It’s Monday night. My bags are all packed. I headed over to Hadas’ house this evening to give her mom a present for letting me sleep there for 2 weeks, 4 months ago. It’s unreal that I’ve been here this long… Friday will mark exactly five months since I walked into LAX, by which time I will be sorting through stuff in my new apartment in LA.
I got here on August 11th at the crack of dawn, and meandered through the holy land, from friend’s house to friend’s house, until I settled in a hostel toward the end of the month. I started Hebrew classes the first week of September, 16 hours a week, and by mid-October was bumped up a level and down to 12 hours a week… took classes until the second week of December. Three months of classes.
I moved into my apartment, that I found by the grace of God and some Austrian dude, on the 27th of September, and then the Hebrew onslaught began. I read Hebrew newspapers as often as I could stand it. I started reading Harry Potter 6 in Hebrew, though I have yet to finish it. I watched Israeli tv shows and movies. I listened to the radio. I forced my friends, and waiters and waitresses and shopkeepers and janitors and bus drivers, to speak to me only in Hebrew, even though I knew it annoyed the bujeezus out of them. And every day I got better.
Last week when Emily was here, we were stuck in Zichron Ya’akov, outside of Bin Yamina, in the north. I called a taxi service, and they told me to wait outside for ten minutes. After several phone calls and almost an HOUR waiting for the cab, he finally showed up, and because we were tired and cold and soaked from the rain, I let him have it. He and I argued about why their taxi company sucked for the entire ride back to the train station, and when I got out of the cab, I couldn’t help but grin.
Ever since I started learning Hebrew, I knew I wouldn’t really be able to tell people “Yeah I speak hebrew” until I could argue with an angry Israeli. They’re known for being impatient, angry, and belligerent… and if you can’t fight ‘em, you can’t speak the language.
I can speak the language.
Anyway, a couple posts ago I mentioned that we were going to do Talmudic Teachings… I didn’t exactly mean that. Though I have become exceptionally religious, wearing tallit and a yarmulke under my sweater and black top-hat, with a full beard and pais growing on my beautiful Jewish face, I’m thinking me and The Big Guy (you’re welcome dad) upstairs can have those conversations. What I really meant was that I have a new special segment, my final special segment, which I’m thinking I’ll divide between today and tomorrow. It’s called 10 Talmudic Teachings from my Time in the Torah Town, mainly because I enjoy alliteration… there are ten big lessons I’ve taken away from the trip, four of which I’ll hit you with tonight, six for which you’ll have to wait a titillating 16 hours. Also, notice the way I avoided the end-of-sentence preposition there… still got it.
So here we go.
10 Talmudic Teachings from my Time in Torah Town
************************************************************
M16s Are Scary, But Crazy Awesome— You guys may not all realize it, but think about this: every single Israeli over the age of 18 knows how to work an M16. I was talking to Hen at the bar the other night, asked him if he thought he’d be called up for the Gaza mission and what he thought about it. He said, “Yeah, I think I’ll get called up when they send in the tanks.” Then he added, “I’m excited. My life is boring right now. I go to work, I come home. Going into Gaza in a tank is fun.”
I think one of the reasons that Taglit-Birthright Israel is so important is that it’s a way to show Jewish kids the ethnic identity that comes with their “religion.” Being Jewish has less to do with the yarmulke and the torah and the maccabees and the passover seder, and more to do with the fact that we’ve been persecuted and enslaved and chased out of every land we’ve ever inhabited simply because of our heritage, but we’ve survived. I’m not religious, at all, but how can a guy born to Jewish parents, the grandson of Jewish grandparents, a member of the Jewish people not feel a sense of pride to know that for the last 3000 years, we’ve survived, and today the Jewish people trains an army of its own to ensure that our people will not suffer another holocaust?
When I was here for Birthright, we were told that the IDF has participated in rescue and military operations all over the world, in South America and Africa and Europe, to save persecuted Jewish people. They’re not the army of a country, they’re an army of a nation. Eliran said to me tonight, “You are not born Christian. If you’re Christian, it’s because you pray to Jesus, you believe certain things, it’s a decision. If your mother is Jewish, you are Jewish… it’s in your body and in your soul, even if you don’t end up believing in anything. No matter what you do, you’re Jewish. It’s as true as being American or being white or being male.”
