Holocaust movie/arsim night March 22, 2009

This past weekend, I visited my mom’s friends in Rishon LeTzion again. It’s been a while since I last saw them because of finals, the New York visit, and readjustment time since my return.

I woke up Friday morning with the intention of getting to the Israeli Cartoon Museum in Holon (which is open only 3 hours on Friday and Saturday), but I woke up at 8.30 am drained and it took me so long to get ready, and I waited so long for the damned sherut to leave, that I got to Tel Aviv much later than I was supposed to. I ended up walking around and got myself a big bureka stuffe with eggplant and cheese with sides of tehina, grated tomatoes, pickles, and spicy stuff. I was disappointed in this one since all I could taste was the flaky dough, and the insides were mysteriously missing. It was a beautiful day and the streets were so packed I could barely walk, so I bought a chocolate and halva “pereg,” hopped on a bus and got to Rishon earlier than expected.

When I got to the family friends’ apartment, the wife and husband greeted me and wife announced, “I bought burekas! We will make some for dinner.” I didn’t have the heart to tell her I was burekas’ed out already becauseI knew she bought it because I love them, so I said nothing. She asked me if was hungry. I wasn’t, but I said yes because she is a really good cook! I was so full afterwards all I could do was sit in front of the TV, which is fine by me, because that’s Hebrew practice time. I don’t have a TV in my room at school so whenever I get a chance to watch some, I find myself so transfixed by the Hebrew speech and subtitles, that I feel like the grandkids of these family friends, who watch cartoons open-mouthed and expressionless for hours.

In the midst of conversation, they threw in a Yiddish word, and it reminded me of how I wanted to ask him about how they know Yiddish- oh, this led to long, long stories, and it didn’t help that the husband drank half a glass of vodka with lunch. The wife told me about how her parents spoke it, and her grandparents, and she had some family members who could barely speak Russian because Yiddish was what was spoken in their Ukrainian Jewish neighborhood. She then proceeded to give me a history of the Ukraine while the husband repeatedly interjected talking about how beautiful the city of Chernovtsy was, how their was nothing like it, how it has Viennese style architecture as a result of the country’s time under the Austrian Hungarian empire, and how under the Soviet rule, they closed all the places of worship save one synagogue and one church. He said Jews would sometimes go to the church for food, when things were really rough.

They were openly excited to talk about their past. They often spoke at the same time, over one another, and the wife would get mad and yell at him to stop interrupting her (and go drink more vodka), but the husband ignored her and kept going. At one point, he stood up and went to the bedroom and the wife, looking up towards the ceiling, summoning all her strength to stay calm said, “Great, finally, he’s going to bed.” But no such luck, he walked back out the bedroom and futzed around in the kitchen, “Oh, of course, he’s going to eat more.”

He eventually sat back down in the living room, but soon stood up and did indeed take a nap. You’d think the wife would take the opportunity to say what she had wanted to say, but instead she took out an album she made for him for his 75th birthday and walked me through page by page, detailing which of his friends were still alive and which were not.

The wife is a big lover of movies. Unfortunately, most of the movies she watches are Lifetime type dramas (she spent dinner time today detailing scene-by-scene a movie she saw about a prostitute with children), but this time she had better offering for me- The Pianist. I saw the movie long ago but I couldn’t remember much, so I watched it with her again. During the movie, my Israeli friend called and we made plans to go out for dinner. She told me I could take their spare keys in case I come home late. By this time, the husband woke up and would periodically wander into the room to see what we were doing. The wife asked him to find the spare set of keys for me. At the time time, the movie was reaching a climactic scene, when the pianist is found by German soldier who demands he play the piano for him. He walks the pianist into a room with a piano, and as this played on the screen, the husband walked over to the TV set. As the pianist sat and down and his fingers fell upon the piano after years of pent up frustration and despair, the husband opened a drawer directly below the TV and futzed around looking for the keys, to the point that we couldn’t even see the TV because of his bobbing head. I cracked up. The wife gave me a “You see what I have to deal with look?” and said, “Do you think you could possibly move your head to the side!” and he either didn’t hear or pretended not to, because he continued to look until his found the keys, and by then the scene was nearing its end.

Side note: Holocaust movies are not good before going out for a fun night out.

