(almost) rape

A couple of years ago, I was living in Israel learning in a seminary. One Friday a friend of mine from Australia was arriving in Israel. Naturally, I went to the airport to meet her and then put her on a bus to Jerusalem. I was going to Rehovot for Shabbat and accordingly located myself at the bus stop to go there.

While at the bus stop a young man approached me and (in hebrew) asked "Errr, would it be ok for me to borrow your phone to call my parents?" I replied "sure, no worries mate" (well, the hebrew equivalent at least).

After returning the phone he asked "so where are you going?"

"To Rehovot" I answer and then ask "yourself?"

"Oh, I'm catching the same bus as you then. I'm going to Ramle."

The bus then promptly arrives and we board it. I sit down and he asks "may I sit next to you?" (despite the bus being empty). Being polite & naive I let him sit next to me.

We then have a conversation. For this transcript 'R' stands for rapist (him) and 'M' is me. If I sound a little bit stupid it's because the conversation was in hebrew and I was a silly 18 year old girl. Oh, and because I'm a little bit stupid.

R - so what did you do today?

M - I greeted a friend from Australia at the airport. What about you?

R - I went to Akko to visit my girlfriend

M - Oh, that's nice. How'd it go?

R - Really well. I brought her family some necklaces that look like gold so they think I'm wealthier than I really am.

M - * concerned laughter*

R - Yeah but my girlfriend's fat sister wouldn't leave us alone so I couldn't get any alone time with her. If you know what I mean. Do you know what I mean? Get what I mean?

M - Yeah. I get what you mean.

We then drive past a mall in the city of Lod, the drug capital of Israel.

R - I used to live there

M - Oh that's funny, it doesn't look like an apartment building. It looks more like a mall.

R - Yeah, it is. I used to live on the roof with my girlfriend.

M - I thought your girlfriend lives in Akko.

R - I used to live there with my ex-girlfriend.

M - Oh really. Why didn't it work out ? (why do I ask these things???)

R - We didn't see very much of each other. I worked during the day and she worked at night.

M - Was she a telemarketer?

R - No. She was a prostitute.

At this point I should have realised that something wasn't quite right. But instead, I assumed that he meant metaphorically because why would anybody tell a stranger on a bus that their ex worked as a lady of the night?!?

Just after this revelation and police car drives past, sirens blaring. R drops his head down so he can't be seen.

M - What's going on?

R - Nothing much. The police just want to arrest me.

M - Oh, is there something wrong with your taxes? (honestly, am such as idiot!)

R - No, my ex-girlfriend is pressing charges against me. She says I used to rape and beat her.

Finally, I freak out.

R - So who's waiting for you in Rehovot?

(think quick, come up with something!)

M - Errrr, my Dad...and my brother...from the army...and his friends...from the army... with their guns.

R - (unperturbed) Have you ever been to Ramle?

M - Nope

R - You should come. It's a lovely place.

M - Hmmm, maybe. I'm not so interested.

R - You could stay with me. You should come to Ramle today.

M - No, thanx.

R - You should come to Ramle now.

M - But I don't want to.

R - (learning in so his face is an inch away from mine) Well, I don't care what you want.

Freaking out, I stand up to move seats away from him. He puts his arm across the seats in front of us and blocks my way. I try to push against it but he's too strong. I sit back down.

Like a child I say "Fine. But I'm not going to talk to you anymore." With that I cross my arms and legs and look steadily out the window and ignore him the rest of the ride.

Luckily, Ramle is before Rehovot so he got off the bus before me and I was saved from his clutches.

Is there a point to this story? Not really, I just thought you might find it interesting.

Escapades

Earlier this week I told y'all that I was going to a wedding so you should prepare yourselves for some mushy bloggage. But it's just not going to happen. I'm not feeling mushy/lame/desperate. Soz babez.

Instead I'll tell you about events that caused a separation from my blog.

Well firstly it turns out that I do have friends in J'lem who wanted to see me. Who'da thunk it?

I then went on Tuesday to Tel Aviv. I went with one Aussie and 3 Americans (gosh Americans are like so totally annoying). We went to Florentine (a hipster street... for a definition of hipster please see http://www.latfh.com/) then to Neve Tzedek, a cute little artist neighbourhood. After that it was on to Nachalot Binyanmin for the craft market. All in all pretty standard.

A South African friend of mine saved me from the Americans and we went to the Namal (port) of TA. I love that place because it's just like Melbourne. Full of cafes & restaurants by the beach but you can't swim b/c its a bit too gross. We went to the only kosher restaurant there and I got a 60 shekel salad. That didn't come with bread! WTF!?! Am so like totally outraged.

We then proceeded to meet up with some other people for an Aliya Anniversary party on the beach. Was super fun.

