via Dolorosa in the Old City at the V Station of the Cross (or maybe it was VI) and saw a crowd of people touching and kissing this "brown spot" on the wall. I asked a nearby Monk for an identification and he said, "that is the hand print of our Lord Jesus Christ." Whoa! So Jesus is being marched down the Via to his Crucifixion and at station 5 or 6 he stumbles against the wall and leaves this hand print, which over the last 2,009 years has been touched by millions and millions of pilgrims.

This intersection of Via Delorosa and El Wad is one of the most interesting, probably in the world. Coming from one direction are Arab worshippers on their way back from prayers at the El Aqsa Mosque (they're the group with head dressings.) Going in the other direction are the Christian pilgrims who are retracing Jesus' actual steps and as mentioned kissing/touching the hand print. A third group is made up of Jewish tourists on their way to the Wailing Wall which is just down the road a piece.


This video starts with the Christian hand print touchers and moves to the Arabs returning from prayer. Note the sound of the trinket peddlers in the background.


This video starts with a group of Jewish Wall Wailers and continues as the Arab worshippers passes along side of them. I can't tell you how incredible this mixing of different religious followers appears in person. At this one intersection there is just a mob of people who all believe that their God is the one true God, they are speaking English/Hebrew/Arabic and not acknowledging anyone else's existence except their own people.
Of course everything is overseen by hundreds of Israeli soldiers with machine guns and many check points.
The T-shirts are quite novel. This one was being sold in both Israeli and Arab stores and depending and which one it is either funny or revolutionary. Below is a collection including a Free Palestine combined with a Detroit Piston's NBA Jersey, the whole gamut of the political spectrum.

No tour would be complete without a stop at the Virgin Mary's Birth Place and Tomb. As you can imagine, these two places were heavy duty, (ie NO TALKING OR JOKING) There was a solemn procession of very serious minded women, kneeling and crossing themselves, I felt very awkward when the sound of my camera kept going "click-click."

And finally lots and lots of stores selling christian "stuff." BTW: Most of the stores seemed to be owned by either Jews or Arabs, so what else is new.

ONWARD CHRISTIAN SOLDIERS

Just as I put Passover behind me, up comes Easter and once again this town is alive with religious fervor. Actually, I missed the “real” Easter, the one with the Pope and the Michelangelo Last Supper painting; that was last Sunday. I didn’t see any mention of it in the papers and with all the Passover hoopla, there never was a ground swelling of Easter Fever. But alas, I was saved by a quirk of religious calendaring, as it seems the Greek Orthodox Church, that's the one with the cool icons, celebrated Easter a week AFTER the Roman Catholic Church. Just an aside, but these two churches share custody of the crucifixion/resurrection site and have been fighting over such important things as the number of fingers one uses to cross themselves for thousands of years. I heard the priests of the two sects can't be in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher at the same time because they are prone to fighting.

In any case, I got up to the Old City early Saturday morning and there were several thousand people already waiting in line. It was a mad house with little old Greek ladies in black, (right out of Zorba the Greek) facing row upon row of Israeli soldiers desperately trying to hold them back.


Here a group of Israeli soldiers take a break on the steps of the church while mobs of pilgrims tried to break down the metal barriers.

I thought I would get stuck in the crowd waiting for hours and suddenly saw this gaggle of monks walking down street so I tagged along and they suddenly became my NBFs. (New Best Friends) We were all joking and chatting in Greek or was it Russian, whatever. In any case it got me past the initial barricade of soldiers.

I next found myself in a huge courtyard, filled with more alternately weeping and screaming Greek and Russian ladies when out of nowhere there appeared a Scottish Highlander band with bagpipes blaring. I was later told these were Jordanians, but why they had bagpipes I'll never know.

I followed the band further into the bowels of the Old City where we came to the plaza in front of the Church where Jesus was either crucified, buried and/or resurrected, it's unclear what exactly happened here. But at some point a major procession of potentates appeared and disappeared into the church with me continuing to follow. The little old ladies had dropped away and now everyone (except me) had VIP badges

The scene inside the Church was controlled bedlam, there were about 500 people squeezed into a room about the size of Jesus' tomb, if you can imagine that. The air was thick with incense (and myrrh, whatever that is) there were TV cameras, lots of kneeling, crossing of one's self and sporadic sounds of grief. Except for the hundreds of Israeli soldiers guarding this fort, I might have been the only Jew there (except of course for Jesus, his family and the disciples.)

