I haven't blogged in a while, but there's a good reason. I've spent the last 3 months dealing with the details of transporting myself to Israel, arriving there and getting situated. January 9th I was driven by my Chabadnik friends to JFK from whence El Al brought me to the Promised Land. On the way over, I was seated in between two Israeli women aged 30-40. For a reason unbeknowst to me, they decided that they should treat me like their toddler son for the duration of the flight. Considering that one was also babying her husband seated next to her and the other one was babying her... well her 6-month baby, I can't understand how they found the time to adjust my pillow and blanket, help me with the setting up and retracting of the food tray, adjusting my light and constantly cleaning and fixing up my space. That was a lot of mothering. Haven't had that since, ah... just a few days prior when I was at home getting mothered by my mom. Women have got to stop mothering me. Since I've gotten to Israel, several women have mothered me. Of course, I am receptive to mothering because who wouldn't be. No need to act withdrawn and macho when you're being mothered. Just let it happen.
Immediately after arrival, I took a cab to Kibbutz Nachshon, where N, one of my closest friends, was visiting his cousin. The kibbutz is located in central Israel, just 30 minutes west of Jerusalem in a beautiful, green area, close to the Green Line. Green is the operative word here. The cab driver was a religious Bukharan Jew, with a knitted kippa, and enough prayers, amulets and pictures of famous rabbis all over the interior of his cab to let the passenger know that he was not messing around. We spoke a mixture of Russian and Hebrew, and he told me about his many children and their successes and failures. He followed his family story with a solid lecture on Zionism. Impressed with his philosophy on life, I tipped generously.
In Kibbutz Nachshon, I spent quality time with N, his cousin Y, and Y's friends. Y happens to be an officer in a elite IDF unit and his friends have equally impressive resumes. The Kibbutz belongs to the Hashomer Ha'Tzair movement. That means "Young Guard" and it was one of the most socialist of the kibbutz movements during the establishment and the early days of the state of Israel. These kibbutzniks are part of the Ashkenazi elite of Israel and mainly vote for Meretz, the small socialist party left of Avoda (Labor), the main left-wing party in Israel. Clearly, their views on how to create immediate peace with their Arab neighbors aren't preventing these Meretznikim from serving in combat units. Of course, their co-believers who live in Tel-Aviv are less motivated with regard to the IDF. Kibbutzniks have a military tradition that transcends politics, and despite the fact that their profile in Israel has been falling over the last generation, they still do what their parents and grandparents did. But the rising size of other, equally militarily motivated societal sectors is diminshing the kibbutzniks' role in the IDF and in society in general to a level that is more proportionate to the population percentage they represent.
Anyways, hummus was eaten, Turkish coffee was sipped and a trip was effectuated during which sushi was consumed in a place called River, in the nearby city of Rehovot. After a few days there, N and I were picked up by my cousing D and taken to Givat Tzarfatit - a northern neighborhood of Jerusalem. The name translates into French Hill, ostensibly named after a British officer whose last name was French. There's quite a lot of places, things and situations in Israel that have a close connection to the British Mandate days. For Shabbat, as a way of observing the mitzvah of rest, D drove N and I deep in the Judean Desert, where we hiked into a canyon that houses the St. George monastary - a Greek Orthodox institution where a few crazy monks pray and take care of an impressive collection of icons brought hundreds of years ago from various Eastern European churches. The monks were interesting folk and celibate. The monastary complex is carved into a cliff and along the bottom of the canyon is a river bed that gets filled up when it rains in Jerusalem. The water runs via this same river bed to Jericho, where the local Arabs enjoy this water, thanks to a water grid built and maintained by the Israeli Ministry of Agriculture's Water Division. Israeli taxpayer money is comes in handy when providing the Arabs with modern water, electricity and telephone grids.
