Beit Lechem

So as was previously stated last Tuesday I went to Beit Lechem.

Here are 10 things that I learnt from that trip.

1) Catholics and Orthodox Christians are theologically very similar but they really really don't like each other and sometimes resort to violence

2) Beit Lechem has the church of the nativity which is where people think Jesus was born.

3) Jesus was actually born in Nazareth but people like to say he was from Beit Lechem so to establish that he's from the Davidic line and could be the Messiah.

4) Jesus was not born in a barn but was actually born in a cave.

5) The separation fence (apartheid wall) is pretty ugly and scary and bad for Palestinian business, but it also serves as a great canvass for street art and movie projections.

6) Beit Lechem is clean, well developed, organised and beautiful.

7) Bethlemites are polite, cheerful and friendly.

8) The university does not have a security check to enter (very different to Hebrew U) it is also aesthetically stunning and has lots of student life.

9) German Lutheran Pastors are the shiz.

10) Sometimes in life you are pleasantly surprised.

Martha Stewart

I have a dirty little secret.

I’m a domestic goddess.

I cook.

I clean.

I bake.

I crochet.

I sew.

Every person who walks into my house must have something to eat. If you don’t I’ll fill a little container with food and insist that you take it with you for the road.

It’s not a healthy situation. I have to hide this addiction. This is because religious boys love a domesticated girl. They want a replacement mother.

But I don’t want to be anybody’s mum. I don’t want to have to deal with the affection of boys who confuse hunger for love. I want somebody to like me for my brain, and then they get pleasantly surprised that they also get sushi salad and banana bread as a bonus.

So if anybody asks I don’t even know what a kitchen is.

Arabesque

Here’s a story for you folks playing at home.

I was taking a bus home on Saturday night from Givat Ze’ev (a settlement near Jlem). The bus weaves in and out of the settlement. At some point a couple of arab boys got on the bus. Just as the bus was about the re-enter the settlement it was stopped at the gate and the guard stepped on. He looked at each person on the bus and then stopped in front of the arab boys. He then got into a discussion with them (I wasn’t really listening) but it was evident that he didn’t want them coming into the yishuv. After about 10 minutes of tooing and froing the bus driver got involved and it was settled that the arabs could stay on the bus as long as the guard would stay on the bus with them until it leaves the yishuv, which was roughly 1 minute, as it circles the roundabout at the entrance to the yishuv picked up one passenger and then left to return to Jlem.

Disgraceful.

The thing is, if you asked the shomer he may say you can’t trust them, they may be terrorists.

The other thing is, if you asked the arab boys they may say that they’re terrorists b/c of Israeli oppression.

Sounds kinda cyclic to me.

p.s. 10 points if you get the pic.

p.p.s. I'm going to Beit Lechem today

Girl Talk has a new album out

Finally! It’s happened!

I fit in!

After 6 weeks of university in a foreign country, I finally feel like I have friends. It took a loooong time because of a couple of reasons. Firstly, law students are snobs, I wasn’t so friendly with them in Australia either, but here there’s a few here or there and now it’s all swell. Additionally, there was the language issue. Even though I can speak Hebrew fine, I’m not really funny or bubbly in Hebrew like I am (or think I am) in English. Also it takes more guts to strike up a conversation with a stranger in a foreign language. But I’ve done it.

Yay!

Apart from finally having people to hang with and wave to in the corridors, this occurrence has lead to some interesting conversations.

One of them in particular happened today.

So some background; I’m in a beit midrash about 15 hours a week for a scholarship. It’s going pretty well; it has religious people and secular people and boys and girls. It’s a dream.

So today during seder I was at a table of only girls. And for some reason while considering the Talmudic discussion of ‘an eye for an eye’ we began discussing the boys in the program.

It was hilarious.

I felt like I was back in Melbourne in Bnei Akiva or Mizrachi. The girls complained that there’s a heap of boys and girls the right age, background and interests and they just aren’t dating each other. The girls, as per usual, blamed the boys saying they are too shy or cowardly to ask out the girls.

Amazing.

My raindance

Ahhhh, I love the smell of zionism in the morning.

Today was a national day of fasting and prayer in order to break the drought and bring the winter rains. You see, its around 30 degrees everyday here despite the fact that winter should have started about 2 months ago. Not good. So various Rabbis and the like decided in leiu of calling choni and his maagal (JFGI) to follow massechet taanit and have a fast day.

Look, it's not like I know if/think these things work but it's cool to see the country doing something that has gone largely unpracticed for millenia but revived right from the pages of the gemara.

Ok. So maybe it's just me that likes that.

In any case sabbatical salutations

Sleuthing

So how wrong is it exactly to stalk people?

