Wanderings on Shabbat

Written by Evan - as he explores Shabbat experiences...This picture is of one of the hundreds of menorahs outside in Nachalot (a neighborhood next to ours)

Generally speaking, when I leave my apartment I know exactly where I am going. For instance, most days I walk out of my front gate with the understanding that I will travel down Keren Kayemet Street, cut through Independence Park, pass the American Consulate, cut through the little alleyway, and walk down Moshe Hess Street, ending up at school. Yet are rare moments like last week, when I left my home on Saturday morning and decided that I would do something that I had promised myself that I would do since my arrival in Israel. That promise was to wander through the neighborhood of Nachlaot and find an Orthodox synagogue that somehow “would speak” to me, and I would pray, or daven, with them.

To be honest, I am not exactly sure what that meant, a synagogue that “would speak” to me. Regardless, I took my tallit, siddur, and some water (just in case I ended up far from home), and set out for the neighborhood of Nachlaot. The time was just about 9:45, and little did I realize that most of the synagogues in Nachlaot finish services by 11:00am. Saturday morning in Nachlaot is quite fascinating. There are men roving the alleyways, kids playing in the street, women chatting outside of the synagogues, and a few secular Jews enjoying the tranquility of Shabbat, taking pictures of the synagogues and old buildings that are so characteristic of this neighborhood. I felt quite peaceful and solitary as I walked through the streets of the neighborhood, despite the fact that I was surrounded by Jews. I know I could have asked a friend to join me on this “quest”, but for some reason I wanted to wander through Nachlaot on my own. So much of our experience here in Israel is focused on the collective, I suppose I just wanted something for myself on this Saturday morning.

After passing by two small synagogues, I walked by a small door leading into a basement. From the ground level, I could hear men singing Siman Tov joyously from below. “This is my synagogue!” I thought to myself. I walked down the dark, musty stairs into the modest basement where I saw men joyously dancing around the podium, one of them holding a baby. Some of the men were standing, others sitting. A few were reading from various books, others were singing and festively joining in the conversation. I could see women behind the mesh curtain also celebrating amongst themselves. I surveyed the large bookcase in front of me. It took me several moments to choose a siddur, and I made my way a few rows in just as the celebration of the baby came to a rousing finish. Part of me felt so comfortable there, yet I had no idea what to expect. So many questions came to my mind. Does this congregation get visitors very often? They all seem to know one another. Will they call on me to read Hebrew or for an aliyah because I am a guest? Am I dressed properly? Do I fit in here at all? What is going on at H.U.C right now?

This was not my first time in an Orthodox prayer environment; on the contrary, I grew up going to an Orthodox summer camp every summer and many of my friends to this day are Orthodox Jews. Yet it has been some time that I have davened with them, and because I was by myself in a synagogue that I had never entered until that day, I really felt just a bit unsure about the whole situation.

My experience in this little synagogue lasted only about 45 minutes, as I had spent a good deal of time wandering the neighborhood before I finally sat down there. The most interesting piece of the service in my opinion was the Birkat Kohanim. Three men approached the ark, took off their shoes, and covered themselves with their tallitot. They held their hands up high, and I could tell they were making the Priestly hand signal under their tallitot. I had never seen this ceremony before and was grateful to witness it for the first time in my life.

During Musaf I closed my eyes and enjoyed the orchestra of male voices each singing and praying with their own tones and intonations. I thought to myself how beautiful the medley of all of the voices sounded, despite the fact that my personal preference is to have a chorus of both male and female voices when I pray. As the service ended, I quickly packed up my tallit and quietly walked up the stairs into the bright morning sunlight. It’s interesting to think that most likely nobody there really noticed my presence at the service, but it had an impact on me. My relationship with Orthodox Judaism is complex, and in recent years I really felt no desire to enter an Orthodox synagogue. It was important to me, however, to embrace this aspect of my past and to struggle with the question how Orthodox Judaism relate to my life and to the liberal Jewish community as a whole. As I walked home down Ussishkin Street, I noticed that all of the synagogues that were so vibrantly davening only an hour ago, were now quiet and dark. I knew I had made the right choice; I had fulfilled my promise to myself, and could not wait to see where I would be for Shabbat next week…

The Daily Grind

It's been ages since we've written (by we: anyone who know us well will be able to tell which half of we is writing this blog!). Life has been very busy and fulfilling lately. We just returned from our 2nd HUC tiyul (trip) where we went up north to Caesaria (site of old Roman ruins), Zipporia (another site of ruins, where the Mishna was written) to Tzfat (very cool hippie-Jewish town and center of Kabbalah) and Haifa. We learned a lot and had some good times. The North of Israel is so different from the rest of the country and met with some really interesting people doing good things in the world of Jewish education, at a school in Haifa.

