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greenandhazy · 7 years

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YO! I’m back! and I came back to a Hanukkah card, thanks @canadiansuperhero <3

I’m going to post a bunch of pictures tomorrow probably, but some thoughts and memories beneath the cut

(fair warning, this is fcking long)

I LOVED our tour guide. his name was Boaz and he was chill, funny, and super informative. he addressed us collectively as “beautiful people” or “bubbelech” and presented info in a very nuanced way

like he addressed the whole glorification of the suicide at Masada and how that’s a little bit Problematic, and before we talked about Mt. Herzel he led a conversation about narratives--why they’re constructed, how, how they might be biased or helpful--and he was very frank when asked about various Israeli conflicts (Palestine, Arab-Israelis, Orthodox vs non-Orthodox, etc).

he also took us on an optional museum trip on Shabbat just because he loves museums. man after my own heart. (the Israel Museum in Jerusalem is AWESOME, by the way. perhaps a little traditional, but still very well done.)

holy shit the Negev desert. took my breath away. driving through the mountains was incredible, and I’m sad that I really don’t have very many good pictures of it because it was through the bus window, but damn was it something

on a related note, we spent that night in a Bedouin camp and even though it was totally designed for tourists, the head dudes really did treat us like guests and we learned some really cool stuff and ate a lot of delicious food with our hands, so overall a win.

I hate that I’m going to That Person who’s always like “yeah well to get REALLY good hummus and falafel you have to actually go to the Middle East, you just can’t get it in America.” but like. it’s the truth. Hummus Abu-Hassan in Tel Aviv and Jaffa. for reals.

also, I was planning on buying zaatar anyway because it’s mentioned in the Jerusalem cookbook, but then I tried it on a bagel and also in this Yemenite flatbread and it’s SO GOOD, I got a huge bottle of it.

on our first Shabbat we visited Ramat HaNadiv, which is a garden complex in Zikhron Ya’akov, and it was a really beautiful way to spend the day. there was also a garden section specifically designed for blind people that had only plants that had strong fragrances or interesting textures, that was cool.

we had eight Israelis traveling with us for half the time and I made two friends:

Ayelet, who almost immediately taught me a Hebrew pun. “koreha” means “hilarious,” but she insisted that we always pronounce it as “koreHAAAA.”

and Alon, who was quieter but we visited his family’s home as part of the trip, and he played Hallelujah on the piano while his sister sang, so later on we talked about music and swapped recommendations. he was super into the Tracy Chapman I played him

I also made friends with some people I don’t think I ordinarily wouldn’t have talked to, including an 18-year-old guy from NYC who thinks I’m very mature and wise (which was SUPER gratifying bc this was otherwise a mansplaining-heavy trip) and two brothers who taught me a very fun, very evil card game called King Mao.

there was a geopolitical talk session, which overall I think was quite good--the speaker gave a nuanced talk, and my only critique was that it was a little too nuanced for some of the people who came in with very strong pro-Israel (pro-IDF? pro-Bibi? not sure which term is most accurate) views. like, I think those of us who were moderate or left-leaning understood the sympathy for Palestinian civilians in his portrayal, but it went over some people’s heads, which was unfortunate

I did find it hilarious when he played this Hamas song, and four of the Israelis, including our tour guide, started singing along because it’s so catchy that people used to play it in clubs all the time.

Hannah Senezc’s grave is on Mt Herzl--I realized that it would be about five minutes before we came upon it, and that was very meaningful for me. Hannah isn’t my Hebrew name anymore, but she was a not-insignificant part of the reason I chose it in the first place, so I left a stone.

I had a lot of thoughts at the Western Wall--I might make a whole separate post about that. it moved me, but not in the way I expected.

we visited the Mehane Yehuda Market in Jerusalem on Friday afternoon. it wasn’t my favorite place to shop, but it was a great place to people-watch as people prepared for their Shabbat. I liked that a lot.

the Holocaust History Museum was very moving--I appreciated it as both a visitor and as a public history student. two things I think stuck out for me. the first was Yad VaShem. I was prepared for the wall of names, which I had seen photos of, but I was caught off guard by the huge gaping hole in the mountain below it--“the gap that six million people have left in our community and our history” was how the tour guide put it. and the second was the tour guide, who connected the Holocaust to the violence in Syria (and other modern human rights abuses) several times. she started the tour with the book burnings, and--I remember very clearly--said to us “in 1933, no one could see Auschwitz.” then, as she took us through Hitler’s rise and the development of the reich, she kept asking “do you see Auschwitz yet? do you see us getting closer?” it was incredibly powerful

a couple negatives:

like I said, I don’t think people talked enough about the oppression of Palestinian civilians specifically. the geopolitical talk covered discussions about Gaza, Syria, and Jordan, and it tended to focus on governments; I think the tour guide gave a great discussion about the spectrum of Israeli politics, but the geopolitical speaker discussed Palestinian civilians in relation to Hamas, not in relation to Israel, which was quite a gap.

there were ~28 guys and ~12 women and holy shit men can be the worst. so much casual mansplaining, and I didn’t even REALIZE how much until I found myself being told that ancient Germans and ancient Romans actually spoke different languages, which explains the difference between French and German. then I frigging snapped, and realized how much it had been happening throughout the trip.

(aside from sexism, 18-22 y.o. boys can just be super disrespectful, fyi. it sucks. some of them were late a lot of the time and they drank way too much, even on the nights when we were explicitly told we should not be drinking. it was v uncool.)

twice we had rabbis speak to us, and both times they were Haredi rabbis who... were just slightly too black and white for my tastes. like, I was probably the only religious person in the group, and among the most educated about Judaism, so I understood a lot of their points, but they were often phrased in a way that was very off-putting to the secular Jews in the group (exacerbated by communication issues with one of the rabbis whose English was not quite as strong), which put me in a weird position of wanting to defend Judaism as a whole even while I disagreed with the specificity of the position under discussion.

related: I have developed a specific frustration with secular Jewish men who criticize the separation of men and women in Orthodox Judaism (and pre-denomination Judaism) as sexist without a) recognizing their own sexism and b) acknowledging that, in some cases, women actually derive personal satisfaction from elements of that separation, and that women can have their own distinct spirituality that does not depend on men. (I feel like my status as a traditionally-women’s-college alumna is showing here.)

overall, I’m glad I went. I had hoped to have had more spiritual conversations with my peers, which didn’t really happen, but other than that I think it fulfilled my expectations. I’m more confident explaining where I stand with regards to Israel; I’m more familiar with its flaws as well as its strengths, and in the future I think I will be able to engage in politics surrounding it with more confidence. (That doesn’t mean I’m going to want to discuss it all the time, but I don’t think I will cringe whenever the topic comes up.)

on a religious level, I’m glad I saw it. I’m glad I visited the wall. seeing so many Jews being unapologetic about it has given me more confidence in how I want to express myself, and I am confident in my choice of name: Yocheved. It felt right when I was holding the Torah, it felt right at the Kotel, and it feels right now.

so yeah. good trip.

#jewish tag #b1rthr1ght

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