JERUSAELM STONE

This is the bathroom underneath the museum containing the Dead Sea Scrolls; see the female toilet symbol in the doorway? What a classy entrance. Note the nicely fitted cut stones which can be found everywhere in the city.

This wall separates a residential neighborhood from the highway and goes on like this for what seems to be miles.

Jerusalem Stone: In 1918 or so, the city plan for Jerusalem required that the fronts of all buildings be made out of stone. This gives the City an amazing and distinctive look. Compared to California, the buildings seem to me to be cold. I mean there is a LOT of stone everywhere and I find myself wanting to see a few nice cottages covered in cedar shingles. At the same time, the quality of the stone work is just breathtaking. Even if you could find someone in the States who could do this kind of work, I think it would be very expensive.

I have recently learned that there is a down side to all this stone work. First of all, there is no wood for building. I recently hung a light fixture and was looking to attach it to the wooden support beam and was told that the Israeli's don't use wood in their construction. If you want a redwood deck, you have to import the wood from overseas. (BTW: there is no shortage of cement) Second and more importantly, the stone comes from the West Bank so in legal terms, there is a steady flow of natural resources from an "occupied territory" to the land of the occupying country, which is a violation of the Geneva Convention (Germany used to do this with Romanian oil.) That is a big deal to the Palestinians, but it is also a source of about half a billion dollars of revenue. (See this article for an in-depth analysis: http://www.csmonitor.com/2000/0104/p6s1.html ) Finally, the best stone cutters are Arabs who are no longer allowed into Israel and to make matters worse, cutting stone is a huge occupational hazard because of all the dust particles.

Passover Fever: I think this is the most bizarre story so far on Passover, but Vardit has assured me it gets worse. Do you remember the concept of "hametz," that is an impure, non-Passover approved particle and during Passover there can be no hametz in Israel, PERIOD! See if you can follow this, cows eat hay, some grains end up in hay, some grains ferment in cow's stomachs, fermenting grain is HAMETZ, hametzy grain ends up in cow’s milk and you can't sell that milk at Passover. Solution: a week before Passover the eating habits of the cows are changed to a special non-grain diet, chickpeas are especially popular. Also extensive cleaning of the stalls and filtering of the milk is performed. Even the cows get into the religious swing of things!

Hametz Police: I'm just now learning about this group. They are responsible for making sure that people don't eat hametzy food (i.e. bread) on Passover. They have asked all "kosher" grocery stores to block all the bar codes on hametz food so if a customer takes a loaf of bread and goes to the checkout counter, the price will not scan and the product cannot be sold. This group also goes around with cameras to photograph politicians who might be caught eating bread on Passover and then their pictures will be published in the paper for the whole world to see.

Messiah Watch: (This section of my blog is new, but I hope to make it a regular feature for those of you who are anxiously waiting for the second coming.) Vardit had a conversation with an Ultra the other day who said he was not going to see his mother in New York for Passover because on Wednesday night, the first night of Passover, there will be an eclipse of the moon and there is anticipation that the Messiah might appear and he doesn't want to miss it by being out of the country. Wish I had thought of that excuse when I had to visit my mother at the nursing home.

Politics Update: We now have a government made up of 30 ministers of departments and 8 ministers without departments (without portfolios) Two are women, the Ministry of Women Affairs (dah!) and the Ministry of Culture and Sport. The only department that was not given a minister was the Department of Health, go figure! The table for the ministers at the Knesset can only seat 18 ministers (the last government's number) so you can imagine the huge problem that creates. Every minister gets a staff of about 10 people, an office and a nice operating budget. The word "bloated" is being used a lot to describe the new government. The new Finance Minister has no economic experience, but is a close friend of Sara Netanyahu, wife of the Prime Minister. The new Foreign Minister, Lieberman ("if you want peace, prepare for war" is close to indictment for money laundering and a loyal follower of his is in charge of the police department doing the investigation. Oh yes, 54% of the Israeli public does not currently support the new government and that is only 2 weeks after the election.