My friend came by to pick me up and we went to a bar in Florentine, and then to dinner at a place called Coffee Bar, which is really a full fledged restaurant. He knew a guy who worked there and he gave us some free food in addition to the the full three course meals we consumed. I was so full. I asked my friend what else is in the area. He said this was not an area we would want to hang out in. The cops close the streets off and arsim (Israeli guidos) fill them. “It’s so bad they have to close things off?” “Yes, you’ll see.” By the time we finished our meal, the streets outside the window were filled with arsim of varying levels of spiky hair and shiny fitted sweatshirts and freyot (girl arsim) with a stratum of bleached heads and fat, ornate (in the Bedazzler sense)  waist belts. Suddenly the streets looked hazier, smokier, with bunches of stiletto and love handle silhouettes. We walked into a convenience store to buy cigarettes, and the place was packed with people who didn’t even make it the surrounding clubs. They sat in the flourescent lit store with beer, smoking and eyeing one another. We continued down the street to the area with more clubs and it was a scene. “Who are these people?” I couldn’t believe my eyes. It felt like I was somewhere in between midtown Manhattan at night and Steinway St. in Astoria, but everyone was 19 and made up to look like Las Vegas soccer mom by day, prostitute by night (where is this Lifetime movie? Or at least Oxygen!). We walked by a club and and my friend asked the bouncer what was going on there tonight. He said it was a soldiers-only night and we were too old. The surrounding area was blockaded by military police. I asked my friend, “So you mean part of the duty of these soldiers is to keep the peace between the arsim?” He said yeah. We quickly caught a cab and got back to the Florentine. By then I understood.

The next day, I ate cheese burekas for breakfast and potato ones for dinner. Both times the burekas were the oven, the husband hovered in front of the oven as soon as he smelled them from the living room. During the morning round, the wife took them out, and placed a few on plate for the husband. “Are they hot?” he asked. “What do you think? I just took them out of 200c degree oven. Of course they’re hot!” and during dinner, he asked her the same thing. “Again, the same question! Of course they are hot!” yelled the wife. “Ah, then I will wait until they cool down,” said the husband, despite having spent the last 15 minutes staring at the oven, and the last 2 minutes telling the wife he thought the knob was broken because it showed 0 minutes left but the oven was still working. He waited about 1 1/2 minutes before he walked back into the kitchen and ate with me.

Afterwards, they drove me to the Rehovot train station, where I boarded the bus for Jerusalem, and then shared a cab ride to campus.

I want to write about my trip to the Israeli Cartoon Museum that day, but I may save it for another time.

In Israel, time changes you March 16, 2009

My new schedule may kill me, if I don’t learn to go to sleep earlier. This semester, I have to be somewhere by 8.30am every day of the week. Two of those days, I need to be in class, which is only a short walk away, so I can get up at a leisurely 7.15am. Otherwise, I need to be up before 7am in order to get to work on time. I haven’t been able to sleep earlier than 2am, and I no longer think it’s because of jetlag, but because my days end later now too, soI feel like I need a few hours to myself every night, even if only to study, or read, or write in some blog!

Tonight was the second night in my new ulpan. I like it, as in I like the the teacher, the pace, and the students are quick, but as usual, some of them are just too loud, while the rest can’t get a word in. There is one girl in particular who reminds me of an Arab version of Peg Bundy. Her face, makeup, big hair (although not red), tight clothes and bountiful bosom.. and I don’t know, something, else. She seems nice, but wow, the mouth on this girl, both literally and figuratively. When the teacher asks a question, and not necessarily one tough enough to impress her with a good answer, she screams out her answer above the others. One time she even caught herself and covered her mouth and looked around, giggling. Really people, it’s not all that impressive that you know that tricky “smihut.” There are other loud people too, but they aren’t as consistent as her. As for the others.. There is one Russian girl who talks only to other Russians. The students are pretty average- young, for the most part. One girl took a bus back to campus here, so she may live in the dorms. One normally quiet guy talked about going to the West Bank tomorrow to work with the Red Crescent. Another rather Jappy girl interjects “like” into her Hebrew regularly. The rest are nice.