The next day I went to the bank (as I've done every day in this country, the incompetence is beyond belief). After the bank I got on a couple of buses and went to Kibbutz Deganya. The first kibbutz ever (well technically not really but they'll claim that nonetheless). It's 100 years old and doesn't look a day over 70. Also it's not really a kibbutz anymore since it's been privatized. But watevs. Socialism is so 20th century.

We went swimming and chilling and eating for two days in the beautiful sunshine surrounded by greenery and egalitarian values.

I have since returned to Jtown and am about to start prepping for shabz in town. I'm going to the Aussie boys house in Katamon for dinz and I'm bringing sushi salad. Jealous much?

And hence I've been separated from my laptop and therefore could not blog.

Please forgive me.

Tu B'av

Sorry about the extended absence. You will be shortly hearing about my escapades in the past week which lead to a separation from my laptop and hence an inability to blog.

But first.

It was Tu B'av on Sunday night/Monday this week.

This day on the Jewish calendar is known for various love related customs. such as single girls wearing borrowed white dresses and going out into the field (or streets/clubs) to dance. It's a day for dating & marriage. Indeed I even went to a wedding of a close friend on Tu B'av.

But where does this tradition come from you may ask?

Well, the gemara in bava batra 121 a,b gives a couple of different answers but the most interesting (& also most accepted version) is the following story.

Now I know you are about to switch off but I'm telling you this is a good bible story. It's definitely worth a read.

So in the book of Shoftim (19-21 specifically.... impressed much?) we have a story about the pilegesh b'givah. It goes as follows...

A man and his concubine are travelling back from visiting the in-laws when they come upon a village in the tribe of Benjamin. They try to find somewhere to stay but nobody is willing to have them. Eventually a guy is super concerned about them spending the night on the street and agrees to take them in. In the night the villagers, having heard about the strangers in the house, come knocking on the host's door.

The mob demand that the host send out the man so that they can rape him. (WTF?!?) Anyways there's a bit of an argument and then they conclude that they will be satisfied with just the concubine being given to them. They then take the concubine and gang rape her all night.

In the morning they let her go, she crawls back to the house where her husband was staying and died on the front doorstep. When he awakes (seriously, what type of bastard can sleep while his concubine is being gang raped?) he opens the front door and finds her there.

Now what would a normal person do at this point?

-Cry?

- Bury her?

- Call the local police/law enforcers?

Well I'll give you a hint - none of the above.

Instead he choses to cut her into 12 pieces and send each piece to a different tribe all around Israel so that they will know what happened to his concubine.

Oh right, that's a healthy response. I feel like I may have seen something similar on Law & Order: S.V.U.

Anyways, the tribes of Israel freak out and declare that gang rape is totally not ok. To demonstrate this point they wage war on the tribe of Benjamin and massively decimate them. Seriously, there were like almost no Benjaminites left.

The elders of Israel were pretty concerned about the near extinction of a tribe and so they decide that something must be done about this. The problem was that the tribes had sworn not to give their daughters to the Benjaminites as wives. And in the bible promises are taken very seriously.

The solution went as such.

There was a festival on the 15th of the month of Av where virgins went out into the field and danced (apaz some sort of agricultural thingo). So the Benjaminites were instructed to go there and take the girls and rape them. You see in Judaism if you rape a virgin you are then meant to marry her (don't worry there'll definitely be a blog about rape & Judaism at some point). This solution meant that the tribes of Israel didn't actually give their daughters to Benjamin and therefore didn't break their vows but that the tribe could be replenished with these girls (against their will).

And therefore in celebration of this delightful tale young Jewish women world wide dress up in white and go out dancing and dating on Tu B'av. Charming aye?

engagement against one's will

In 2007 I spent 3 weeks on a Kibbutz which shall remain nameless. Most of my time on this kibbutz I spent sitting on bench tops in the kitchen entertaining the old men with my wit and charm while they chopped enough carrots to feed the entire world rabbit population.

In the kitchen I met Itamar. He was the son of the manager of the kibbutz. He was 19 years old and back from yeshiva for pesach. After work finished at 3 Itamar and I would go for walks around the very green and lush kibbutz. We'd talk about lots of things like rabbis, food, zionism and socialism. When the group of chutznik volunteers had a game of basketball against the kibbutz kids Itamar played and he was awesome.

He was tall(ish for a jewboy), had blonde hair and blue eyes. Unfortunately he also had a shortish beard (ever heard of pash-rash?) and longish peyot (errr... sidelocks?). He was also SUPER into G-d and majorly into singing and praying and crying. I know this from many sources one of which being that he wore a GIANT kippa. The thing was like a knitted salad bowl. Just HUGE. Enormous. I totally could have bathed our first born child in it.

