Tonight at dinner, I was talking with Orit about the Jerusalem Archaeological Park, and how fascinating it is to be able to walk among the ruins and touch the stones and inscriptions. I told her that I was especially impressed by the trumpet-blower's stone.
"You know it is a replica," she asked me. "Right?" I was crushed. No, I didn't know it was a replica. I probably would have known if I had actually listened to my audio tour or read some of the literature I brought back with me, but I didn't. I really thought I was standing there running my fingers across a two-thousand year old inscription. But of course not. The top of the stone was removed and replaced with a copy. The original, Orit informed me, is displayed at the Israel Museum. She could tell I was disappointed. "It is a very good copy," she said in a consoling voice.
Happily, it seems that everything else in the archaeological garden is authentic. We talked about the inscription high on the wall of the Temple Mount, the one that is the same text as the verses from Isaiah quoted at the top of this blog. She told me about the debate within the archaeological community about why that verse would have been inscribed there, and why so high up. The prevailing theory is that by the time the words were carved into the stone, the surface of the land around the Temple Mount would have been about the height of the inscription. Another interesting detail: where the quotation says, "Your bodies will flourish like the grass," the text of the inscription reads, "Your bones will flourish." Orit told me that gravesites have been excavated around that site, and it is possible that the verse was inscribed and the text altered to mark the cemetery.
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
West Bank
Today, one of the front desk guys found a driver to take me to Bethlehem and back. Bethlehem is just across the border into the occupied Palestinian territory of the West Bank. Even so, it has been a popular place for tourists, and therefore it's pretty easy (and cheap) to find a driver who will take you there and show you around. My driver was Ayman, an Arab Muslim who lives on the Mount of Olives. I only had a little bit of time, so we decided that we would go to the Church of the Nativity, have a quick look around (about all I ever do in big huge churches anyway), go to a shop or two, and then head back. On the way, we passed through the border checkpoint with no problem - it seems that because it was along a highway, most cars don't even have to stop.
The Church of the Nativity was beautiful, and there are some pictures below. However, by the time we were in Palestinian territory, it was much more interesting to me see what was going on in the town than to wander around a church. The difference between Jerusalem and Bethlehem was stunning. There was obvious poverty, and while there were many shops, most of them were shuttered due to lack of business. Ayman explained that since the second intifada, tourism in the West Bank has been low as many people are afraid to cross the border from Israel. We visited the gift shop of George, a friend of Ayman, who (of course) invited us for tea (I had water instead). He asked me where I was from in the States, and when I said Tennessee, he whipped out his wallet and produced a Tennessee driver's license. It was unbelievable. Apparently, he lived for six months a few years ago near Knoxville where (I think) he was going to school. It was sweet that the Tennessee license still held pride of place in the front photo pocket of his wallet. I bought a nice olivewood nativity scene for my parents, enjoyed the water and company, and then Ayman and I headed back to his swank tourist-toting Mercedes. As we were walking up the hill, he put his arm around me. "Thank you, thank you," he said, in a low and sincere voice. I wasn't sure at first exactly what he was thanking me for. "That is the first big sale they have in three weeks," he explained, sotto voce. "They are suffering here in Bethlehem with no business. I thank you."
Later, I asked Ayman a lot of questions about the border crossing and why it was so easy. Where was the wall? He said that he had taken a long way around so that we would avoid it. I asked if we could return through the checkpoint at the wall ("security fence"), so we set aside time for that. We talked some about his thoughts on the wall, the conflict, and the possibility of two states. At first, it seemed that he was opposed to the two-state solution, and he talked about his belief that Hamas had the potential to broker a peace in the region. Then he said, "You know, I don't care if there is one state, two states, three states. All I care about is that there is peace for my children, peace for my grandchild. Whatever is the state, I just want peace."
On a daily basis, Ayman has little difficulty negotiating the wall checkpoint because he carries an Israeli ID card. However, he told me that residents of the occupied territories are not allowed to pass through the wall and enter Jerusalem unless they have special permission. This applies as well to families who were divided by the wall. Parents, children, and grandchildren who formerly lived together in one neighborhood might now reside on opposite sides of the wall and have to drive long distances or apply for permission to visit one another. All of this is not to give a sob story for the Palestinians, because for sure there are big problems there. The wall has cut down on incidences of terror in Jerusalem, but still. I think it might be the ugliest thing I have ever seen.
As we drove up to the checkpoint, the wall and its graffiti (much of it anti-American, actually) loomed large against the sky. Those who call it a fence are seriously deluding themselves. It is eight meters high (maybe around 25 feet) and solid. (To be fair, in many less urban areas the wall actually changes to a tall barbed-wire fence, so in those places, the name is accurate.) At the checkpoint, I was instructed to get out of the car and walk to the pedestrian entrance where Ayman would meet me on the other side. This required walking about a half-mile along the wall and through a small neighborhood (with some other pedestrians) to the guard's station. I had to wait outside for awhile because only one person could enter at a time, and the man ahead of me (who had chatted in English with me on the walk), despite presenting several documents and arguing a good bit, was ultimately not allowed to enter. After that, I wasn't sure how things were going to go for me, but when I held up my U.S. passport, the guard didn't even want to see it. She just waved me through.
Next, I walked down a hill to a larger building in order to enter Jerusalem. I waited in another line while the guard carefully examined passports one by one. Again, when I held up the blue American passport, the guard didn't even take it. I was waved through again.
The contrast between the wall as viewed from the Palestinian side and the same wall viewed from the Israeli side was striking. Once I was in Israel proper, I looked back at the wall and found it spotless, with a large and colorful sign from the Ministry of Tourism promoting peace. Suddenly, the roads were clean and in good repair, people looked happy and healthy, and in a few minutes I was back in the Old City where I had planned to meet Tova for coffee.
When I got back to my hotel later in the evening, a different front desk guy asked me how it was in Bethlehem. I know that he lives in the occupied territory and crosses the border daily, so I told him, "I went through the wall." He pondered that. "What did you think of the wall?" he asked. "The wall," I said slowly, "is bad." He nodded.
However.
I had dinner tonight with a couple I met by chance a few days ago, Orit and Amiram. Orit is a graduate student in archaeology at Hebrew University; Amiram is a reporter covering Jewish life for the Israeli English-language newspaper, Haaretz. We were talking about the wall, and Amiram made an interesting point about the positive (and inadvertant) psychological effects the wall can have on the extremist Jewish settlers in the West Bank. The settlers (such as the Gush Emunim, for example) seek to inhabit all of Eretz Israel, the land they believe God promised to the Jewish people according to the Bible. To settle this land (all of it, including the West Bank, Gaza, Golan Heights, even Lebanon and Sinai) is to fulfill a commandment, possibly the highest commandment. Before the wall, it was easy to envision the Land of Israel as one big place open for divinely ordained expansion. Once the wall was erected, as Amiram observed, there became a greater consciousness of two nations, Israel and Palestine. It became more difficult for the Jewish settlers to travel across the border, and the sense of being outside of and closed off from Israel was more acute. I would view this as a positive development in that it seems to have motivated at least some settlers to get out of the West Bank and fix themselves on the Israeli side of the wall. It is a subtle effect, and certainly not a condition that is going to compel some kind of self-motivated withdrawal from the occupied territory, but the wall at least creates the impression of two states, an inside and an outside, which moves psychologically toward the hoped-for two-state solution.
The tiny door that serves as one of the entrances to the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.
The floor of the Church of the Nativity is almost completely covered by wooden planks. Here, part of the church's original mosaic tile floor is exposed.
An ancient burial tomb beneath the church.
The Church of the Nativity (Catholic sanctuary).
A market street in Bethlehem. Note that most of the stores are closed and there are no tourists on the street. There were some groups in the church when I was there, but apparently tourism on the whole is down.
George, the shopkeeper, and his prized Tennessee driver's license.
Ayman, my driver and tour guide.
The wall as viewed from the Palestinian Authority. Some of the graffiti reads, "Shame on Israel, Shame on U.S.A." and "God will destroy this wall."
Walking from the car to the pedestrian checkpoint. The guy closest to the camera ultimately did not get to cross the border.
The wall as viewed from the Israeli side.
