Ok, just kidding... this is from my office birthday party!
Photo courtesy of Malka Kraus
I've made it one year in this crazy land called Israel, B"H! I wouldn't have it any other way.
B"H that I live in the most beautiful city in the world, that Jerusalem is my home. I am settling in, owning furniture, and have somehow found the lone naturally warm apartment in Jerusalem (I got sunburned last week cooking for Shabbat!).
B"H that I have some of the most amazing friends in the world here, that I have acquired quite a few funny stories in my time, and most importantly, that I have developed a real taste for tehina and parsley, which combine into the culinary masterpiece that is green tehina.
I often think that I am truly the luckiest little girl (grown womyn) in the whole wide world.
Cat in Baka, Jerusalem. Summer 2011? Photo courtesy of my father, David Nechamkin
My sister came to visit, and instantly fell in love with all the cats that creep around Israel, ruling the school that was Ulpan Etzion Beit Canada, pouncing on the garbage dumps and attacking each other in the night. She cooed at them, and pet them. And she is not the first anglo I've seen to approach the cats (at times, even I must admit to thinking they are cute. There was this fierce one at Ulpan that looked like a lion...)
Israeli cats match the terrain here. Supposedly they were brought over by the British to control the rat problem, but now they are true Israelis. They are tough and not to be trifled with. I have heard horror stories, urban legends involving cats. About a really macho, former big-deal guy in the army who got a cat bite, wasn't gonna go to the hospital, finally after much nagging did go to the hospital, and then was told that had he not gone to the hospital he would have died. And yet, for non-Israelis, the cats are cuddly-cute. Even in the ulpan, people took care of them and in anglo-heavy neighborhoods like Baka, cat kibble is left out.
My sister with a "meow-meow." Sorry, ma...
True story: at an outdoor cafe in the chic Tel Aviv, my little sister scooped up a cat and put it in her lap. PUT A STRAY TEL AVIV CAT IN HER LAP!!! The cafe goers were all horrified, but she insisted it was clean. The cat jumped on the table and its tail swooshed by the sugar packets. I've seen where those cats go, and I was terrified it would touch me.
This brings me to the great cat divide: Israelis do not understand Americans' obsession with the cats. Never have, never will. They do not get why we find them so cute, so adorable, so cuddly-wuddly. I am sure the lack of understanding between the two sides is indicative of something larger.
My sister and I went out with some Israelis and we were discussing the cat situation and the events of the past few days. My sister was saying how she wanted to get a cat now for sure. We were drinking choco (hot chocolate), sachlev and milk shakes on a Saturday night.
I was thinking about how much had changed since I first came here to about a year and a half ago. About how Israel makes sense to me, how it really is home and how the cats are really just rats here. About how certain things no longer wow me, how maybe I'm no longer so moon-eyed and perhaps the honeymoon phase is drawing to an end as I enter year II of Aliyah. How I am starting to feel like a local. How my Hebrew has improved B"H and how I am starting to understand the culture. But, just when I thought I had the Israeli mentality all figured out...
"Now squirrels," said one of the Israeli girls who had spent a year in Ohio. "Now those are funny."
Click on "article" for an excellent article about life as an oleh/ olah (olim olot, for those of you out there who did ulpan) from my former Pardes chevruta, Lance Levenson.
Chanukah in Israel is something special. Delicious sufganeyot (filled with pistaccio cream, chocolate and halfa, or the traditional strawberry jelly) are popped out by bakeries and sold in corner stores; chanukiyas in glass boxes line the streets and larger ones consume the central squares; and Chanukah parties are all the rage, from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv and beyond.
There is a communal sense of it all. The miracle is really publicized it, and you can really feel it. The Chanukah spirit is in the air. Much like when I saw throngs of people, the masses, migrating towards to Old City of Jerusalem during Sukkot, Chanukah in Israel makes me nostalgic. It makes me think of how it must have been the last time we held Jerusalem.... and how Chanukah, anywhere else in the world, could never quite compare.
My Chanukiya, Bought at the Artists' Market in Tel Aviv
Chanukah Kid's Party at a Bakery in Tel Aviv; Please Note the DJ
First Night Lighting, Tel Aviv
Sufganiyot (Oily Doughnuts) for Sale at the Bodega in Tel Aviv (Look Closely)
Chanukiya in a Box... Outside on of My Favorite Buildings on One of My Favorite Streets in Jerusalem
Chanukiya in Kikar Tzion, One of the Main Squares in Downtown Jerusalem
Close Up from the Second Night
Many of the Chanukiyas, Such as the Above, Are Sponsored by Chabad
Four Glass Boxes of Chanukiyas All Lit Up for the World to See on Bezalel Street
It all started when my roommate told me that her fancy shampoo didn't work in this land, and the best stuff she has used is the cheapo caroline brand from superfarm (Israeli CVS). Sure enough, my fancy shampoo had not been working either and so I went out and bought 1+1 shampoo myself, and instantly my hair felt and looked better. The shampoo was harsh though, like all things here; it was designed to work with the hard Israeli water.
Still Life of Cat at Cafe in Brown and Beige, Emek Refaim
This whole soap debacle made me wonder. What is the Israeli landscape? What are nations, and how can someone look of that nation? Why do Israeli products have a distinct look, and how is it that Israelis can be spotted miles away? Sometimes now on facebook my Italian students post photos of their friends, and I think how perfectly they blend into their surroundings. But what does it mean to blend in?
