In an earlier post where I went on the Holy City tour and wrote a load of post it notes of, well, notes, one insight the guide shared was that the Church of the Holy Sepulcher can be interpreted as a figurative 3rd Temple. So of course, I had to come back and get on top. But first, I visited a nearby Church with possibly the greatest view of the Old City. Count 'em, and pardon my heavy breathing...
Following the "climb," I walked into a side entrance before the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, and was immediately greeted by Ethiopian Monks, pilgrimage groups, and once on the roof, I found a cistern! There's not much to say. The pilgrims were not English speaking so I couldn't follow along, but once on top I got this feeling of ascent, and I tried to get even higher than the Church roof. I managed to find an Arab neighborhood, but one of the monks told me I couldn't go in there. I guess I'll have to pay another visit...
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Haifa Hike
Let me start with the end. The end of Ulpan. No longer will I be testing my alertness at 8:30 on a daily basis. No more five hours of high school Hebrew; only two and half. The last day of Ulpan all of the classes attended a special assembly with this very talented guitar player, who also introduced everyone to the Hang . This crazy instrument is made by two people in one factory in Switzerland, and there's a two year waiting list for it, but it was very cool watching and listening. We also sang some songs we had learned as a group. Later that day, I walked through an empty Rose Garden and found an awesome soup restaurant, and all of this during a terrible dust storm, where the sky was gold like the stones, the sun was a white mento in the, and every breath was dirty...
So how did I celebrate such a conclusion? By riding a bus for 2 hours to the third largest city in country (kinda like Allentown) known as Haifa. I went with two others from my program, and the only schedule we had was check-in and check-out at a hostel. We also knew the weather for the weekend...rain!
We got to the city fine, but we weren't exactly sure where to get off, so we chose a stop that was a half hour's walk from the hostel. We found a small hummus hut for lunch. Then came the first downpour. Rain, as we found in Haifa, came in bursts. It poured for maybe ten minutes, and then the skies cleared. Kinda like Back To The Future 2. We found the hostel, checked in and took off. This time we weren't walking. So we took the one and only subway in the country, which also turns out to be the smallest "subway system" in the world. It's called Carmelit , because it goes up Mount Carmel. However, the station was near empty and the train wa very small. It was a near joke, but it got us where we wanted to go...the Bahai Gardens!
Okay, so we didn't get in to see the terraces, because we missed the last tour and it rained on Saturday, but it was something to see, apparently it's the Eighth Wonder of the World. The center is a shrine where the Bab, the founder of Babism , and one of the central figures of the Bahai Faith , is buried. There's not much that I know except it brings in many Bahai pilgrims, and it was built entirely by their donations.
It was starting to get late, so walked down this mountain:
and were mildly surprised to find some other students from Rothberg in our dorm room. They told us they were heading to the Chabad for Shabbat services, and after walking five hours already, who were we to refuse a few more? I didn't really want to sit through hours of proselytizing, but I couldn't think of anywhere else to go. On the way there, a guy with a Kippa invited us to his synagogue. I asked him what kind of service? He said, "Mizrachi."
Mizrachi, meaning eastern. The Jews from Yemeni, Iraq, Iran, etc. The Ones who speak Hebrew like like it's Arabic. I knew we were in for an experience. We may have made their minyan which certainly got us Mizrachi points. I was interested to see how different the service was from home, especially Kabbalat Shabbat, because it's one of the most recent addition to the Jewish liturgical corpus. As it turned out, there wasn't much of a difference, just one additional psalm was included, and we even knew the Lecha Dodi melody. That said, the synagogue was a decorative hole in the wall, and the tradition of the Mizrachim is to recite everything aloud in one contiunal melody, and rather loudly too. The exceptions are the Shema, when each person recited it at his own (there were only guys there) pace, often enunciating the last syllable, and the V'ahavta which was chanted with Mizrachi Torah troupe. The rest of the service and the Kaddish had added words and different orders, so it was exciting to look for new surprises.
After the service, we spotted supper in the german colony, directly below the Bahai Gardens. I ordered some sort of fish, some call it Sea Bream, other's St. Denis. Whatever it was, the waiter delivered with an ENTIRE FISH. Complete with eyeballs. My appetite wavered, but I managed.
The next day we went to Akko, another port city just north of Haifa, but much much older. Napoleon's army was stationed there so we explored some of the remnants. Unfortunately, almost everything was closed, including the Turkish Bazaar. Shucks. So we made up for it by walking along the shore and getting rained on by the Mediterranean Sea instead of the sky, for a change.
When we got back to Haifa, I had my first Big Mac and through the window witnessed a five minute hail and thunderstorm. Yes, the weather is faster than the food I ate. We took the bus back at sunset, and while heading south, I watched Defiance on my laptop. Although I didn't finish it til later, I thought how cool it was to watch such a film of paranoia and persecution, and then to look up, back in the reality of a bus, filled with all kinds of Israelis...
So how did I celebrate such a conclusion? By riding a bus for 2 hours to the third largest city in country (kinda like Allentown) known as Haifa. I went with two others from my program, and the only schedule we had was check-in and check-out at a hostel. We also knew the weather for the weekend...rain!