The main issue with my ulpan is that the two days I attend, I am completely exhausted by 5.30pm, and the class goes on until 8.30. I have no break during the day whatsoever. The second session is on Thursdays, the end of my week, and I am wiped out. Maybe it will take a bit of time to work myself into my new schedule. Either that, or I’ll quit everything and dance all day on Ben Yehuda with those crazy religious people.

I know the US recently had its Daylight Savings Time. I remembered it happened at a different time here back in September, and when I asked my Orthodox boss when it will here this spring, she said she wasn’t sure, but added, “Did you know that because of the religious lobby, we have DST right before Yom Kippur so there is one less daylight hour for fasting?” She gave this “Can you believe it!” look, but she’s religious, so I wasn’t sure how to react. A usual response would have been an eyeroll, or a sarcastic “What a surprise,” but instead I just raised my eyebrows and said, “Well, huh, can you believe that!” “I know, right?!” she said, or insinuated by body language, I can’t remember. Very strange. Anyway, I looked up a bit of information on DST in Israel, and can you believe it, there is controversy- enough that Israel has its own time (IST).

According to the Wikipedia, until the 2005 rule stipulating when DST begins and ends, “the minister of the interior had the authority to decide on the start and end dates of Israel Summer Time. The length of summer time depended largely on the political affiliation of the minister in charge. Religious ministers often opted for an earlier switch back to standard time in autumn, claiming that summer time causes hardship for religious observers at this time of year.”

Another entry says, “Until 2005, the start and end of DST each year was established in an ad hoc fashion as the result of haggling between political parties representing various sectors of Israeli society. Parties representing religious groups wanted the start delayed till after Passover and the end to precede Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, while the secular parties would argue for starting it earlier and ending it later.”

Ah, “ad hoc fashion,” “haggling” – these descriptions of how things are done here can’t even stay out of Wikipedia entries! Not surprisingly, the religious groups won, and my DST will be on March 27.

And to end this topic, “At present, as a sign of independence from Israeli rule, the Palestinian National Authority uses a different schedule for Daylight Saving Time than Israel.”

And speaking of the insanity of the region where I live, my good friend from New York, whom I saw the night before I left, posted on Facebook that an American activist friend of hers was hit in the face with a new, high speed tear gas projectile by the IDF while protesting the wall the the West Bank. He’s currently in the hospital, unconscious, with severe brain and eye damage. Protests (by other activists, of course) have been held for him in a few cities. He seems he is pulling through, but this is insane.

Flirting with di-sabras March 15, 2009

Ok, maybe my title is stretching the wordplay a bit.

Life has been peacefully quiet since the Russian left. Maybe too quiet. Don’t get me wrong, I love hearing crickets instead of Armin Van Buren when I go to bed, but still, I’ve been getting antsy about moving out of the dorms. Real life feels on pause when I am here, everything about campus life is so artificial.  Plus the bathrooms and kitchen are nasty. I walked by the kitchen this past Shabbat and two campus cats were lying stretched out on the heaps of garbage that appear during the weekends. It’s as if the girls on this floor collect all their garbage in a corner of their rooms until the one day the cleaning lady doesn’t come.

But that will soon be history. I took a walk with a co-worker and he showed me some neighborhoods near my job. It reminded me of what it’s like to live around people outside the ages of 18-30. It would be kinda nice not being the senior citizen of my vicinity.  I have recruited some people at work to ask around, and I’m meeting with an Israeli friend later this week so we can help me figure out what neighborhoods fit my budget and locations needs. I’ve been eyeing some sites but I want the low-down on what to expect or avoid before I embark on anything. It may be tough to find something right now, in the middle of a semester, but I have some have time.

Today I had my first morphology class, but we discussed phonetics. The professor is a goofy, but sweet Star Trek loving guy of a religious level I cannot decipher, with a face barely visible behind two poofs of hair- one at his chin and the other on his scalp- and a crumpled yarmulke on top of his head, covering his balding crown. I have always thought balding guys in yarmulkes are lucky – they are required by their communities to don holy toupees! Anyway, his descriptions of place and manner of articulation in speech left me bursting out laughing. He was discussing the difference between the hard and soft palates in our mouths. “Now if you take your finger and stick it inside your mouth, and move it upwards along the hard palate, and just keep moving it back, you will feel it go soft” – soft, scattered chuckles from students – “You may find it difficult to move your finger further back. You may start to get a vomit feeling” – ok, by now my face is down to hide my laughter – “I wouldn’t recommend trying that, but well, maybe if you go to a party and things get boring, you can try it then.” Ok, I flat out burst laughing. Based on the previous chuckles, I thought I would have company, but I was the only one. I quickly stopped myself and regain composure.