BITS AND PIECES: March 30, 2009

California Dreaming: This huge slice of a Sequoia tree can be found in the middle of the Hebrew University campus, it is the gift of someone who paid to schlep it all the way from California, hundreds of rings and all. I'm not sure what it symbolizes, longevity, a belief in nature? It didn't quite make me homesick, (I'm not really a tree hugger), but it was nice to contemplate a piece of home. What struck closer to home was the story of the poor schmuck who spent a year sitting up in an Oak tree in Berkeley protesting the University's decision to cut down an old grove forest for a new athletic complex and then he came to Israel to a West Bank protest and was promptly hit in the head by a teargas canister fired by an IDF soldier and might die. Talk about a life on the cutting edge of political dissent.

Matzoh Madness: Its starting, the Passover Fever time of the year. And isn't it fortunate that I just finished reading a book by a revisionist historian (actually he is called a Biblical Minimalist) which says there is absolutely no evidence of a mass Jewish exodus from Egypt. The 60,000 liberated "slaves" have left no trace of their journey through the Sinai Desert and believe me the Israeli archaeologist have been looking diligently. The book also found very little evidence of King David and Solomon and the evidence he did find indicated that they probably weren't that great. Predictably this guy has been vilified by the archaeological community.

You think you have a bad job, how would you like to clean up all of last year's requests from the Wailing Wall. I'm surprised some Israeli techie person hasn't come up with a paperless Wailing Wall.

Wailing Wall Mystery Solved: I am often asked, "What happens to all the messages put in the cracks of the Wailing Wall?" You would think that after 2500 years there would be too many messages and two few cracks. Well, today I read that in anticipation of Passover, the Wailing Wall is cleansed of its messages by a guy(s) with a specially purified stick dipped in "mikveh" (ritual bath water) The spring cleaning will get rid of the message for peace written by Barack Obama when he passed through Jerusalem, as well as the tags of my late dog Lily that I inserted in May, 2008, and a request that UCLA win the NCAA basketball championships that I inserted last month. The messages are buried in a grave after a proper burial.

Armageddon: I had my first encounter with a "profit (sic) of doom" yesterday. While waiting for the bus, a crazy guy came up to me and in perfect English started pointing at the gaudy apartment complex that towers precariously over the house I'm living in. (see early picture in this blog series) He said that when the apartment building was completed, presumably in the Fall, the earth would shake and the hillside would give way and all the buildings would come tumbling down. I asked him how he knew this and he said, an "angel" told him that this was the event that was predicted in Revelations for the ending of the world. (I actually felt a little home sick while sharing a Telegraph Avenue moment with this guy.) Afterwards, I told Vardit, who hates these buildings more than life itself, and she was thrilled that their demise was expected in the near future even if it meant the end of civilization as we know it.

BITS AND PIECES PART 2

I loved this sign at the Hebrew University, its a great metaphor for something, certainly not the Israeli political system. This dichotomy between the intellectual elite represented by the fabulous university system, brilliant opinion pieces in the paper and shelves and shelves of books and journals on the one hand and the complete bankruptcy, corruption, and overall misjudgments of the politicians is really something else. The latest news is that the Labor Party which used to be the backbone of the socialist Kibbutz system and one of the world's premier Social Democratic parties has decided to join the Netanayhu right wing government which also includes a racist, super secular party and an ultra-orthodox religious party. The middle of the road, peace party of Tzipi Livni has been left out of the equation. To pull this off, the cabinet has been expanded to 28 members from 17, Labor will get positions that supposedly help the working class like agriculture, the religious party will get departments to protect (expand) settlements and pay huge subsidies for extra children and Yeshiva education, Lieberman (anti-Arab/Russian) party will get foreign affairs and that leaves almost nothing for the ruling Likud party except maybe the Finance Ministry. This would be like McCain getting fewer votes than Obama, and then forming a government in which Sarah Palin's people would get 40% of the cabinet positions, Joe Lieberman's people would get 35%, Ron Paul would get 15%, Dennis Kucinich would get 10%, McCain would get 5% and Obama would get nothing. So there is a strong private industry/capitalistic fiscal policy, a no-two-state/no negotiations Palestinian policy, a welfare system for the Ultra-orthodox supporters and maybe civil marriages and easy religious conversions for Russian immigrants.
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Boys Day Out: The city is awash in young, studious and horny Yeshiva students. Its like Yentl on crack. Recently a group of 100 IDF soldiers walked out of a talent show because a female solder started to sing a patriotic song. Here's the deal: there is a special program for especially gung-ho Yeshiva students where 50% of the time they study Torah and 50% of the time they get to go and fight Arabs. This is experimental because all Yeshiva students are exempt from military service as are Israel Arabs, but obviously for different reasons. So it is forbidden for an ultra-orthodox male to listen to a female singing. Its a kind of Greek Siren thing where if they hear a woman's singing voice they can't concentrate on God's word or in this case, military instructions. Vardit tells me that when she goes to an ultra's house to test the hearing of a special needs kid, she has to ask permission if she can sing a song and if it is granted the father may have to leave the room. Weird (have I used that word before?)