We got to the city fine, but we weren't exactly sure where to get off, so we chose a stop that was a half hour's walk from the hostel. We found a small hummus hut for lunch. Then came the first downpour. Rain, as we found in Haifa, came in bursts. It poured for maybe ten minutes, and then the skies cleared. Kinda like Back To The Future 2. We found the hostel, checked in and took off. This time we weren't walking. So we took the one and only subway in the country, which also turns out to be the smallest "subway system" in the world. It's called Carmelit , because it goes up Mount Carmel. However, the station was near empty and the train wa very small. It was a near joke, but it got us where we wanted to go...the Bahai Gardens!
Okay, so we didn't get in to see the terraces, because we missed the last tour and it rained on Saturday, but it was something to see, apparently it's the Eighth Wonder of the World. The center is a shrine where the Bab, the founder of Babism , and one of the central figures of the Bahai Faith , is buried. There's not much that I know except it brings in many Bahai pilgrims, and it was built entirely by their donations.
It was starting to get late, so walked down this mountain:
and were mildly surprised to find some other students from Rothberg in our dorm room. They told us they were heading to the Chabad for Shabbat services, and after walking five hours already, who were we to refuse a few more? I didn't really want to sit through hours of proselytizing, but I couldn't think of anywhere else to go. On the way there, a guy with a Kippa invited us to his synagogue. I asked him what kind of service? He said, "Mizrachi."
Mizrachi, meaning eastern. The Jews from Yemeni, Iraq, Iran, etc. The Ones who speak Hebrew like like it's Arabic. I knew we were in for an experience. We may have made their minyan which certainly got us Mizrachi points. I was interested to see how different the service was from home, especially Kabbalat Shabbat, because it's one of the most recent addition to the Jewish liturgical corpus. As it turned out, there wasn't much of a difference, just one additional psalm was included, and we even knew the Lecha Dodi melody. That said, the synagogue was a decorative hole in the wall, and the tradition of the Mizrachim is to recite everything aloud in one contiunal melody, and rather loudly too. The exceptions are the Shema, when each person recited it at his own (there were only guys there) pace, often enunciating the last syllable, and the V'ahavta which was chanted with Mizrachi Torah troupe. The rest of the service and the Kaddish had added words and different orders, so it was exciting to look for new surprises.
After the service, we spotted supper in the german colony, directly below the Bahai Gardens. I ordered some sort of fish, some call it Sea Bream, other's St. Denis. Whatever it was, the waiter delivered with an ENTIRE FISH. Complete with eyeballs. My appetite wavered, but I managed.
The next day we went to Akko, another port city just north of Haifa, but much much older. Napoleon's army was stationed there so we explored some of the remnants. Unfortunately, almost everything was closed, including the Turkish Bazaar. Shucks. So we made up for it by walking along the shore and getting rained on by the Mediterranean Sea instead of the sky, for a change.
When we got back to Haifa, I had my first Big Mac and through the window witnessed a five minute hail and thunderstorm. Yes, the weather is faster than the food I ate. We took the bus back at sunset, and while heading south, I watched Defiance on my laptop. Although I didn't finish it til later, I thought how cool it was to watch such a film of paranoia and persecution, and then to look up, back in the reality of a bus, filled with all kinds of Israelis...
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Driving in India: Ira goes secular in Nes Tsiona and Bet Jamal
This weekend Jews all over the world recited the Ten Commandments. Synagogues and Temples listened to the famous words directed towards idol worship, guarding the sabbath, and moral social behavior...
Ira wasn't there .*
I took a bus north to a very old (Modern State speaking) town of Nes Tsiyona, where Eric Swartz, an American-born who made aliyah at 18 to serve in the Army, lives with his wife Michal, their two kids Niv and Itai, and their cute little dog Cookie. He took me on a calming walk around the area, with some pretty neat views during the sunset. We had a warm family meal, something I can't say I've had in five weeks , I slept near 12 hours in a 10 yr olds bed, and then we picked up and drove south to the almond tree forests and a small place called Bet Jemal outside of Bet Shemesh, where some think they found the burial place of Raban Gamliel. There was this teeny tiny church of St. Stephen, where I found New Testaments of all different shapes and sized, including one in Yiddish! The site was packed with Israelis who were making a day out of the fantastic weather. Afterward, we drove down to a picnic spot (in Hebrew slang, zula, or chill out), and then the Swartz's drove me home. It was a very different feeling coming back to the student apartments, finding people in skirts and dress pants sitting outside reading, while I had a large backpack and sunglasses and looked like I had just climbed a mountain. Such is the diversity of Israeli culture, and such is awesome! Plus we had a running joke about this funny video we saw of drivers in India .
I must also include here the outcome of the hallowed "Before Rent" performance I attended. Please note, this is only one person's opinion. Yeah:
The show was hysterically off the mark. The musical portions, which were basically karaoke moments of Rent songs, were okay. Some were better done than others, but the songs had no place in the show, which established the characters before the real play. The problem was that some of the characters couldn't know each other to the extent that they did in the real show. That said, most of the play was in the form of long monologues. It provided me an oppertunity to further appreciate the talent of the high school performances I'd seen in the states. What put me off the edge was watching the Israeli rock band on stage. When a monologue was well done, they would watch, and react. When it was bad, and they knew when a bad one was coming, they would count their fingers, waiting for the chance to take hold of their beloved instrument and move the show away from this pothole, or simply drink their beer and Nestea. It was a fun night.
Now I'm left with one more long week of high school Hebrew, five hours a day, and then... only then... I start my semester, and the closest I get to taking real classes this spring, after five weeks...
*take the other two tablets and call me in the morning. I may not have guarded it, but I remembered Shabbat, and had one fantastic dinner!
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