But enough about our trip- I wanted to give you some info about our daily existence in this amazing country. Both Evan and Jenny are very busy, another big surprise! Evan is playing on the HUC flag football team and has games every Tuesday night. A few weeks ago, Jenny, along with about 25 other HUC students and partners, came to the Homecoming game. Dedicated fans we were, standing there in the pouring rain! Evan loves playing on the team and is quite the athlete as well!

The two of us volunteer every week in Mevasseret Tzion, a suburb of Jerusalem, about 20 minutes away, in an Ethiopian absorption center. We work with a family (picture forthcoming): with Sanay (the dad), Tababu (his son, around 10 years old) and Haftami, his other son who is 6 and the cutest thing ever. The first few weeks were somewhat awkward- they speak better Hebrew than we do, but their first language is Amharic and have only been in Israel for 1.5 years. They are new immigrants and it is funny watching the 5 of us struggling to speak in Hebrew! We play games with them, including Memory and kador regel (Hebrew for soccer). We have developed a very nice relationship with the family and it's a really nice part of our week, getting out of Jerusalem and being in a totally different world. About 2,000 Ethiopians live in the absorption center and life is not so easy for them in Israel- learning to adjust to a very difficult culture, learning a new language, taking conversion classes- the politics of Judaism in Israel...The Ethiopians must take a conversion class here , but that's for another story about the power of the rabbinate in Israel.

Other daily things: Jenny takes ulpan on Monday and Wednesday nights and lyat, lyat her Hebrew is slowly improving! My ulpan class is a wonderful mix that represents Israel- we have people who made aliyah here (from France and the US), students who are Palestinian Christian, Evangelical Christians from Brazil, Czech Republic and Germany, a few people like myself who are here for 1 year, a Catholic woman from Ireland and even a priest who is Palestinian! Many people in my class have lived in Israel for several years too - what a crazy and interesting country this is! One woman has been here for 29 years and is still struggling to learn this crazy language. The take-away from that is not that this woman is not smart, but rather, that there are so many English speakers in Jerusalem that it is possible to get by on English.

Evan just finished his midterms at HUC and is still very much enjoying school. His favorite days is Wednesday, when he has his Israel Seminar and has the opportunity to learn from many diverse characters in Israeli life, including the Israeli "Mr. Television" (everyone called him the Walter Cronkite of Israel), authors, rabbis, settlers, peaceniks and economists.

We promise to write more soon! We're getting ready for Becca and Charlie's visit...YAY! We are going to Petra, Jordan with them and then later on, Molly comes, as does Jodie. It is the beginning of a month full of guests and friends visiting. We're having our annual Hanukkah party this year on Thursday night. Happy Hanukkah!

Bethlehem, The West Bank

Too exhausted to write now...will write in a few days but in the meantime wanted to post a few pictures from our most recent trip, only 15 minutes from Jerusalem, but into another world..


This is the wall- the separation barrier between Israel and the Palestinian Territories. It was quite high with graffiti all over it, in English and Arabic.

Our host family that we stayed with in their house, they were a lovely Palestinian Christian family and were very warm to us.


The border - I thought this picture was really telling of what goes on in Bethlehem; an Israeli army vehicle is patrolling the area, while a busload of tourists is coming in to the West Bank.

Hiking in Maktesh Ramon

Last weekend we went with a small group from HUC of about 10 students hiking in the Negev, in Maktesh Ramon which is a giant crater. It was awesome; it felt like what I imagine Mars to look like! We did 3 separate hikes, one of which was very steep. Evan was very proud of Jenny for getting to the top with no problems! We slept overnight outside, in sleeping bags, without a tent. We made a fire and had a great night roasting marshmellows and telling funny stories and singing. The only part that wasn't so fantastic was waking up at 4 am and feeling so cold- amazing how the desert can be so cold at night and so hot during the day. It was a great hike- and we hope the beginning of many more hikes during this year. On our way back, (we were in a car we rented with our friends Brad and Claire) and as we stopped to use the bathroom we saw a sign for a winery. Becoming oenophiles that we are, we called the number, spoke with a man who opened up the tiny winery on his kibbutz, Sde Boker for us. It was a great end to a wonderful weekend. We were eager, however, with our aching muscles to fall into sleep in our bed the next night!