It wasn’t just what he said, but the finger-in-mouth visual aides he provided.. and the hair.. and the yarmulke.. and the high belted pants. He went on about the “uvula,” the little thing that dangles in the back of your mouth. “Ok, so everyone has an uvula, but some may not know because they don’t see it! It’s not one of the most well known memb- I mean, part of the body.” Aha! He was about to call it a “member!” As far as I know, only one human body part is commonly referred to as a member! Oh god! No one else seemed to pick up on this… and maybe I should be grossed out.. but I will give him the benefit of the doubt because I was so happy to have any fun moments in the otherwise painful class- I think I hate phonetics!

I am still thoroughly baffled at how well Israeli guys are both flirty and insulting at the same time. On the way out from the gym yesterday, I pushed the door to open it, but it wouldn’t budge. I didn’t want to break the thing, so I continued pushing and pulling it, until a guy behind pushed it open forcefully. He said something in Hebrew. “Ma?” I answered. In English, he responded, “Ah, I see you tired yourself out so much, you can’t open the door!” Maybe it was the tone, but it didn’t sound like some light-hearted joshing, but more like a challenge! I answered something like, “No, it’s just that after that such a workout, I didn’t want to break the door!” Unable to retaliate, he mumbled something and bid me a nice day.

When I approached the gate to my dorm, I flashed my ID to the security guard. He motioned me over to him, and took my ID. “Very nice picture… very nice,” he said in English as he inspected it. “Um, thanks.” “Very nice!” he continued. “Well, ok, I hope the reality is as good!” I joked. “Oh it is,” he said in a higher tone, as if he really was providing me with affirmation. He then asked me where I’m from. I said New York. New York City? Yes. He looked skeptical. Where in NYC? Well… “Long Island, right?”

“Long Island isn’t part of New York City.”

“Yes. It is,” said the Israeli who knows everything.

“No it’s not! There is Brooklyn, Manhattan. Queens, Bronx, and Staten Island.”

“Oh right, Staten Island. That’s what I meant.”

“Yeah well, not the same thing.”

“Ok, so where are you from?”

“I’ve lived in different areas, but most recently Queens.”

“Oh,” he said, looking slightly disappointed in that way non-New Yorkers do when they find out you don’t live on top of the Empire State Building.

He asked me how I like Israel.

“It’s ok. It’s a lot to get used to.”

“Is it what you expected?”

“I’m not sure I knew what to expect.”

“Of course you had expectations. How can you go somewhere and not have expectations,” said the Israeli with one way to view the world.

“What do you mean? Anything can happen where you move somewhere. I hoped to go to school and to work, and I’m doing that now, but otherwise it’s hard to say what I expected.”

He asked me a bit about school, and then sighed, “For me, I have a big decision to make soon.”

“Oh, what’s that?”

“I’m finishing graduate school in a few months, in Community Organization (or something like that, some kind of organization thing), and the army wants to take me back, but I don’t want to go!”

“Why not?”

“Well, first, I don’t want to cut my hair.” He did have good hair. I’ll give him that. Fully black hair in loose curls rolling around his head, level with his light blue eyes. He was very attractive in the way that a good number of Israeli guys are -as long as they are not moving or speaking. “And second, I finished the army. I can’t imagine going back to it.”

“I can imagine that. How long would you go for?”

“It’s a year contract doing exactly what I went to school for. And I’d get to live in Tel Aviv. But still, they have you for that time.”

“Well, it’s only a year. Maybe it’s not so bad. Especially with this economy.”

“The economy is always an excuse. You can find what you want, if you look for it,” he said, not in that American optimist way, but in that Israeli way that makes you feel the truth is so obvious, it’s hard to believe you’d question it in the first place. He went on, “I think I will give them a decision by tomorrow.” He didn’t give me a hint about what his decision is, but I think I know which one it is going to be- I’m imagining him walking into barber shop- nay, salon- with a melancholic Aviv Geffen song as the soundtrack.