With Amiram and Orit at dinner in the German Colony.
The Church of the Nativity was beautiful, and there are some pictures below. However, by the time we were in Palestinian territory, it was much more interesting to me see what was going on in the town than to wander around a church. The difference between Jerusalem and Bethlehem was stunning. There was obvious poverty, and while there were many shops, most of them were shuttered due to lack of business. Ayman explained that since the second intifada, tourism in the West Bank has been low as many people are afraid to cross the border from Israel. We visited the gift shop of George, a friend of Ayman, who (of course) invited us for tea (I had water instead). He asked me where I was from in the States, and when I said Tennessee, he whipped out his wallet and produced a Tennessee driver's license. It was unbelievable. Apparently, he lived for six months a few years ago near Knoxville where (I think) he was going to school. It was sweet that the Tennessee license still held pride of place in the front photo pocket of his wallet. I bought a nice olivewood nativity scene for my parents, enjoyed the water and company, and then Ayman and I headed back to his swank tourist-toting Mercedes. As we were walking up the hill, he put his arm around me. "Thank you, thank you," he said, in a low and sincere voice. I wasn't sure at first exactly what he was thanking me for. "That is the first big sale they have in three weeks," he explained, sotto voce. "They are suffering here in Bethlehem with no business. I thank you."
Later, I asked Ayman a lot of questions about the border crossing and why it was so easy. Where was the wall? He said that he had taken a long way around so that we would avoid it. I asked if we could return through the checkpoint at the wall ("security fence"), so we set aside time for that. We talked some about his thoughts on the wall, the conflict, and the possibility of two states. At first, it seemed that he was opposed to the two-state solution, and he talked about his belief that Hamas had the potential to broker a peace in the region. Then he said, "You know, I don't care if there is one state, two states, three states. All I care about is that there is peace for my children, peace for my grandchild. Whatever is the state, I just want peace."
On a daily basis, Ayman has little difficulty negotiating the wall checkpoint because he carries an Israeli ID card. However, he told me that residents of the occupied territories are not allowed to pass through the wall and enter Jerusalem unless they have special permission. This applies as well to families who were divided by the wall. Parents, children, and grandchildren who formerly lived together in one neighborhood might now reside on opposite sides of the wall and have to drive long distances or apply for permission to visit one another. All of this is not to give a sob story for the Palestinians, because for sure there are big problems there. The wall has cut down on incidences of terror in Jerusalem, but still. I think it might be the ugliest thing I have ever seen.
As we drove up to the checkpoint, the wall and its graffiti (much of it anti-American, actually) loomed large against the sky. Those who call it a fence are seriously deluding themselves. It is eight meters high (maybe around 25 feet) and solid. (To be fair, in many less urban areas the wall actually changes to a tall barbed-wire fence, so in those places, the name is accurate.) At the checkpoint, I was instructed to get out of the car and walk to the pedestrian entrance where Ayman would meet me on the other side. This required walking about a half-mile along the wall and through a small neighborhood (with some other pedestrians) to the guard's station. I had to wait outside for awhile because only one person could enter at a time, and the man ahead of me (who had chatted in English with me on the walk), despite presenting several documents and arguing a good bit, was ultimately not allowed to enter. After that, I wasn't sure how things were going to go for me, but when I held up my U.S. passport, the guard didn't even want to see it. She just waved me through.
Next, I walked down a hill to a larger building in order to enter Jerusalem. I waited in another line while the guard carefully examined passports one by one. Again, when I held up the blue American passport, the guard didn't even take it. I was waved through again.
The contrast between the wall as viewed from the Palestinian side and the same wall viewed from the Israeli side was striking. Once I was in Israel proper, I looked back at the wall and found it spotless, with a large and colorful sign from the Ministry of Tourism promoting peace. Suddenly, the roads were clean and in good repair, people looked happy and healthy, and in a few minutes I was back in the Old City where I had planned to meet Tova for coffee.
When I got back to my hotel later in the evening, a different front desk guy asked me how it was in Bethlehem. I know that he lives in the occupied territory and crosses the border daily, so I told him, "I went through the wall." He pondered that. "What did you think of the wall?" he asked. "The wall," I said slowly, "is bad." He nodded.
However.
I had dinner tonight with a couple I met by chance a few days ago, Orit and Amiram. Orit is a graduate student in archaeology at Hebrew University; Amiram is a reporter covering Jewish life for the Israeli English-language newspaper, Haaretz. We were talking about the wall, and Amiram made an interesting point about the positive (and inadvertant) psychological effects the wall can have on the extremist Jewish settlers in the West Bank. The settlers (such as the Gush Emunim, for example) seek to inhabit all of Eretz Israel, the land they believe God promised to the Jewish people according to the Bible. To settle this land (all of it, including the West Bank, Gaza, Golan Heights, even Lebanon and Sinai) is to fulfill a commandment, possibly the highest commandment. Before the wall, it was easy to envision the Land of Israel as one big place open for divinely ordained expansion. Once the wall was erected, as Amiram observed, there became a greater consciousness of two nations, Israel and Palestine. It became more difficult for the Jewish settlers to travel across the border, and the sense of being outside of and closed off from Israel was more acute. I would view this as a positive development in that it seems to have motivated at least some settlers to get out of the West Bank and fix themselves on the Israeli side of the wall. It is a subtle effect, and certainly not a condition that is going to compel some kind of self-motivated withdrawal from the occupied territory, but the wall at least creates the impression of two states, an inside and an outside, which moves psychologically toward the hoped-for two-state solution.
The tiny door that serves as one of the entrances to the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.
The floor of the Church of the Nativity is almost completely covered by wooden planks. Here, part of the church's original mosaic tile floor is exposed.
An ancient burial tomb beneath the church.
The Church of the Nativity (Catholic sanctuary).
A market street in Bethlehem. Note that most of the stores are closed and there are no tourists on the street. There were some groups in the church when I was there, but apparently tourism on the whole is down.
George, the shopkeeper, and his prized Tennessee driver's license.
Ayman, my driver and tour guide.
The wall as viewed from the Palestinian Authority. Some of the graffiti reads, "Shame on Israel, Shame on U.S.A." and "God will destroy this wall."
Walking from the car to the pedestrian checkpoint. The guy closest to the camera ultimately did not get to cross the border.
The wall as viewed from the Israeli side.
With Amiram and Orit at dinner in the German Colony.
Armenian Museum
One of the loveliest places I have been in Jerusalem is the tiny Armenian Museum, hidden away just a short walk from the busy Jaffa Gate area. The museum is housed in a crumbling old building that was formerly the seminary for the nearby Armenian Patriarchate. For five shekels (around one dollar), you can tour the museum (three rooms upstairs) and wander around the courtyard, which is strewn with fragments of inscribed stone and sculpture. The haunting tones of Armenian hymns play continuously, filling the courtyard with the most mournful and exquisite music. The museum and the courtyard are nearly always completely empty.
The rooms of the little museum are in some disrepair. The minimal exhibit documents the Armenian people from their beginning under King Artaxias (190-159 BCE) through the advent of Christianity in the first century, and into contemporary times. A number of religious images, pieces of beautiful Armenian pottery, books, and relics are on display. The kingdom of Armenia was located around the Tigris River, and today, Armenia is bordered by Turkey, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Iran. The story goes that the apostles Thaddeus and Bartholomew brought Christianity to Armenia as early as 43 CE, and by the fourth century, Christianity was declared the state religion. From around that time, church leaders began working with Greek Orthodox officials to establish a presence in the Holy Land. Armenian pilgrims began to flock to Jerusalem and set up residence around the Armenian Patriarchate and its church, St. James. This area of Jerusalem is now known as the Armenian Quarter.
Beginning in 1915 until 1917, nearly 1.5 million Armenians were systematically murdered by the "Young Turks," the ruling party of the Ottoman Empire. During this time, Armenia lost much of its territory to Turkey. The genocide was carried out through deportations, concentration camps, and mass killings. Just before Hitler invaded Poland in 1939, his advisers warned him about his tactics. He responded, "Go and kill without mercy. After all, who remembers the extermination of the Armenians?" The details of the Armenian Genocide are still a matter of some international dispute, and there are many nations (Israel and the United States among them) that do not acknowledge the event as a genocide for political reasons. Two countries with a strong Armenian presence, France and Switzerland, have recently reversed and officially recognized the genocide. In 2002, Atom Egoyan wrote and directed "Ararat," an excellent film dealing with memory and the genocide in Armenia.