Marathon Day: Today was the great Jerusalem 1/2 Marathon Race which wound its way through all the traditional holy sites. The route passed right under my bedroom window so I had a great view. The first guy through was a normal looking white guy (not a good sign), the second guy through was wearing a Jewish kippa on his head (really not a good sign) and the third person was a cute, Jewish, Sabra looking woman. My first thought was, "where are the Ethiopians and Kenyans?" What if they sponsored a Marathon race and no Ethiopians or Kenyans participated, can that still be called a "marathon?" Actually, there were a couple of good distance runers who came over in the celebrated Operation Solomon in which 14,500 Ethiopian Jews were rescued and brought to Israel. Just as the American Olympic track team is predominantly black, so too some day the Israeli team might comprise Ethiopian long-distance runners and Russian weight lifters all courtesy of the immigration policy.

POST GAZA ANALYSIS

Kipa Man is a store with thousands of what Americans call yamakas or those cute little hats that Jewish men wear to cover their head before God, assuming of course that God is above us and looking down on our heads. If you believe God is below you, then you must always wear socks, but that is probably a different religion. Anyway, note in the lower left side of the picture is the UC Berkeley, CAL athletics logo, I thought that was pretty cool.

Before I get started on my first Gaza blog, check out this great YouTube video by the guy who just made Waltz with Beshir.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aJZGl15awE

When I last left Israel (September, 2008) the glow had worn off the 2nd Lebanese War and the general consensus was that mistakes had been made, planning was poor and the goal of weakening Hezbolla had not been accomplished. When I came back to Israel (January, 2009) the glow on the just concluded Gaza War was STILL bright. The mistake of too many Israelis killed had been corrected (only 13, half of which were by friendly fire or mistake), planning had been going on for over a year and the goal of stopping the rocket attacks, seemed within reach.

What struck me most was the unanimity of support for the Gaza War. Friends who I would have thought were otherwise 'peaceniks" would say things like, "they lob rockets into our towns, what do you expect us to do, nothing!" Reports coming out from the IDF were clear, "Lessons had been learned from Lebanon." It was estimated that 90+% of Israelis supported the war.

Recently it feels like the worm has turned. First of all, rockets still come out of Gaza, but not as many and it seems that the popularity of Hamas is still high in Gaza and higher than ever in the West Bank. So to many Israelis (I saw a 50% figure) that means the war was ended too soon and "they should have stayed in to finish the job." This, of course, is the same group that wants to preemptively bomb the Iranian nuclear facilities and is similar to the 27% of Americans who still think Bush is doing a good job.

But a new objection has recently emerged coming from war stories of returning soldiers. They range from a clear cut example of an old woman being shot and killed for no reason, to the bizarre practice of writing "Kill All Arabs" in excrement on the walls of the living rooms of occupied homes. (I am told that this is a common cheer at soccer games) Put in simple terms, it seems that many of the disturbing images I heard about or saw while in the U.S. (and not seen by Israelis) actually happened. Suffice it to say, this has totally shocked the Israeli public. I am reminded of how shocked Americans were to see the photos coming out of Abu Grab.

I must admit that the newspapers have been all over this story writing in depth about the soldier's experiences. There was a leaked memo telling soldiers to shoot at rescuers, quotes from officers that its "cool" in Gaza because you can treat everyone as though they were a terrorist target and a pamphlet from the IDF head Rabbi calling for a holy war against the Arabs.

The best article I saw was from Gideon Levy and confirmed a comment that I think Alan Dershowitz once made that more criticism of Israeli policies appear in the Israeli press than anywhere else in the world. If interested check out:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1072821.html

I have seen so many English books on the shelves from not only Israeli revisionist historians (one guy I'm reading denies the Passover story and says Jews were not slaves in Egypt and there was no exodus) to many Palestinian intellectuals with excellent and biting analysis of the Israeli occupation. I don't mean to sound naive, but within limits, Israel does not appear to practice intellectual censorship. Maybe they don't have to because there is such a huge consensus of opinion which never seems to waiver.

