A Heathen in the Holy Land: November 2012

Monday, November 19, 2012

Experiential Learning

The view of Tel Aviv's beachfront from our outdoor cafe was beautiful as always. My friend Lauren and I were finishing up our coffee, trying to figure what part of town to explore next. Then, it happened. The potential moment I had feared most about living in Israel. A moment I had been expecting, but not now, not here. The distant blare of an air raid siren transformed the busy intersection next to us into pure chaos. I don't think I registered what was going on, my mind had separated itself from my body. I jumped up. Like everyone else, without thought or understanding, I started to run. Lauren looked at me confused; from her vantage point she couldn't see the reaction of the crowd behind her and therefore wasn't fully able to process exactly what was going on. We grabbed each other and followed the mass of people.

A statistic from some news source soared to the forefront of my mind from an infinite amount of other thoughts: In Tel Aviv you will have roughly 90 seconds to find shelter once you hear a siren sound. One and a half minutes stand between you and the danger of being exposed to an incoming missile.

The first place we saw to seek shelter was occupied. We kept running. Like, RUNNING. I could have qualified for the Olympics if this was a time trial.

Two Israeli women motioned for us to follow them into the Tel Aviv School of Design's lobby. The receptionist yelled for us to go into the parking garage. We entered and stood there in disbelief. I had tried to prepare myself mentally before arriving for how I would react if this unfortunate, unlikely, but yet still possible situation were to occur. Now, in the moment, I was laughing. We were scared, but we had quickly found safety. It was obvious that we were trying to keep each other in good spirits, attempting to make quick jokes and block out the insanity of what was going on around us. It was comforting that the Israeli's were laughing too.

Then the laughter stopped.

I felt it before I saw it. The most disturbing, haunting echo resonated through the concrete garage. Every part of myself reacted to this literal feeling. My stomach. My mind. My instantly goosebump-covered flesh. And lastly, my eyes. From where we were standing in the parking garage we still had a limited view of the beach. A huge splash erupted from the water. I cannot give an honest distance because I have no idea where to even begin with that estimation. But it was close. Too close. Psyche-altering, perspective-changing, feel-your-skin-turn white close. What made it more alarming was what stood between us and that Fajr-5 missile: nothing. No other people, no other buildings. Just space, time, sand, and sea.

We emerged from the shelter to collect our belongings from the cafe's table. We must have looked shaken, because the waiter came over and attempted to calm us down. "It's okay, finish your coffee!" he encouraged. "We're fine, we're just surprised American's!" I exclaimed as I picked up my cup. I believed myself, too. Everything was too surreal to register. And as I picked up my coffee, I realized my mind and body were still not on the same page. Even though I thought I was alright, my trembling hand sent coffee spilling over the edges of the cup as I brought it to my mouth.

My undergraduate alma mater prides itself on "experiential learning"--a hands-on, immersion based approach to academics. I'm in Israel to study Peace and Conflict Management. This was experiential learning. Before this event, war seemed real enough. I knew it was a bad thing. People get hurt. People die. But that missile made me realize everything I had "known" about conflict was arbitrary. Textbooks, articles, the news--they can only teach you so much. Seeing one missile taught me more than all my time spent in a classroom. This was without a doubt the most disturbing moment of my life, and I saw only one missile. People in the south of Israel experience this every day, many times a day, as they have for years. People in Gaza are trapped in a small space where it's literally raining bombs. I now have a tiny but terrifying glimpse into the hell that is reality for both sides.

I waited a few days to write this post because I needed time to organize my thoughts and sort through my emotions. I have also used the time to deeply reflect on what I saw. That missile was an act of indiscriminate violence. There was no target. It was sent to cause pain, to kill, and to frighten. It was more than a missile. It was hatred. It was inhumanity. It was evil.

Last night on campus everyone in our program was finally back from the various places they had been traveling. Just the normalcy of being back together was comforting. So many others had similar stories from the weekend, and we could tell everyone was feeling the gravity of living in a news headline.

There has never been a more meaningful group hug in the history of group hugs.

I am thankful for them. I am thankful for a living in a city that is out of harms way. I am thankful for a huge reminder that what we are studying, what we are doing here, is important.