The rooms of the little museum are in some disrepair. The minimal exhibit documents the Armenian people from their beginning under King Artaxias (190-159 BCE) through the advent of Christianity in the first century, and into contemporary times. A number of religious images, pieces of beautiful Armenian pottery, books, and relics are on display. The kingdom of Armenia was located around the Tigris River, and today, Armenia is bordered by Turkey, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Iran. The story goes that the apostles Thaddeus and Bartholomew brought Christianity to Armenia as early as 43 CE, and by the fourth century, Christianity was declared the state religion. From around that time, church leaders began working with Greek Orthodox officials to establish a presence in the Holy Land. Armenian pilgrims began to flock to Jerusalem and set up residence around the Armenian Patriarchate and its church, St. James. This area of Jerusalem is now known as the Armenian Quarter.
Beginning in 1915 until 1917, nearly 1.5 million Armenians were systematically murdered by the "Young Turks," the ruling party of the Ottoman Empire. During this time, Armenia lost much of its territory to Turkey. The genocide was carried out through deportations, concentration camps, and mass killings. Just before Hitler invaded Poland in 1939, his advisers warned him about his tactics. He responded, "Go and kill without mercy. After all, who remembers the extermination of the Armenians?" The details of the Armenian Genocide are still a matter of some international dispute, and there are many nations (Israel and the United States among them) that do not acknowledge the event as a genocide for political reasons. Two countries with a strong Armenian presence, France and Switzerland, have recently reversed and officially recognized the genocide. In 2002, Atom Egoyan wrote and directed "Ararat," an excellent film dealing with memory and the genocide in Armenia.
Jerusalem Archaeological Park
The Jerusalem Archaeological Park is the most important antiquity site in Israel. There, the base of the the Temple Mount has been excavated, and ruins from the Bronze Age, the First and Second Temple periods, and into the Christian and Muslim periods have been uncovered and are displayed in this open air exhibition.
What was most interesting about the park was the accessibility of the ruins. Features such as inscribed stones, mosaic tile floors, ancient plaster walls, and ritual baths are all out in the open to be walked across and touched.
Near the base of the Temple Mount (the other side of which is the Western Wall), there is a carved and inscribed stone that ostensibly had fallen from the top southwest corner of the Temple Mount. The inscription indicates (in either Hebrew or Aramaic; it's hard to tell from the letters) that this is where the trumpet-blower would have stood; the part that remains says, "to the place of trumpeting." Priests would signal the start of the Sabbath by blowing the shofar from this point. It's amazing to be able to touch the warm stone and run my fingers along the ancient inscription.
The inscription runs across the top piece of this fallen trumpet-blower's perch.
The trumpet stone would have been placed on the top corner of the Mount seen here, upper right.
A second interesting incription appears in Hebrew on the wall itself, although it's hard to see in photographs. In the photograph, you can make out the letters in the upper right hand area of the center block. I am especially fond of this inscription: "and you shall see and your heart shall rejoice, and their bones like grass shall . . ." Scroll up to the title of this blog and you will understand why. I'm very taken with the mystery of how this particular text came to be inscribed on a stone placed high on the wall of the Temple Mount.
It was required that all people be ritually clean before entering the Temple. As a result, there are many mikvaot (ritual baths) around the periphery of the Temple area. The baths have stairways to descend into sometimes-covered areas, one path to go down and another to go up so that the ritually pure do not have to make contact with the impure folks heading down to the water.
Entrance to a mikvah. Note the post that divides those entering from those exiting the ritual bath. There are ruins of mikvaot all around the base of the Temple.
The ruins of another mikvah.
These would have been the steps of the Hulda Gates leading up to the Temple. They are alternately short and wide steps, making a continuous walk up extremely difficult. There are fifteen long steps, and some scholars suggest that this is where pilgrims stopped to sing each of the fifteen Psalms of Ascent (120-34) as they approached the Temple for worship.
In the doorway of a third- or fourth-century dwelling. The floors in these structures are elaborate mosaic tile, some with Greek texts dating them to the Christian period. Many of the floors were dusty and hard to decipher. I was walking around with a biblical history student from Hebrew University and the two of us emptied our water supply onto one open-air floor trying to clear away the debris and read the letters. We found some brilliant colors, but the Greek was an odd style and difficult to understand.
What was most interesting about the park was the accessibility of the ruins. Features such as inscribed stones, mosaic tile floors, ancient plaster walls, and ritual baths are all out in the open to be walked across and touched.
Near the base of the Temple Mount (the other side of which is the Western Wall), there is a carved and inscribed stone that ostensibly had fallen from the top southwest corner of the Temple Mount. The inscription indicates (in either Hebrew or Aramaic; it's hard to tell from the letters) that this is where the trumpet-blower would have stood; the part that remains says, "to the place of trumpeting." Priests would signal the start of the Sabbath by blowing the shofar from this point. It's amazing to be able to touch the warm stone and run my fingers along the ancient inscription.
The inscription runs across the top piece of this fallen trumpet-blower's perch.
The trumpet stone would have been placed on the top corner of the Mount seen here, upper right.
A second interesting incription appears in Hebrew on the wall itself, although it's hard to see in photographs. In the photograph, you can make out the letters in the upper right hand area of the center block. I am especially fond of this inscription: "and you shall see and your heart shall rejoice, and their bones like grass shall . . ." Scroll up to the title of this blog and you will understand why. I'm very taken with the mystery of how this particular text came to be inscribed on a stone placed high on the wall of the Temple Mount.
It was required that all people be ritually clean before entering the Temple. As a result, there are many mikvaot (ritual baths) around the periphery of the Temple area. The baths have stairways to descend into sometimes-covered areas, one path to go down and another to go up so that the ritually pure do not have to make contact with the impure folks heading down to the water.
Entrance to a mikvah. Note the post that divides those entering from those exiting the ritual bath. There are ruins of mikvaot all around the base of the Temple.
The ruins of another mikvah.
These would have been the steps of the Hulda Gates leading up to the Temple. They are alternately short and wide steps, making a continuous walk up extremely difficult. There are fifteen long steps, and some scholars suggest that this is where pilgrims stopped to sing each of the fifteen Psalms of Ascent (120-34) as they approached the Temple for worship.
In the doorway of a third- or fourth-century dwelling. The floors in these structures are elaborate mosaic tile, some with Greek texts dating them to the Christian period. Many of the floors were dusty and hard to decipher. I was walking around with a biblical history student from Hebrew University and the two of us emptied our water supply onto one open-air floor trying to clear away the debris and read the letters. We found some brilliant colors, but the Greek was an odd style and difficult to understand.
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Stateless
I just went downstairs to stand outside for a few minutes before bed. It's late, and no one was around, so the 24-year old night desk clerk came to stand outside with me. We stood there in silence for a few minutes just looking at Jerusalem. "It's a holy city," he said. "It is a city from God." I nodded. "There are a lot of problems here," I said. I told him about the clash in the market street with my Israeli friends. "It's a holy city full of unholy people," he said. "We need more education in this country, so that people won't act like this. Education is the solution to the problem of these people."
I asked him if he was Palestinian. "No," he answered, "I am not Palestinian, I have no passport, I am nothing. I have an Israeli ID card, and that is all." Even though he was born in Israel and grew up in Jerusalem, because he is not Jewish (and possibly because he is of Arab descent?), somehow he is not automatically entitled to an Israeli passport. He is Catholic, and his father is from Lebanon and his mother is from the West Bank. He is completely stateless. He lives in the Christian Quarter of the Old City, and works three jobs toward his dream of moving to Canada where he will be able to get a passport because of his education (so he says).
At the moment, it is legal for any Jewish person anywhere in the world to come to Israel and almost immediately obtain a passport. Jews can make aliyah (lit., "go up") and just by virtue of being Jewish, become instant citizens of the State. With this in mind, I would like to learn more about why it is so difficult for a non-Jew to get a passport and rights of citizenship in the place of his birth.