After our visit to the Greek monks, we drove through the remaining stretch of the Judean Desert, which is actually quite mountainous, to the Jordan River Valley and the northern tip of the Dead Sea. A beautiful view of the entire valley and of the Jordanian Mountains on the other side of the border opened up before us. I can't imagine anyone would not be impressed. The distance from Jerusalem to the border with Jordan is approximately 25 minutes. N was a bit nervous as this entire time we were in what the left-wingers of the international community of Jew-haters calls the "occupied territories." Soon, it became clear to N that the West Bank was not a closed off war zone, but rather it's primarily an open and wild place with very little population, a lot of natural beauty and lots of fresh air. It is also very very narrow.
N had to fly off to his high profile New York job in a prestigious law firm, so D drove him to Nachshon on Saturday night. I proceeded to Ulpan Etzion on Sunday morning with all my belongings in a 6500 cubic inch, red Kelty frame pack. It's great to have all your belongings in such an easily portable form. I am not looking forward to accumulating random material objects, and I am perfectly happy to continue to own next to nothing for a while to come. Anyhow, I was dropped off by my Givat Tzarfatit relatives, registered with the Ulpan staff and was shown to my room. We are three to a room here, the boys on the second floor and the girls on the third. The first floor of the building has a computer room, an audio lab, a TV room, a room with high-speed internet outlets and what not. There are several other buildings, some of them dorms, another a multi-usage space, another full of classrooms, another containing the offices of our directing staff. Jewish Agency clearly likes to put lots of young people into communal-type living situations. I guess the idea of the kibbutz in Israel is far from dead.
There are 130 students living and studying at Ulpan Etzion, and another 140 or so who are external - studying with us but living and eating elsewhere. The population is mixed, with a large number of Argentians, Brazilians, sundry South Americans, lots of British and French, and tons of Americans with a smattering of Russians, Canadians, Australians and New Zealanders. The South Americans are definitely a bit insane and enjoy partying almost nightly. There are some attractive girls as well, and there's quite a bit of sexual misbehavior going on, not exactly unexpected in such an environment.
Classes are intensive - 5 days a week from 8:15am to 12:45pm. Everyone is tested and placed into the level most appropriate. There's aleph, aleph plus, bet, bet plus, bet plus plus, gimmel and dalet. I am in gimmel, but there are some people there that are really slowing the class down. Ideally there should be even more levels, but the Ulpan doesn't have unlimited teachers adn resources so they're doing the best they can. Classes started on January 15 and end on June 15, by which point my grammar skills should be solid and my speaking should have improved significantly. Hopefully, after this program I will not need any further formal instruction, except maybe higher level grammar for reading difficult texts. The main thing will be speaking practice. I can get along with the basics of life and can understand most of what people say. However, it's difficult to express higher level ideas or to understand more complicated vocabulary. It's a process.
More details on daily life to follow.
Immediately after arrival, I took a cab to Kibbutz Nachshon, where N, one of my closest friends, was visiting his cousin. The kibbutz is located in central Israel, just 30 minutes west of Jerusalem in a beautiful, green area, close to the Green Line. Green is the operative word here. The cab driver was a religious Bukharan Jew, with a knitted kippa, and enough prayers, amulets and pictures of famous rabbis all over the interior of his cab to let the passenger know that he was not messing around. We spoke a mixture of Russian and Hebrew, and he told me about his many children and their successes and failures. He followed his family story with a solid lecture on Zionism. Impressed with his philosophy on life, I tipped generously.
In Kibbutz Nachshon, I spent quality time with N, his cousin Y, and Y's friends. Y happens to be an officer in a elite IDF unit and his friends have equally impressive resumes. The Kibbutz belongs to the Hashomer Ha'Tzair movement. That means "Young Guard" and it was one of the most socialist of the kibbutz movements during the establishment and the early days of the state of Israel. These kibbutzniks are part of the Ashkenazi elite of Israel and mainly vote for Meretz, the small socialist party left of Avoda (Labor), the main left-wing party in Israel. Clearly, their views on how to create immediate peace with their Arab neighbors aren't preventing these Meretznikim from serving in combat units. Of course, their co-believers who live in Tel-Aviv are less motivated with regard to the IDF. Kibbutzniks have a military tradition that transcends politics, and despite the fact that their profile in Israel has been falling over the last generation, they still do what their parents and grandparents did. But the rising size of other, equally militarily motivated societal sectors is diminshing the kibbutzniks' role in the IDF and in society in general to a level that is more proportionate to the population percentage they represent.