When I lived in Milan, my father said I looked Italian. Blond and fair, I am not so sure if any Italian was ever fooled. But still, it is true: I did dress differently when I was there, adapted myself to both the weather and the culture and what was available. Waterproofed all my shoes, put on eye makeup everyday, drank espresso in the morning and ate a lot of focaccia.
In Israel, sometimes I can't make sense of it all. The Hebrew language, Israeli manners, Israeli bureaucracy, Israeli schedules and how everything here can be so last minute or take so long. I meet the children of Anglo parents, and sometimes they speak english perfectly, and sometimes they have accents. Sometimes they seem quite American, and other times they are meah akhoz (100%) Israeli. Sometimes they marry other anglos or children of anglos. But still, somehow, they know how to get around here and there. They can make sense of the land, they can blend in and they can speak Hebrew without an accent. They look Israeli. But how, but why? We have the same genetics, most likely. Their parents probably look like mine.
Israelis match the hard but beautiful terrain of Israel. Israelis just get it, they can make sense of this country and know how to make an intimidating waitress smile or how to get around a certain rule. Or how to look good in hiking clothes and how to survive on an Israeli salary. How to get from point A to point B and how to act during an incoming rocket. They know what to expect, or know not to expect anything whatsoever.
Finding a shampoo that works after almost a year of looking was a big deal to me. I finally felt like I was figuring things out, finding my place in society and what worked for me. Cutting my dependence on foreign goods. I felt like I was starting to blend into the Israeli landscape, knowing what to get. Tiny battles, sure. But significant ones.
<<Ma sei giovanissima!>> But you are just so young.
I got that line at least once a day when I was living in Italy, teaching English in two public schools. I was twenty-two, so yes, I was young. But considering my accomplishments--graduating high school, graduating college, having a job, living in my own apartment--I was hardly considered so young for American standards. Life in Italy definitely had a different rhythm, and age meant something different. Life was done in different stages. High school years extended to age 19 and beyond. College trailed on sometime after that, if you went. Children didn't move out of their parents' houses for years to come.
In Italy, American notions of age-appropriateness, even with clothing, went out the window. But life here in Israel is something different, age is something different. Israelis can be simultaneously extremely mature and immature. High school is over at 18, and then it is time for mandatory army service, though some choose to do an additional year of public service before serving. And then it is traveling time, time to see the world and breath and not be on military time (as documented in the charming television series, Katmandu):
And then working, then maybe getting a college degree and another degree (Israelis are among the world's most educated) and maybe working several full time jobs all at the same time.
Time during Operation Pillar of Defense had its own feeling,
each moment another rocket fell and another code red warning interrupted
a song on the radio. Yet, we are past it. It seems ages away. It is over for now but for
me the next bad front seems looming somewhere in the near to distant
future. Hard for an American, where we are still processing 9/11 as a
people. The work week speeds by, but so does the weekend (Friday and Saturday). The normal days are very dense and frantic, but then there are two relaxing weeks of vacation during Sukkot and Passover. Things slow down on the chaggim themselves, and life freezes on Yom Kippur: stores are closed, no one can drive, making you feel a lot like an actor on a stage. So time both runs very fast and very slow, and to crown it off are the seasonal items, time markers: crembos (like mallomars), pomegranates and their fresh-squeezed juice at corner stores, persimmons.
Often I walk around and feel like I am in a magical realism
novel. How else could you explain Jerusalem, captured in a defensive
war, a holy city full of contradictions? How can we explain any of it?
The desert blooming, the desert of Tel Aviv becoming a stunning metropolis city, the way my neighborhood Nahlaot can look entirely blue, gold or red depending on the sky...
Life here has its own pace and its own logic. A lot of temporal folds, if I
dare say.
At a bar where the entrance age is 25, with a friend on my 25th birthday next to the sign declaring you must be 25 to enter. While the drinking age in Israel is 18, many bars have a minimum age of 24 to keep a less mature clientele (presumably the post-army-service-traveling crowd) out. Yes, I have been carded, though never denied entry even at 23.
Doesn't Hamas know that I am a nice Jewish girl from Scarsdale?
That was my first thought as I ran into the safe room on Friday afternoon. I had already kindled my shabbat candles, and so I knew it wasn't the weekly siren announcing the entrance of the sabbath queen. We all just kind of stood there in shock, debating what it was as the siren droned on and on...
Anyway, I guess Hamas must know, I guess that must be why the rockets come raining down. I have never been one to love politics, never been one to love clever arguments and I have no interest in starting now. But the rockets keep raining down on places I have visited before and places where dear friends live.
And let me tell you something, till you hear an air raid siren, you don't know what its like. Sure, I had visited Sderot, the town that has endlessly been bombarded with rockets for the past few YEARS and saw the playgrounds with bomb shelters poorly disguised as purple snakes. You think you know, but you have no idea.
Coping Methods in Sderot
Still, a few days have passed and I am getting ready to laugh about all this. Israelis I have spoken to have been calm, carrying on. I saw a cartoon today with Fry from Futurama. The caption: Was that Hamas// Or Did Shabbat Just Enter? (in reference to the Jerusalem air raid siren).