I asked him if he was Palestinian. "No," he answered, "I am not Palestinian, I have no passport, I am nothing. I have an Israeli ID card, and that is all." Even though he was born in Israel and grew up in Jerusalem, because he is not Jewish (and possibly because he is of Arab descent?), somehow he is not automatically entitled to an Israeli passport. He is Catholic, and his father is from Lebanon and his mother is from the West Bank. He is completely stateless. He lives in the Christian Quarter of the Old City, and works three jobs toward his dream of moving to Canada where he will be able to get a passport because of his education (so he says).
At the moment, it is legal for any Jewish person anywhere in the world to come to Israel and almost immediately obtain a passport. Jews can make aliyah (lit., "go up") and just by virtue of being Jewish, become instant citizens of the State. With this in mind, I would like to learn more about why it is so difficult for a non-Jew to get a passport and rights of citizenship in the place of his birth.
Itinerary Update
I saw Tova this evening, and she seems to be doing much better. She saw the pulmonologist this morning who, after taking some x-rays and running some tests, told her that it should be okay for her to travel to Poland. She sounded better tonight, but she still has a thick cough. Also, she had more trouble than I've ever seen her have thinking of words in English. She would lapse into German or Italian, or sit with the Hebrew-English dictionary, slowly looking up words. I think she has to be exhausted.
After a couple of hours listening to the hold tape at Lot Polish Airlines, I finally spoke to someone and it doesn't look like I'm going to be able to adjust my itinerary to accommodate going to London. All of the Lot Polish transatlantic flights are completely sold out all the way to June 15, so unless I buy a new ticket on another airline (which is a possibility), I'll be flying back to Nashville on June 8.
After a couple of hours listening to the hold tape at Lot Polish Airlines, I finally spoke to someone and it doesn't look like I'm going to be able to adjust my itinerary to accommodate going to London. All of the Lot Polish transatlantic flights are completely sold out all the way to June 15, so unless I buy a new ticket on another airline (which is a possibility), I'll be flying back to Nashville on June 8.
Market Street
Yesterday at breakfast, I met an Israeli couple from Caesarea, Porat and Yali, who were vacationing in Jerusalem for Porat's birthday. They asked me about my favorite places in Jerusalem, and I told them a few. Later that day, I was walking into a small museum I had mentioned to them just as they were walking out. They invited me to go along on their sight-seeing expedition, so we headed toward the Church of the Holy Sepulchre so see the Ethiopian village described in their guidebook to be on the roof of the church.
Later, we walked through the Muslim Quarter of the Old City. We were having a really fun time talking and laughing, and I learned that they had met when both were soldiers in the Israeli military (she was the guide for his unit). Today they have been married twelve years and have four children. Next we came into a long and narrow street of market stalls. As is typical, the shopkeepers were standing out front trying to lure shoppers inside. Just this week, I have been proposed marriage by the mostly Arab merchants at least five times while walking through these areas. If you're female and you'd like to hear how beautiful you are, just walk through one of these markets. That afternoon wasn't any different. One particularly zealous shopkeeper kept following me, and when it became clear that I wasn't going to enter his store, he called out, "Pray for peace in Palestine!" I hear this frequently from shopkeepers, and I gave him my usual reply: "I pray for a two-state solution." In my experience so far, this has been a very satisfactory answer. Not for this guy. "No two states!" he yelled after us. "One state! One Palestine! You watch," he raised his voice and pointed at Porat and Yali. "I will push your friends into the sea!"
We left the merchant street shaken. My experience so far with Palestinians had been pleasant, if the sales tactics are often a little aggressive and annoying for my taste. I had never seen the conflict come out in such an ugly and personal way. Later, Porat and Yali told me that during the Second Intifada, they didn't like to leave the house at all, the atmosphere was so ugly and dangerous. The Second Intifada started in 2000, but the effects, according to Porat, have only recently died down. Had they walked down a merchant street like that during the Intifada, he explained, they would likely have had rocks thrown at them along with the verbal abuse.
Yali and Porat in the Old City.
Checking the map in a carpet-lined street in the Muslim Quarter.
The Ethiopian village at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
American tourists pose for pictures with Israeli soldiers in the courtyard of Holy Sepulchre.
The market street.
Before the ugly encounter, we had fun with some friendlier shopkeepers feigning flattery and fending off advances.
Later, we walked through the Muslim Quarter of the Old City. We were having a really fun time talking and laughing, and I learned that they had met when both were soldiers in the Israeli military (she was the guide for his unit). Today they have been married twelve years and have four children. Next we came into a long and narrow street of market stalls. As is typical, the shopkeepers were standing out front trying to lure shoppers inside. Just this week, I have been proposed marriage by the mostly Arab merchants at least five times while walking through these areas. If you're female and you'd like to hear how beautiful you are, just walk through one of these markets. That afternoon wasn't any different. One particularly zealous shopkeeper kept following me, and when it became clear that I wasn't going to enter his store, he called out, "Pray for peace in Palestine!" I hear this frequently from shopkeepers, and I gave him my usual reply: "I pray for a two-state solution." In my experience so far, this has been a very satisfactory answer. Not for this guy. "No two states!" he yelled after us. "One state! One Palestine! You watch," he raised his voice and pointed at Porat and Yali. "I will push your friends into the sea!"
We left the merchant street shaken. My experience so far with Palestinians had been pleasant, if the sales tactics are often a little aggressive and annoying for my taste. I had never seen the conflict come out in such an ugly and personal way. Later, Porat and Yali told me that during the Second Intifada, they didn't like to leave the house at all, the atmosphere was so ugly and dangerous. The Second Intifada started in 2000, but the effects, according to Porat, have only recently died down. Had they walked down a merchant street like that during the Intifada, he explained, they would likely have had rocks thrown at them along with the verbal abuse.
Yali and Porat in the Old City.
Checking the map in a carpet-lined street in the Muslim Quarter.
The Ethiopian village at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
American tourists pose for pictures with Israeli soldiers in the courtyard of Holy Sepulchre.
The market street.
Before the ugly encounter, we had fun with some friendlier shopkeepers feigning flattery and fending off advances.
Monday, May 29, 2006
Magen David Adom
For my mom:
The Magen David Adom (or, Red Star of David) is the Israeli equivalent of the American Red Cross. It is Israel's primary emergency, disaster relief, and blood supply agency. Magen David Adom was denied membership in the International Red Cross in the 1930s because it refused to change the Star of David to a cross, but the two organizations do maintain a working relationship. The American Red Cross has withheld financial support from the International Red Cross in protest over this exclusion and hegemony of Christian symbols. For the official statement of the American Red Cross with regard to Magen David Adom, click here. I'm sure if you wanted to come to Jerusalem and coordinate volunteers for Magen David Adom, the Nashville Red Cross would help transfer you!
Everything about Israel
Over the weekend, I was taking a cab from Tova's apartment, and we came to a street that was blocked off and guarded by soldiers who stopped us and searched the car. I had already been through this blockade several times in the past week. When we were allowed to pass, the cab driver asked me if I knew who lived on this street. I wasn't feeling very talkative, so I just looked out the window and said, "Olmert." The driver swung his head around at me in surprise. "Wow!" he exclaimed. "You know everything about Israel!"
If only.
If only.
Sunday, May 28, 2006
Sunday in Jerusalem
Part I
This afternoon, I had lunch with Tova and then we spent a few hours recording conversations for my project. It's turning out that she's more interested in talking about her experiences with the Pentecostals and the question of conversion than getting into the post-Holocaust Jewish identity question, and that's fine with me. I will write about whatever she talks about. This material certainly fits into the interests of the Center for Religion and Culture (the organization that gave me the grant), and the actual proposal was deliberately open-ended, so it will work out fine.
The bad news is that Tova is sick again. She's seemed in pretty good shape the whole time I've been here, but today when I got to her apartment she was obviously exhausted, very winded, and extremely hoarse. She takes breathing treatments every hour or so, and since she has a nurse who lives with her in the evenings, she's got someone to help her out when she gets tired. She couldn't stand up for too long, but she insisted on cooking me lunch. There is no refusing Tova. We just have to joke about it. "I'm very Polish," she laughs, "so sit down and I will cook lunch." I know that she is often very lonely, and it has been a real pleasure for her to have me here and coming around all the time. So I'm not going to ruin it by arguing with her, or condescending. She can make her own choices.