The center of the Church is dominated by this tomb like structure which supposedly houses the earthly burial spot of Jesus. I'm not sure I have the complete story exactly straight because at some point the wife of Constantine was digging around this area and found wood splinters which she identified as pieces of the original cross. Many battles were fought over this and many lives lost, but if you want to know more, check out Wikipedia.

Finally, I extracted myself from the group of mourners/revelers and made my way outside where I discovered that I was on the inside of the barricades looking out at about a thousand people who wanted to get in. I had no idea how this happened and I think the soldier I was standing next to was as surprised to see me as I was to see him. I politely asked if I could be let out, he hesitated sensing that I was an intruder, but after an awkward pause he opened the gate and I jumped through it.

HERE COMES THE SUN

OK, so I didn't take this picture with my cell phone camera, it comes courtesy of Vardit's real camera. The sun has just risen above the horizon and is hitting the Old City. Needless to say, "the crowd went wild" at this moment of truth. (BTW: this picture makes a great screen saver)

Finally a holiday has come along that combines the unreality of the Ultra-Orthodox Jew with the unscientific creationism of the Evangelical Christian, its called Birkat Hachama. According to one of the world's leading authorities on the subject, Rabbi Bleich (a man by the way who does not use a computer and has a rotary phone) every 28 years the Sun returns to exactly the same spot it was at on the 4th day of creation, which is always on a Wednesday. This year the event is super symbolic because it occurred on the first day of Passover and (if you do the math correctly) it also occurred on the first Passover in Egypt and of course on the 4th day of creation about 6000 years ago. There was talk that such a coincidence could only mean one thing: the arrival of the Messiah.

So to make a long story short, about 50,000 Jews around the world from New Zealand to New York and of course passing through Jerusalem gathered at 6:28a.m. to say a prayer welcoming the Sun and I was one of those Jews. Arriving at Haas Promenade at about 5a.m. to get a good parking spot about 1000 of us sang and shivered as we wait for the Sun to crack the plane of the horizon. It was a little irritating to realize that the West Bank Arabs in Jericho got to see the sunrise about a minute before us Jews, since they would not have understood the significance of the event. There was some criticism about the fact that this whole celebration looked a lot like Sun worship, which if you recall your Bible is the kind of thing that really pissed off Moses in the desert.

I ended up in the middle of the more ecstatic, musical and dancing crowd and the Rabbi asked us all to think about where we were 28 years ago (1981 and recently arrived in Berkeley) and where we will be in 28 years (2037 and probably God-willing not around any more). We then all waited a respectful period of time (about 10 minutes) and when the Messiah didn't show up, we headed off to a cute French restaurant for a nice Israeli breakfast.

This is the view from the Haas Promenade, donated by the famous Haas Family of San Francisco (inventor of Levi jeans), a UC Berkeley graduate, namesake to Haas Pavilion, home of the Golden Bears. A makeshift prayer site was set up with about 500 people, note the improvised curtain which separates the men worshippers from the women worshippers.

This was actually a very spiritual moment, intense singing and praying as the Sun came up and bathed the Old City in an orange glow. It was a teary moment, not sure about the "time-of-creation" thing, but definitely emotional.

Here is Stephen Colbert doing a very funny spoof on Birkat Hachama which shows how flippantly the American public can treat a goofy religious phenomena:

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/224061/april-08-2009/birkat-hachama---stephen-frees-his-jews

Also a brilliant article in Haaretz by Gideon Levy on the fact that Israel is a religious country in many ways not much different from Pakistan, Iran or Afghanistan, OUCH!! There were lots of letters to the editor criticising this article, but I thought it was right on.

www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1077908.html

Here is a picture you don't see very often. I'm sitting in the stands at the local soccer game at about 5:30pm on a SATURDAY afternoon and the guy in front of me is wearing a kippa, which means he is an Orthodox Jew (he shouldn't be at the game on Shabbat) and he is eating a matzoh sandwich and of course sitting amongst fans that are yelling things like, "your mother is a whore" and worse. What's a nice Jewish boy doing in crowd like this on Shabbat?"