The current mantra put out by the Defense Minister Barak is that the IDF is the "most moral Army in the world," which is a curious oxymoron. (I wonder how the Vatican's Army feels about that) One is reminded of the line in A Man for All Season when the King threatens to behead Thomas More who responds, "this isn't Spain you know." So apparently it gives Israelis a good feeling to know that, "we aren't the Congolese Liberation Army, you know."

I want to conclude this analysis by making it clear that I will not be joining Hamas in the near future. One should not lose sight of the fact that nobody likes Hamas, and that includes Egypt which closed their border, Fatah which supported assassinations of Hamas leaders and even Syria/Hezbollah which never opened up a second northern front in support. The real irony of the situation was Hillary Clinton's offer of $900 million to rebuild the infrastructure that Israel had destroyed with the $2 billion of U.S. military aide (isn't that what we did in Iraq.) One guy is paid to dig the hole and then another guy is paid to fill it back up, but after all isn't that the lesson of war.

BITS AND PIECES

This guy is tail-gating out in front of Teddy Stadium before the big soccer game between Hapoel Tel Aviv and Beitar Jeruslaem (my team). His hoka pipe was giving off the smell of strong tobacco and I think some apple flavor. I doubt if this traditional middle-eastern custom will be catching on soon at an American football game.

The most exciting part of the game was a blown call by the referee when it looked like the goalie for Tel Aviv grabbed the feet of a Jerusalem player right in front of the goal. The ref initially threw the goalie out of the game, then changed his mind and the crowd went wild. It was amazing to see 19,000 nice jewish boys all screaming in Hebrew, "the referee is the son of a whore." What would their mother's think?

Purim Update: There was a post-Purim article in the paper which criticized the story of Esther as sending young girls the wrong message. According to this revisionist theory, Esther basically exchanged sexual favors for political gain at the request of her old Uncle. She repeated refused to sleep with the King when commanded to do so by Mordaci, but he concocted this story about saving the Jewish people so she gave up her body for the "tribe." While in the end the Jewish people were saved, it is unclear if they were really in any danger, Uncle Mordaci demanded to be made a big shot in the King's government and all Esther got out of the deal was a book named after her in the Bible. BTW: Of the 22 books in the Bible only Esther and Ruth are named after women.

Gaza Fallout: As you can imagine the Gaza War is turning into a real mess, or should I say the Israelis are just now realizing what everyone else in the world already knew. Tomorrow the report of the IDF comes out and it looks like there was a lot of "Israeli's Behaving Badly." It is supposed to be a bombshell of a story, (excuse the pun). The story that sticks in my mind is of an IDF platoon that took over a house with 10 women and children and a couple of old, incapacitated men. The family was kept captive for many days, without privacy, no bathroom privileges, lack of food and after trashing the house, the soldiers wrote racist slogans on the wall in excrement. But here is the kicker, in the kitchen the Israeli soldiers labeled the cupboards "milk" and "meat" with a magic marker. Apparently in the midst of what probably was a blatant war crime, the soldiers made sure that their rations were kept kosher and that there were no violations of dietary laws. Is that bizarre or what

Circumcision Watch: I met a guy who was interested in having me do volunteer fund-raising work on a special project. It seems that in Africa uncircumcised men have a significantly higher rate of HIV-AIDS which they then give to their female partners. So the idea was why not circumcise African men to cure the HIV-AIDA epidemic and (if you are still following me here) what doctors in the world have the most experience in performing 60,000 circumcision per year. You guessed it. So a team of Israeli surgeons has gone down to various parts of Africa as part of Operation Abraham and in their first test of 3274 men ages 15 to 49 (ugh!), there were 20 HIV infections in the circumcised group and 49 in the uncircumcised group. Bill Gates has signed on to the program and now they need someone to raise money from the American Jewish community. I was a little stunned by the whole idea, Israeli's running all over Africa circumcising 40 year old men, what an image that would be in the "wrong" hands. (sorry for another bad pun)

Pre-Passover Warning: I have been told to get ready for Passover, because it doesn't get any crazier than that. The basic theme of this crazyness is that everyone's house must be so clean that there can be nothing "chametz" inside or put in laymen's terms, no bread crumbs! We have the same tradition, but we call it Spring Cleaning. Watch this space for an update, but already the huge trash bins around the city are starting to fill up with mounds and mounds of thrown away chametzy garbage which are starting to bring out scavengers who take some of the really good garbage and sell it to poor people who don't have this chametzy thing. Garbage pick up is usually every 3 days, now it is down to 2 days and I'm told that just before Passover it will be down to twice a day.