I did, however, ask her if she thought it was a good idea to go to Poland on Friday in this condition. "I will go to Poland," she said. "I will die if I can't go to Poland." She is scheduled to see her doctor on Wednesday, and I think she is secretly scared that the doctor will advise her not to go. She told me, "You know, I have been trying to get there for so long, it's just pulling me there. I have to go. I have to go." I wondered but did not ask if Tova imagines that this will be her last trip to Poland, and if she doesn't go now, she will never have another chance. I think this trip, this journey to the last place she ever knew her family, means far more to her than her health ever could. I am honored to be going with her.
We talked today some about her life in Oswiecim, what her parents were like, how she thinks they never liked her because she was a "rebel from birth." We looked through some of her paintings, and amidst the canvases I found a large oil painting that I recognized from a photograph I had at the Jewish Center in Oswiecim, a picture which is also enlarged and framed on Tova's coffee table. I pulled out the painting and asked her about it. I noticed that her sister was missing from the painting, and her brother, who was not in the photograph, had been added. She had told me at length about her struggles with her sister after Tova discovered that her sister had survived the camps and was living in Germany, and I was curious why she had been deleted from the only existing photograph of Tova's entire family (minus Tova, who was in Israel, and the extra brother). It wasn't because Tova was cross with her when she painted it, only that the painting represents the family she lost. Since her sister was still alive, she didn't belong in the painting.
The Wolf family (l-r): Samuel, Halina, Golda, Rozalia, Hilek, and Jehuda. This photo was taken in 1938, shortly after Tova emigrated with her husband to Palestine.
Tova with the painting in memory of the family members who perished in the Holocaust.
Part II
After I left Tova's (she was standing in the hallway declaring, "I will go to Poland!" as the elevator doors were closing), I had planned to go see a movie at the cinematheque. I had checked the website and seen that they were playing a film about two Israeli young women in the military ("Close to Home"), and it would be subtitled in English. Several people at home had told me how great this movie theatre is (one professor described it as "paradise"), so I was looking forward to checking it out. When I went to buy the ticket, though, the girl in the box office informed me that there would be no English subtitles. I said, "But it says on the website that there will be, are you sure?" She was unmoved. "The website is wrong. No English."
So I turned around to leave, but the guy behind me in line stopped me to ask in Hebrew-accented English, "Didn't I see you at a German wedding yesterday?" I told him I thought not. He said, "But I'm sure I did. Why aren't you seeing the movie?" "No English subtitles," I answered. Every time I took a step, he followed. "But what is your native language?" he asked. "English," I told him. I was starting to get aggravated, and I was already disappointed that I wouldn't see the movie. "Well it's a beautiful film and you don't need language, you can just see the pictures," he said. "I don't want to see just pictures, I want to see a movie and understand what's going on, and now I have to go," I snapped, walking toward the door. He followed. "Wait! I can translate it for you!" he cried. "No!" I cried back. "No no no! I have to go! Thank you! Toda! Shalom! Goodbye!" And I left the theatre. I felt sort of rude, but I mean really, this guy wouldn't give up. (It wasn't a dangerous situation, by the way; there were plenty of people around, and he was more of a moron than a menace.)
I walked out of the movie theatre and headed back to my hotel. I noticed that the Menachem Begin Heritage Foundation was still open and I had never seen it, so I stopped in. It was a very nice museum, but after about five minutes of following signs and knowledgeable-looking people, I couldn't find the entrance to the actual exhibit. It was a labyrinth in there. It was very nice, and obviously a lot of money went into the structure, but all the signs inside were either incorrect or purposefully playing with my head, and there was no one around to ask since it was getting close to closing time. I decided that a foundation that would choose such complicated architecture didn't deserve my attention, and anyway, Menachem Begin was a bit of a terrorist at one time, so I left.
Back in my room, I was determined to find something to do, so I poked around on the internet and found the program for the Israel Festival, a summer music and performing arts festival in Jerusalem. There was a concert that looked interesting - a series of short animated films set to music with a live orchestra - so I set out again. I found the theatre, wandered around the stalls set up outside, and made sure to get inside well before six to get my seat. I shouldn't have worried, since people trickled in until around 6:20 and the show didn't get going until 6:30. The show was interesting, even though the director (or someone) kept giving long talks in Hebrew between sections. There were also some weird modern dance numbers and excruciating modern vocal selections. The films themselves were neat. One of the last ones was a dark tale about a squirrel family dealing with separation when the mom and dad squirrel (but not the kid) get called up to Noah's ark. It was well done, but a little hard to take since they were, after all, squirrels.
After the show, I took a cab back to the German Colony, looked around the shops (everything is open late here, and Sunday is like any workday), and picked up some dinner. While I was waiting in line, I scanned the menu and spotted salami, so I thought, great, this is not a kosher deli. When it was my turn, I ordered a turkey sandwich on rye with cheese. The guy looked at me like I was crazy. "We don't have cheese," he said. "Why not?" "It's not kosher," he answered. "I know that, but you have salami!" I said. He picked up the package of salami (on which was written, "KOSHER") and said, "Of course we have salami!" Now I was completely confused. "How can salami be kosher?" I asked. "How can it not be kosher?" he replied. The it occurred to me that this is probably beef or turkey salami, and so of course it's kosher. Meanwhile, the woman next to me who can understand this entire exchange is completely cracking up. The guy asked, "What is salami made of where you come from?" I answered confidently: "Pork!" But now I'm wondering, is that even right? Isn't salami made out of pork? It was all in good humor, and we moved on to making my dinner of a turkey sandwich on rye (no cheese).
Note: it's not that cheese itself is not kosher, but it is not kosher to mix milk and meat, so if there's a deli serving meat, there won't be cheese around anywhere. This is why lots of very observant Jewish families have two sets of pots, dishes, silverware, etc. - it is proper to keep all things milk- and meat-related absolutely separate. Other things that aren't kosher: anything related to a pig, shellfish, gelatin, cheeseburgers and anything else that mixes meat and dairy.
So those are the tiny details of my Sunday in Jerusalem. Tomorrow I have some plans, and Tova is meeting with a filmmaker who wants to make a movie about her. We leave on Friday morning (actually, Thursday night at 2 a.m. - she made this plan, not me!) for Poland, where I'll stay with friends from the Jewish Center and attend the opening of Tova's exhibit in Krakow on Wednesday evening.
mmr
This afternoon, I had lunch with Tova and then we spent a few hours recording conversations for my project. It's turning out that she's more interested in talking about her experiences with the Pentecostals and the question of conversion than getting into the post-Holocaust Jewish identity question, and that's fine with me. I will write about whatever she talks about. This material certainly fits into the interests of the Center for Religion and Culture (the organization that gave me the grant), and the actual proposal was deliberately open-ended, so it will work out fine.
The bad news is that Tova is sick again. She's seemed in pretty good shape the whole time I've been here, but today when I got to her apartment she was obviously exhausted, very winded, and extremely hoarse. She takes breathing treatments every hour or so, and since she has a nurse who lives with her in the evenings, she's got someone to help her out when she gets tired. She couldn't stand up for too long, but she insisted on cooking me lunch. There is no refusing Tova. We just have to joke about it. "I'm very Polish," she laughs, "so sit down and I will cook lunch." I know that she is often very lonely, and it has been a real pleasure for her to have me here and coming around all the time. So I'm not going to ruin it by arguing with her, or condescending. She can make her own choices.
I did, however, ask her if she thought it was a good idea to go to Poland on Friday in this condition. "I will go to Poland," she said. "I will die if I can't go to Poland." She is scheduled to see her doctor on Wednesday, and I think she is secretly scared that the doctor will advise her not to go. She told me, "You know, I have been trying to get there for so long, it's just pulling me there. I have to go. I have to go." I wondered but did not ask if Tova imagines that this will be her last trip to Poland, and if she doesn't go now, she will never have another chance. I think this trip, this journey to the last place she ever knew her family, means far more to her than her health ever could. I am honored to be going with her.
