Floor Wax and Butterscotch Pudding

"It's a Floorwax; no it's a butterscotch pudding" proclaimed Dan Aykroyd on an early SNL skit about a product that tasted great and cleaned floors too. Here it's gas stations that double as bakeries: we fill up a car with gas at the filling station, run inside to get sesame rolls, baklava etc. And its all kosher to boot. Elsewhere in Israel they might not be kosher meaning they might sell milk and meat products, but everything would most likely be kosher. Whatever happened to filling stations just carrying Sourpatch Kids and Wrigley's Gum?

Streets Dark with Arabs

We live on a main thoroughfare, a six lane road, well lit I'm glad to say. I went around the corner tonight to the local supermarket to buy some items. Still loving being able to go to the market, hit the meat market, and see all that kosher stuff. And wishing the checkout counter person a Shabbat shalom. Walked home with the stuff, dark out. Two men ahead, young men. Not sure if they're Jews or Arabs: we live fairly near an Arab neighborhood quite close to the Old City. If I walk at my pace I'll catch up to them and then I'll know by what language they're speaking (Arabs of course speak Arabic when they're not with Jews). On the other hand if I'm closest enough to them to hear that then I'll know for certain that they're Arabs and then I'll freak out a bit. I thought the Jewish state existed so we wouldn't be afraid of non-Jews? Joke's on me. And on my phobias. Or on the world. Or both. But I brave thing, walk at a normal pace, catch up and pass them, and sure enough they're Arabs. And couldn't care less about me in their midst. And my heartrate returned to normal, as I reached our building. But not after nightmaring that they'd pick up a stone and throw it at me.

All Wet

Went on our first tiyyul yesterday, the Fellows that is. All the way to Haifa practically, and back in one day. It rains here everday lately; I keep remembering Joseph's dream of 7 fat and lean years. The rain matches my mood and present physical state, a bit sick and sick at heart. We sat through two sessions, one on teaching peoplehood, the other on community building. The first seemed a bit vague and simple too simple for us; the latter too rushed to be more than interesting rather than rewarding. Bottom line is that this country, this people constantly worries about how to build peoplehood and community precisely because it needs those things desperately. The revolution failed meaning that not all Jews came here, and those who didn't don't connect deeply to the revolution. They may cry when they hear HaTikvah, and when they come and go from here, but the daily engagement isn't there. And Israel's growing up, becoming more complex, more divided, less mission-driven. Probably inevitable. But given that some Jews get there mission from Torah and think THEY'RE ABSOLUTELY POSSESSED OF TRUTH, where does that leave the rest of us humble uncertain types? Hence the need to talk about community building, as an intellectual and organizational imperative. A colleague said "all nationalisms worry about their existence: who they are, what they're becoming, etc." Ok, maybe, but most of them aren't dealing with homicide bombers and tiny spaces.

Poor People of Color

E played with a friend yesterday, a little Ethiopian girl. It never occurred to us that the mom wouldn't pick up the 4th graders and take them home--but she works and the kids walk home by themselves. The 4th grader supervises the younger kids; at home the teenage son supervises all. Great that they're integrated into the school; my wonderful daughter sees color but sees through color. I kept asking her where her friend came from; she insisted "from Israel." Tried to tell her that all Israelis come from somewhere else, she mercifully fails to see that. I picked her up at the apartment--a cramped messy affair in which the kids watch tv after school. No stressed out parents trying to help their kids become lab rats to get ahead. But will they be able to "compete" for the goods when the race starts I ask myself? The old freedom/equality thing.

Life, Text, Art

Went to my first artsy thing last night, on a cold rainy evening that reminds me of our wintry prayers for life-giving moisture. Scenes of Judean stone soaking it up out in the hills somewhere so we'll get to enjoy the waterfalls in Ein Gedi a bit later on. Tucked in at the beginning of D. Bet Lehem and stretching to D. Hevron, the yard could be a venue for the Sopranos. Dark and desolate, old buildings now occupied by edgy clubs with names like Negro, and The Lab. Not for old married fogeys I think. A colleague's wife wrote a play based on a medieval Jewish story about a complicated relationship that begins between strangers, involving courtship, commitment, abandonment, loneliness, death, reconnection and procreation, all with God present somewhere in the saga. The players, all or mostly all I think religious, sat with some of us afterwards to discuss the play. A great Jewish dialectic ensued: the tensions between artistic truth and religious truth; textual truth and existential truth, God and man, man and woman, the works. What does it mean to be religious here? When a woman covers her hair she signs something, but what? Depends on how precisely she covers: all of her hair/head, only some, hair cascading to her shoulders in plain sight or not, endless variations all suggesting some sort of allegiance to some affect, some community, some tradition, some fad. So many "little things" signing bigger things. Hard to discuss things with Jews: like an adult ed class run amok some audience folks won't let others talk, not even the cast. One guy accused the players of liberal religion: God should serve us rather than the other way around, and that secular/hilonim have no sense of service. It's never boring here.

Smiling At Strangers

One needs to concentrate extra hard here on traffic, bearing in mind the notorious reputation Israelis possess for fast and tragically reckless driving. In the USA as a pedestrian I rely on the rules of the road, and making eye contact with drivers, and even a smile to connect to them so they won't moe me down. I tried the same here: forget about it. I smile the goofy American smile--the driver justs look back at me hard and vacantly. Israelis live on either side of conventional American politeness. Rudeness brusqueness bluntness counterpointed by "WELCOME WE ARE YOUR FAMILY HERE'S A CAKE OR CHALLAH WE BAKED FOR YOU SHABBAT SHALOM." The driver in the car's preoccupied or looking at me thinking why the hell is he smiling at me--he doesn't even know me. It's a relationship or not, substantial or not, none of the I just met you and I think you're the greatest person I've ever met facile stuff. Charm doesn't work here--I think the likes of Clinton would have a tough go of it.

Teaching History

Presented today with Leon on this re. adult learning in America. The Israelis know little or nothing about the so-called "Renaissance" in American Jewish life. Gave some postcards and snapshots of our programs, and talked about how history works. Torah and peoplehood tie us together, hopefully with some content as well as mythologically. That's about it. We lack a common historical narrative, that's for sure. Historical study both creates a safe space and yet carries danger for us--heretical stuff.