This is a picture of the check out counter at the local hardware store and the aisle at the supermarket. The plastic coverings are concealing "snacks" that can not be eaten by the Orthodox on Passover. There is an unenforced law in Jerusalem, the Chametz Law, which forbids the public display of non-Passover approved foods, thus the coverings. Near the end of Passover, the less religious public starts ripping away some of the plastic to sneak out the sacrilegious food.

PASSOVER MANIA: The Photos

It's not possible to put in words the range and depth of the Passover Mania that is sweeping Jerusalem so I'll try to capture the mood in photos. Keep in mind the comment made in the paper today that "modern archaeologists can not find any evidence of the exodus from Egypt as describe in the Bible." You would think that would put a damper on things, but it hasn't.


Probably one of the best photos I've ever taken. The guy in the picture is one of many who has set himself up on a corner with a boiling pot of water to sterilize the hametzy (non-passover) dishes that people bring him. What makes this guy so unusual is the CAL Berkeley hat he is wearing. When I told him what it represented, he had no idea and said his sister gave it to him. I assume he also didn't know about the lack of evidence of the exodus.

There are long lines of people everywhere sterilizing their dishes. What I find curious is that the process of sterilizing is designed to kill germs, but the religious doctrine of "hametz" is designed to cleanse the spirit. According to the boiling water theory, it is the people who should be dunked in the pot, not the dishes. I didn't share this with the Cal guy, just gave him a thumbs up and a GO BEARS!!

I got my hair cut today and I picked a pretty busy day to do so. This man is both de-hametzing and cutting/styling an orthodox wig. Ultra married women must wear wigs (more on that another time) and obviously you can't wear a hametzy wig on Passover, (dah) so they have to be cleaned and dolled up for the Seder.

Many people do a massive cleaning of their houses, but rather than live in them during the Passover and get them dirty, they check into hotels for the holidays. Unfortunately, the hotels are staffed by less religious people (both Jews and Arabs) who must be fed, but they don't want to eat matzohs all day so the hotel caters sandwiches on real pita bread. But (are you still following me) the workers can't eat bread in the anti-hametzy hotels so the staff eats their meals in the underground garage. When they saw me taking the picture, they offered me a sandwich, but, not wanting to anger God, I declined.

Cars have to be de-hametzied too. So there are long lines at all the car washes. BTW: dog and cat food must be kosher for Passover so all old hametzy pet food must be pitched and replaced with special for Passover pet diets.

In the Ultra neighborhoods there are rows and rows of signs which lay out the latest rules of religious conduct. There are obvious ones like, "women must dress modestly in this neighborhood", but sometimes they get very complex. Vardit says these signs refer to the problem of the "smeta" year. For those of you who aren't up on that problem, every 7 years the fields must be left farrow (unplanted) That was last year, this is now year 8. But, (still following) some seeds that ended up in the ground in year 7, are germinating in year 8 and you guess it, that is a huge problem. These signs warn people about buying food from vendors who might be including 7 year seeds in 8 year products. Let this be sufficient warning to all of you!!

While the average religious person boils their dishes clean, the real Orthodox throw their old dishes away and buy new ones. Thus the stores are packed with people buying full sets of dishes, also sheets, table clothes, even kitchen appliances.

The seamy underbelly of the holidays! Piles and piles of hametzy "garbage" are everywhere, garbage pickup has been doubled, scavengers are out and about. I'm told there are some real bargains in these piles, but haven't seem many.

Finally, keep in mind that not much of what you've seen and read above is found in the Bible. If you recall the story, the Jews where told to get the hell out of "Dodge" and they left so quickly they barely had time to bake matzoh, which is for me one of the really nice parts of the holiday. I'm not sure where all these other traditions came from, but one of the most recent additions is that Passover is a gift giving holiday. Even the newspaper didn't know where that came from, but observed that gift giving on Passover is almost as big as Hanuka, so once again the malls are packed with people buying their friends gifts and of course, lots and lots of presents for the children. Thus, a holiday whose message used to be, "travel light with just the shirt on your back because you never know when Pharaoh will change his mind," has morphed in the modern Israeli slogan to "shop till you drop."