Cont.

for a continuation on the theme

http://www.salon.com/life/feature/2011/01/15/feminist_obsessed_with_mormon_blogs

Naqba

The Naqba commemorations are certainly something that I’d heard about previously but I’d never experienced them first hand until this Sunday.

During my mishpat ivri class (basically how to turn halacha into a legal system) there began to be a whole lot of noise coming from outside. Helicopters were flying over head and were swooping down to the nearby Arab villages of Issawiye and Sheikh Jarrakh. We then heard a whole lot of shooting and explosions as well. Obviously I initially assumed they were massacring people on the university campus but it turns out that actually it was simply the helicopters and riot police shooting tear gas and potentially rubber bullets as well in the suburbs nearby. These explosions were then followed by the sounds of people (to me they sounded female) screaming and crying. I assumed that this was from the victims of the explosions. Needless to say I was convinced that a teeny tiny miniature war had erupted on campus. It turns out however that the screams were out of concern for what was happening but not actually anybody who was affected by the violence in the riots.

While this was going on the lecturer continued lecturing. Much like the day of the bomb at binyanei hauma the class continued while the students attempted to work out what was going on in the outside world. Text messages were frantically being sent out and news websites were being checked. At one point a particularly brave student stood up to go look out to window into the neighbouring villages to see what was happening.

I know that this story should be off-putting and make me be concerned about living in the middle east. The truth is however, that it does the opposite. I want to live where the action is and where history is being made. I don’t want to be in the sidelines, I’d prefer to be at the main event. And yes, Naqba makes me sad because it means that national self-determination is being denied to the Palestinians and that our role as super good Jews who care about other people and stuff like that is still not being fulfilled. But I gotta say – I’m mighty excited for September to see if there’ll be a need for another Naqba commemoration next year!

Mental Illness

I clearly must have some sort of mental illness that affects religious girls of my age. The sickness of my soul is as follows almost every night this week I dreamed about a wedding.

1) I dreamed that it was the day before my wedding and nothing was organised. I didn’t have a dress or a venue or caterers or photographers and nobody was invited yet. Then the groom rocked up with his mother. Only then did I discover that I was marrying a Thailandi migrant worker. His very old and wrinkled mother was very happy that he was marrying a white girl. I however was very confused how any of this came to be.

2) I dreamed that my friend and I had to pretend to be married to allow him to stay in the country. In order to fool the authorities we decided that throwing a sheva brachot party is the way to convince them that we are a real married couple. However the only couple we could find to throw a party for were Druze. This presented its own problems since the Druze women wouldn’t sit at the same table as the men. Just as we were trying to settle this, the authorities came and we had to pretend that the party was going really well while all around us the Druzim were fighting and yelling at eachtoher. Very strange indeed.

3) I dreamed that I was at an Ethiopian wedding and I was trying to get a tremp (lift) back to Jerusalem. But I don’t peak Amharic so it was impossible to communicate with the guests. There were also many many guests and being quite little, I was feeling very crushed by the masses.

4) I dreamed that I was marrying a boy from my home town. There were once again lots of logistical problems with the wedding – the venue didn’t have any tables or chairs and the chupa was too short for us to stand under. So I met up with him to discuss these problems but then Igot really upset that this was going to ruin my bedeken.

What we see from these dreams is that I clearly have anxiety about marriage/weddings since none of these dreams were positive or happy. They were all stressfull and overwhelming. I think this makes sense since many of my friends are married or are getting married and sometimes I suppose I feel super overwhelmed by this, hence the dreams. Thanks Freud. Oh and I have penis envy and mother issues.

In other news the yomim noraim zionim were wonderful – I went to a tekes at kikar rabin – there were like 10,000 people there, it felt like I was there with the entire nation. The next day I went to Har Herzl. The night of yom haatzmaut was spent dancing rikudei am in kikar safra and watching the many concerts around the centre of town. In traditional style the day was spend at a barbeque in gan sacher. It was different however because ours was vegetarian.

All in all it was a beautiful Zionist experience. Golda would have been proud.

Things My Mother Taught Me

In honour of Mothers Day I will share with you some very important lessons that my mother taught me.

1) Pack Up As You Go. She told me this at least once a week growing up. This is because I am/was not the neatest of people and therefore every Friday I had to spend a lot of time tidying my room or the study. She would patiently explain every single week that if i would tidy up as I went through the week then I wouldn't have had to waste my time on Fridays cleaning. I'd say that I still haven't really absorbed this message.

2) Never Leave Things Out Of The Fridge For More Than 4 Hours Cumulatively. This means that if your chicken is out of the fridge for 2 hours one day and then another 2 hours the next day you should either eat it immediately or throw it out. This advice has saved me from many potential sources of food poisoning.

3) It's Not All About Me. If somebody isn't treating you nicely or is frustrating you its very rarely a reflection of you. Most of the time people have their own issues or hang ups that are causing their behavior. In most cases it's not personal.