We talked today some about her life in Oswiecim, what her parents were like, how she thinks they never liked her because she was a "rebel from birth." We looked through some of her paintings, and amidst the canvases I found a large oil painting that I recognized from a photograph I had at the Jewish Center in Oswiecim, a picture which is also enlarged and framed on Tova's coffee table. I pulled out the painting and asked her about it. I noticed that her sister was missing from the painting, and her brother, who was not in the photograph, had been added. She had told me at length about her struggles with her sister after Tova discovered that her sister had survived the camps and was living in Germany, and I was curious why she had been deleted from the only existing photograph of Tova's entire family (minus Tova, who was in Israel, and the extra brother). It wasn't because Tova was cross with her when she painted it, only that the painting represents the family she lost. Since her sister was still alive, she didn't belong in the painting.
The Wolf family (l-r): Samuel, Halina, Golda, Rozalia, Hilek, and Jehuda. This photo was taken in 1938, shortly after Tova emigrated with her husband to Palestine.
Tova with the painting in memory of the family members who perished in the Holocaust.
Part II
After I left Tova's (she was standing in the hallway declaring, "I will go to Poland!" as the elevator doors were closing), I had planned to go see a movie at the cinematheque. I had checked the website and seen that they were playing a film about two Israeli young women in the military ("Close to Home"), and it would be subtitled in English. Several people at home had told me how great this movie theatre is (one professor described it as "paradise"), so I was looking forward to checking it out. When I went to buy the ticket, though, the girl in the box office informed me that there would be no English subtitles. I said, "But it says on the website that there will be, are you sure?" She was unmoved. "The website is wrong. No English."
So I turned around to leave, but the guy behind me in line stopped me to ask in Hebrew-accented English, "Didn't I see you at a German wedding yesterday?" I told him I thought not. He said, "But I'm sure I did. Why aren't you seeing the movie?" "No English subtitles," I answered. Every time I took a step, he followed. "But what is your native language?" he asked. "English," I told him. I was starting to get aggravated, and I was already disappointed that I wouldn't see the movie. "Well it's a beautiful film and you don't need language, you can just see the pictures," he said. "I don't want to see just pictures, I want to see a movie and understand what's going on, and now I have to go," I snapped, walking toward the door. He followed. "Wait! I can translate it for you!" he cried. "No!" I cried back. "No no no! I have to go! Thank you! Toda! Shalom! Goodbye!" And I left the theatre. I felt sort of rude, but I mean really, this guy wouldn't give up. (It wasn't a dangerous situation, by the way; there were plenty of people around, and he was more of a moron than a menace.)
I walked out of the movie theatre and headed back to my hotel. I noticed that the Menachem Begin Heritage Foundation was still open and I had never seen it, so I stopped in. It was a very nice museum, but after about five minutes of following signs and knowledgeable-looking people, I couldn't find the entrance to the actual exhibit. It was a labyrinth in there. It was very nice, and obviously a lot of money went into the structure, but all the signs inside were either incorrect or purposefully playing with my head, and there was no one around to ask since it was getting close to closing time. I decided that a foundation that would choose such complicated architecture didn't deserve my attention, and anyway, Menachem Begin was a bit of a terrorist at one time, so I left.
Back in my room, I was determined to find something to do, so I poked around on the internet and found the program for the Israel Festival, a summer music and performing arts festival in Jerusalem. There was a concert that looked interesting - a series of short animated films set to music with a live orchestra - so I set out again. I found the theatre, wandered around the stalls set up outside, and made sure to get inside well before six to get my seat. I shouldn't have worried, since people trickled in until around 6:20 and the show didn't get going until 6:30. The show was interesting, even though the director (or someone) kept giving long talks in Hebrew between sections. There were also some weird modern dance numbers and excruciating modern vocal selections. The films themselves were neat. One of the last ones was a dark tale about a squirrel family dealing with separation when the mom and dad squirrel (but not the kid) get called up to Noah's ark. It was well done, but a little hard to take since they were, after all, squirrels.
After the show, I took a cab back to the German Colony, looked around the shops (everything is open late here, and Sunday is like any workday), and picked up some dinner. While I was waiting in line, I scanned the menu and spotted salami, so I thought, great, this is not a kosher deli. When it was my turn, I ordered a turkey sandwich on rye with cheese. The guy looked at me like I was crazy. "We don't have cheese," he said. "Why not?" "It's not kosher," he answered. "I know that, but you have salami!" I said. He picked up the package of salami (on which was written, "KOSHER") and said, "Of course we have salami!" Now I was completely confused. "How can salami be kosher?" I asked. "How can it not be kosher?" he replied. The it occurred to me that this is probably beef or turkey salami, and so of course it's kosher. Meanwhile, the woman next to me who can understand this entire exchange is completely cracking up. The guy asked, "What is salami made of where you come from?" I answered confidently: "Pork!" But now I'm wondering, is that even right? Isn't salami made out of pork? It was all in good humor, and we moved on to making my dinner of a turkey sandwich on rye (no cheese).
Note: it's not that cheese itself is not kosher, but it is not kosher to mix milk and meat, so if there's a deli serving meat, there won't be cheese around anywhere. This is why lots of very observant Jewish families have two sets of pots, dishes, silverware, etc. - it is proper to keep all things milk- and meat-related absolutely separate. Other things that aren't kosher: anything related to a pig, shellfish, gelatin, cheeseburgers and anything else that mixes meat and dairy.
So those are the tiny details of my Sunday in Jerusalem. Tomorrow I have some plans, and Tova is meeting with a filmmaker who wants to make a movie about her. We leave on Friday morning (actually, Thursday night at 2 a.m. - she made this plan, not me!) for Poland, where I'll stay with friends from the Jewish Center and attend the opening of Tova's exhibit in Krakow on Wednesday evening.
mmr
Saturday, May 27, 2006
The Perfect Tour
If I had gone on the perfect tour of Masada today, it would have been like this:
I would have met the bus at the hotel down the street, and the bus would have been on time. The tour guide would not have called me "Reuben" because he got my first name mixed up with the Jewish version of my last name, and then kept calling me that because he thought it was funny. The perfect eight- or nine-person group would have ridden in peace the two or so hours it took to drive to Masada, and we wouldn't have stopped at any kitschy snack bars along the way. No one would have been allowed to talk on the bus unless he or she had something interesting or useful or kind to say, and the tour guide would not have been allowed to talk at all until we arrived, or tell tedious Jewish jokes through his annoying microphone.
No one, but no one, would have given me a fluorescent green sticker to wear when we arrived at Masada. No one would have snapped at me for taking off the sticker and sticking it to my bag. No fellow tour member (an adult) would have run up to tell the guide, "That girl keeps taking off her sticker!"At the Masada site, the movie would have been optional, or at least included a post-movie discussion. This discussion would have included some fun critical analysis of the movie's amazing title, "The Truth about Masada." Then we would have had some free time to explore the site on our own, read some of the posted materials, and take photographs. The perfect tour would have been centered entirely around Masada, and included discussion of the place of the site and the story in Israeli and Jewish collective memory. The perfect tour would have devoted several hours to Masada, and not hastened off to a spa as the main attraction of the day.
In fact, the perfect tour would have left early in the morning to climb up the cliffs at sunrise and spend the morning touring the site. Such tours exist, but they are difficult to locate and seem sketchy on the telephone. The perfect tour would be one not too many people know about, hosted by charming and trustworthy people, and come highly recommended by cool locals. It would arrive early for this sunrise climb, and avoid the crowded cable-car experience. After some hours at Masada, maybe all the members of the perfect (small) tour group would like each other enough to share a meal and conversation, and then return to Jerusalem, relaxed and edified.
The real Masada tour was, as only my parents can understand, as maddening as Pompeii. The guide had a personality similar to Lorenzo, our Pompeii guide: slightly misogynist, always cracking unsucessful jokes, and preoccupied with the goings-on of his cell phone. This guide (I didn't catch his name, and didn't care to since he was calling me Reuben all the time) was very interested in herding us around (especially counting us, again and again), and when we were in the bus, he was interested in telling us about things we would see in just a second ... just a second ... wait a minute ... here it comes ... did you see it? The mark on the wall to the right? In the meantime, we careened by whatever it was he wanted to show us.