Anyways, hummus was eaten, Turkish coffee was sipped and a trip was effectuated during which sushi was consumed in a place called River, in the nearby city of Rehovot. After a few days there, N and I were picked up by my cousing D and taken to Givat Tzarfatit - a northern neighborhood of Jerusalem. The name translates into French Hill, ostensibly named after a British officer whose last name was French. There's quite a lot of places, things and situations in Israel that have a close connection to the British Mandate days. For Shabbat, as a way of observing the mitzvah of rest, D drove N and I deep in the Judean Desert, where we hiked into a canyon that houses the St. George monastary - a Greek Orthodox institution where a few crazy monks pray and take care of an impressive collection of icons brought hundreds of years ago from various Eastern European churches. The monks were interesting folk and celibate. The monastary complex is carved into a cliff and along the bottom of the canyon is a river bed that gets filled up when it rains in Jerusalem. The water runs via this same river bed to Jericho, where the local Arabs enjoy this water, thanks to a water grid built and maintained by the Israeli Ministry of Agriculture's Water Division. Israeli taxpayer money is comes in handy when providing the Arabs with modern water, electricity and telephone grids.
After our visit to the Greek monks, we drove through the remaining stretch of the Judean Desert, which is actually quite mountainous, to the Jordan River Valley and the northern tip of the Dead Sea. A beautiful view of the entire valley and of the Jordanian Mountains on the other side of the border opened up before us. I can't imagine anyone would not be impressed. The distance from Jerusalem to the border with Jordan is approximately 25 minutes. N was a bit nervous as this entire time we were in what the left-wingers of the international community of Jew-haters calls the "occupied territories." Soon, it became clear to N that the West Bank was not a closed off war zone, but rather it's primarily an open and wild place with very little population, a lot of natural beauty and lots of fresh air. It is also very very narrow.
N had to fly off to his high profile New York job in a prestigious law firm, so D drove him to Nachshon on Saturday night. I proceeded to Ulpan Etzion on Sunday morning with all my belongings in a 6500 cubic inch, red Kelty frame pack. It's great to have all your belongings in such an easily portable form. I am not looking forward to accumulating random material objects, and I am perfectly happy to continue to own next to nothing for a while to come. Anyhow, I was dropped off by my Givat Tzarfatit relatives, registered with the Ulpan staff and was shown to my room. We are three to a room here, the boys on the second floor and the girls on the third. The first floor of the building has a computer room, an audio lab, a TV room, a room with high-speed internet outlets and what not. There are several other buildings, some of them dorms, another a multi-usage space, another full of classrooms, another containing the offices of our directing staff. Jewish Agency clearly likes to put lots of young people into communal-type living situations. I guess the idea of the kibbutz in Israel is far from dead.
There are 130 students living and studying at Ulpan Etzion, and another 140 or so who are external - studying with us but living and eating elsewhere. The population is mixed, with a large number of Argentians, Brazilians, sundry South Americans, lots of British and French, and tons of Americans with a smattering of Russians, Canadians, Australians and New Zealanders. The South Americans are definitely a bit insane and enjoy partying almost nightly. There are some attractive girls as well, and there's quite a bit of sexual misbehavior going on, not exactly unexpected in such an environment.
Classes are intensive - 5 days a week from 8:15am to 12:45pm. Everyone is tested and placed into the level most appropriate. There's aleph, aleph plus, bet, bet plus, bet plus plus, gimmel and dalet. I am in gimmel, but there are some people there that are really slowing the class down. Ideally there should be even more levels, but the Ulpan doesn't have unlimited teachers adn resources so they're doing the best they can. Classes started on January 15 and end on June 15, by which point my grammar skills should be solid and my speaking should have improved significantly. Hopefully, after this program I will not need any further formal instruction, except maybe higher level grammar for reading difficult texts. The main thing will be speaking practice. I can get along with the basics of life and can understand most of what people say. However, it's difficult to express higher level ideas or to understand more complicated vocabulary. It's a process.
More details on daily life to follow.
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