4) You Did Nothing To Deserve What You Have But It Didn't Come Without Obligations Attached. If you've been given an education you have to help others access that as well. If you have opportunities then your should use them to give others opportunities as well.

5) Nobody Else Is Responsible For You. If you want to eat in life then you need to find a way to buy your own food and cook it too. If you make mistakes own them and learn from them.

There you have it. The top five lessons from Mother Bogan.

Egalitarianism

So for a feminist I realised that my blog has been incredibly sexist for a while now. Some time ago I did a post about what a boy's kippa says about him. However, until this very moment I was yet to give women their fair and equal treatment/mockery.

So here goes.

1) Classic silver striped low bun - this look has been around for some time now. It at some point was a staple of the young married dosit's look. The truth is that's its almost only used by older women or chuznikiot who haven't caught up with current mitpachat fashions. Ultimately it's the head-covering equivalent of a 3/4 top and a denim skirt. Yawn.

2) 7 scarves at once/a single mitpachat that looks like 7 scarves at once - These girls are up to date. They are helping the stalls in the tachana hamerkazit do a brisk business. However, the layers of lace, metallic fabrics and florals may send some viewers into epileptic fits. These specimens are most frequently found in the hallowed halls of Bar Ilan and/or any institution teaching special ed or one of the therapies (my favorite:knitting therapy).

3) Turban - you live in Nachlaot, clap at the designated times during davening, don't believe in shoes or immunization. You think quinoa belongs to each food group and your husband has waist length dread-locked payos. But seriously with all that fabric wound around you hair - how do you keep your head up? No, but like seriously - what if you need to pick something up off the floor?

4) Kerchief with most of your hair out (in bun, pony-tail or loose style) - these lovely ladies are liberal and educated. They are commonly found to be doing their masters in talmud or biblical criticism. Such hair covering practices are not infrequently accompanied by (heaven forbid - loh aleinu) PANTS! (queue ominous music...) It's well known that these women do not believe in god or our mesorah and are all lesbians.

5) Pornstar Sheitels - You obviously come from chutz l'aretz because otherwise you'd know that a) sheitels are expensive and b) they are assur (and they bring ayin hara so you won't get pregnant - ask R'Ovadiya Yosef for more details). Either that or you are from Chabad. In which case you are goddam smoking hot and don't see any reason why the minor issue of your marriage should get in the way of you playing a key role in many a bochur's hirhurim. If you need clarification of these delights Google 'Hot Chanis.'

Clearly this is an incomplete list. I have yet to consider the bejeweled velvet foam-lined tichels/snoods or the glories of straw-like sheitels with a hat on top. However, in an effort to be as offensive as possible I will simply lump these others in the category of yiddish-speaking, baby-making, sensible-shoe-wearing frumness.

So there you have it loyal readers. The joys of caricatured head-coverers.

Post-Parentalage

So after my parents left it was really party time.

The first day after they left I did homework (woooooo) and then went on a tiyul with a soon-to-be-married guy friend. Just lettin' y'all know, he is engaged thanks to me so if you yourself would like a shidduch... you know who to call.

We went to Ein Karem. Not only are the views there of the Jerusalem forests breathtaking and generally inspiring but there's also awesome churches and landmarks there. In particular we enjoyed visiting the church of visitation but failed at finding the awesome russian gold topped one, for a giant gold building it can be very sneaky and hard to locate in a forest.

At the end of the hike was the Chindak maayan. Since it was still holidays for yeshivot there were lots of haredim there. So I sent m good friend ahead of me to check out the lovely male specimens (jokes!) and to ascertain their clothing status. He reckoned it was safe to continue down to the maayan. However, at the exact moment that I came to the maayan total full frontal nekkid haredim exited the cave that joins the maayan.

Sooooo much naked haredi.

So we promptly made our exit and tried to bury those images deep in our subconsciousness for later treatment by psychologists.

The next day was spent at work for CWJ.

But that night I went to my friend's tekes kumta near Ashkelon. It was surprisingly moving. There was such a mix of communities there. There were standard Sephardi arse families standing next to Druze families, who were next to the north tel Aviv Ashkenazi bourgeois, who were next to Israeli-Arabs and they in turn were standing next to all of us crazy Australians.

The speech was quite poignant explaining why there has to be an army, what they are fighting for (freedom, democracy, the future of the nation...) and the family that these (very) young (yet so good looking) boys are entering.

Obviously, I'd prefer it if we didn't need compulsory military service, I certainly hope that my kids won't have to serve. But I feel like it was nevertheless kinda of the best of a not-ideal situation.

Friday was spent at Hof Ha-Palmachim sailing with my Swedish descended friend. It was wonderful, I got to steer and we didn't capsize (not the same can be said for the others...). Shabbat was spent at his place in Peduel, his parents were away (party!).

Other than that life is now back to normal. Back in university (the last bit), back in my beit midrash (Tamar Ross gave shiur klali this week) and back to work at CWJ (the Prime Minister's office called today).

Until next time....adieu