Inside Masada, he took us to a tiny stone seating area and told us this was the first synagogue. Then he asked, "Does anyone know where the word 'synagogue' comes from?" I thought, hey, this is fun. I do! So I said, "It comes from the Greek roots of 'sun', which means 'together', and 'ago', which means to lead or bring." He looked at me blankly. "No. It means meeting house" (to be accurate, the word means simply "meeting"). At which point I should have just let it go, but I didn't. So I tried to clarify, "Oh, no, I thought you just meant the roots of the word, and that's 'sun' and 'ago', and I think it's interesting how 'leading together' came to mean ..." The guide looked away from me and started talking again: "Ok, so 'meeting house', and this is the first meeting house ..." (I must have looked crestfallen, because four different tour members came up to me later and asked me to finish what I was saying about the Greek.)
Earlier, the two guys behind me in the bus were having a loud and animated conversation about the state of political science studies in the universities where they teach. Both had thick southern accents. The younger of the two was dismayed with the new emphasis on "Peace Studies" and "Conflict Resolution." "No one wants to talk about war anymore," he said. "I want to focus on symmetric warfare, how to win these things, and now everyone just wants to talk about conflict resolution and peace studies." (He spoke those last two as if they were sissy words.) Ironically, the two are in Israel participating in some kind of anti-terrorism fellowship program with the Israeli government. The older guy wore tight bicycle shorts and a tight tank top over his artificially tan self, and he was skipping the Masada portion of the tour in order to spend the entire day at the spa.
Somehow, when I read that this tour would go to Masada and Ein Gedi (a spa on the Dead Sea), I assumed that Masada would be the main event and Ein Gedi would be an interesting afterthought. It seems, though, that many of the tour members were envisioning things in quite the opposite way. Nearly everyone had packed a beach bag with a bathing suit, and all I brought with me were my two cameras, an apple, and some water. When we arrived at Ein Gedi after the disappointing Masada tour, the guide announced that we would be staying for two hours, and we could go to the beach at the Dead Sea, swim in the pool or soak in the baths at the spa (twice the duration of our Masada visit), or take advantage of the mud baths available outside. By this time, I had finally met a really lovely couple on this tour, two professors from St. Paul, Minnesota. While they weren't itching to get to the spa, they did know in advance that they should bring swimsuits, so if I wanted to hang out with them (and swim in the Dead Sea, which seemed sort of intriguing), I would need to do something about my lack of a bathing suit. Fortunately, the gift shop had a few offerings, but only one that fit, an absurd blue polka-dot bikini which you can see in the pictures below. It was so hot, though (38 C/100 F), that I was willing to pay $60 for the bathing suit and go hang out with my new friends at the "beach."
Which is not really a beach, just two grimy ramps that lead from a rocky (and hot to bare feet!) shore down to the water. The Dead Sea is called the Dead Sea because nothing can live in it, no animals, no fish, not even bacteria. The reason for this is that the salt concentration in the water (35%) is ten times the level of regular seawater. This high salinity causes a strange and unexpected bouancy in the water, and it knocked me off my feet a few times before I got used to it. It is apparently very dangerous to drink the water of the Dead Sea or to get it in your eyes. Regarding the latter, I don't know about the health effects, but it hurts like hell. Even with the tacky tourists all around, it was pretty extraordinary just to float there in the Dead Sea, the mountains of Jordan rising up along the opposite shore, not being summoned by a tour guide, green fluorescent sticker long forgotten.
Once the group reconvened, we set out for our journey back to Jerusalem and beyond (some of the group members had met the bus that morning in Tel Aviv). Or so we thought. The the guide announce that we were lucky enough to "have time" to stop at the factory of the famous Dead Sea cosmetics company, Ahava. My two friends and I were both exhausted and wished we could just head back, but we tried to be good sports. First we went in to the factory store and were ushered to a screening room for a "movie" (read, "commercial"). Somehow I ended up sitting with the two good ol' boy anti-terrorist guys on either side of me. During this film about skin care, a nearly naked woman appeared on the screen rubbing salt on herself, walking by the Dead Sea, slathering mud all over her legs, or some kind of nonsense at least every thirty seconds. And every time she showed up, one of the guys had to lean across me and make a sexually suggestive comment or joke about her. After the movie, we sat through about twenty minutes of product descriptions during which the guys, joined by their even-less-funny British cohort continued to make jokes. This made the whole thing last even longer.
Finally, people had made their purchases and we were ready to go. By that time, I was feeling really sticky and grimy, my hair was drying out into stiff sticks, and the taste of salt seemed like it would never go away. I was not at all inspired in that moment to buy products that would simulate that sensation at home. I just wanted to take a shower.
About an hour later, the bus dropped me off at the gas station near my hotel, and in a few minutes I was never so happy to be sitting alone, reading a book, and eating a blissfully drab meal from the hotel kitchen.
It was not the perfect tour. It was exhausting and expensive ($70 for the tour, $60 for the ridiculous swimsuit) and I didn't get to climb Masada after all. I suppose that's the one drawback to traveling alone as a woman, especially here. It probably would have been ok for me to go into the Old City at 3 a.m. and hook up with the group that was going to climb the mountain, but I just didn't feel quite right about it, and I don't know anyone here who can recommend one of those groups to me with confidence. There aren't many. Or, I could have just hired a taxi (for much less than I paid for this bus tour) to take me out there, and then wandered around on my own, reading and taking pictures and watching other tour groups with their unfortunately hued stickers. Maybe next trip. At least I stood at the top of Masada today. At least I finally got to go there after all these years, even if it was in a cheesy lime-green bus with a cheesy tour guide and a group of mostly vapid and jaded tourists. I am so glad that I met my new Minnesota friends Leigh and Ellen; we have a lot in common, and so maybe we will stay in touch.
The Israeli military rallying cry is, "Masada will never fall again!" The whole "never again" with Masada part was starting to sound pretty good to me by late this afternoon. But I do think I'd like to go back, though, maybe on another trip, maybe if I'm traveling with someone and we can climb the mountain together at sunrise, or even if I can find a way to do it alone.
To read an excerpt from Josephus's account of the fall of Masada, click here.
This sign was in front of our tacky rest-stop and snack bar. The lowest place in the world, palm trees, and a camel. In fact there were rides available in just in front of me on a very haggard looking camel. An entire tour group from Angola was energetically taking turns.
Our group. That's our guide in the red shirt. That's my friend Ellen in the white shirt and straw hat.
The Dead Sea, view from Masada.
At Masada.
This black line snakes around through all the ruins. It is meant to indicate that everything below the line is original to the place, and everything above the line has been reconstructed.
In the "first" synagogue. Note the black line in the background.
Ruins at Masada.
The Dead Sea from Masada
With Ellen, swimming (standing) in the Dead Sea.
Ellen's legs are swept out from under her. The high salinity results in water of much greater density, and it is actually easier to float than to stand upright in this water.
Mud bathers walking back up to the resort from the Sea.
A mud bather arrives to rinse off in the Dead Sea.
I would have met the bus at the hotel down the street, and the bus would have been on time. The tour guide would not have called me "Reuben" because he got my first name mixed up with the Jewish version of my last name, and then kept calling me that because he thought it was funny. The perfect eight- or nine-person group would have ridden in peace the two or so hours it took to drive to Masada, and we wouldn't have stopped at any kitschy snack bars along the way. No one would have been allowed to talk on the bus unless he or she had something interesting or useful or kind to say, and the tour guide would not have been allowed to talk at all until we arrived, or tell tedious Jewish jokes through his annoying microphone.
No one, but no one, would have given me a fluorescent green sticker to wear when we arrived at Masada. No one would have snapped at me for taking off the sticker and sticking it to my bag. No fellow tour member (an adult) would have run up to tell the guide, "That girl keeps taking off her sticker!"At the Masada site, the movie would have been optional, or at least included a post-movie discussion. This discussion would have included some fun critical analysis of the movie's amazing title, "The Truth about Masada." Then we would have had some free time to explore the site on our own, read some of the posted materials, and take photographs. The perfect tour would have been centered entirely around Masada, and included discussion of the place of the site and the story in Israeli and Jewish collective memory. The perfect tour would have devoted several hours to Masada, and not hastened off to a spa as the main attraction of the day.