But moving on.

So I moved on out of that kibbutz and returned to my seminary in Jtown. He keeps calling me and that was ok, no big deal really. Like once a week, no biggie. This lasts for about a month. But then one friday afternoon he's in jlem and we are at the Tachana Hamerkazit. We are chatting, very chilled.

And then he drops a bomb (figuratively speaking for clarification b/c I know people get nervous when bombs are mentioned in the context of the middle-east).

He casually says "so I spoke to my rabbi and to my father and to the vaad (committee) of the kibbutz and they all say we can get married and have an apartment on the kibbutz, so if you could please give me your parents number I'll call them and we can discuss details for the wedding."

WHAT THE F$%K ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT YOU PSYCHO!? (says the voice in my head)

"um, Itamar, I don't understand, since when are we getting married?" (says my real voice)

Long story short we have a rather large and public fight about whether or not we are getting married. It went something like this. For the purpose of this conversation we will call him Psycho Kibbutznik or PK for short.

Me -" but I don't know you well enough"

PK - "we will get to know each other through our many happy years of marriage"

Me - "but I don't think I love you"

PK - "but we will come to love each other through our many happy years of marriage"

Me - "but I don't know if I want to live on a Kibbutz or even in Israel"

PK - "but we can decide on where we live later on in our blissful marriage"

PSYCHO!

In the end it was a Friday afternoon and I had a bus to catch so we walked to the bus together, still fighting. He waited with me in line while we were still fighting.

I climb to get on the bus and say "I don't have time to deal with this now, we'll talk about it motzash (saturday night)."

"Fine, but until then we are ENGAGED!" screams PK.

Then my bus pulls away robbing me of my right of reply.

Thus began my 25 hour long engagement against my will.

Saturday night I called him and lost the fight again. But after a 10 minute break I called him again and won. Hence I am no longer engaged to PK.

Now you may think that having won my freedom the story ends here. But there is a post-script to these eventful events.

A couple of months later the woman who organizes the overseas volunteers on the kibbutz invited my group back from a shabbat. But she told my madricha "everyone should come except for that red-head girl, she's not welcome."

I guess that's what I get for messing around the son of the kibbutz's manager.

Serves me right for being such a red-headed Lilith.

An Ode To Ariel Sharon

I'm going to Peduel for shabbat. Peduel is in the Shomron, kinda near Ariel. It's a beautiful yishuv* with big houses and great views. It's also super close to Petach Tikva and the Merkaz in general.

The issue is that I'm left wing. I think that there should be a Palestinian state in the West-Bank. This is mainly b/c of that whole triangle choice between land size, Jewish state and democracy. I chose democracy and Jewish for Israel which means that I had to give up on the greater Israel land thing.

Let me explain.

The triangle thing goes like this. if we have the full land size of Israel we then have to chose whether we want Israel to be a Jewish state or a democratic state. Because if we make this whole area democratic there is such a large Palestinian population in the West-Bank and Gaza that demographically Israel would cease to be a Jewish state. The alternative then is that to keep the whole land and not only give the right to vote to Jews. But then Israel would stop being democratic. So in order to keep Israel Jewish and democratic it can't have the full land of Israel.

So technically I think that Peduel may end up being in a Palestinian state. So why am I going there? Well, firstly a pretty good high school friend of mine now lives there. But more generally I don't really have a problem travelling in the West-Bank. It's really beautiful there and as long as I stay out of Nablus and Jericho I should be fine.

Now for all you leftie hipsters that read my blog you may not find these opinions controversial at all. You may be forgetting, however, that I am a religious young lady. And them religious folks aren't ready to give up on Yehuda and Shomron** and the whole redemption and imminent temple rebuilding just yet. But who cares what the religious Neanderthals may think you say? To which I reply that I'm single and that finding a date who is also both religious and left-wing is a tough mission. Particularly in Israel where people are becoming more and more polarized (as per the Gush Katif escapades).

Oh well, when I'm old and alone at least I will have a nobel peace prize to keep me warm at night.

Sigh.

*Settlement

** the West-Bank's biblical names

Soulja Boy II

As has been previously mentioned I live in Jerusalem.

This means that like most places in Israel it is not uncommon to see Israeli soldiers wandering around, smoldering with their rugged good looks and phallic symbolism (aka AK-47s) slung over their shoulders.

Ah so many hours were whiled away on my year in sem sitting and watching/drooling over Israeli soldiers. How I fondly recall Super Soldier Sundays in the old city.

The issue is that I am no longer in sem. Indeed I am no longer 18. In fact I'm now 21. Which means that most soldiers are very quickly becoming closer to the age of my little brother than my age. Which makes my fantasizing take a sharp turn down creepy pedophile street.