I feel a little creepy showing this picture, but an Arab looking guy got on the bus today wearing a traditional Fatah scarf, he sat directly across from two of the most Ultra-orthodox guys you can imagine. The bus was packed and the Ultra's were totally freaked out as were a number of other people around the Arab guy. I'm pretty sure this was nothing more than just an East Jerusalem guy showing his colors in hostile surroundings, kind of like a Stanford red shirt in a sea of Cal blue and gold (only nobody was shouting "take off that Fatah scarf"). In any case, this is the first time that I really felt the tension in the City, generally everyone just goes about their business.

CHAG SAMEACH: Part Three-the Videos

Some images just require a video, so here they are.

This truck blarring the music is part of the Biblical requirement on Purim to collect money for religious purposes. As a result everyone is fundraising like crazy, actually, everyone is begging, pushing cups in your face and demanding that you give money. One Ultra had a handful of dollars and Vardit said he was part of the sect which believes that Israeli shekels are bogus and that it is sacreligious to touch them. It's complicated, I will try to explain at another time.

The street scenes all felt like something out of Fiddler on the Roof or Yentl. Here the two Ulta's on the left and right are holding up a "Rabbi" who was too drunk to walk by himself. When the old man saw me with the video he got upset and shoulded something in Hebrew but the joy of the holiday must have washed over him, because his anger didn't last very long.

These guys were so excited to see me they started shouting, "You Tube" and wanted to know where on the Web they could watch the video. They were especially excited to know I was from Berkeley and told me they knew the words to God Bless America, but unfortunately I didn't have enough time to see their complete performance.

This last video is pretty werid. A cute blonde girl, kind of a hippy Queen Esther showed up with a guy in a tie-dye shirt with a peace symbol who said he was from Boston. Behind them in the courtyard was a really anger dude who was drunk and just kept banging on the table over and over shouting something in Hebrew.

CHAG SAMEACH: Part Two

So many sights and sounds of Purim, so little space. These Jews really know how to have a good time!



Purim in Israel has morphed into a great candy holiday in the tradition of Halloween and the stores are filled with prepackaged treats. These are given as gifts and it doesn't seem like the kids go trick or treating as we do. I told Vardit on Halloween in Berkeley parents make celery sticks with peanut butter and raisins which are called "ants on a log" and give them as a healthy snack alternative to candy, but she thought I must be kidding. I guess you have to be there to really appreciate the gesture.

I did spend an hour up on a hill overlooking the City with a really cool orthodox guy and his 5 or 6 kids lighting firecrackers and throwing them over the side into the secular neighborhood. Firecrackers are illegal since the banging noise freaks everyone out, but you can't keep these orthodox guys from having a good time, especially if the Bible requires it.

This Ultra has a costumed baby in the stroller, his outfit is not a costume, but his best dress-up clothes, the hat is very expensive and comes from a dead bear in Russia.



This girl was one of the few really authentic Purim characters. She has a group of Haymen's hanging from the stick on her shoulders and I think they all have names in Hebrew on her sign.

How cute is this? The boy on the left is dressed up as a police officer and the boy on the right is an IDF solider. This, of course, is every Ultra mother's dream, oh, except the Ultra orthodox kids don't have to go into the army because they are spending all their time studying God's word, but they can play "war" on the holidays.

Sorry this is a bad picture, but I was scared to death that it was a sin to take it. I went inside an Ultra-synagogue and it was just packed with drunken worshippers. In the front is a Torah and you can see off to the left is a kid dressed up as Yasser Arafat. Everyone was chanting and bouncing back and forth; oh yes did I mention that everyone, even the kids were drunk.

This is one of my favorite costumes. The devil's pitch fork and the skeleton of the grim reaper. Not much Purim symbolism here, but oh sooo Jerusalem.

Sorry, couldn't resist this picture. These two young women were dressed up kind of like Queen Esther if she had been a hooker. Lots of make-up, sexy outfits and they were parading up and down the plaza at Hebrew University. They started laughing as I started picture taking.