Saturday, November 10, 2012

Polanski and The Bear

Living on top of Mt. Carmel has its perks: beautiful views of the city and sea, cooler temperatures, and an overall sense of serenity that is hard to find elsewhere. However, I'd be a terrible American if I didn't take this opportunity to bitch about living in a location that most will never be fortunate enough to experience. There is a feeling of isolation here that quickly can turn from peaceful to mind-numbing-get-me-the-hell-out-of-here cabin fever, so any excuse to escape--even if just slightly down the mountain--is a welcomed one.

Thursday such an excuse arose. Thanks to the connections of our Polish friends Tadek and Jan, we learned of a film screening and music performance at an independent theater in the Horev area of town. The theater, about fifteen minutes from campus, was participating in a series of events celebrating the ties between Israel and Poland in the week leading up to Poland's Independence Day (11/11).

If you read my first post, I alluded to an "interesting" experience in Warsaw on my way to Israel. Long story short, a gypsy tried to steal my wallet before plucking out my hair and spitting on my feet. I'm pretty sure she put a curse on me, too. Maybe that's why I can't sleep or figure out how to repair my toilet seat. Or why my bathroom has toxic mold growing in it. Or why my fingernails are growing so damn fast here. ...I'm losing focus. Maybe that's her fault, too. I digress. Regardless, the Polish students here are incredible; they have completely reverted any ill-will toward their people or homeland I briefly felt from my rumble with the Roma, and I was excited to catch a better glimpse of their culture.

Upon arriving at the theater, we sat at a table outside and found ourselves chatting with some other Poles who had also just arrived in Israel. When the show started, we were surprised to find they were actually the musicians, and had prepared a unique but extremely impressive performance. It's hard to accurately articulate what the show exactly was. They had taken excerpts from Roman Polanski films, removed the audio, and provided us with a "live soundtrack" of sorts. Using clarinets, beatboxing, chimes, whistles, and looping audio, they magnificently captured the essence of Polanski's work.

After the show, the night was still young, and we found ourselves at a bar across the street aptly named "The Bear". No, it didn't have hairy gay men in leather passing out shots while prancing to Pat Benetar. It was a Bear in the sense that you wake up the morning after feeling as if you were attacked by one.

There is a word in Polish I learned at the beginning of my trip with no real English equivalent. It's crude, but sometimes is the only expression that seems appropriate for a situation: zajebisty. Roughly translated, it means "fucking great".

Being off the mountain. The performance. The bar. The friendships. Well, there's no better way to put it. It was just, just...zajebisty.

A clip of the performers, Sza/Za, from a show in 2010.

See why it's hard to put into words?

L-R: Poland. America. Poland. Britain. I'm glad the Iron Curtain fell.

The group, mid-Bear attack.

Saturday, November 3, 2012

An Evening With Idit

Winter Term at Elon University is essentially an extension of Christmas vacation. A catalog of challenging courses are available to students, such as: Knittin' Mittens for Kittens, The Oval Office: Decorating Eggs to look like Presidents, How to Creatively Hide Your Meth Lab, etc.. You know, rigorous academia. Okay, maybe these are a slight exaggerations. Keyword slight. Moral of the story--take a joke class every day for ~15 days and BAM! four shamefully titled credits added to your transcript.

Junior year my winter term looked to be no different. Enrolled in Israeli Cinema, I returned from the holidays expecting some Jewish professor from the School of Communications to show us Schindler's list and feed us bagels. Wrong. I walked into class late, reeking of late night whiskey and nursing a hangover, aka: I blended in. Who was that in the front? Fiery red hair and hipster glasses, the instructor was way ahead of her time, aka: she doesn't even go here. Alright, now my interest was piqued. Five hours later I walked out of the classroom in awe. This Winter Term was going to be different. I was going to actually learn something and wait...was I excited about it? The subject matter sounded interesting enough, but the professor was the real story. Her name was Idit Shechori, and she was incredible.

Where to begin with such an interesting person? A former Lieutenant in the Israeli Army, she later founded and presided over her own screenwriting school in Tel Aviv. She had written, produced, and directed her own films and won numerous international awards and recognition in the process. She lectured about cinema all over the world, published an anthology of women's literature, and authored an almanac of Israeli cultural institutions. As impressive as her background was, it was her personality that truly stole the show. Her straightforward and insightful commentary about Israeli society accomplished something few professors managed to do, we were learning...and excited about it.