In fact, the perfect tour would have left early in the morning to climb up the cliffs at sunrise and spend the morning touring the site. Such tours exist, but they are difficult to locate and seem sketchy on the telephone. The perfect tour would be one not too many people know about, hosted by charming and trustworthy people, and come highly recommended by cool locals. It would arrive early for this sunrise climb, and avoid the crowded cable-car experience. After some hours at Masada, maybe all the members of the perfect (small) tour group would like each other enough to share a meal and conversation, and then return to Jerusalem, relaxed and edified.
The real Masada tour was, as only my parents can understand, as maddening as Pompeii. The guide had a personality similar to Lorenzo, our Pompeii guide: slightly misogynist, always cracking unsucessful jokes, and preoccupied with the goings-on of his cell phone. This guide (I didn't catch his name, and didn't care to since he was calling me Reuben all the time) was very interested in herding us around (especially counting us, again and again), and when we were in the bus, he was interested in telling us about things we would see in just a second ... just a second ... wait a minute ... here it comes ... did you see it? The mark on the wall to the right? In the meantime, we careened by whatever it was he wanted to show us.
Inside Masada, he took us to a tiny stone seating area and told us this was the first synagogue. Then he asked, "Does anyone know where the word 'synagogue' comes from?" I thought, hey, this is fun. I do! So I said, "It comes from the Greek roots of 'sun', which means 'together', and 'ago', which means to lead or bring." He looked at me blankly. "No. It means meeting house" (to be accurate, the word means simply "meeting"). At which point I should have just let it go, but I didn't. So I tried to clarify, "Oh, no, I thought you just meant the roots of the word, and that's 'sun' and 'ago', and I think it's interesting how 'leading together' came to mean ..." The guide looked away from me and started talking again: "Ok, so 'meeting house', and this is the first meeting house ..." (I must have looked crestfallen, because four different tour members came up to me later and asked me to finish what I was saying about the Greek.)
Earlier, the two guys behind me in the bus were having a loud and animated conversation about the state of political science studies in the universities where they teach. Both had thick southern accents. The younger of the two was dismayed with the new emphasis on "Peace Studies" and "Conflict Resolution." "No one wants to talk about war anymore," he said. "I want to focus on symmetric warfare, how to win these things, and now everyone just wants to talk about conflict resolution and peace studies." (He spoke those last two as if they were sissy words.) Ironically, the two are in Israel participating in some kind of anti-terrorism fellowship program with the Israeli government. The older guy wore tight bicycle shorts and a tight tank top over his artificially tan self, and he was skipping the Masada portion of the tour in order to spend the entire day at the spa.
Somehow, when I read that this tour would go to Masada and Ein Gedi (a spa on the Dead Sea), I assumed that Masada would be the main event and Ein Gedi would be an interesting afterthought. It seems, though, that many of the tour members were envisioning things in quite the opposite way. Nearly everyone had packed a beach bag with a bathing suit, and all I brought with me were my two cameras, an apple, and some water. When we arrived at Ein Gedi after the disappointing Masada tour, the guide announced that we would be staying for two hours, and we could go to the beach at the Dead Sea, swim in the pool or soak in the baths at the spa (twice the duration of our Masada visit), or take advantage of the mud baths available outside. By this time, I had finally met a really lovely couple on this tour, two professors from St. Paul, Minnesota. While they weren't itching to get to the spa, they did know in advance that they should bring swimsuits, so if I wanted to hang out with them (and swim in the Dead Sea, which seemed sort of intriguing), I would need to do something about my lack of a bathing suit. Fortunately, the gift shop had a few offerings, but only one that fit, an absurd blue polka-dot bikini which you can see in the pictures below. It was so hot, though (38 C/100 F), that I was willing to pay $60 for the bathing suit and go hang out with my new friends at the "beach."
Which is not really a beach, just two grimy ramps that lead from a rocky (and hot to bare feet!) shore down to the water. The Dead Sea is called the Dead Sea because nothing can live in it, no animals, no fish, not even bacteria. The reason for this is that the salt concentration in the water (35%) is ten times the level of regular seawater. This high salinity causes a strange and unexpected bouancy in the water, and it knocked me off my feet a few times before I got used to it. It is apparently very dangerous to drink the water of the Dead Sea or to get it in your eyes. Regarding the latter, I don't know about the health effects, but it hurts like hell. Even with the tacky tourists all around, it was pretty extraordinary just to float there in the Dead Sea, the mountains of Jordan rising up along the opposite shore, not being summoned by a tour guide, green fluorescent sticker long forgotten.
Once the group reconvened, we set out for our journey back to Jerusalem and beyond (some of the group members had met the bus that morning in Tel Aviv). Or so we thought. The the guide announce that we were lucky enough to "have time" to stop at the factory of the famous Dead Sea cosmetics company, Ahava. My two friends and I were both exhausted and wished we could just head back, but we tried to be good sports. First we went in to the factory store and were ushered to a screening room for a "movie" (read, "commercial"). Somehow I ended up sitting with the two good ol' boy anti-terrorist guys on either side of me. During this film about skin care, a nearly naked woman appeared on the screen rubbing salt on herself, walking by the Dead Sea, slathering mud all over her legs, or some kind of nonsense at least every thirty seconds. And every time she showed up, one of the guys had to lean across me and make a sexually suggestive comment or joke about her. After the movie, we sat through about twenty minutes of product descriptions during which the guys, joined by their even-less-funny British cohort continued to make jokes. This made the whole thing last even longer.
Finally, people had made their purchases and we were ready to go. By that time, I was feeling really sticky and grimy, my hair was drying out into stiff sticks, and the taste of salt seemed like it would never go away. I was not at all inspired in that moment to buy products that would simulate that sensation at home. I just wanted to take a shower.
About an hour later, the bus dropped me off at the gas station near my hotel, and in a few minutes I was never so happy to be sitting alone, reading a book, and eating a blissfully drab meal from the hotel kitchen.
It was not the perfect tour. It was exhausting and expensive ($70 for the tour, $60 for the ridiculous swimsuit) and I didn't get to climb Masada after all. I suppose that's the one drawback to traveling alone as a woman, especially here. It probably would have been ok for me to go into the Old City at 3 a.m. and hook up with the group that was going to climb the mountain, but I just didn't feel quite right about it, and I don't know anyone here who can recommend one of those groups to me with confidence. There aren't many. Or, I could have just hired a taxi (for much less than I paid for this bus tour) to take me out there, and then wandered around on my own, reading and taking pictures and watching other tour groups with their unfortunately hued stickers. Maybe next trip. At least I stood at the top of Masada today. At least I finally got to go there after all these years, even if it was in a cheesy lime-green bus with a cheesy tour guide and a group of mostly vapid and jaded tourists. I am so glad that I met my new Minnesota friends Leigh and Ellen; we have a lot in common, and so maybe we will stay in touch.
The Israeli military rallying cry is, "Masada will never fall again!" The whole "never again" with Masada part was starting to sound pretty good to me by late this afternoon. But I do think I'd like to go back, though, maybe on another trip, maybe if I'm traveling with someone and we can climb the mountain together at sunrise, or even if I can find a way to do it alone.
To read an excerpt from Josephus's account of the fall of Masada, click here.
This sign was in front of our tacky rest-stop and snack bar. The lowest place in the world, palm trees, and a camel. In fact there were rides available in just in front of me on a very haggard looking camel. An entire tour group from Angola was energetically taking turns.
Our group. That's our guide in the red shirt. That's my friend Ellen in the white shirt and straw hat.
The Dead Sea, view from Masada.
At Masada.
This black line snakes around through all the ruins. It is meant to indicate that everything below the line is original to the place, and everything above the line has been reconstructed.
In the "first" synagogue. Note the black line in the background.
Ruins at Masada.
The Dead Sea from Masada
With Ellen, swimming (standing) in the Dead Sea.
Ellen's legs are swept out from under her. The high salinity results in water of much greater density, and it is actually easier to float than to stand upright in this water.
Mud bathers walking back up to the resort from the Sea.
A mud bather arrives to rinse off in the Dead Sea.
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