However, I still don’t understand. If he is such a hot item, why did he have to go back to the army for a contract officer gig? Why couldn’t he just let his locks run free while finding this other great job that was obviously waiting for him, if only he looked for it?

Maybe this was part of the “flirting” and he was trying to impress me, but more likely the mix of machismo, stubbornness, and delusion that is so prevalent here!

You know that in his head, he was being totally nice, warm, friendly. Not a hint of – woah, people, I just had deja-vu writing that, seriously. Have I already said that about an Israeli on here? I’m not joking.

I wished him luck, he said he’ll see me around, and I was off. A few feet away, I nearly slipped. Damn you, wet Jerusalem stone covered in leaves!

El Israel Al Delta March 10, 2009

I’m back in Israel.

After two and a half weeks of a great time in New York, I came back to my stuffy room in Jerusalem. Is my visit really over? It made me sad to see my room here in the state it was the day I was so excited to leave for New York, the moment the Nesher sherut came too early and I had to leave the room a bit messy.

The stay in New York was filled with many emotional ups and downs, but lots of fun. Within a few days, I felt I had never left, but of course I still felt different. I was in New York with no job, no apartment of my own. I lived out of bags, and never felt fully comfortable because of it. However, I saw friends, ate great food (with a newly ripped-at-the-crotch pair of jeans to prove it), same a couple of museum shows, and watched some movies. Yeah, New York’s not too bad.

One of the first things I noticed as soon as I got off the plane is that after being in Jerusalem for so long, New Yorkers all looked like Abercrombie and Fitch models- Swedish edition. Their clothes were made of fine, well cut fabrics and their boots were not platform. Most of the adults walked without children in tow! I felt frumpy at times.

I had a couple of celebrity sightings- Steve Buschemi (I like to convince myself that he followed me to my train transfer), and the plus size model winner of a recent season of America’s Next Top Model- can’t bother to look up her name, even on my fast-speed new Mac. Yes, I also bought a new Mac laptop, and now I feel I need to upgrade my lifestyle to match my trendy operating system.

On my last night there, I gathered some friends at The Magician on the Lower East Side and had a proper farewell.

The next day I savored the bizarrely warm day with Eli by eating at Veselka, took in the crazy vibe the city gets during the first warm days, and eventually made my way back to Jill’s, where I crammed all my crap into one bag, ran to eat two last slices of pizza (one plain, one chicken and broccoli- something I normally don’t order but can’t get in Israel, so I went for it) with her and my sister, and hopped in a cab a bit after 7, worried that I was running late for my 10pm flight. I was at the gate to my Delta flight by 7:45. Never have I gone through the airport so quickly. Part of the reason was because it was a Saturday night flight, so most of the people on the flight, the religious ones, came last minute, after finishing up their Shabbat. The flight took off late because someone decided not to get on at the last minute, and the luggage crew spent 30 minutes retrieving his luggage.

When I first boarded the plane, it was blissful. Quiet. The seat next to me remained empty as the rest of the plane filled and part of me hoped the passenger wouldn’t show. I even sat my stuffed dog, Dubs, on the empty seat. Then the religious people came on board, and with them screaming babies. A group of religious women walked toward the back of the plane, rolling luggage that was barely carry-on friendly. By then, most of the overhead bins were full. One of the women asked an older grouchy looking man wearing a yarmulke behind me, “Excuse me, would you mind moving your bag?” “Yes, I do mind,” he replied curtly. “Well, ok,” and said, hesitantly. Just then, a remarkably attractive and very gay flight attendant walked over and asked what the problem was. The woman said, “There is no room and the man here says he is unwilling to move his bag.” The flight attendant offered to move the man’s bag for him, but the man just said, “Your bags are too big, I don’t understand why you didn’t check them in!” The women ignored him and the flight attendant still moved the man’s bag and assured him by saying, “Look, mister, I’m moving it right here!” and found space for all of the rest of their stuff too. Ah, is there anything a gay flight attendant can’t do? (I always get excited when I get a gay flight attendant, they are generally so much nicer and more helpful than their female counterparts. Sorry.) Then the older guy stood up, and to no one in particular, blurted, “This is why I stopped using El Al, and now look.” By “this,” he clearly meant the religious women, and they clearly knew it. They looked at him uncomfortably, said nothing, and he plopped himself back down in his seat, and remained quiet.