I think I’ve said this before, but I believe it now more than ever before: because the US is a Christian nation, the Jewish identity is measured on the Christian scale. In other words, when someone asks if you’re Jewish, they are asking about your faith, not about your heritage. But Israel provides a secular identity for Jews. I personally do not believe in God, I do not go to temple, I do not pray… I am absolutely secular. And in the United States, it’s hard to tell people I’m Jewish because saying that automatically translates in the American mind to something I’m just not. But here there’s no question. I have an army to protect me.
American Currency Bites, But George Washington is Good Looking— Dude, our currency is silly. First of all, it’s made out of cotton or something, which is really dumb. Second, it all looks exactly the same: same colors, same shapes… the only things that are noticeably different at first glance are the numbers and the faces, and all those crusty old white presidents look the same (though I can’t wait til they release the $12 bill with Obama’s greenblack face on it). And is there another country that has currency as small and meaningless as the penny? I would even go as far as to argue that the nickel and dime are dumb too.
I’ll admit that the word “Shekel” sounds wrong… i think it sounds a lot like schmeckle, which is the lovely yiddish word for penis… yes, dollar has a better ring to it. But the 20 shekel bill is awesome; it’s essentially made of plastic, can’t be wrinkled and can’t be torn. Can’t really be counterfeited either, since it’s made of some crazyass synthetic material. And the bills are all different color schemes, so you can tell exactly which bill is which without really examining anything. And the smallest coin is a 10 cent coin, but it’s really uncommon. They round everything because there’s no tiny coinage, and the most common coins are 1 shekel coins. The 10 shekel coin is a silver circle with a gold circle in the middle… and the 10, 5, and 1 shekel coins are all meaty. They’re substantial. You’re not just holding wisps of air.
But I will say, about those crusty old white presidents… our forefathers (besides Lincoln) are much better looking dudes than the guys on this money. Especially Tom Jefferson. Stud.
There Are Two Americas (Though One is Admittedly More Jewy)— So this is a lesson you can’t learn in a week here, or even a month here. I think you need to know the people and the language and stuff like that before you can really notice a thing like this. But I’ve been here forEVER, so I’ve learned something I never would have expected, and that is that the American melting pot is not uniquely American.
I was on the bus earlier this week, minding my own business, when a woman tapped me on the shoulder and asked me in Hebrew if I knew the best way to get to a street here in Tel Aviv. We talked for about a minute and then went our separate ways, and it didn’t dawn on me until I was walking into my apartment that I had been struggling to understand her not because my hebrew was bad, but because she had a strong accent; she was a Chinese woman, and her accent made her Hebrew difficult to sort through.
We’ve gotten used to the idea of Latinos, African Americans, and Asians speaking English all over America. But here in Israel, it really surprises me every time I hear someone from Peru, Japan, or Sudan speaking Hebrew. You’d think it was weird too… but it’s really cool. This country is a total melting pot; because it was founded after a holocaust, they have a pretty open door policy for immigrants and refugees, especially those who need to escape something at home. There are tons of Sudanese from Darfur here, Ethiopians who escaped oppression, Russians who left the Soviet Union, and Asians looking for a better life.
We’re not talking about a Middle Eastern country entangled in the throes of an ancient war… I mean, we are, but that sounds like something that Israel is not. The telecommunications technology industries here are massive, the economy booms and busts with the rest of the world; Israel is a part of the developed world, and an integral one at that. Thumbdrives, cell phone and text message technology, major breakthroughs in medical technology have all come out of this country. And yes, there are Chasidic jews in tophats asking all of the men to wrap tifilin, blessing us on the busses and spending countless hours at the Western Wall… but that’s not all that Israel is. It’s not even close. And instead of thinking of this as the Jewish state, think of it first as a Great Western state, where democracy and capitalism have blossomed as they once did in our own US of A.
Dopplegangers Are Totally Real— Have you ever heard this word? I swear, since I’ve been in Israel, I have seen the following people: Dan Birken, Ellen Schopler, Jesus, Jane Brownstone, Katie Berenbom, Jen Rossol, Sara Filliman, Avram Mandel, and probably several others I can’t even think of right now. Like, I was so sure they were those people that I had to double take. In fact, when I walked past the Dan Birken guy, I said “Hey Dan” just loud enough that if it was him, he’d have turned around. He didn’t. But Jesus really looked just like Jesus.
Okay folks, I’m exhausted, it’s 5:00am, and I’m boarding an airplane in 24 hours. I’ll drop more knowledge on yo’ asses tomorrow. Much love coming to you all from yours truly on his last night in Israel.
Thank YOU.