HUC Tiyul to the Galilee/Golan

About two weeks ago we took our first tiyul (trip) with HUC which included about 70 people. There were 53 students, some 15 "signifcant others" (Jenny is in that category) and a few of the professors and scholars came with us. In 3 days we saw a lot of the northern parts of Israel. Some of the highlights included: staying at a hostel right on the Kinneret (also known as the Sea of Galilee) and taking a 6:30 am swim in it. We visited Metula, which is on the Israeli-Lebanon border. So crazy to be so close to where the war took place last year and to see Lebanon and the UN border patrols and their vehicles so up close. (see picture below from Metula). We met with a psychologist in Kiryat Shmona who talked about her work last summer with trauma victims, many of whom had very close encounters with the Katusha rockets that the Lebanese launched all over the north of Israel. We also visited Har Ben-Tal, which is a beautiful viewpoint and from it, we could see Lebanon and Syira. We've always known how small Israel is but it is crazy traveling around and seeing it first-hand.

On the lighter side, aside from security issues, the theme of the tiyul was the "New Jew," which included learning about the Jews that started coming to what was then Palestine around the 1880s who established the kibbutz movement. We visited Rosh Pina, the first modern settlement in the Galilee and established by a group of Jews from Romania in 1882, which is a very quaint little town now. We also traveled through the Golan Heights and visited the Kinneret Cemetery, which is one of the most beautiful cemeteries we've seen. Situated on the shores of the Kinneret, many people who helped establish the kibbutzim were buried there. Evan led a service there with two of his fellow students. We also had fun rafting in the Jordan River; 6 of us in rafts with two paddles. It was good fun and Jenny's rowing skills have certainly improved! We also visited Tel Dan and Tel Hai; Tel Dan has a lot of hiking trails along with important archaeological remains that we learned about with HUC scholars.

We have two more upcoming tiyullim later in this year.

So much to say and so many pictures

The past few weeks have been such a whirlwind. The Jewish holidays were really wonderful and very special- and so nice for Evan not having to work. A few highlights of our last few weeks to get you up to speed:

*Friends visiting. We've been so lucky to have so many friends visit with us over our first 3 months here. In September, Stephanie and Steven (Steph worked with Evan at Central), visited and stayed with us. Check us out below in our all-white gear for Yom Kippur. Steph and Steven are living in London so it was great comparing our experiences living and working abroad. Then Becca's parents were here- Abbe and David (see picture)- who now we consider not as Bec's parents but as our friends! We had so much fun with them at Rosh HaShana and Yom Kippur and more. We also had Michele and Ira here for a lovely evening on our mirpesset (balcony).

*Israeli friends - We reconnected with Aya and Elezar, our Israeli friends from Eisner Camp and the newest member of their family - their daughter Yarden who is 6 weeks old and so very cute. Elezar invited us to his parents succah in the Old City which was quite an experience. More about that in a bit. We also saw our Israeli friends from Kibbutz Yagur when they visited Jerusalem and they came to hang with us also on our mirpesset (it's the place to be!). In this picture you'll see Evan with Madene and Iftach (his host family) and Miriam and Mody (my host family) with our laundry hanging in the background!

Istanbul, Turkey

One of our favorite areas...Ortakoy. We are standing near a famous mosque and the bridge in the background connects two continents...Europe and Asia (we're on the European side in this picture). We took a 1-hour Bosphorous Boat tour with our dear friends Talya and Verda. It was so wonderful being back and spending time with all our dear friends. Don't I look ready for a country club outing in my new stylish Turkish hat?

Blahs about Blogging

Seriously this blog has been a funny thing, even 5 months before we started it. See the thing is, we felt conflicted. Especially Jenny who loves writing in her journal. The idea of an online journal just feels so public, so out there in cyberspace, who knows who is even reading it? But alas, 2.5 months into Israel we've decided it will be fun and if nothing else it's a great way to post pictures and put up things that we think/hope our friends and family will read (or at least pretend they do!)