She planted a seed that grew into an idea: I needed to visit Israel.

Fast forward two years...

I walked out of my Tel Aviv hostel and was greeted by a familiar not-found-in-nature-but-trendy-enough-to-pull-it-off red head jogging toward me. “Hurry, the cab is waiting and we have so much to see!” And away we went. Via facebook, Idit had helped me in every way possible make my journey to Israel a reality. On my fourth day in Israel, my former instructor had agreed to be my travel guide for the evening. Correction: the BEST damn travel guide anyone could ask for.

Appropriately, our journey and Tel Aviv's modern history began in the same place, HaTachana. This brilliantly revamped train station, now a visitors center, marked where the first rail line connected Jerusalem to Jaffa. Tel Aviv was birthed in the surrounding neighborhood as a small Jewish community that emerged from Jaffa, Tel Aviv's Arab municipal counterpart. We strolled through the streets of the restored station and stopped at a 50's style fountain shop where we drank mint soda with a side of left-wing politics.

From there, we ventured to Neve Tzedek, a gentrified artists colony adjacent to my hostel. It's hard to accurately express how chic this neighborhood is. Simply put, it makes West Village look hoodrat. Mediterranean architecture, meters from the sea, lined with cafes and bougie botiques—some of my fraternity brothers would be in heaven. Pit stop # 2: Cafe Nina. Politics evolved into history over coffee and cake (sorry, diet) and an inevitable topic emerged. Her family's first-hand, tragic experience with the Holocaust brought a greater sense of reality to Israel's short-but-ancient history. We left the heavy conversation at the coffee shop and made our way to Rothschild, one of Tel Aviv's main thoroughfares.

There, she led me through various centers of art and culture, including the National Theater, Opera House, Philharmonic, and library. Tel Aviv is dubbed “The White City” in reference to it having the world's largest collection of era-appropriate Bauhaus structures, and many of the buildings we visited were awesome representations of this style.

To me, the most meaningful stop on our tour was Tel Aviv's municipal building. It was here in 1995 where Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated. I'm in Israel to earn my Master's in Peace and Conflict Management Studies, which makes this location particularly powerful. Rabin was the ultimate champion of Palestinian-Israeli peace, and it cost him his life. Walking down a staircase after a rally celebrating the signing of the Oslo Accords he was shot and killed. Bronze footprints mark his final steps.

It was near there where Idit treated me to my first proper Israeli dinner. A ridiculously large assortment of salads and dips (picture below) were presented to us before the main course; this practice has proven standard in many meals since. American restaurants, please take note.

Hours from when it began, our perfect evening ended at the Marina. Like any waterfront commercial area, over-the-top eateries and stores lined the boardwalk. Idit pointed out subtle differences amongst varying levels of Jewish Orthodoxy I would have never been able to identify myself. “You see her? She's not on her period. Or she's pregnant.” 'scuse me? A couple clad in conservative attire was holding hands, and apparently there was symbolism behind that. Further down she pointed out orthodox parents eating tables away from arranged yet universally awkward first dates. I learned outdoor restaurants are ideal for this because unwed, unrelated couples can't be in a “room” alone, so everybody wins with this arrangement. As we meandered to the end of the boardwalk where the city meets its end at the Hayarkon River, Idit continued telling her history of the city she so endearingly and rightfully loved.

It was there I realized I had been going about Israel all wrong. Reading points of interest on a website and walking to them by myself, digesting the sights and sounds, and moving on to the next thinking I fully understood the place was as much a disservice to myself as it was the nation hosting me. An Anthony Bourdain quote surfaced from somewhere in my brain. “Be a traveler, not a tourist.”

As we walked back to the cab I made the most poignant realization of my trip thus far. I had arrived in a country halfway around the world where I only knew one person: Idit. Somewhere between dinner and the marina everything stopped feeling foreign. Was it while we were laughing over the insanity of Mormonism and a certain someone awaiting to be forgotten in the pages of history with every other failed presidential candidate? Maybe it was learning about the darker side of Elon's administration (Princeton Review, if you're reading, take that #1 'School Runs like Butter' ranking away ASAP). Perhaps it was joking about Bibi's history as a furniture salesman. When doesn't matter, but the lesson does: even the strangest of places can feel like home when you are with a friend.

Thank you, Idit.