breaking and making news

last wednesday's suicide bombing in hadera, killing five shoppers at the market, marked the first attack inside israel since my arrival 7 weeks ago. it sparked a serious of retaliations by the israeli army aimed at terrorists, but not always accurately. in one such attack, a targeted assassination against a terrorist cell leader killed the target as well as six others, three of which were identified by the israeli army as islamic jihad operatives, meaning the other three were civilians. and although politicians on both sides pledge and vow to crackdown on terrorist groups, anger and frustration on both sides intensifies.

slightly further east, iran's president echoed old sentiments to destroy israel on their national al-quds (jerusalem) day. and just outside of al-quds, as the IDF works to beef up existing road blocks, create new check points and limit palestinian movement throughout the west bank, thousands of muslims were denied entry to the city where they wanted to go pray at the al-aqsa mosque for the last friday of ramadan. while its not fair to quantify or equalize these events, its hard not to see hints of "an eye for an eye" sentiments in this biblical land.

yet daily life continues, almost without missing a beat, here on this side of the green line. my roommate and his dog finally moved in last week. we've spent many hours breaking down, carrying and assembling furniture (at least he has some), scrubbing floors and pulling plants out of our shower drain (actually i watched amir do that one), but the apartment is starting to come together. next week will we take on the roof and then hopefully be ready to have a housewarming party.

at work, i joined the arab-jewish post-high school volunteer commune members for a session about public and media relations. we discussed our personal reasons for working at sadaka reut and thought about how to explain what we do to those outside the organization. appropriately timed, the whole office was then interviewed for a potential article about the commune in the maariv newspaper.

i find it fascinating to hear the commune members talk about why they chose to join this unique project and how their families feel about this decision at a time when these polarized communities rarely meet, let alone live together. these exemplary young adults, not only share an apartment, but in their efforts to act as a "model of coexistence," they also spend their days working together - as volunteers in the sadaka reut office and various community projects throughout the city and as arab-jewish youth group facilitators throughout the country. while the unraveling of the fragile "ceasefire" fuels hostility and segregation for many, it only strengthens the resolve of these young people to continue working for peace, tolerance and equality. i hope their story, and others like it, continue to make news, to remind readers that not all news is bad news.

to amman and back

jordanian cars might as well not have blinkers. they use their horns to indicate everything- passing, turning, about to ram into the back of your truck, etc. but someone how i traveled all over the country and returned in safety.

overwhelmed by the barrage of jewish holidays in israel, three friends (annie, ben and moshe) and i escaped to spend the week of sukkot in jordan, where we were instead greeted by an abundance of ramadan which forced us into partial observance due to the inavailabity of food during daylight hours. we began our journey in the south, crossing at the eilat-aqaba border and venturing into the breathtaking protected desert area of wadi rum. although 80% of jordan is desert, this was really the dessert of the deserts. for an non-negotiable price of 35 jordanian dinars we rode a land rover into wadi rum with our driver mahmoud who guided us through the beautiful rock formations jutting up from flat rocky plains and smooth pink sand dunes, watched the sunset and slept at a faux bedouin campsite where we dined on "bedouin barbeque"- food cooked over coals while buried deep in the sand. dinner was extra delicious since we had complete our first (of many) days without lunch.

the next morning we accidentally slept through sunrise, but woke up in time to hike back to the wadi rum village before the sun got too strong. as we entered the town, the call to pray began. i expected to hear the voice of a lone muezzin in this tiny bedouin village, but suddenly the air was filled with the chant and i was reminded of the rabat medina surrounded by the cacophony of dozens of competing muezzins from nearly every corner. then i realized there was only one voice, but it was brilliantly echoed and magnified by the sharp rock cliffs on either side of the village. ben almost converted on the spot.

from there we traveled to the petra, an famous ancient nabatean city and archaeological site whose excavations have been under the direction of former brown professor martha joukowsky. though for everyone who did not take archeology of anatolia with martha, petra is probably better known as the set for the final scene in indiana jones. we were lucky enough to watch the movie at our hostel where it is selected "by consensus" as the film of choice every night. our hostel also provided a lovely buffet dinner and my first (of many) marriage proposals of the week. i told ahmed i was still young and not ready for marriage and he replied, "ok, tomorrow?"

after petra, we hit up amman. while its certainly no cairo, it is still a crowded, polluted, bustling, not so touristy city of 2 million (almost half the population of jordan). a brother of a colleague of moshe's father wanted to show us around the city and brought us to the "mecca mall" where we gawked at the men in kafiyas browsing at timberland and sipping lattes at starbucks. i didnt buy anything there, but i did purchase some bootlegged sex and the city dvds in the dirtier, cheaper downtown area near our hotel.

amman also made us more aware about our identities as american jews who currently live in israel. petra was crawling with israelis (as well as hordes of europeans) and many vendors and men offering donkey rides even mistook our semitic looks and casual dress as israeli and spoke to us in hebrew. but not so many israelis (or americans) make it to amman which led moshe to become matt and annie to become canadian.

i thoroughly enjoyed jordanian arabic, its much easier to understand than moroccan or palestinian. but i dont think i could ever feel as comfortable, especially as a woman, in amman as i did in rabat. upon arrival in yafo (after 6.5 hours and 7 different vehicles) we immediately went and enjoyed eating vegetables and drinking beer in public in the middle of the day.