But when the alternatives in my neighborhood are potbellied taxi drivers or black hatted Hasidim who can blame a girl?

p.s. for variation on the theme check out

http://breakthedrought.wordpress.com/2010/06/05/cruisin-4-boyz/

Haredi Dreamin'

So I'm your typical left-wing modern orthodox chutznik chick. I go to shira hadasha, I learn gemara and I really like to be meikel*.

But my sub-conscious is haredi.

Exibit A:

I once dreamed that I was at a super important world leaders conference. There I met Tony Blair. This was before he lost his mojo.

You should all know that I have a thing for world leaders. There is possibly nobody more attractive in the whole world than Nicolas Sarkozy, Bill Clinton or Bibi Netanyahu. And don't get me started on the things I would like to do with Barak Obama.

But back to the dream.

So obviously with myself being absurdly foxy and witty, Tony and I hit it off.

Prime Minister Blair says to me in a powerful British accent "Should we continue this in my hotel room?"

To which I (as per usual) bat my eye lashes and reply "I would love to but that would be Yichud**, so no thanx."

WTF!?!

I couldn't even break the rules for a world leader?

I couldn't even break the rules when it wasn't real but merely a figment of my imagination?!?

Which brings us to Exhibit B:

I also once dreamed that I was escaping a burning building with a high school friend. Let's call him Fez. In order to escape the building we had to climb across a ladder from the third floor window to another building and then use the drainpipes a la spider-man to reunite ourselves with the ground. I happen to have an intense fear of heights. Yes, even in my subconscious. So Fez held my hand throughout the climbing ordeal and helped me escape from the burning building.

When we arrived safety on the ground there was a group of black velvet kippa wearing yeshiva boys celebrating their survival near by. They came over to us and we smiled/laugh/shouted for joy. They went over and hugged my friend Fez. They then came over to give me a hug.

So I took a step back and said "sorry I'm shomeret nagia***."

The boys replied "but we saw you just touching your friend on the ladder."

"Yeah but like that was to escape a burning building" says I.

"Well, if you touched him you have to touch us" say the boys as they step towards me.

They then proceeded to circle around me to give me a group hug against my will.

In response I shout "BUT I'M A BAS YISROEL****!!!!" at the top of my lungs, while I sit up and wake up from my dream in a cold sweat.

OMG!

But like seriously - where do I pull that shite from?

* creating and using loopholes to avoid actually keeping halacha

** The rules against being alone with the opposite sex

*** The rules against touching the opposite sex

**** a term connoting a pure, chaste, meek and pious daughter of Israel

Soulja Boy

So I flew from the other side of the world (Australia) to Israel. It took me three days. I had two overnight stopovers and not a single personal TV the entire journey. Torture. Seriously, am considering writing to the UN about it.

On my way I stopped overnight in Korea. In the country of M*A*S*H I got married.

Psych Mum. Totally got you there.

Stam.

What actually happened was, that while waiting in line for customs, a ridiculously tall and muscularly and tanned and brave American soldier (on his way to abuse human rights) was standing in line in front of me. He noticed that I looked a little bit lost (and presumably adorable as well). So he said "Well, howdy darlin'. Can I help ya at all ma'am?" (jk - I don't remember what he said but it was probably along those lines - assuming he's a walking cliche). To which I batted my eyelashes and explained my lost situation in a breathy Marilyn Munroe-esque voice.

At the same time the Korean customs officials noticed Soldier Boy (SB) and presumably the many weapons in his bag and ushered him off to be searched. They also concluded that I was SB's wife and send me along with him to have my stuff trifled through. Lucky me.

You may be concerned but you needn't be. SB and myself explained in very slow English and many hand gestures that we were actually strangers and not married. Hence they should set me free. Which they promptly did. Woot woot.

But sadly I shall never see my dear SB again. Well, until he's in a news report for violating the Geneva Convention.

And that is the story of my brief/non-existent marriage to SB.

Boganism

What is a Bogan? A Bogan is an Australian term for a redneck. A person with from a lower socio-economic background who likes utes, mullets, flannel and beer.

Why is my blog called littlemissbogan? Well for two reasons. The first being that I'm a quite small single female, hence the little miss. The second being that Bogan sounds a bit like my surname. It's also an ironic nickname b/c I'm a lame wanky hipster, and people like myself and my friends love irony. Hence I wear flannel too but as an ironic fabric.

What does this blog exist? You see, I'm a 21 year old university student on exchange. So I kinda have to blog, just like everybody else in my generation. The blog will function to discuss mainly the following topics: Judaism, politics, dating.

Sounds like fun? Yeah, I thought so too.