I'm not talking about sitting outside their house with binoculars or tracking their comings and goings but some good old fashioned internet/facebook stalkage?

I ask this b/c there is a boy from uni. Yup, there's always a boy. And he seems pretty awesome, but I don't want this to turn out to be a 'I'm not actually Jewish' situation or a 'I'm married with 7 kids' situation or a 'I'm actually a woman' situation. Therefore I decided to so some homework before seducing him with cookies, smiles and witty repartee.

I've since gotten abit out of control.

Here's a list of things I now know about him.

• His blog
• The name of the band he's in
• His highschool
• His parents’ names
• His parents’ professions
• His siblings’ names
• His siblings’ professions
• The yeshivot he went to
• The unit he served in for the army

This makes it awkward now when we talk at uni b/c he keeps saying things and I have to pretend to not know said information and be interested and ask questions b/c it'd be totally creepy for me to be like.... I know.... now please have my babies.

I think I may need some sort of stalkers anonymous support group to get over this addiction.

If not I may actually end up being one of those crazy people who show up to places pretending not to know he was going to be there just to seduce him. Seehttp://breakthedrought.wordpress.com/2010/06/20/the-beginning/ for more details.

Free Love

Oh loyal followers of my blog, I have a problem.

I'm very very close to hating Haredim. In fact - if I were to be completely honest - I may have to admit that I already hate them. Very much.

Now, if this hatred was irrational I suspect that I would find it easier to get over, but I have so many good reasons to dislike the Ultra-Orthodox in Israel.

Oh radical fundamentalist Jews - How do I hate thee? Let me count the ways...

1) I hate that they do not work. There are whole tracts of the gemara and shulchan aruch dedicated to the laws of work - of finance, payments, ownership, employment and loans - and they weren't just written for you to study. They were written so that people can work in an ethical manner. Rambam himself was a doctor, Rashi had a vineyard and the Chofetz Chayim ran a grocery. And these were incredible minds who contributed enormous amounts to our literary wealth. You, the average haredi thinker - what brilliant commentaries on the talmud or chumash are you producing while you don't work? I admit that there's a place for the non-earners, just like there's a place in society for academics. But not everybody gets to spend their whole lives at university unless they are gifted and producing works themselves. So to the haredi masses I say - Get a JOB!

2) I hate the way they treat women. Women can't speak in public. Women can't learn Torah. Women can't have autonomy over their bodies. Ultimately the way pornography relates to women is the same way that haredim see them. In both worlds women are sexualized and seen as a source of temptation. The difference is that pornography attempts to embrace/exploit it while the haredi world attempts to cover/hide from it with head shaving, tights and ponchos. But ultimately in both worlds women are merely dehumanized sex objects.

3) I hate the way they don't serve in the army. Now I know this may make me a little bit hypocritical since I'm not serving in the army. I'll accept that criticism, however, that still doesn't make it ok for an entire sect of the Israeli population, many of whom support the settlements or even live in the west bank (betar illit is the fastest growing settlement) to benefit from the security provided by the nation's youth without contributing to it themselves. Not ok.

4) I hate what they've done to Judaism. Halacha, Torah and Judaism are very important to me and it hurts me to see what they do to it. They make it look like a religion of ignorance, of selfishness, of extremism, of violence and intolerance. To me Judaism is peace, education, morality and comprised of many different expressions and facets. Not everything is black and white. More than that, the more stringent opinion isn't always the right one. Every time they riot and throw acid/rocks/human faeces they desecrate Hashem's name. Seriously, not ok.

So with all these reasons why does it bother me that I hate them?

Well for two reasons -

Firstly, nothing gets solved with hatred. If I want to fix the situation, I'm going to have to understand and accept the haredim. And then help them change and grow.

Secondly, I believe that the temple was destroyed because of Sinat Chinam (baseless hatred) and that it will be rebuilt because of Ahavat Chinam (baseless love). Irrespective of my views on the temple and animal sacrifices and the like, if we consider the messianic era as just a super happy good time in history, it makes scene that love and not hate will bring this.

So I'm gonna work on loving dem haredim.

Maybe free hugs will be a good start?

Doing Herzl Proud

Classes have been interrupted multiple times in the past week. This is because there's been heaps of demonstrations by the university students. When there are demonstrations it's not just a minorty of passionate students who participate while the apathetic majority look on. Instead it's the general student body, as one.

Pretty swell I reckon.

They are prostesting about stipends given to yeshiva students for their studies while the university students, who serve in the army, pay taxes, work, study and contribute to the state in a much more tangible manner do not receive. It's, like totally, not fair.

Although I agree that the students deserve the money and that yeshiva students probably don't, what I like about the protests the most is that it demonstrates high levels of grass roots participation and youth empowerment. It's generally super inspiring.

Yay for modern chalutziut!