30 Sderot Yerushalayim

is the address of my new apartment. i live above a fancy french restaurant named alhambra (yes, I also thought that it was in spain) and a newly opened macolet (convenience store), which does not stock ginger ale or oatmeal, the two things i was interested in yesterday. sderot yerushalayim (jerusalem boulevard) is the main street in yafo, which means it is a bit noisy as buses, trucks and cars make their way at all hours, but my apartment is on the third floor and my bedroom window opens to a side street so it isnt so bad. and in exchange for the noise, i get the convenience factor of being close to innumerous macolets and other stores that should serve almost all of my needs, ranging from a refrigerator to soy milk.

i am also a 5 minute walk from shuk hapishpushim (the flea market), 10 minutes from the yafo beach, 15 minutes from work and 20 minutes from some cool areas in south tel aviv. even more exciting (for me at least) is that it is part of one of the truly mixed neighborhoods in the city (or the country) and in the span of one block it is unusual not to hear both hebrew and arabic (and maybe even some russian, but almost never english). and to top it all off, our large living room opens up to an even larger roof which overlooks the tops of the trees (mostly palm) that line the center island of our boulevard.

amir and his dog, numa, will be my roommates. thanks to my father's influence, i dont normally like dogs, but this one is very nice. i met amir through the people i work with at sadaka reut, he works for a computer company in tel aviv, has already set up our internet and in general seems great. right after i came back from a wonderful, relaxing rosh hashana on my cousins kibbutz in the north (complete with explorations of the golan led by my knowledgeable cousin eitan, onion gathering in the fields, lunch in a druze town and eating fresh figs and pomegranates straight from the trees) we signed a year-long lease on october 6 and dropped off some of our stuff. then he went back to jerusalem where he has been living and i went to hertzeliya, a northern suburb of tel aviv, for a beach ultimate frisbee tournament.

this tournament made up for missing wildwood this summer, but definitely had a different flavor. for one, ultimate is a very new sport in israel so it was much smaller with only 9 teams. another significant difference was that there was a dj who played techno music at an obnoxiously loud volume throughout all games and breaks. mike buff was also there and tried to organize a boat race, but without success. still, it was a fun weekend.

now, i am in jerusalem for yom kippor. the streets this evening were filled with people in white clothes, children on bikes and after sunset, not a car in sight. the whole environment felt a little unreal, but beautiful and peaceful at the same time. since it is still ramadan, tomorrow a large majority of both sides of this city will be fasting (but not me because i am recovering from strep throat and taking antibiotics). and if i remember correctly, the words for fast in hebrew and arabic are quite similar.

on friday amir is planning on moving into the apartment so i will go back to yafo to help him unload, move couches, clean the floors and buy a fridge. and then hopefully i will really be able to begin my life in yafo.

rosh hashamadan

as ive mentioned before, the office where i work (sadaka reut) is in an old bombshelter. although the air is a little stale, ive found a comfort zone in this basement. it creates a safe little bubble, yet a bubble which extends beyond the concrete walls.

the night before the beginnings of rosh hashana and ramadan (which happen to coincide this year) the six members of the post-high school arab-jewish volunteer commune hosted a party to celebrate the arrival of these holidays before everyone scattered to be with their families. it was a candlelit, potluck dinner on a beautiful rooftop in yafo. we climbed up into the almost magical setting using a clunky wooden ladder and passed the food through a circular hole cut into the ceiling. dinner was delicious and complete with wine (which the muslims partook in, but insisted was for rosh hashana, not ramadan).

as we ate, drank and laughed together (jews, muslims and christians), i almost forgot my anger and frustration of last weekend in west jerusalem when i further internalized how invisible the arab community is to many israeli jews. questionnaires filled out by jewish high school students in preparation for a sadaka reut workshop on identity, tolerance and dialogue reported that only 30% of the students had ever met an arab. and while trying to figure out how to get to lunch on saturday, annie and i realized that the arab community is so far from the consciousness of so many west jerusalem residents that even streets in east jerusalem don't exist on the map of jerusalem which she purchased to help get her directionally-impaired self around the city. (for more on this, read annie's eloquent blog).

even before the map realization, annie mentioned that she feels like jerusalem is like an amusement park while tel aviv is more organic. i thought she was crazy- tel aviv, with its skyscrapers and traffic, is about as organic as metal jungle gym. but last weekend, during a walk through west jerusalem's map-marked streets, invisibly roped-off from the "do not enter" portions of the city, we returned to the discussion and i understood what she meant. and while perhaps this theme park of a city with its segregated neighborhoods creates a safety bubble for many of its residents, it challenges me and my beliefs to the core.

the wonderful space that i have found in yafo, which is not roped-off by the physical borders of the bombshelter or even the city, represents, for me, optimistic possibilities about what the future of this region could be. however, the safety and comfort created for me in this small, unique, diverse community, makes it even more difficult to step outside of it and experience the attitudes and opinions that pervade throughout the majority of the country.

yet despite my many frustrations, i still feel at home in many places here. and although my grandparents commented on the irony that after 35 years of living in israel largely without their children and grandchildren my family and i will all be here for significant portions of this year, it is really almost coming full circle more than ironic, because they laid the foundations for my relationships and homes in this country. without them, i may still be ringing in the jewish new year in the shadow of the golan on kibbutz amir, but with distance relatives, not with close cousins who ive grown up with. i certainly wouldnt have been offered a place to stay in hertzeliya for my beach frisbee tournament this weekend before i even had a chance to ask. and if not for them, i might not have even had the interest and commitment to finding peace for this region that brought me here in the first place.

for this year i hope we all find new comfort zones, expand old ones and try to find the places where they overlap with others. to do this we must try to step beyond the boundaries of what feels safe, into unknown, and sometimes even unseen, territory, in order to find common ground. wishing everyone a shana tovah and a ramadan karim.