But.. but.. I was confused. What did he really mean by “this?” Loud families, usually religious? Then just take a flight on Shabbat, which he probably didn’t do because he observes it himself. But these women didn’t bring kids on board. They just had lots of luggage. I hate El Al because I’m still waiting on a refund months after I cancelled a flight with them, but what was his beef?

Anyway, the noise levels continued to rise. I got a call from my mom soon before the plane took off. She was nervous and sad about my leaving again. She showed it by saying, “What airline company are you using?” “Delta.” “Delta? Why would you take Delta?! Everyone uses El Al! Who uses Delta for Israel! Oyyy!” As if the plane would instantly go up in flames en route to Tel Aviv if it were not part of the national Israeli airline. As if terrorists eye non-El Al flights on Kayak and rub their hands gleefully at the prospects of possibly (but probably not really) lower security levels.

The flight was almost full. The seat next to me was still empty. I eyed the remaining people coming in, gauging their gender and religious levels. Religious men- sigh of relief. They must be sitting next to other men. Religious woman with baby, oh no, please, keep moving….. sigh of relief. Freedom to stretch was almost mine! But at the last minute, a young Ortho guy walked up to the seat, and I thought, “This can’t be.” I barely moved Dubs out of the seat before he dropped a few crumpled plastic bags onto the seat next to me. He didn’t look at me as he crammed the bags in the overhead bin and placed a carry-on suitcase in the leg area in front of his seat. An older man stood next to him, asked if he would be alright, and then walked away as the guy maneuvered his skinny legs around the suitcase and sat down and looked straight ahead. For a while, he read a prayer book, but mostly stared ahead.

Ok, maybe religious Jews do sit next to people of other sexes when they have to, but I just never noticed a precedence for it on a plane. It didn’t happen on buses in Jerusalem, except for that one time I was frotteurized by a religious guy who did sit next to me, but I guess planes provide fewer options- you can’t stand!

The flight attendants were becoming agitated and rude, as they are wont to do on Delta. Even before take-off,  a female one with copper skin, yellow hair, and a look that said she would run you over with her SUV if she could, walked down the aisle waving a crumpled plastic bag, “Someone left this near the bathroom! WHO left this near the bathroom?” she threatened, as if it was the most absurd thing that could have happened. One religious guy spoke up and said it was his bag, but after inspection, it turned out it wasn’t, and the attendant walked away and voiced “Jesus Christ” between her teeth.

I partly didn’t blame them for being agitated. Full flight, oh so many demands and babies. I find nothing glamorous about being a flight attendant, except for those great travel discounts. I did feel that the moment they wheeled the beverage carts down the aisle, someone was hovering behind them, asking them to move, as if they could squeeze the cart to the side. That was really annoying. I’d lose it within a day. At one point, even the gay flight attendant lost it and told a passenger who was practically his shadow, “Step back, sir.”

I guess the Ortho guy didn’t have time to order a kosher meal, so when he heard someone give theirs up, he very politely asked for it and the SUV attendant ordered him to wait until the end to see if any were left. Later on, the gay attendant walked down the aisle holding a tray, announcing, “Kosher meal, kosher meal!” My neighbor again politely stopped him and asked, “Is it left over?” The attendant replied simply, “It’s kosherrrr” and threw it on his lap. The neighbor then ate the cake, then the salad, and some of the main dish which I could not recognize.

By then, I drank some wine, swallowed a special pill, and even though I tossed and turned constantly, I woke up with two hours left on the plane. The neighbor slept sitting straight up, with a blindfold on. God know what I did in my inebriated state. I probably kicked him, drooled on him, anything is possible.

We arrived in Israel. I got on the sherut to Jerusalem, another surreal experience I can’t go into now because I’m jetlagged and running on 3 hours sleep and I think I’m quite possibly delirious, which is the reason I will give for writing such a long post about a flight.

I’ll end by saying this- The Russian is gone! She moved out while I was away. Sorry to all who will miss her character, but I’m sure I’ll find others to replace her without having them live close enough to ruin my home life! It has been so quiet. So niiiiceeee.. so why can’t I sleep, even though it’s past 1am and I need to get up in 6 hours?!

EDIT: Ok maybe this is what’s wrong with El Al.